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Shane always smells clean.
Fresh out of the shower or bath with stray bubbles clinging to his calves and lower back. All the sweat and dirt collected through the day, from games and practice, washes down the drain, leaving behind a fresh slate, shiny skin, and glistening muscles.
Shane doesn’t use scented soaps. He doesn’t like their potency or how some scented soaps felt on his hands. He doesn’t like an added scent, and he much preferred fragrance-free. He has a sensitive nose, to which Ilya teased him about but thought was endearing regardless.
Ilya remembers the first time they took a shower together at his home. The only body soap Ilya had were the ones he picked out at a random store. One was an oat and honey bar soap, and the other smelled like tangerines. Shane made an adorable thinking face - a pout with a wrinkle between his brows. Ilya wanted to kiss it, and he did.
“What is it?”
Shane’s lips twisted to the side, and he wouldn’t look at him. How he was able to look so innocent standing naked, evidence of his orgasm on his belly, with his arms crossed is beyond Ilya’s understanding.
“I don’t like fragranced soap,” Shane admitted. “I don’t like smelling something… unnatural on my skin.”
“Oh.” Ilya scratched at his neck. “It is all I have.”
“I like it on you,” Shane corrected sheepishly. Ilya grinned. “You smell good all the time.”
It was adorable how worried Shane was for offending him. Ilya kissed him and searched his cabinets for an alternative. He found an old shampoo bottle that smelled like nothing, and Shane took it gratefully.
The next time Shane came over, Ilya had a full shelf of fragrance free soaps. Different brands and forms. The relief he saw on Shane’s face was worth the trouble.
As time went on, Ilya grew attached to the way Shane smells. He smells clean and fresh like laundry. He doesn’t know why he’s captivated. It makes no sense to be enthralled by something so simple. Ilya loves sticking his face in Shane’s neck and inhaling the pure aroma of him. His scent is a mixture between man and fresh soap, and it’s the perfect cocktail.
He has Shane in his arms. They’re laying in Ilya’s bed, which satisfies a part of him that screams domestic and possessive. He holds him to his chest with both arms around him. His nose presses to Shane’s pulse, needing to both touch and listen to his heart beat. He delicately runs his lips and nose along his jaw to his clavicle. He greedily inhales his compelling natural scent, letting it fill his nose and all the way to his lungs. He wants to bottle it, keep it safe, and he can take it out whenever he misses Shane.
When he misses home. His true home. The home he found in the most unlikely places.
The house he grew up in was drenched with an aroma of vodka mixed with rot. It weighed Ilya down, suffocating him so he couldn’t take a full breath. There was a sharp lace of hostility buried in every room, and it stained his fingertips and knees from when he used to hide under his bed to escape loud masculine shouting.
The wood from the floorboards was stale on his tongue and irritated his nose. He couldn’t breathe under that roof, and he escaped to the rink as soon as he could. His father still hassled him, drained every ounce of joy he received from victories, but he was out of that house.
Shane’s clean smell reminds him of the ice rink. Of the time he spent learning to skate. The cold and clean air he retreated to. It reminds him of the reprieve he found for himself. The one thing that gave him a thread of happiness - an escape and possibility to get away from the pain and misery from losing his mother.
She was the one person who was on his side, but she left him all alone. He’d been sad, and then angry, but now he hopes she’s happy for him. He hopes she’s happy with how he turned out.
Ilya breathes Shane in, and his clean smell sweeps all his worries and anxiety away like water over sand. He smiles when Shane tilts his head to let him place his face deeper in his neck. He plants fleeting kisses on his pulse, being careful not to wake him. Shane shivers, and he hears a faint whimper.
Because he can’t help himself, Ilya runs his hand up and down Shane’s body. He brushes his fingers along his sides, his curved waist, his hips, and thick thighs. Shane is warm and soft, and fits perfectly in Ilya’s arms. He wants to keep him forever - never let him go or risk fading away.
There’s no heat in the exploration, happy to just touch and maybe get Shane’s smell to stick to him like a layered sheet fit only to him. He wants someone to ask why he smells different. Why does he smell like Shane?
He kisses Shane’s neck, heedfully traveling to his ear and back to his throat. He feels Shane swallow under his lips, and he smiles. He’s lightheaded, on an endless decadent high.
He scrapes his teeth against Shane’s neck, just under his jaw. He hadn’t meant to. He got carried away.
“No marks,” Shane says sleepily.
“No talking,” Ilya murmurs in his ear. To make his point, he kisses Shane’s throat. He sighs. “You smell so good.”
Ilya moves back to kiss his earlobe. Shane mumbles, “I don’t smell like anything.”
“Oh,” Ilya hums. “Yes you do.”
Home.