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Ilya will admit to himself that he stops by the mirror before he goes towards the door once he hears the bell. He’s started admitting many things to himself lately, this is one of the less scary ones. Tonight, he can admit he was annoyed when Shane said he will go out with his teammates for a drink to celebrate their victory.
Which is ridiculous, he’s at least self-aware enough to know that. He has no right to be annoyed about anything Shane does, not really. Especially not something as trivial as this, but the thing is, Shane usually doesn’t go out when the Metros ask. Usually, he’s just as eager to come to Ilya or have Ilya come to him. Their shared moments are so rare, too rare for Ilya’s liking. They both try to grab them as soon as they come and cling to them for as long as they can.
So fine, Shane went out. Fair. Captain of the winning team, against their biggest rivals, it makes sense. He was in a good mood. Ilya doesn’t blame him. Can’t, even if he wanted to.
He took longer than Ilya expected, though. Ilya couldn’t help but text him, even though he knew it was stupid. But he was alone, waiting, the night stretching without an end in sight and without a text from Shane that he was on his way. If Ilya’s being completely honest with himself, which he doesn’t think he’s ready to be, he’d say he texted because there was a doubt Shane would come at all.
Maybe he was having fun with his team. Maybe they shit talked Ilya so much Shane finally realized this whole thing is really not worth it. Ilya is not worth it. Not worth the effort, the sneaking around, all the secrets Shane had to keep from his closest people. Ilya knew it was harder for him than he was letting on.
Or maybe there was a girl. Not unusual, Shane is too handsome for his own good and really charming without realizing it. Ilya is sure there are women who would love to sink their teeth in his skin the way Ilya has been dreaming about doing for weeks now.
So, he was very casual in a way he learned to be over the years because Shane easily spooked if things got too serious. They both did, it was thin ice. Just texted if Shane was alive. Threw in a joke that maybe Pike killed him for missing that easy shot because he was too busy staring at Ilya. They both knew that wasn’t true. Shane would never risk his game to look at Ilya on ice.
Shane said he’s alive and fine and he would text him when he was on his way. Something loosened in Ilya’s chest.
And here they are now, Ilya sparing a second to check himself out, because if Shane made him wait all night, he could make him wait that extra second. He wonders if he should take off the black tank top, but it’s a little cold and he really likes when Shane takes it off of him.
The bell keeps ringing, which is unusual for Shane. He’s not erratic, not yet, not this early in the night. So Ilya hurries up, recenters the cross on his chest one last time and normalizes his breathing before he opens the door.
“Ilyaaaaa!” Shane greets him way too loudly and with way too much enthusiasm.
Ilya doesn’t have time to process the huge smile on his face before he’s being kissed, Shane’s hands warm on his cheeks when he pulls him closer. He tastes of alcohol. And smells of… cigarette smoke?
“Did you smoke?” Ilya asks when Shane pulls back.
“No.” Shane frowns at him and starts untying his shoelaces. “Smoking is bad for you, Ilya. I am an athlete. I take care of my body.”
Ilya doesn’t know what to focus on. He’s never heard Shane say his first name like this. It sounds so soft. Familiar on his tongue, like it belongs there. And there is something so adorable about him sticking to his preaching speech he always gives Ilya even as he struggles to get out of his shoes, clearly drunk.
“You don’t have to—“
“Ah, ah, ah!” Shane interrupts him, raising a single finger to shush him. “It’s polite.”
So Ilya leans on the door as he watches him slowly get out of his sneakers and line them up next to Ilya’s own. The sight makes something ache deep inside Ilya’s chest. It’s domestic in a way he knows he’ll never have with Shane.
“I didn’t smoke.” He pulls him out of his thoughts. “But everyone around me did. Well, not everyone. But a lot of people. I stink.”
He has that irritated expression on that Ilya finds way too charming. Has to bite back his smile so he doesn’t end up grinning at Shane and doing something ridiculous like squishing his face.
“You don’t stink.”
“Sure you would say that. You looooove the smell of smoke and drinks and—sweat and like. Clubs.” Shane seems to trail off, eyes focusing on Ilya’s lips.
Ilya has to will his silly heart into submission. “Yeah, but you don’t.”
“They made me.” He doesn’t whine, but it’s a close thing.
“Oh, they did?”
“Mhm.”
“Poor Hollander, can’t make decisions for himself.”
Shane steps closer, places his hands on Ilya’s shoulders. “Yeah, you’d know about that.”
Ilya arches his eyebrows in surprise. It’s not completely unusual for Shane to joke in a sexual manner, to flirt like that, but it’s almost always initiated by Ilya first and it takes time for him to break through his embarrassment. Shane is very sexual, Ilya knows this deeply, but meeting this new, open side of him is so exciting.
“I can make my decisions. I came here. Left them there. They’re all still at the club.” Shane tells him, still touching him, looking all over Ilya’s face. “And they didn’t really make me. They just found me a drink that isn’t disgusting. I had to celebrate such a beautiful win tonight, you know?”
Ilya knows. He takes his losses better than Shane and especially losses against Metros, because it means he gets to have this afterwards and insanely, somehow, against all odds, throughout the years, his priorities started to shift a little.
“Mhm, and what did you tell your team, why do you have to go?” he gives into the urge to finally place his hands on Shane’s waist.
“Didn’t have to tell them anything. They all know I go see Boston Lily when we’re in Boston.”
Another thing Ilya tries really hard not to dwell on. That their teammates, their friends, might know about them, but just through the veil of lies, play pretend and fake names, imagining Shane with a woman, imagining Ilya with Jane. Guys on his team tease him about her too and sometimes it hurts he can’t be honest, but sometimes it’s fun to know that even if it’s a lie, he’s still sharing a part of himself.
“Oh, so I am your, how do you say? Puck bunny?”
Shane laughs and Ilya pockets it deep between his ribs, where no one can see. He kisses him again and Ilya briefly wonders if their lives would be easier if Ilya was indeed just a fan of Shane’s and not someone everyone in hockey world seems to believe is his mortal enemy.
“You should fuck me.” Shane tells him and Ilya really never thought a day would come where he would stop to think about it if Shane asked such a question.
But this is his first time seeing Shane drunk. Possibly, could be the first time Shane has gotten drunk in his life, at least to this extent. Shane Hollander really likes being in control, knowing the next play. Being present in his body when he’s with Ilya. But as Ilya pulls him by the hand towards his bedroom, he stumbles over nothing and giggles at himself.
“Oh, I’m fine.” He says before Ilya can tease him. “Not even that drunk.”
Now that’s a lie, but Ilya lets it slide in favor of picking Shane up and swallowing the little gasp that escapes his lips when he wraps his legs around Ilya’s waist.
“If you’re not gonna fuck me, this is just cruel.”
Ilya laughs into Shane’s neck and carries him to the bedroom. “Why? You like when I pick you up, Hollander?”
The way Shane rolls his eyes at him is painfully attractive. Ilya sometimes imagines it in other contexts, Shane chastising him for chirping at someone on the ice and getting into a fight when Ilya comes back home to him with a busted lip. Annoying him about his bad smoking habits. Whipping Ilya into good shape, obedient and whining about how Shane worrying over him is irritating, instead of the best thing in the world.
But that’s not his reality and he knows it. It can’t be. So Ilya focuses on the one he has in front of him – Shane in his arms, kissing him, legs tightening around Ilya’s body.
He’s still unsure if they’re gonna have sex tonight when he puts Shane down. He expects Shane to start undressing either himself or Ilya, but he actually brings Ilya’s arms around himself. Shane’s hands on his elbows, pulling him into a hug.
Pretty unusual for them, they don’t really hug often, if ever. But Ilya rolls with it because he loves Shane’s body and he loves the closeness. He’s painfully handsome tonight, like most nights. But tonight he’s in black jeans that are a little tight, black shirt and a simple black jacket over it. He prefers athletic leisure mostly, Ilya bites back a smile imagining Shane standing over his suitcase before going out with his teammates, frowning at the difficulty of a choice.
“Better.” Shane sighs and hooks his chin over Ilya’s shoulder.
He’s usually squeamish when it comes to physical touch. If it’s not sex, Shane tends to be rigid, like he’s not really aware what he’s supposed to do with his body when he’s next to another person. So this is new.
“Better?” Ilya smiles, curious, taking the risk of rubbing his hand up and down Shane’s back, quick and with not much pressure, hoping it reads as casual and it doesn’t spook Shane into putting distance between them.
“Better than others.”
Goosebumps raise on the back of Ilya’s neck. He swallows, eyes darting around his lamp lit room. “Others?”
“Like, at the club.” Shane whines, honestly whines, like he’s frustrated Ilya doesn’t understand what he’s trying to say. They’re still hugging. “All night people keep touching me and it’s just—“ he twists in Ilya’s hold like he’s physically uncomfortable just at the memory, grimacing and twisting his head from side to side. “Wrong. It’s wrong. And stupid. And I hate it.”
Ilya is so confused. He’s a million different things. He doesn’t understand what Shane is talking about specifically, but he gets the idea. Concern creeps into his mind.
“Touching you? Who touched you?”
He hopes his voice is even enough or that Shane is truly too drunk to pick up on anything else besides mere curiosity. Keeping the conversation going.
“Everyone.” He sighs, forehead pressed against Ilya’s collarbone. “Slapping me on the shoulders and pulling me into hugs and congratulating me. You can congratulate me without crushing me between your arms.”
Ilya breathes out a careful sigh of relief.
“So, no bad touching then?”
“You’re not listening. All of it is bad touching.”
Then Shane Hollander is looking at Ilya with his beautiful, brown eyes. He’s smiling, loose and relaxed, in a way his face gets with Ilya only after sex, when he can’t school his expressions. Maybe he’s like that more often with friends, Ilya wouldn’t know. Maybe it’s just the alcohol that Ilya can smell on his breath even like this.
Then something shifts in those beautiful, brown eyes and Ilya doesn’t know what it means at first, but he knows it’s dangerous. Recognition.
“What would be bad touching?” he tilts his head to the side.
Ilya has to fight to keep eye contact which is such a strange feeling, because it’s always the other way around. Drunk Shane is dangerous for Ilya and it’s funny because even with sober Shane he’s on thin ice.
When he doesn’t answer, Shane takes his hand and leads it to his ass. Ilya can’t help but squeeze, just a little. Indulge himself.
“Is that bad touching?” Shane is smiling still, he looks confident like this. Ilya doesn’t want to imagine him flirting with other people. He drags Ilya’s hand higher by the wrist until it’s on his waist, under his jacket. “Or is even this risky?”
Ilya has to get a hold of himself. He needs to regain focus, get away from this spell Shane has casted on him, get the upper hand again. He pulls him closer, hips to hips, smirking.
“Are people at the club touching you like this, Hollander?” he lets his fingers spread over Shane’s shirt and rubs his thumb over the material. “Are people touching your slutty little waist?”
It has the wanted effect, Shane frowns and hits his chest. “Fuck off. My waist isn’t slutty, I’m covered head to toe.”
Ilya loves when he gets defensive. He loves when he gets strict too, detailed and correcting Ilya on the smallest things. This is so fun. Ilya loves sex with Shane but there is something else he enjoys more, something he rarely gets a chance to do. Get to know him. Find out more about him. It’s always a struggle, fucking it out of him, Shane too gone and letting parts of his personality slip he probably wouldn’t otherwise. It’s a thrill, but it gets lonely too. It’s exhausting, when Ilya aches to know more and more and he’s being fed the tiniest bits.
Maybe not tonight. Drunk Shane is chatty. He’s in a good mood.
“Ah, that doesn’t matter.” Ilya tells him, smiling. “You can be slutty no matter what you’re wearing.”
“I promise you’re the only one who thinks that.”
Ilya doesn’t know what to make of that. Shane steps away and with it, Ilya’s hand falls from his waist. He takes off his jacket. Does it mean Shane is not fucking anyone else? Ilya never asks, too afraid of the truth. He’s not sure he wants to know. He’s not sure which answer would be more devastating.
“It’s so stupid.” Shane continues as he starts undressing completely. He seems like he’s talking to himself more than wanting Ilya to hear him.
“What is?” he asks anyway. He could listen to Shane talk for hours.
Shane carefully folds his shirt on Ilya’s nightstand, fixing the edges. He falls on the bed with more force than he intended to, maybe. Something squeezes around Ilya’s heart.
“Everything.” Shane says, conquering his socks next. “You. This. The whole—everything. I need a… reset. And then I can’t have it because I got too drunk and now you won’t fuck me but everyone was touching me all night so I hate it and I can’t even have it, like. Off me.”
Ilya swallows. He needs to take a deep breath. “I’ll get you some water.”
His kitchen is dark but he knows his way around. Shane will hate waking up hungover tomorrow either way, but if Ilya can do anything to ease it at least a little bit, he will. He can’t think about Shane implying he comes to Ilya for a reset when he’s had too much of other people. His chest already feels tight. He’s too young to die of a cardiac arrest. And Shane would never forget it either.
He’d probably blame it on all the cigarettes Ilya smokes, blissfully unaware he’s actually the cause of death.
So Ilya gets a bottle of water from the fridge and a glass and walks back to his bedroom, breathing evenly, like a normal person. Shane is down to his underwear and spread on his bed like a starfish.
“Hollander, you want some water?”
“No.”
“You’re gonna hate yourself in the morning.” Ilya tells him, tone light with so little warning behind it.
He circles the bed and sits by Shane’s side, pouring him a glass, placing the bottle next to his neatly folded clothes. It’s impressive he still cares about such thing even when drunk, but unfortunately it’s one of the quirks Ilya finds adorable, so.
“Gonna hate myself anyway.”
It’s said so casually, like it’s a given. Expected. Like he didn’t even think about it. Still, he sits up and starts drinking. Ilya frowns.
“You got drunk. You had fun, for a change. You didn’t kill anyone, Hollander. You should relax.”
Shane just rolls his eyes, but he finishes the glass and puts it on the nightstand, admittedly with more force than necessary but Ilya hides his endeared smile pretty well.
This is happening. Shane Hollander is going to sleep over at his place. Ilya is not even gonna fuck him beforehand, he is just going to spend the night here, in Ilya’s bed, sleeping. He’s thought of doing this so many times. He’s not ready, his fridge is empty and he didn’t even ease Shane into it, he didn’t make his house accommodating in all the ways he’s imagined before taking such a stupid, risky step.
But Shane doesn’t seem to care, flopping back down on the bed. So it’s happening and Ilya has no time to overthink it and freak out. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe he would have managed to do the wrong thing, if he tried too hard.
“When is your flight tomorrow?” he asks, still keeping the casual tone and praying the question doesn’t scare Shane out of his home.
“Evening. Late.” Shane says, eyes closed. He nuzzles into Ilya’s pillow. “Seven forty five. PM.”
Ilya nods and starts taking his clothes off. He will overheat if he falls asleep next to Shane in anything on his body. The sounds seem to get Shane’s attention and he looks at Ilya, smiling.
“What?” Ilya smiles back, raising his eyebrows. “I know I’m handsome, Hollander.”
He expects another eye roll or a fuck off or asshole. Shane keeps smiling. “You are.”
It takes him a little by surprise, not because he doesn’t know Shane finds him handsome, but because he rarely gets to hear it so easily. So openly. He shakes his head and leaves everything on the floor, climbing into bed in just his underwear, like Shane. Shane keeps looking at him and when Ilya gets under the covers, he rearranges himself with more struggle than he normally would.
Shane is always so in control of his body, expect for moments when Ilya pushes him past that edge and gets to take him apart. Right now, he’s like a baby deer on ice, making his first steps. The concentrated, almost angry pout doesn’t help his case, but it does make Ilya feel like the inside of his chest is turning into liquid. He swallows, hard.
Once Shane is successfully under the covers with him, he smiles again, giddy and like he finds the whole situation so amusing. He shuffles closer until his legs tangle with Ilya’s and Ilya has to kick himself back into action not to make it weird and stop being so stiff in his own bed.
“You should kiss me.” He tells Ilya.
Ilya worries that if Shane presses a hand to his chest, he’ll be able to feel his heartbeat. His body will betray him and it will be the most mortifying thing to happen in a long, long time.
“Should I?” he wonders if he’s the only one who can hear the breathlessness in his own voice or if Shane is just drunk enough to take it for his usual, teasing tone.
“Mhm.” Shane looks into his eyes. Baby deer. Bambi. Cuter than Bambi. Bambi didn’t have such freckles, as far as Ilya remembers. Fuck his life.
“Why?”
“’Cause I want you to.”
Admitted so easily, again. Ilya has no choice but to comply. To give Shane what he wants, because Shane asked for it. Shane wants him to kiss him. He’s in Ilya’s bed and he will be spending the night here and for years of their little arrangement, it’s never happened and Ilya just hopes the panic doesn’t kick in and Shane registers that fact and then. Leaves.
So he kisses him. Shane is so easy to kiss. So lovely, opening his mouth and letting Ilya lick inside, tilting his head to let Ilya hold his jaw. His palm always finds itself on Shane’s face, his cheeks, his neck, drawn to touch as much as he can, for as long as he can. Always hungry, never to be fully satisfied.
“This is so stupid.” Shane mumbles between kisses.
Ilya pulls back and gasps, dramatic. “Kissing me is stupid?”
It gets him a wet laugh. “Nooo. ‘s stupid I haven’t kissed you in so long.”
Ilya would have actually preferred Shane thinking kissing him is stupid. He’s not sure how much more of honest, unfiltered thoughts from his beautiful head he can handle. Maybe it’s good he doesn’t know Shane so well. Maybe he doesn’t need to know all this. Maybe it’s too much. It might leave him so changed he’ll never be able to go back.
“I should always get this.” Shane sighs, eyes closing again. He taps his fingers against Ilya’s neck. “My flights should always… always be so late and I should always kiss you for longer. Y’know, other guys have like, they can always, and Hayden, he. He has Jackie and—“ his eyes open, panicked. Ilya’s heart skips a beat. “Fuck, Hayden!”
Ilya is going to kill Hayden. He is going to find him and he’s going to kill him with his bare hands, slowly.
“What about Hayden?”
Shane is wiggling away from him, twisting to get his phone. He squints against the brightness and then lowers it. “He’s gonna worry. I have to text him.”
That’s fair, Ilya supposes. Doesn’t make his murderous intent any weaker, but he’ll allow it. He snuggles against Shane’s shoulder to shamelessly stare at his screen. Shane vocalizes his messages as he slowly types them out, deleting typos.
“Staying at Lily’s. Don’t… worry. I’ll text—text. Text.” He huffs in frustration at hitting the wrong letter three times and Ilya muffles his laughter in his skin. “Youuuu in theeee morning.”
That seems to satisfying him, leaving the phone back on the nightstand and sliding on the pillow. Ilya takes a chance to turn off the lamp and shift even closer so they’re basically chest to chest.
Shane doesn’t freak out, even though Ilya waits for it. He waits for the realization to hit him, for his lovely but sometimes cruel brain to catch up and send alarm bells in his head. Get out. Danger. Stupid, so stupid. Not what we do. Not part of the routine. Weird. Wrong.
It doesn’t come. Shane just closes his eyes and sighs, shoulders draining of the tension. His whole body relaxes, melting into Ilya’s sheets. His face isn’t scrunched up in that serious way it often is. Ilya takes a steadying breath and does something really, really stupid.
It’s what he wants to do a lot, always. Maybe ever since they met for the first time, when Shane introduced himself and Ilya didn’t know how to react. Didn’t know what to expect. When he shook his hand, twice. When he smiled and Ilya felt himself fighting a smile back.
Lately it’s been worse, so much worse, wanting to do it whenever he sees Shane on the screen, talking to reporters after games, celebrating his goals and wins, spitting on the ice after a hard hit.
But this might be his only chance and he’s not gonna miss it. Quickly, like he’ll be prosecuted if he’s caught, Ilya kisses Shane’s cheek, right under his eye, right over his freckles. He sniffs and moves on the bed, pretending to get comfortable, drawing attention away from it, hopefully.
Shane doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t look at him in surprise or disgust. Just exhales through his nose and snuggles even closer, trapping Ilya’s arm under his neck. Ilya looks at him, eyes adjusted to the darkness and wonders if he’d be able to count all the eyelashes if it was brighter.
“Goodnight, Shane.” He whispers, unsure if he’s already asleep.
“Goodnight, Ilya.” Shane whispers back, blissed out smile on his face and the perfect pronunciation on his lips.