Chapter Text
Ilya was happy.
He felt on top of the world. Two weeks at Shane’s cottage had made him feel relaxed in a way he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
If ever.
Thinking about the fact that Shane wanted to be with him, really be with him, was something he never considered to be within the possibilities of life.
Just a few months ago, he wouldn’t have dared to think of life turning out this way, even in his wildest dreams.
To Ilya, there had been no possible scenario in which he could ever have what he longed for.
He never thought he would have a happy life as he had feared that everything would be nothing without Shane.
Already back then, Ilya had been considering the possibility that loving Shane was the reason for his entire existence. Something he was more convinced of every day he got to love his freckled boyfriend.
Ilya considered it a privilege, sacred even, that Shane let Ilya love him. Each day he woke up, he reminded himself to never take that for granted.
Hell, less than a year back, he still had been convincing himself that sex with Shane had been enough, needed to have been enough.
But now, none of that was fantasy anymore.
Now, he woke up with a grin on his face. Because he knew, as soon as he turned over he would find a message from Shane telling him ‘Good Morning’.
The happiness lasted for about a month.
Technically, it wasn’t gone.
There was just an underlying sadness to it.
A sadness, that he had to reach for his phone, instead of soft skin wrapped beneath cotton sheets.
A sadness, that Shane was so far away that they wouldn’t get the chance to meet again until their next game. Which was months away.
While Ilya and Shane texted as much as they could, it still wasn’t enough to satisfy the incessant want of tucking Shane into his pocket where he could keep him at all times.
Other parts of Ilya had been equally dissatisfied.
Namely, his dick.
No matter how hard he tried, Ilya couldn’t convince him that his hand was a good substitute for Shane‘s hole.
Needless to say, he didn’t actually try at all as he knew it‘d be worthless.
So he settled for FaceTime sex and his imagination of Shane’s orgasm-face.
Yet, two months in, Ilya felt as if his hand was about to fall off.
The last time he‘d seen Shane had been at the Cottage, where he had stayed right until he actually couldn’t postpone leaving unless he quit hockey.
Saying that he hadn’t thought about it would be lying.
But he knew Shane would probably tear him a new one for that.
So, when the time came, he went back to Boston and got ready for another hockey season spent too far from the person he loved.
But even though they had phone sex often, his dick never seemed to be satisfied enough to last.
As if screaming “Hollander‘s hole. Give. Now.”
Consequently, whenever he did come, it wasn’t satisfying enough to last for long before he once again felt need.
Need for Shane.
Although, what he missed most about it all wasn’t sex.
It was watching Shane change the sheets after, insisting the bed was ‘all dirty’.
Cuddling into him, feeling his breathing go soft while he fell asleep.
Hearing Shane say that he loved him.
Oftentimes, he felt lonely when he went to bed, wishing he could count Shane’s freckles while pretending it wasn’t as if he could draw them from memory.
The third month had been down-right excruciating for the first two weeks.
Their shared time at the cottage had been two and a half months ago and Ilya thought he’d go insane with longing.
Until he finally got to see Shane again.
When Shane entered his apartment after their first game, Ilya didn’t even get the chance to say a single word before his boyfriend was tearing at his clothes.
Shane was so worked up, he didn’t even bother to fold his clothes before sitting on Ilya’s dick.
Something that had Ilya so worked up, he re-counted past cup winners in chronological order as to not shoot his load in two seconds stat.
Afterwards, he thought of himself as foolish to not consider the fact that he wasn’t the only one suffering by their distance.
They fucked three more times before Shane had to leave early afternoon the next day.
But the best part hadn’t been the sex.
It was the contentment he felt at waking up to the person he loved.
Four months in, he almost told Marlow to ‘accidentally’ injure Hayden Pike, out of pure spite that Montreal’s 15th best player got to see Shane more often than his boyfriend.
Luckily, he realized that he not only would most likely be scolded by Shane for ‘not having his players in check’ but he’d also have to listen to Shane talk about Pike more than he usually did.
And yeah, that was the reason he didn’t do it. Not because he knew it was wrong. And definitely not because he had a teensy tiny bit of appreciation for Pike.
Yikes.
Though it didn’t mean that he didn’t go at least a little bit harder on Pike than the other Montreal players.
For the first two minutes that was.
During the next face-off after, Shane looked him in the eye and told him that Ilya could have a repeat of Vegas if he scored more goals than him.
Needless to say he didn’t think of Pike at all for the remaining part of the game.
Unfortunately, Shane scored one more goal than him.
As a consequence, he couldn’t even properly celebrate his team’s win, the excitement overshadowed by a feeling of loss.
The next day however, it’d all been forgotten.
Shane’s idea of a celebration hadn’t been too far off from their encounter in 2014.
It too entailed Ilya watching Shane jerk off.
Ilya already knew this to be a magnificent view.
Only Shane’s version of it was a thousand times better, even if it came with a little bit of torture on the side.
It included watching Shane getting off when wearing a ‘Rozanov 81’ jersey, all the while not being allowed to touch himself or Shane, until the other man orgasmed, groaning Ilya’s name while he climaxed.
Obviously, he had fucked Shane so hard after, that Shane had left Ilya’s apartment walking a little bit funny the next day.
The sense of pride he felt because of that couldn’t even be dulled by the fact that Shane texted him that Hayden noticed, asking if something had happened during the game.
Month number five was a lot more bearable.
They got the very rare treat of both simultaneously having a week off between Christmas and New Year’s, only having to play one game, and in an insanely lucky twist of fate, that had been against each other in Montreal.
Due to that, they were able to leave for the cottage the day after said December 26th-game, getting an entire week of uninterrupted time with each other.
For the most part, the two of them spent it hanging around lazily.
Well… as lazily as Shane Hollander could spend his time.
Admittedly, it wasn’t thatmuch.
Shane still woke up fuck-ass early, too early for Ilya’s liking, to go on a morning run and have his horrible ‘breakfast smoothie’.
It should be noted that Ilya still thought it to be appalling to call that breakfast.
He much preferred his eggs, bacon and toast, thank you very much.
But he didn’t mind Shane forcing him to go on his runs with him as that always followed with them showering together, Shane inevitably ending on his knees to blow Ilya.
And that was definitely worth not getting to sleep in.
But the best part of their days, Ilya thought, was when they went to the rink Shane had built in his cottage.
Playing hockey with Shane would never get old in his opinion. Whether that was with or against him. Shane had been the only person who Ilya considered being able to keep up with him.
Sometimes, they just ran drills on their own.
Other times, the two of them played a little one-on-one, never being able to let go of their competitiveness against each other.
They cooked, cleaned and even doom-scrolled together.
Well, Ilya doom-scrolled while Shane read one of his hockey books and silently, or not so silently, judged Ilya’s random scrolling through countless social media apps.
However, it never took long before Ilya threw away his phone, too distracted (and turned on) by Shane wearing his glasses.
Every night they went to bed together, only to wake up to each other's faces.
Undoubtedly, that was still Ilya’s favorite part.
When the week was over and both of them had to get back to their respective cities, Ilya may have shed a tear or two the first night back in his own bed.
Month number six was the worst to date.
They had their half-year anniversary as an official couple and they couldn’t see each other in person once since their schedules didn’t allow either of them to make a trip to the other and they had no game against each other.
On the actual day of their anniversary, Shane had an afternoon game and Ilya one in the evening, so they didn’t even get to FaceTime except for a few stolen minutes.
While the big bouquet of flowers showing up on Ilya’s doorstep in the morning made him smile, he still wasn’t in a necessarily happy mood the rest of the day.
It was a few days after when he came across a video on Instagram.
One that gave him an idea, how he could use the little bit of free time he had during an on-going hockey season when Shane wasn’t available to fill it.
From that day on, he didn’t spend those moments just thinking about missing Shane, since he finally found a substitute that distracted him appropriately.
Not that he’d ever tell Shane about it.
Or anyone else.
And if he had his way, no one would ever find out.