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Hockey hurts. Ilya loves to push through the pain. He loves to feel invincible from the adrenaline in his bloodstream, loves to see his body change because he makes it so, loves to know what he can do and do it. He loves angling after a puck—that gorgeous, small, desperate thing—tilted almost parallel to the rink, face abraded from the ice kicked up by his own blades.
Most of hockey is cardio. There’s weight training, of course, but what really matters is how fast you can go and for how long. So Ilya spends a lot of time on the treadmill and the cycling and rowing machines in their basement.
“You can go two minutes at that pace,” Shane comments casually, looking over Ilya’s shoulder to the treadmill, which has only forty seconds left at the current speed. He reaches over and presses the button for Ilya to extend this stage for another minute.
“Thanks,” Ilya mutters with just enough breath left in him to be sarcastic.
Shane’s mouth twitches in something like a smile. “You wanna stay captain, don’t you?” He stands there watching, probably close enough for Ilya’s sweat to land on him with every step, every twitch of his head like a dog shaking off water.
Ilya breathes. Inhale, out. One minute and twenty seconds left. He keeps his chest up and his arms in. Focus forward. One minute and ten seconds left.
Then, “One minute left,” Shane murmurs, just barely loud enough to be heard over the treadmill. “Fifty-eight seconds, Rozanov. You can do it.”
Ilya breathes. Shane watches. He says in his announcer voice, “Rozanov, Centaurs captain, two-time Cup champion. Six-one, two hundred twenty-four pounds, highest average goals per season of any current MLH player. Thirty seconds left, Captain.”
“Fuck.” Ilya’s chest feels like it’s on fire, thighs burning. Everything hurts. His eyes burn from the sweat in them, but he’s running towards Shane’s eyes, can see the shape of his mouth with every breath, and finds it in himself to take another step.
“Ten seconds.”
Ilya runs, and runs, and runs, until the timer runs out and the treadmill slows to walking pace.
He catches his breath for fifteen, twenty seconds. “You know all my stats,” he says happily, chest still heaving.
Shane rolls his eyes. “The MLH website knows all your stats. They know everyone’s stats, Ilya. We’re high value commodities.”
Ilya nods at the truth of that, and keeps walking. Half a minute later, he asks, “Do you want to be captain instead of me?”
“Jesus, no,” Shane says, emphatically and quickly enough that Ilya has no choice but to believe him. “You’re the best captain this team’s ever seen. Maybe even the whole goddamn league.”
Ilya smiles at that. A minute ticks by and the treadmill slows even more. Ilya walks for another minute and then stops the machine. “My muscles hurt, Hollander.”
“Come on, Rozanov. You gotta love your body for its suffering, not in spite of it.”
Ilya steps off the treadmill. “Give me a treat, at least.”
Shane comes in close, the look in his eyes softening. He brushes a thumb over Ilya’s sweaty, sweaty cheek, and then kisses him, all salt from Ilya’s exertion. “You were very pretty,” he murmurs.
“Ha!” Ilya takes two big sips from his water bottle, and then points at Shane with it. “I knew it was a sex thing. You think I am so sexy.”
“Maybe I just like knowing you’ll do what I say sometimes.”
“I always do what you say.” Ilya leans in and rubs his cheek all over Shane’s shoulder, his neck, just to get him wet from his sweat. Shane grimaces but doesn’t push him off, which is all Ilya needs to know. “I might be on Ottawa’s leash,” he says, “but I only ever listen to you.”
Something in the line of Shane’s neck, his shoulders, tells Ilya the kind of night they will have. “Moya lyubov,” he murmurs, kissing behind Shane’s ear, feeling him settle. “How are you feeling?”
“Wired,” Shane admits. He folds his sweater and his pants, puts them down on a chair, then turns around to stand before Ilya in his undershirt and briefs, while Ilya wears a sweater and sweatpants. “I think… I dunno what I want. I’m not sleepy.”
“Okay,” Ilya says. He reaches out to fit his palm against Shane’s neck, thumb just at the corner of his mouth, fingertips brushing his earlobe. “You want me to pick. Yes?”
Shane shrugs. He is embarrassed and shy, Ilya thinks happily. He does not want to admit what he is.
Fortunately, Ilya knows what he is. “Not good enough,” he says gently, gripping Shane’s head tighter until he can feel the give of Shane’s cheek beneath the pad of his thumb. “You must tell me.”
“Yes,” Shane grits out, eyes fluttering down to somewhere around Ilya’s chest. “I want you to pick.”
“Very good,” Ilya murmurs, watching Shane blush. “I will pick because I know best. You are only a stupid baby.”
Shane laughs at that, shrugging Ilya’s hand off him. “Fuck off, you can’t call me a baby.”
“You are a baby,” Ilya teases, stepping in to hold Shane tight, licking his neck. “Baby, baby, baby. Stupid baby.”
“Shut up,” Shane says, halfheartedly pushing Ilya away but letting him stay close anyway.
And then his breath cracks a little when Ilya bites down, hard, on his neck, just under his jaw. “You’ll— you’ll leave a bruise—“
“Only if I suck,” Ilya replies. “At worst you will have teeth marks. Like I am a dog. Bark bark.”
“You know that’s just as bad, right?”
Ilya pulls back. “Is this letting me pick?” Ilya asks, condescendingly. He does not even have to try very hard. He just looks at Shane and sees a beautiful man who is too stupid to make his own decisions. He does not think this any other time, of course, but right now, he does.
“No,” Shane admits eventually, cowed by Ilya’s tone and his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Very good,” Ilya says, genuinely impressed. “You apologize without instruction. Very well behaved, even when you struggle. Polite Canadian boy.”
Shane obviously can’t think of a reply, so he stays silent.
Ilya takes another step back to look at him, head to toe. “Clothes off.”
Shane pulls off his undershirt, from over the back of his head as he always does, and folds it carefully. He pushes down his underwear and folds that too. They join his pants and sweater on the chair. Ilya stays fully clothed, although he does take off his sweatshirt to reveal an undershirt, just so he doesn’t sweat through it.
“Get on the bed.”
Shane lies on his back, legs sprawled. Inviting. “Pretty,” Ilya murmurs, walking over to reach the bed, bending down to cage Shane in under his arms. He can see Shane’s eyes, his mouth, parted, looking for air— and Ilya kisses him, presses him into the mattress.
“Shit,” Shane gasps into Ilya’s mouth, skin hot under Ilya’s palms.
Ilya kisses his cheek, sucks under his jaw, mouths down to his collarbone. “I want you to come,” Ilya murmurs, “three times tonight. You can do this for me?”
“Fuck,” Shane says, and then, when Ilya bites over one of his ribs, “yes, yes— I can, I can do it.”
Ilya slides off the bed to kneel, pulls Shane with him so his feet are on the floor. He mouths up his thighs, bites gently into the skin next to Shane’s cock and listens to him moan. The sound of it makes Ilya dizzy, electric signals shooting straight to his cock.
Then Ilya takes him into his mouth and sucks, thumbs over Shane’s hole. “Shit, shit, fuck—” Shane hisses, hips bucking up into Ilya’s mouth. Ilya presses his thumb in, just in until the first knuckle, and Shane comes like that, sweating and swearing.
Ilya pulls back to watch him breathe, to watch his toes uncurl, to watch the furl of his asshole flex, desperate for him. Ilya wants to fuck him until he cries, until he has nothing left in him but what Ilya puts there. It’s not so much about sex, although it is very sexy. It is about the satisfaction of pulling Shane apart until he begs Ilya to put him back together.
“One,” Ilya says, kissing the inside of Shane’s knee. He pushes Shane fully up onto the bed, climbs over him on his forearms. “That was easy.”
“Shut up,” Shane says, the little brat, but he lets Ilya kiss him anyway.
Ilya watches him. He watches Shane when he gets the lube and puts two fingers inside him, knows Shane is ready for it. Shane moans for it, his beautiful stomach twitching, hands grasping in the sheets, and Ilya watches him and listens to him and gives him his fingers. Shane doesn’t ever have to say anything. It’s Ilya’s job to notice exactly what he wants and to give it to him.
“Shit, just— like that, Ilya—” and Ilya sweats, harder, three fingers inside of him now. It sounds good when Shane says it but he doesn’t need it, because Ilya is acutely aware of Shane’s breathing, knows every sound he can make, and knows how to ask if there is a sound whose meaning escapes him.
Shane tightens around his fingers, and Ilya fucks him harder, watches the blush pour down into his chest. “Pretty,” he grunts, like a caveman, and watches Shane’s cock twitch and drip, feels his hole tighten around him. “Want you to come like this.”
“But—” Shane whines, “I want— want you to fuck me—”
“Soon,” Ilya promises, “for your third. Come one more time first. For me.”
“I can’t—” but Shane’s muscles twitch, his glutes jumping, and Ilya knows, he knows he can do it. Ilya bends down to suck his cock, hard and so, so wet for him, and Shane almost screams. “Fuck, fuck, fuck— Ilya, Ilya—” half the vowels missing because he’s out of breath from it, and Ilya takes him deeper, and Shane comes down his throat, with Ilya’s fingers inside of him.
Shane moans, almost despairing. “That was so much, Jesus.”
“One more,” Ilya says, mouthing along the line of Shane’s beautiful hipbones. “You can do one more for me.”
“Okay,” Shane says, voice small, and Ilya presses a kiss to his stomach. He sounds so good like this, so precious. Ilya knows exactly how lucky he is. “For you.”
“Very good.” Ilya finally, finally takes his own clothes off, gets a hand on his aching dick. He squeezes the base of it, suddenly worried he might not even make it into Shane— but he meets Shane’s eyes, asking for him, and he knows he can save it for him.
Ilya holds his cock, presses the head of it against Shane’s hole, stomach clenching at the feel of it. He feels so fucking good, fuck. “You want it?”
Shane nods, voice still small and careful. “Yeah.”
“You are a little slut for me,” Ilya says. He can’t take his eyes off Shane’s hole, twitching, waiting for him. Just for him. “You can come again for me. Because I say you can. Fuck, Hollander, you want it— tell me you want it—”
“I do, I want it—”
“Beg me,” Ilya grits out.
Shane moans, “Please, please, please—”
Ilya pushes in, sweating, looking up at the angel splayed out in his bed. Beautiful, beautiful man. Ilya is so hard it hurts. “Like this?”
“Yeah—” Shane breathes, mouth open, tongue lolling out like he has no muscles left in him, nothing left in him but Ilya. Oh, God. He takes in a raspy, loud breath, chest heaving, “please, Ilya, feels good, please—”
“Fuck,” Ilya hisses, sharp, holding Shane’s hips too hard so he doesn’t press in too fast, looking down at his hands. Maybe he waited too long. Maybe he can’t last. “Fuck, fuck, so tight—”
“Does it feel good?” Shane asks, like a brat, tightening around him, and Ilya’s gaze snaps back up to his face. The little shit is smiling. “Feel good inside me?”
“Yes,” Ilya admits, because he doesn’t have it in him to lie, not now.
Shane laughs, a little, full of air. “Maybe,” he says, moans when Ilya presses further in, and continues, “maybe you’ll come before— fuck— before you get to, to three— oh, fuck—”
Ilya snaps his hips forward. “This is your game?” he snarls. “Ruin my plans?”
“It’s okay if you can’t— oh shit—” and then Shane does not have anything else to say because Ilya fucks him, rough, too rough, maybe, but Shane whimpers and loves it, his fingers scrabbling for anything they can hold.
Ilya holds off by sheer force of will, watching Shane’s body move, watching the small bounce of his chest from Ilya’s thrusts. “You want me to fuck you,” Ilya says, and Shane says, yeah, yes, “so I fuck you. My job. Give you what you want.”
“Yeah—” Shane moans, and then has nothing left to say, because Ilya narrows his focus and strokes him, grinding into him and feeling every muscle twitch and sing.
“Come,” Ilya says, the feeling of it sparking down his own spine, fuck, he has to— but Shane first— ”Shane, come—”
And wonder of all wonders, Shane does, his beautiful boy, tensing and twitching around Ilya’s cock. Fuck. Ilya presses in and comes like that, so hard his ears pop and his vision whites out.
When he can hear again, he hears Shane’s breath hitching. He moans a little as Ilya pulls out, and then huffs as Ilya flops down on top of him.
“Good?” Ilya asks, and Shane nods. Ilya kisses him and Shane kisses back lazily.
When enough time has passed that the shivers have left Ilya, and Shane does not seem like he needs to be held together anymore, Ilya pads downstairs to get Gatorade and a protein bar. He stops in the bathroom to get a wet cloth, and comes back to their bedroom. Almost better than all the rest of it is this, feeding and cleaning him. Ilya kisses his ankle, and his knee, and wipes the come off Shane’s stomach and hole, and makes sure he drinks at least half the bottle and eats more than two bites of the protein bar.
“Beautiful,” Ilya murmurs, smelling Shane’s hair, holding him tight.
“You too,” Shane says softly, kissing Ilya’s jawline, and then his mouth, and then they’re kissing again, sitting up against the headboard, tasting like Gatorade.
Ilya doesn’t know why, but sometimes, on nights like this, he feels like he needs Shane to touch him the whole night through, some assurance that he is not a monster. He needs to smell Shane and know he is home.
When he first locked eyes on Hollander in a basement gym in Regina, Saskatchewan, he felt it. The world sharpened for him. Light stood out to him in terrible relief. His ears were pounding. He could have counted the beads of sweat rolling down Hollander’s face if he had spared even a second to do it—if he’d had a second, if he had any time at all to do anything other than look at Hollander and watch him swallow.
He handed Hollander his water bottle and told him to drink more, and Hollander did. In that moment, Ilya could have heard a dog whistle.
Ilya has felt this with other people, occasionally, but none so much as Shane Hollander. The certainty locking into place, the sense that he could change all the world if he thought to do it. He felt it with a beautiful woman in a club in New York, when he held her wrists down against the bed and she became pliable and hungry. He felt it once while high with a man in a bathroom stall, pounding into him from behind and listening to him beg for it.
But it has always, always been best with Shane.
Hollander is obviously a lighter guy than the enforcers on his team, but he’s not small by any means. Six feet and two hundred and eighteen pounds is not an insignificant amount of weight, but he’s still ranking in speed at every game. The biggest injury we’ve seen for Hollander so far is still that brutal check from Marleau at that Raiders-Metros game back in 2017, and it doesn’t seem like it’s slowed him down any. Jeez, I’d like to know more about his workout routine—and that famous diet.
Me too. Hollander has been scoring like a legend since he got on the ice, and there’s no doubt it’s because of his disciplined approach to training that somehow manages to put other professional athletes to shame. Now let’s take a look at Kittering, who’s become a standout in the last year for his instincts on the ice, his puck handling, and let’s face it, some seriously impressive skating skills.
Ilya rounds the corner to see Shane scribbling in a notebook under Kittering’s face and stats on the huge TV screen. He has his glasses on. Ilya wants to suck his dick so bad. “Are you taking notes?”
“I’ve been trying to find out more about Kittering and Becker. We haven’t played against them much and we’re seeing them back-to-back in a month.”
“Hm.” He looks so cute when he’s defensive, Ilya thinks. He leans over his shoulder and enjoys the way Shane’s breath catches. And, he enjoys putting his nose into Shane’s throat and smelling him, just because he can.
“It’s not weird,” Shane says, like a weirdo.
Ilya feels the rumble of his vocal cords against his cheek, and then pulls back. In Shane’s ear he whispers, “I prefer to just watch hockey.”
Shane shrugs him off. “Everything’s hockey,” he says, which Ilya can’t really argue with.
Many years ago, Ilya had considered learning more about this feeling in him, the thing that happened to him sometimes when he is with Hollander. He searched “world becomes high resolution during sex” in both English and Russian and found nothing helpful.
It was the only way he knew to describe it. He’d recalled that there had been a movie half his team dragged him to while he was still learning English. He didn’t remember or understand anything about it except that it had blue people in it, and it was very famous for having computer graphics in very high resolution. Terrible, boring film, but a perfect way to describe the sharpness in him that happened when Shane went quiet and only talked to him in moans.
Anyway, that search had found nothing, and so Ilya had let it go. He had many other things to worry about, and he did not need to understand himself to give Hollander what he wanted every single time.
Ilya kisses Shane’s head. Now that they live together, he feels this way even more intensely. What he is, is Hollander’s.
“I was Googling,” Shane says from the couch, still looking at his phone.
Ilya looks over his shoulder. The website has white text on a black background, too small for him to read. “Yes?”
“It’s about, uh. Domination and submission.”
“Sounds sexy.” Ilya kisses the blush on Shane’s cheek, the tip of his ear. “You want to do something new?”
Shane huffs, turning his head to avoid Ilya’s gaze. He clicks the button to turn his phone screen off. “No, I— I mean, I think I figured out what we’re already doing.”
Ilya blinks. He presses his forehead against Shane’s temple, willing him to turn to face him. “As far as I’m aware, we have sex,” Ilya says.
“No,” Shane says, and then, “I mean, yes, but I mean. When you tell me what to do and I do it. And it gets— intense.”
Ilya pauses. He pulls back, physically turns Shane’s gaze back to him. He looks in his face, his eyes, scans over his freckles.
The feeling that Ilya has never been able to name. Suddenly, Ilya aches with love for him. He knows he sounds embarrassingly sappy when he says, “You found out what it is.”
Shane meets his eyes. Ilya has learned, over the last years, that Shane rarely does this. But with Ilya he can. With Ilya they can look each other in the eyes. Shane lets Ilya take charge, lets Ilya push him into a new form.
“Do you remember the gym in Regina,” Ilya murmurs, watching Shane’s pupils dilate. “The draft pick. You drank from my water bottle.”
“Yeah,” Shane breathes. “‘Course I do.”
“I felt it then.” Ilya crawls over the back of the couch, never letting go of Shane’s face, until he can finally knee his way over the cushions to straddle him. “The feeling. What is it?”
“Dominance,” Shane says.
“Yes, yes.” Ilya holds Shane’s face tighter, fingertips digging into the back of his head, holding him in place. No nails, just pressure. “This is how they talk about you on the ice. When you score two goals in same shift. You dominate. It is the same kind of focus.”
“Is that what it feels like when you fuck me?” Shane asks, voice rasping, and Ilya’s dick hardens.
“Not so… hard,” Ilya says, tripping over the word, not sure it’s exactly what he means, maybe brutal is better, “but yes, like that, sometimes. I know the next play. Very good feeling.”
He bends to breathe in the skin under Shane’s jaw, pressing kisses there. “You don’t mind,” Shane says, voice hitching, “that I— that I don’t take control more often? I mean, that you have to do a lot of the thinking when we’re… together?”
Ilya chuckles. “Do I mind that you let me fuck you and kiss you every day? Do I mind that you open your mouth for me—”
“Ilya—” Shane breathes.
“—that you moan for me, that you suck my dick better than you play hockey?”
Shane slaps his head. “I don’t suck your dick better than I play hockey, Rozanov. Fuck off.”
Ilya grins. “Of course I don’t mind, Hollander.” He kisses him then, on the mouth, feels the way they love each other. “You’re a gift.”
“That little bitch,” Comeau spits, violent. Shane’s shift on the ice has been over for thirty seconds and still he haunts the Metros.
Ilya skates a little closer. “Careful.”
Comeau snorts. As if this is a fun argument between friends. “Don’t tell me his pussy got you fighting Hollander’s battles for him—”
Ilya skates away, too fast for Comeau to keep up, before he can do something they’ll all regret. He takes the puck long enough to slap it over to Barrett, lets him shove it into the net. A dirty, ugly goal, but a goal anyway.
Under the sound of the goal siren, Comeau skates up to him and asks, “He gonna suck your dick for that one too? Or is your leash so tight you’ll do it for free?”
Ilya is not so well-behaved he can let this slide. He elbows him in the jaw, teeth bared, and starts a fight that takes every ref on the ice to break up.
Shane pushes Ilya onto the couch that night, radiant with anger. Ilya’s cheek aches. Say what you will about Comeau, at least he knows how to throw a punch. “So what happened tonight?” he asks, while unbuttoning Ilya’s pants.
Ilya finds it hard to think, and harder to lie. He says, “Comeau—” and cuts himself off.
“And what happened with Comeau?”
“Nothing, nothing— ah—”
“You defended me, didn’t you,” Shane says, pulling his shirt off. “Got clocked in the face because Comeau insulted me and you forgot he was an enforcer. Is that what happened?”
“I did not forget,” Ilya says, accepting his fate. He doesn’t know whether to be hard or worried and the uncertainty is only making him harder. “I would do worse to him.”
“Ilya,” Shane sighs, but he sounds a little fond, at least. Ilya’s ears prick up at the sound of it. “You are my little guard dog, I guess.” And then, fucking God, Shane takes his pants off and sinks down on Ilya’s cock.
He must have— must have fingered himself in the bathroom, maybe, maybe in the locker room so Ilya wouldn’t see—
Ilya doesn’t feel submissive, exactly. He read through the website Shane had found hungrily, eager to know what Shane was thinking when they did this. He’d made Shane describe it to him, too. Pure focus, Shane had said, which was what Ilya experienced too. But then Shane had said the rest of the world was muffled, and this Ilya did not experience. When Ilya had Shane on his back he had a complete awareness, could sense every change in elevation and air pressure, like he was a hunter and knew precisely how to reach his prey, like a hockey player after the puck.
Now, the hunter’s awareness shifts, slips sideways into a pure focus on Shane’s body. So yes, maybe this is submission; the rest of the world is muffled. Or better put, there is no rest of the world. Only Shane, and what Shane wants, and the movement of Shane’s hips, and the sound of Shane’s voice, and what Ilya can give him.
“I shouldn’t reward bad behaviour,” Shane grumbles. “You’re gonna develop bad habits.”
The tone, the words, it all makes Ilya thrust hard, desperate. He is a dog. He’s Shane’s dog. Shane has to train him. “I will learn good habits,” he promises.
“I know you will,” Shane huffs, pleased with him. Like the sun after a long string of gray winter days, making the snow brilliant, blinding. Ilya would do anything for Shane to be pleased with him. Shane sets his hand against Ilya’s face, palm to cheek, and says, “You’re mine.”
After so many years, Ilya can admit there is a high that comes from hockey games, a high that has never dulled. His shoulder against the boards, stick clicking against another man’s, against the ice, all focus narrowed to the puck. Sniffing after his prey like a bloodhound.
It’s hard to leave this mindset when he steps off the ice. The movement in him— the speed that he can never reach without his skates, the clarity, the contrast. He aches, still, to play his game of fetch.
The press corner him outside the locker room while Shane waits inside, hovering. Ilya lets his laser focus on the puck turn into the prickling awareness that Shane is waiting for him. The journalists ask him about his ribs and his IT band, about Hayes’ shoulder and Bood’s knee, and Ilya thinks of the private, tiny scar on the inside of Shane’s hand from when he touched a hot tray. No one will ever know about that injury but Ilya. That’s his.
Ilya answers their questions, makes a professional and good showing, and wants to bite Shane so hard another scar forms, just so he can point to it and say that’s his, too.
This year’s awards gala is so normal it’s almost funny. No one has come out this year, and it’s been long enough that the Hollander/Rozanov pairing isn’t exactly news. Shane and Ilya don’t win anything, but Ilya’s happy to see Hayes get the Vezina for the second year in a row.
Then, the drinking. Ilya loves galas. He enjoys wearing beautiful clothes, flirting harmlessly with women in slinky gowns, and drinking cocktails in tiny little glasses. It’s funny, the things that made him an obvious queer to his family in Russia were passed off here for so long as quirks of being European.
Of course, he knows Shane hates these events, so he does not get too drunk and he does not spend too much time admiring the couture that hockey wives buy with their husbands’ salaries. He does compliment Jacki on her dress, naturally, and lets her tell him about the fact that no one would let her walk out without getting it tailored within an inch of her life.
“They cannot give you off-the-rack,” Ilya scoffs. “Famous hockey player’s wife with beautiful body and money and taste? They love you.”
“Flatterer,” Jacki says.
Both of them look out for their respective husbands. Ilya spots Pike first, which pisses him off even though it’s hardly Pike’s fault— well, Ilya is sure he did something. Then his gaze slides over to Shane, who is trapped in conversation with the executive who infamously told Dykstra he could see a future for him in Calgary if he ever wanted to ditch the pride brigade.
“I fear I am needed,” Ilya says, and Jacki follows his gaze to the man in the suit harassing Shane.
“Ah,” she says. “What’s his name? Pollard?”
“Yes, yes, Pollard,” Ilya says confidently, as if he hadn’t completely forgotten his name until Jacki mentioned it.
So Ilya leaves her there and walks over to the table. “—completely fine with it,” Pollard is saying, while Shane nods, a glazed look in his eyes. He’s better at hiding it than he was as a rookie, but Ilya knows Shane can hear maybe one of ten words Pollard is saying. “Well, look, the man of the hour! Rozanov!”
Ilya hates it when men in suits call him Rozanov, as if they are his teammates. He gives them the courtesy of saying Mr. in front of their names. Would it kill them to call him Mr. Rozanov?
He does not say this, though. He says, “Mr. Pollard. Good evening.”
“Poulard,” he corrects. Ilya doesn’t blink. “Ah, never mind. I was just telling your better half here that this year’s award winners are a fine bunch, aren’t they?”
They think his English is not good enough to understand them, but Ilya understands. None of the winners this year are openly gay. It is fair enough—Ilya has no complaints about the selection, although Barrett could have won best forward just as well—but there is a particular choice in pointing it out.
“Yes,” Ilya says, because he knows when to behave. “Every year they are a fine bunch.”
“Good on you,” Poulard laughs, too boisterously. Something is happening here. “That’s a diplomatic thing to say. Y’know, it surprised me that you two got together, but hell, what do I know about love, huh?”
Nothing. You know nothing. But Ilya stays quiet, Shane a rigid statue next to him.
“I bet you’re putting that athletic training to good use, huh, Hollander?” Poulard says, punching Shane lightly in the shoulder, and Shane flinches. “That’s why we ship ‘em in from Russia.”
This is Shane’s nightmare, Ilya realizes. They are at a professional event, and a man who has a more than average say in draft picks and scheduling for the season is making jokes about their sex life.
“I hope next year we will see some Flames players on stage,” Ilya says, because he remembers Poulard is from Calgary, and because this is the only way he knows how to score a hit against a man in an argument. And then, “Excuse me,” and he drags Shane out of there before Poulard can say another word.
Shane drives silently, thumb tapping against the steering wheel. Ilya can tell what Poulard said bothered Shane.
It doesn’t bother Ilya. Frankly, he wouldn’t mind if he really had been shipped from Russia just for Shane’s use, but Shane wouldn’t see it that way, because Shane loves him like he’s a person.
Ilya leans against the headrest, tilted in towards Shane the way he always is, compass leaning towards the north pole. He looks at the streetlights shining on Shane’s nose, his chin. He looks at his mouth, that beautiful mouth. His eyelashes rest delicately against his cheeks. Look at me, Ilya thinks, I’d do anything for you to look at me, just once, just to know I exist to you, just to know you haven’t forgotten me yet.
Shane looks at him, thank God, and Ilya meets his eyes. Gorgeous, like the rest of him. One look wouldn’t be enough, Ilya realizes. Not enough to cure the ache in him, the thing that needs Shane first and most.
“Do you love me more than hockey?” Ilya asks, not sure exactly what the question even means, except that it came out of his own mouth.
Shane’s mouth quirks. He turns back to the road. “Is it bad if I say no?”
Ilya expected this. “No, of course not,” he says softly. “Tell me.”
“I don’t love you less than hockey,” Shane says. Incredibly, Ilya already knew that. That’s how much Shane loves him—enough that Ilya can feel it, can know it, even in silence, even in absence. Enough that Ilya would wait by the door for weeks and weeks if Shane left him there. Every day he wakes in wonder at how he got so lucky.
“Hockey is how I love you,” Shane continues. He slows and brakes at a red light, left blinker on. “It’s like… it’s like English. I can’t say I love you more than language. I need that to tell you I love you.” And Shane, his beautiful Shane, clears his throat embarrassedly and says, “I love that you keep up with me on the ice. I love how smart you are. I love that you’re a good captain. You can see it in the locker room. I don’t know how else to say it. Watching you play hockey… I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
All Ilya can think to say is, “You were a good captain, too.”
“Yeah, ‘cause I made them work hard. I make people disciplined. But even when you were with the Raiders, your guys loved you. You’re smart and you know how to put guys where they’re at their best. You’re good to them. I love that about you.”
Ilya sighs, lovesick. When he thinks he can speak without crying, he says, “I thought you would not be romantic, because you said you do not love me more than hockey. But actually it was more romantic.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “You’re a sap.”
“You are obsessed with me and my huge, aching hockey brain.”
“If you say huge like that again I’m leaving you on the side of the road, pervert.”
“No, don’t leave me here,” Ilya rasps, too serious by far. “You know I will just crawl home to you.”
When they arrive home, there is a package on their doorstep. “Ah, shit,” Shane says, picking it up. “Let’s open it tomorrow.”
“No, no, what is it?” Ilya asks. “I want to see.”
Shane blushes, which means it must be something dirty. He sets it on the kitchen counter. Ilya uses his keys to cut open the box, pulling at the packing paper to reveal a black leather collar, slim with a gold D-ring, and a matching leash.
“I didn’t like the way Poulard talked to you, like you’re property,” Shane says from over Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya can barely hear him over the roaring in his ears. “I don’t want you to think this is— I mean, we don’t have to look at this tonight.”
“Is it for you?” Ilya asks, although of course he knows the answer.
“No,” Shane says, bluntly. And then, “Well, I mean, I guess if you wanted to—”
“You would look cute,” Ilya says, rambling. He can’t take his eyes off it. He wants it so bad. Maybe he is breathing too fast. “Like little puppy.”
“Ilya.” Shane pushes him away from the counter and takes the collar out of the box. He lays the paper out on the counter, and then sets the collar on it, and the coil of the leash, with its matching gold clip.
Ilya watches his careful, capable hands do it. He watches his hands smooth over the leather. It would feel so good, Ilya thinks, but he knows he hasn’t earned it yet. He hasn’t jumped enough hoops, hasn’t hunted enough rabbits, alerted well enough to earn his collar. Maybe in a few months Shane will give it to him, will let him have it, if he is very, very good—
“Come here, Ilya,” Shane murmurs, and Ilya steps towards him, their toes touching on the kitchen floor.
Ilya swallows.
“You want it?”
“Yes,” Ilya breathes, and then words fail him completely. He nods, curls bouncing against his forehead, until Shane puts his hand on Ilya’s jaw to still him.
Shane’s eyes furrow as he puts the collar around his throat, buckling it into place. A perfect fit. Ilya trembles.
“Does it feel good?” Shane asks.
Ilya doesn’t know how to say yes, not in a way that will convey what this is to him, so he noses into Shane’s palm, kisses there, kisses up Shane’s arm until he reaches his shoulder, his throat, breathes that smell in. He whines, just a half-second of a cut-off sound in the back of his throat, itching to move, itching to be forced still.
“Okay, yeah,” Shane says, inhaling and then exhaling. Maybe he is nervous. Ilya wouldn’t know why. Shane is perfect. And then Shane hooks his thumb under the back of Ilya’s collar and Ilya’s knees go weak. He puts his hands against the counter, behind Shane, just to steady himself. “You’re mine,” Shane says into Ilya’s ear, and Ilya nods fervently. “You’re not fucking Poulard’s property. You don’t belong to the MLH. You’re mine.”
Ilya presses his forehead into Shane’s shoulder and breathes. Yes, yes. This is what he is. “Thank you,” he whispers, “thank you, thank you.”
Shane kisses him hard on his temple for a long moment, and then releases Ilya to reach behind him for the leash. Ilya’s skin feels irradiated, oversensitized. The brush of Shane’s hand against his stomach through his shirt almost burns it feels so good.
Shane clips the leash to the ring at the front of Ilya’s collar, and Ilya relaxes. Now if he moves, Shane can reel him in. He is absolutely, wondrously free.
“Come,” Shane says, holding the handle of the leash, and Ilya trots after him happily, all the way to the bathroom. Shane positions them in front of the mirror. “You look good like this.”
Ilya looks. The two of them look good. It is exactly as it should be—Ilya, a step behind Shane, Shane’s hand on his leash, ready to command him. Ilya curls in behind him, presses his hands on Shane’s sides, around to his stomach, bends down to set his mouth against Shane’s shoulder and then lower, lower. Shane lifts his arm obligingly and Ilya presses his face into his armpit, smelling him through the shirt.
He bites there, licks and sucks through the fabric, and Shane sighs contentedly. “Yeah, that’s— feels good. Good boy.”
Ilya’s ears burn with the pleasure of it.
Can we say it? This is a power couple on the power play—
Undoubtedly the first time we’ve ever used that phrase here on Hockey Night in Canada.
True enough. But that’s the only way to describe it, I think.
Oh, no question about that.
And look at Rozanov just powering through that defense.
He’s absolutely feral on the ice tonight, folks. Hell, it almost seems like Drapeau is looking for that penalty, going for a trip there, but Rozanov is just too fast for it to stick.
Seems like Rozanov has a bone to pick with a few of the guys on this team who’ve been traded from the Metros, but I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole.
Well, I’ll say it. Rozanov is a beast on the ice tonight, and it seems like his team is happy to let this wild dog run loose.
Ilya looks up at Shane, naked and glistening and beautiful, gripping Ilya’s leash in his hand while he rides him. The weight of his collar is perfect, heavy against his throat. “You can’t come yet,” Shane says, gasps, his ass tight around Ilya’s cock, thighs brutal against Ilya’s. Ilya’s hips twitch and Shane looks at him, sternly. “No, puppy. Stay.”
“Please,” Ilya says, looking at him, his chest, his stomach, oh God, he’s going to come, “please, please—”
Shane grins. “I knew I’d get you begging eventually.”
“I will come,” Ilya warns him, “please let me— let me stop, I can’t— I’ll come, I’ll come—”
“You can do it, puppy,” Shane says encouragingly, as if this is a little hurdle Ilya is supposed to jump over in some kind of dog race, “come on, push yourself. Just a little more—” and Shane grinds his hips down, says, “fuck, fuck—”
Ilya begs like it’s breathing, like he doesn’t know any other words, voice slurring like he’s drunk out of his fucking mind, “Please, please please please—”
“Just a— fuck, shit, Ilya, right there, just— just a little— fuck—” and Shane comes like that, voice cracking, Ilya’s leash wrapped around his hand, spilling all over Ilya’s stomach. “So good,” Shane moans as Ilya fucks him through it, “so good—”
“Please,” Ilya begs, voice cracking, “please can I— please, please— can I come, please, can I—”
“Yeah, yes—”
Ilya comes like that, cock pulsing with it, so fucking hard it hurts. His teeth ache with the euphoria of it.
“—fucking hot,” Shane is saying, while Ilya’s brain clears out the haze. “You looked so good like that.”
“Ah,” Ilya breathes, because he can’t really form words anymore. Shane unclips the leash, but leaves the collar on, thankfully. Ilya rolls his head just to feel it against his skin, to enjoy it.
Shane coils the leash in his hand. Ilya watches him, catching his breath. Shane sets the leash on the bedside table and then lies down half on top of Ilya, head under Ilya’s jaw, thumbing over his collar.
“You want me to take it off?” Shane asks.
Ilya rests his hand on Shane’s forearm, holding him. “Another minute,” Ilya says.
“All right.” Shane kisses his collar, and then the skin just above it, and then he kisses Ilya. “Good boy,” he murmurs, and Ilya’s shoulders relax, impossibly, even further into the mattress. “Good dog.”
“Love you,” Ilya breathes, dizzy with Shane’s sweat and spit and his skin, all for Ilya.
Shane kisses him again, runs his thumb over Ilya’s cheek. “I love you too.”
“You can do two more,” Shane says.
Ilya grunts through his squat. “You sound like a trainer. You want me faster on the ice?”
“Three more.”
Ilya grunts and sweats his way through one more brutal rep and then another, too-slow and burning. “Trainers don’t own you,” Shane is saying. “I own you. I say three more, you do three more, isn’t that right?”
Ilya has no breath left to speak, so he lets his body prove it. Yes, I belong to you. Yes, I can do one more rep for you.
Shane grins at him when he puts the rack down. “Good boy, Ilya.”
Feeling shameless, hungry, Ilya asks, “I get a treat?”
“Yeah, puppy.” Shane walks back to the bench, sits down with his legs spread. Ilya kneels, crawls on all fours, and watches the way Shane’s face turns serious as he swallows. “Come get your treat.”