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“Good morning,” Ilya grins, resting in the doorway of their kitchen.
Shane murmurs a good morning in response, busy as he fixes their breakfast.
Then - he registers something, between the slight hiss of air from Ilya’s words, something that’s not just his accent.
He looks up, incredulous, eyes meeting a severely chipped front tooth in Ilya’s smile.
“You’re not wearing your flippers.” Probably the stupidest thing he could have ever said. Shane isn’t even sure that's the right word, as it leaves his mouth. He’s never had to replace his own teeth permanently, something that he’s constantly teased about by his team.
“No. I am feeling lazy today, so–“ Ilya is cut off as Shane throws himself forward to kiss him.
It’s immediate and instinctive, forgetting the stove burning behind him in favor of this.
Shane runs his tongue around Ilya’s mouth, tracing the jagged edge of his half-tooth, and the gap where another is missing. His heart surges and he leans away to gasp a breath, then returns to touching exploratorily around Ilya’s mouth with his tongue.
Shane has kissed Ilya after wins and losses, after bad nights and good mornings, with bruises forming under their respective jerseys, and salt still on his skin. His favorite place to be.
But – this – it feels private in an entirely new way he hadn’t braced himself for. He realizes he’s breaking into one of those locked doors Ilya usually holds closed, fingers curling desperately around the handle. He might disappear if Shane stops kissing him here; the entrance might slam shut even as he holds his foot in the gap of the doorway. He sucks at Ilya’s bottom lip, lets him tongue around his mouth, lets him squeeze at his ass, whatever he wants. Anything just to feel him like this.
After a minute, Ilya pulls back to breathe. “What is this, do you have a tooth fetish, Shane?”
“No,” Shane says earnestly in response. He can’t stop his eyes from chasing the broken white bits in Ilya’s mouth. He really doesn’t. He’s not even sure a kink like that exists. If Shane has a kink, it’s Ilya Rozanov. Everything he does, literally, anything, Shane thinks he loves him more.
Shane loves him when he’s making fun of him to reporters. He loves him when he’s screaming at someone on the ice, shoving them back and dropping his gloves. He loves him when he’s pouting and clicking options on his phone for a proposed new sportscar.
Shane loves Ilya when he first opens the door to greet him. The uncontrollable happiness that takes over his face always makes Shane run to him, whether he’s the opening or answering.
In a strange way, he loves when Ilya is sad. It sounds fucked up — maybe it is. He doesn’t love Ilya sad, that’s not it. In fact, the mere thought of Ilya curled up in their bed and murmuring “I’ll get up soon,” as he shoves Shane’s hand away has his stomach turning sour.
What he loves is that Ilya will show him, let him in. He’s come to understand that Ilya does this in bits and pieces. He will blurt out an honest remark, something so cutting and vulnerable it makes tears prick at Shane’s eyes, then he will poke him and stick out his tongue and make fun of him like it never happened at all.
He loves that Ilya wants to show him his ugly side, his bad memories, his worst parts.
Speaking of.
“So you are just horny this morning?” Ilya teases, but his breath is whistling and his eyes are concealing, “Want to put your tongue around your husband’s mouth a lot today?”
Shane exhales, soft, helpless. He kind of agrees, but steadies his mind.
“I just…“ He shakes his head for a second, drinking Ilya in, his rough edges and his curved smile, his soft touch and his hard muscle. It's all at once too much and never enough.
“You. Ilya. It’s you.”
Ilya always rolls to his nightstand when they’re getting up. He always cups something small in his palm, slips it into his mouth, presses his tongue briefly behind his lips.
Shane’s never bothered him about it. Hockey means they just do things – habit, ritual, necessity. They see each other naked all the time and don’t fuss over blooming bruises or green old ones. They don’t make a big deal if they have to change positions because of some recent injury.
Still, he means it. He really doesn’t have a tooth fetish, or whatever he’s getting teased about today.
He’s just elated to see Ilya as Ilya. Apparently that’s wrong, though he doesn’t really believe either of them thinks that. Shane just can’t believe Ilya came downstairs without the caps over his teeth. He always puts them on when they wake up, in the same way that Shane reaches for his reading glasses when he’s cracking open a book. Because it’s what they do.
But he hasn’t today and a hand is squeezing over his heart over and over, choking him with feeling.
Romantic, is the only word he lands on.
Shane doesn’t think romance has ever looked like flowers or grand gestures – not for them. It’s always been quieter than that. It's coffee made the way the other one likes it, jackets shared without comment, hands lingering at wrists and shoulders, and hovering at necks as if to say: I’m here, I see you, I’m not leaving.
This – letting Shane see him unguarded, unfinished - this might be the most romantic thing Ilya has ever done. So sue him if it drives him a little bit wild.
He knows well that vulnerability is Ilya’s least favorite thing.
He knows Ilya never shies away from being angry, cocky, scary – none of that. Shane knows that Ilya invites those feelings, channels his hurt and rage into the ice, and then leaves satisfied.
But, still, the handsome Ilya Rozanov does not like to look - in his own sarcastic words - ugly. He will always run a hand through his curls as they lay in bed, he will always adjust his t-shirt or thumb at the edge of his nose to perfect something for Shane that he hasn’t even realized isn’t “perfect”.
He only looks fully Ilya to Shane when they’re laying in bed together. After he’s too spent to conjure up a facade anymore. This is when he looks best, to Shane. When he slaps him on the chest or thigh and then goes off to shower; when he comes back with a damp towel and his expression is fully unguarded, just taking care of Shane. He’ll smile at him so sweetly that Shane forgets there’s a different Ilya out there.
All of this is why it’s making Shane feel a little crazy.
He thinks he did something wrong, suddenly. He pulls himself out of his love-drunk haze as Ilya’s shoulders draw back, just barely, like he’s caught himself leaning too far in. His mouth closes, slow and deliberate, lips sealing over the evidence of what Shane was worshipping.
He watches it happen in real time: the recalculation, the instinctive retreat. The way Ilya becomes aware of what Shane is looking at.
The missing pieces.
Ilya loves to play at casual and cool, but Shane sees it anyway. He’s been with him long enough to notice every fucking flicker of his gaze.
Speaking of – there’s a flicker of self-consciousness, the way Ilya’s tongue presses behind his lips as if to make sure nothing shows. As if he can put it all back by sheer will.
Shane hates that part. Hates that Ilya thinks this is something that needs hiding. That he thinks the moment has gone too far just because Shane noticed.
The problem is, Shane doesn’t know how else to say this. He’s already said I love you. He’s said it a thousand ways. He’s kissed him after games, murmured it against his throat in bed, breathed it into the dark with promise.
But this… apparently, this is new.
Ilya has closed his mouth around his battered teeth, because apparently, even now – even married, even standing barefoot in their kitchen – there are still parts of him that aren’t allowed to be seen.
“Stop it,” Shane hears himself say, and it comes out embarrassingly soft, almost a whine. Ilya had walked down the stairs, wanting to greet Shane with his real teeth. And now he’s drawing back.
He nudges forward, presses the pointed tip of his tongue against Ilya’s closed lips. Not demanding. Only asking.
For a second, nothing changes. Even though Ilya came to him like this, Shane thinks he may have misread. He hates pressing Ilya when it goes wrong in a way he can’t predict until it’s there. He can’t stand how he shuts down, how his eyes grow blank with memories and his jaw angles firm. That’s not Ilya, to Shane.
Then, Ilya exhales.
His breath is warm, faintly sweet, and it ghosts over Shane’s mouth and cheek like a confession. His lips part a fraction, just enough. Opening.
Shane kisses him then, gentler this time. He actively attempts to temper down his urgency. He gives a careful press of his mouth to Ilya’s, a quiet return to his favorite place. He traces the uneven edge in his mouth again, slow and reverent, memorizing it.
He vows to take his time and remember each player, each game, each time Ilya has had his mouth cracked open. The blood on the ice. The aching in his jaw. He tries to memorize each rough edge and each gap in his mouth, now that he’s allowed. Because this is something precious to him, not something broken. This is Ilya, his husband, his forever.
“I love you, Ilya,” Shane says into the kiss, and only then does he realize his eyes are welling up.
He doesn’t feel sad. He’s just so grateful, again and again, that Ilya is letting him see.