Work Text:
“What are you even getting him for his birthday?” Rose asked from the vicinity of Shane’s breadbox. He didn’t have to look at his phone to know it wouldn’t be showing her face anyway; she’d probably had to prop hers out of the way too while getting painted up for her next acting thing.
Shane paused to consider this as he sorted through his produce delivery. Buying presents for each other wasn’t exactly something he and Ilya did, but that was before, wasn’t it? Now, they were boyfriends, and boyfriends probably should buy each other things for their birthdays.
Ilya hadn’t bought him a thing, really; but renting out the ice rink in Ottawa so they could skate privately together for a few hours had made it Shane’s favorite birthday to date.
“Oh my god, you haven’t even thought about it, have you?” Rose laughed. “Shane!”
“I have a couple of weeks.” he protested. He probably had longer, really; schedules being what they were, he wasn’t actually going to get to see Ilya in person for almost a month and half.
It felt longer.
“You should do something crazy, something he won’t see coming.” Rose decides, “Buy him, like, a sex toy basket-”
“Rose!” Shane hisses; it doesn’t matter that her make-up person is one of Rose’s friends, and also has an NDA signed for calls just like this. He’s still not used to just… talking about it. About them.
It does make the corners of his lips tip upwards; a year ago, he hadn’t even known if Ilya would ever talk to him again. And now they were a them.
“Okay, maybe not that crazy. What about a tattoo? You could get a Boston-” Rose begins, but Shane cuts her off.
“Absolutely not.” he says firmly. “I’m not letting anything Boston related even near my body.”
“Except your boyfriend.” she coos. “And I can’t help but point out that that’s not a no for that tattoo, mister.”
A tattoo would be… interesting, if nothing else. His mother could never know about it, so he’d have to get it somewhere she wouldn’t see, even for one of his less-than-dressed photoshoots for Calvin Klein. Ilya would never see it coming either.
“You’re actually thinking about it!” Rose shrieks. In the background, Colette, her make-up applier, scolds her for moving too much.
He tries to picture Ilya’s face, if he were to find out Shane had gotten a tattoo; he imagines it would be something pretty similar to the shock and glee that Ilya had sported after Shane told him about hiring a stylist. Ilya had a beautiful smile, and that had been one of Shane’s favorites to evoke in him.
“I mean-” Shane hesitated. “I can’t exactly just walk into a tattoo parlor and ask for something like that.”
“Something like what?” Rose presses. “And why not? Famous people get tattoos all the time. Just make sure it’s a good, clean shop. Do any of your teammates have tats? They could recommend someone local for you.”
Locker room courtesy meant he didn’t mean to notice the swaths of bare rippling muscle present in any athlete's shower space; but yes, more than a few of his team mates had artwork on them.
“Do you have any tattoos?” he asks; Rose has good taste, maybe she knows an artist-
“See, this is why I know you’re gay. We’ve literally been naked together Shane, and you can’t even remember the tattoo I have on my hip?” she sounds exasperated, but Shane, after a hurried moment recalling, frowns.
“You don’t have a tattoo on your hip.” he argues.
Rose laughs.
“Yeah, but you had to really think about it, didn’t you?” She teases. “How many tattoos does your lover boy have?”
“Just the one, on his chest. I don’t think he likes it though.” Shane answers immediately, before realizing that he’s proven Rose’s point.
“Exactly. Now, what would you get?”
🎁
In the end, he ends up flying out to California to see Rose for a weekend anyway, and she takes him to a shop that her celebrity friends frequent; one well regarded for their privacy.
“I think you should be less private about it though.” Rose points out. “I mean. Make it calculated, y’know?”
Shane does not know. All he knows right now is that the pungent smell of whatever cleaner the artist has just put on his skin is both smelly and cold. CJ, the tattoo artist that had been able to squeeze him in as a favor to one of Rose’s friends at the last minute, smirks like she knows damn well how cold the stuff is.
They’d let him keep his shirt on at least, but he was pantsless in the parlor chair otherwise; he’d tried to keep hold of the basketball shorts he’d worn deliberately loose, but they kept riding upwards and the artist had gleefully told him to drop them. Given the photo of her and her wife on the workbench she’d set out the little ink bottle on, he was pretty sure she was doing it to tease him and not just oggle, but he didn’t know for sure.
In the end, CJ had the expertise and the needles, and Shane had very little body modesty left after years in a locker room.
“I have no idea what you mean.” Shane replies finally, watching the artist slather something that looks suspiciously like vaseline on the bottom of a tiny plastic cup, before she sticks it to some saran wrap covering the counter of her workbench.
“Like, I could make a post online and tag you in it, ‘tattoos with my bestie!’. Lily would lose her mind.” She plots, crossing her legs and pulling her phone out of her purse. “You know Lily stalks everything Hollander related.”
They’d agreed to keep Ilya’s name out of their mouths while in public. Not that he didn’t necessarily trust the parlor; he seriously doubted these people even watched hockey, but because even mentioning Ilya’s name in public had him looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t paranoid, no matter what Rose insisted.
He was just… careful.
“I guess.” he shrugged. “You don’t think it ruins the surprise? And it’s lying, too. You aren’t getting anything done.”
“I mean, I could squeeze you in. This won’t take more than a minute.” CJ points out.
“Nah, I spend enough time in the make-up chair as it is. Colette would have my head.” she dismisses easily.
A loud buzzing to his right had Shane’s eyes darting towards CJ again, just in time to catch her shrug. “Up to you. You ready, hot stuff?”
Shane’s eyes dart between the tattoo gun in CJ’s hand, the black ink pot on the counter, and the purple outline on his own hip. The lick-and-stick design that she’d applied for him to approve the placement of the tattoo sat an inch or so in from his hip, well hidden by even the skimpiest pieces of underwear and safe from his mother’s eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Shane nods at CJ, and she leans in to get to work.
🎁
Lily: The fuck is this?
Shane slumped in one of the couches of the airport lounge, waiting for his flight back to Montreal. The link that Ilya texted over went to an article claiming that ‘recent evidence’ showed that famous actress Rose Landry might be getting back together with her superstar athlete ex, Shane Hollander. Wiggling his hips to try and ease the pressure on his tender flesh, carefully bandaged beneath his clothes, Shane clicks through.
It’s just Rose’s joking post about them getting bestie tattoos. Even if she hadn’t really gotten anything, it had been a nice plug for the tattoo shop.
Shane: Are you actually stalking me? 🤔
Lily: What tattoo
Lily: Show meeeeee
Shane: No 😘
Shane: You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet. 🫡
Lily: Tell Pike he is dead man walking, should never have shown you emoji menu
Shane: 🥺
Shane: ✈ 🔊👋 😘
Lily: Ugh
Grabbing his carry on and grinning down at his phone, Shane makes his way to the boarding gate and only winces a little when the elastic of his briefs slides across the bandage on his hip. The tattoo itself didn’t hurt any worse than a bruise or a scrape; but the damned tape pulled at his skin and he hated it.
“This way, Mr. Hollander-”
Shane stole one last peek at his phone before putting it into airplane mode.
Lily: Have safe flight
Lily: …😘
🎁
Shane follows the instructions from CJ religiously, though the shock of seeing the dark ink against his skin every time he catches sight of it in the mirror takes a couple of weeks to get used to. As is the heat that it brings to his cheeks, seeing such a bold claim placed on his body like this. It’s… hot.
He can’t wait for Ilya to see it.
Everyone else, though-
He’s stalled for as long as he can before heading for the showers after practice, and he’s one of the last ones to go in. But Hayden has clocked his change in routine, and has entered full Concerned Dad Mode by the time Shane slinks into the steam filled showers.
“Okay, so what’s got you- holy shit!” Hayden yelps, “Shane! Is that-”
“Shut up!” Shane seethes, slapping his hand over the tattoo like that’s going to make Hayden unsee it. “I don’t want everyone-”
“Right, yeah, sorry.” Hayden whispers, Shane hardly hearing him over the spatter of the water hitting his skin and the tile below. Hayden has a towel slung around his waist and leans up against the halfwall of the showers to begin his interrogation.
“So…” he says expectantly, waggling his eyebrows, a boyish grin on full display.
Shane rolls his eyes and goes back to washing up, deliberately turning so that Hayden can’t see the dark ink on his skin.
“Come on Shane, you’ve gotta tell me something.” Hayden whines. He sounds like Jade, when she thinks Ruby got a treat and she didn’t.
Roughing shampoo over his hair and tipping his head back to keep it from running towards his mouth, Shane sighs. “It’s a surprise. Lily hasn’t seen it yet.”
“So it’s serious now? For real?”
Poor Hayden; he sounds so excited for Shane, finally having a ‘girlfriend’.
He’s going to be crushed when he finds out that Lily is definitely not a girl, and that he is Montreal’s #1 enemy to boot.
“Uh. Yeah, pretty serious.” Shane allows, holding up a hand with one finger for Hayden to wait, while he rinses his hair; water pours over his ears, blocking out the sound of everything but his own glum thoughts.
“When do you two see each other next?” Hayden asks when Shane resurfaces. “Make sure it’s healed up before you two get too-”
“Hayden, what? Gross.” Shane protests, aggressively lathering conditioner into his hair and reaching for the body wash next. He likes to let the conditioner set in his hair for as long as possible. “I am not talking to you about sex with Lily-”
Hayden, surprisingly, bursts out laughing.
“I mean, I didn’t say anything about sex. But if that’s where your mind goes Shane, you’re a grown man, I’m not going to-”
“And since when do you know tattoo stuff?” Shane interrupts before Hayden can offer to give him the talk about the birds and the bees.
Again.
“Just because I don’t have any doesn’t mean I don’t know how much of a cockblock they can be.” Hayden points out, and Shane is reminded that Jackie has more than a few tattoos of her own. He could’ve asked her for recommendations, but he hadn’t been thinking about baby footprints and birthdates, or the cute scrabble style thigh tattoo she had that combined the whole family's names.
That his own name shared an A with Jade as part of that family made his heart ache with the secret that he’d hidden from the Pikes since before the twins were even born.
“Please don’t talk about your sex life when we’re supposed to be having dinner at your house tonight.” Shane snorts, turning under the spray to rinse his back.
“Guess it’s a good thing your superstitions don’t seem to apply to tattoos.”
Shane frowns.
“What?”
“Name tattoos. Some people think they’re cursed, means you’re guaranteed to break up with them, like you jinxed it by making it permanent.” Hayden explains, patient as ever with Shane’s general ignorance of weird stuff like that.
“Jackie has all kinds of names.” he replies slowly, turning off the water and reaching for his towels, both of them folded carefully over the halfwall of the showers.
“Hot Mom’s get immunity, I’m pretty sure.” Hayden shrugs, heading back towards the locker room to get dressed.
Shane trails after him, one towel tucked high on his waist to prevent even an accidental slip and revealing the tattoo to anyone else. He rubs the second towel over his head, drying his hair, and fretting.
A name curse couldn’t really apply, though, could it? It wasn’t like it was actually Ilya’s name; he couldn’t have cursed their entire relationship with a couple hundred dollars worth of ink and ten minutes of buzzing pain.
Could he?
🎁
Lily: Send me sexy picture
Shane: …it’s 2AM, why are you even awake? 🥱
Lily: Is 2AM, why are YOU awake? And besides, my boyfriend is having affair with Rose fucking Landry, heart is too broken for sleep
Shane: 🙄
Shane: For the 💯 time, I am NOT getting back together with Rose.
Lily: That is not right use of that emoji Jane
Lily: Is why you should not use them
Shane: Oh? Am I using these ones right? 🍆⛔🍑
Lily: Nooooo
Lily: Jaaaaaane
Lily: Is almost my birthday, send me something sexy
Shane: Hm 🤔
Shane: What do I get if I do?
Lily: Fair enough, we trade
Lily: <image of Ilya, one hand down his gray sleeping pants. The fabric is dark with a telling wet spot near the head of his cock>
It doesn’t matter that it’s two in the morning and Shane has to be up for practice in less than four hours if he wants to get a run in before he heads to the rink. Ilya’s photo has his heart racing and his hand reaching for the waistband of his own sleeping pants with zero hesitation.
Lily: Your turn
Turning on the bedside lamp, Shane sits up against the perfectly reasonable amount of pillows stacked at the head of his bed. He grins down at the camera when he tries to mimic Ilya’s shot; he’d forgotten that he’d worn one of Ilya’s older Boston shirts to bed that night. Quickly tugging his own pants down to his knees and glancing at the bedside table to make sure he had Kleenex at the ready, Shane sends his own photo.
Shane: <image of Shane’s fingers, teasing at the waistband of his own sleeping pants, a faded black Boston tee shirt visible beyond Shane’s forearm.>
Lily: That is my shirt
Shane: Was*
Lily: You like stealing my things? Not very Canadian of you?!
Shane: It’s comfy 🥺
Lily: Is okay. I like you in it. I have been inside both of you, is fitting
Shane: Gross
Lily: Oh, so you don’t like having me inside you?! Whole life is a lie
Shane rolls his eyes, because while Ilya’s comment is crass, he’s… not wrong. Shane likes wearing Ilya’s things, and not just because they’re comfortable and worn in. He likes having proof that Ilya is part of his life, is so integral to it that their laundry gets mixed up.
Even if they live hundreds of miles apart.
For now.
His lazy strokes turn more focused as he thinks about finally moving in together with Ilya. They could have sex in every room of their new house, like they’d done at the cottage. Fuck, he wants that.
Needs it, like he needs Ilya.
It doesn’t take long for Shane to reach his peak; it’s been too long since he’s had Ilya in his bed, and it’s always more fun when Ilya’s there to tell him what he wants, what Shane wants.
When he’s panting in his too empty bed a few short minutes later, Shane picks up his phone and snaps a picture; leaves his wet knuckles in the camera's frame because he knows Ilya likes him best when he’s messy.
Fingers hovering over the send button, Shane gives the image a quick review before cursing, his toes curling in delight even as the haze of orgasm begins to fade too quickly from his mind.
He saves the picture for later though; the image of his cock, still leaking, knuckles covered in his own spend, and his mostly healed tattoo covered with a streak of it too. Takes a second one, angled so the tattoo doesn’t show, and sends it.
Lily: Much better
Lily: Fuck.
Shane: Well, I’m ready for sleep. Goodnight. 😜
Lily: <image of Ilya, bare chest and stomach streaked with his own release. He’s holding two fingers, dripping milky white, towards the camera lens>
Shane: 🥵
Shane: So messy though.
Lily: Goodnight Jane. See you soon 😈
Shane cleans himself up and groans as he buries his face into the mountain of pillows on his bed. Barely refrains from sending back ‘not soon enough’.
🎁
Ilya unlocks Shane's front door and lets himself in without even knocking. Drops his bag by the door, kicks off his shoes, and barely slips into the slides that Shane has so thoughtfully set out for him before he begins to prowl through the house.
Because somewhere in this oversized, real estate monstrosity, there is a sexy boyfriend with a secret tattoo and Ilya needs to touch them.
The boyfriend and the tattoo, that is.
Shane appears at the top of the staircase, shirtless and clearly fresh out of the shower. His hair is crazy, Shane still drying it off if the towel in his hands is any indicator; he looks delicious.
Ilya doesn’t wait for Shane’s confusion to make a verbal appearance; just charges right up the stairs and sets his shoulder into Shane’s hips, tipping him over his back and carrying all two hundred some-odd pounds of sexy boyfriend down the hall towards his bedroom.
“Ilya! Put me down!” Shane growls, wiggling half-heartedly in an attempt to escape. But Ilya’s not having it; Shane had forbidden stair sex right out of the gate when he’d bought this house, and Ilya won’t risk his wrath or test how far down the hallway that rule applies. He’ll deal with the fallout of Shane’s displeasure after they’ve got two or six orgasms behind them.
Diving forward and dropping Shane onto the bed, Ilya immediately attacks his face, peppering kisses across his flushed cheeks. Shane’s manly giggles feel like they’re injecting helium directly into Ilya’s heart, and he feels like he’s going to explode with happiness.
“Where is it?” he demands, pulling back enough to look Shane in the eyes. “Show me.”
“It’s not your birthday til tomorrow.”
The grin on Shane’s face is infuriating with how adorable it is; should be illegal, so much cuteness and hockey talent in one sexy package.
“Oh, so I should go?” he threatens, which is ridiculous; laid out on Shane’s massive bed, legs tangled together already, with a panting, happy boyfriend beneath him?
Wild horses and the threat of a prison sentence could not drag him from this man’s bed; Ilya is right where he wants to be.
“Noooo, Ilya.” Shane pouts. He looks just like the little emoji he’s so fond of.
Unable to resist, Ilya dips down and catches that barely-protruding lower lip between his teeth, worrying it for a moment before tenderly kissing it better. He’s rolling his hips against Shane’s own, and it’s glaringly obvious that more than their mouths have missed each other.
“Show me?” Ilya asks this time, pressing kisses to Shane’s chin, up towards his temples and along the smattering of freckles on his cheeks. “Or do we play, what is it, hide-and-seek?”
“I think I-Spy would be more accurate.” Shane grumbles; he’s tried to turn Ilya’s kisses into something deeper, mouth questing after Ilya’s own, but he’s not having it.
Rolling off to Shane’s side while still keeping them tangled together, Ilya blindly tugs at the waistline of Shane’s soft house pants. “Maybe this part of you is already playing peek-a-boo with-”
Ilya’s words cut off on a sharp inhale, because he’d stolen a glance down towards his hand and Shane’s cock, and his eyes immediately caught sight of the dark scrawl of ink on his lover's hip.
He curses, something half Russian and half frantic, scooching down the bed and roughly yanking Shane’s pants down and off. Ilya settles over Shane’s hips, elbows bracketing him in while he splays his palms across Shane’s lower belly to hold him still, and just looks.
Lily
It’s delicate swooping lines, drawn by a steady hand, and Ilya is momentarily devastated that he wasn’t here to watch the name, his name in a way, be carved into Shane’s skin.
Still.
It’s undeniably his; proof, written in stark black ink and there for anyone with access to this private part of Shane to see. The giddy feeling in his chest disappears in a wash of heat; whatever happy gasses he’d felt before igniting into lust and burning through him, leaving only an endless hungering need in their wake.
“Shane.” he whispers out loud, finally making his brain make the words again while Shane no doubt spirals into anxiety above him. A quick glance up, as hard as it is to peel his eyes away from this gift, show’s him how right he is; Shane’s lower lip is trapped between his teeth, and he’s propped himself up on his elbows to stare down at Ilya’s assessment.
“Do you like it?” he has the audacity to ask, and Ilya bites roughly at the jut of Shane’s hip below pressing his lips reverently to the scratch of ink on Shane’s skin.
“I love it. I love you.” Ilya mutters into the soft, vulnerable parts of Shane that only he gets the privilege of seeing.
“It’s not too… crazy?” Shane presses, one hand reaching down to tangle in Ilya’s curls and rubbing into his scalp just how he likes it. Shane doesn’t even try to press Ilya towards the erection that’s twitching in his peripheral vision; not that Ilya isn’t planning on addressing that soon. Very soon.
“You make me crazy.” Ilya corrects. “This, this is just sugar on the cake.”
“Icing-” Shane corrects, or tries to anyway, but his words cut off into an exaggerated groan when Ilya turns his head and licks at his cock from the base to the now-leaking tip.
“Same difference.” Ilya says firmly, licking his lips and pressing another kiss to the tattoo before turning his attention solely to Shane’s pleasure.
“Happy birthday.” Shane gasps, both hands tangling in Ilya’s hair as he flops back onto his ridiculous, adorable mountain of pillows.
Ilya’s grin is all teeth when he pops off this time.
“Very.”