Work Text:
Almost there
Send location
Why?
My location is that I’m literally 5 minutes away
Do you remember the address
Yes
Do you remember the passcode to the door
Yes
But also I know you’re going to be waiting for me by the door anyway
Oh, so you think I am dog??
Well
Your words, not mine
Shane Hollander.
If you ever win most sportsmanlike player again I am sending this screenshot to the commission
Shane
Shane
Shanya
Are you almost here
Yes
Sorry, the driver keeps trying to make conversation
3 minutes away now
Almost home
Almost home :)
Shane had been right. Ilya is waiting by the door, the handle turning as soon as Shane’s footsteps crunch on the gravel of the driveway.
He resists the urge to break into a sprint, mind and body not quite on the same page yet. Somehow still convinced that seeing Ilya means pushing himself to his limit on the ice, just to get to be close to him in 40 second increments.
He doesn't force the grin off his face though. Ilya is waiting in the doorway, hands tucked into the pockets of his sweatpants in a way that's supposed to be casual, but Shane sees that it's anything but.
The curls that Shane has seen styled to perfection and matted with sweat and prolonged helmet wear, sit artfully mussed. Like Ilya spent the morning running his hands through his hair nervously and has now spent the last five minutes carefully putting his curls back into place.
The strap of Shane's bag digs into the meat of his palm as he tightens his grip, just to make sure he doesn't do something foolish, like dropping the bag and reaching for Ilya as soon as he's within range.
No, he practices patience and restraint and actually manages to close the door behind him before dropping his bag to the floor and attaching himself to Ilya’s front. He draws him in for a kiss, foregoing all and any social niceties.
It’s deep and urgent from the get-go, and Shane makes a valiant effort to slide his hands beneath Ilya’s tanktop. The shirt is almost more obscene than a shirtless Ilya would have been, his narrow waist accentuated by the cut of the fabric and his toned arms highlighted.
But Shane doesn’t get very far. Not for lack of trying though.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ilya mutters, the words being spoken directly into Shane’s mouth as he clamps his hands around Shane’s wrists.
“Waited too long already,” Shane manages in response. Reasonably, they've gone longer without seeing each other, but with Ilya's move from Boston to Ottawa and Shane's endless string of ads and sponsorships, they haven't been able to talk as much as they usually do.
Shane nips at Ilya's bottom lip and relishes in the way the hands around his wrists tighten minutely.
“Want to show you around.”
“Great. Let’s start in the bedroom. Or the couch, I’m not picky.” Shane nudges his nose against Ilya's cheek, encouraging him to turn his head just so, offering Shane enough space to drag his tongue along the column of Ilya's throat.
“Oh, I know you aren’t picky. Could take you in the kitchen, on the floor…”
“Shut up,” Shane grumbles, biting at the tender skin beneath Ilya’s ear in admonishment. He attempts to lean in for a kiss again, but Ilya doesn't let him.
“Seriously, moy lyubov, let me show you the house and then we have grand finale in the bedroom, yes?”
Something in Ilya's tone gives Shane pause, the horny fog clearing a little.
He sounds… not quite uncertain, but hesitant in a way that's so unfamiliar it takes Shane a second to identify it. He can't recall the last time Ilya Rozanov has hesitated about anything.
So Shane pulls himself out of Ilya's orbit and finally takes in the space.
The first thing he notices is the shoe rack by the door.
Ilya’s frankly absurd collection of garish sneakers stand in a tidy line. There’s a gap just big enough for Shane’s own shoes to be slotted in and a pair of house slippers waiting right next to the rack. Their placement is so nonchalant, it can’t be anything but intentional.
Shane feels his heart kick in his chest.
He dutifully takes his shoes off, tucks them neatly into the provided space, and slips his feet into the slippers.
Satisfied with Shane's compliance, Ilya takes his hand and tugs him out of the entryway and into kitchen, rambling about granite countertops and hot water taps and maybe we take cooking lesson, yes? to make use of nice kitchen?
Ilya proudly shows off a cabinet filled with more protein powder than one man can possibly consume, as well as an impressive amount of ginger ale and spirulina powder and seaweed snacks and– oh.
That's Shane's cabinet, filled with all his favorite things.
“Good?” Ilya asks.
“Yeah.” Shane clears his throat. Ilya somehow got all the right brands. “Perfect.”
Before he can convince Ilya to have their big finale on the granite kitchen counters, Shane’s being towed into the living room.
It's very similar to the set-up in Boston. Big windows. A big sectional facing a big flatscreen-TV.
A notable difference, though, is the bookshelf right next to the TV.
Or rather, the fact that the bookshelf is filled with sports biographies that Shane knows were bought for his reading pleasure, not Ilya’s own.
There's Russian children’s books with cracked spines and worn covers, well-loved as they traveled from Ilya’s childhood bedroom to his Boston bachelor pad to his Ottowa home.
Battered-looking hockey romance novels that Ilya and Harris are apparently buddy-reading are scattered throughout. There's even one on the coffee table, an old receipt tucked in between the pages as a bookmark.
Shane, unfortunately, knows more about those hockey books than he’d like, having been the unlucky recipient of many excerpts and jokes at his expense.
Like that one text at 10PM that said: Does this sound familiar to you, moy detektor dyma? Is what happens when women are turned on.
(Contrary to popular belief, Shane had actually been capable of pleasuring women. Rose Landry was a statistical outlier and should not be counted.)
Besides, Ilya didn’t find his own joke very funny anymore as soon as Shane replied: Thanks for the advice, I think I’ll go try it out right now actually.
However, Shane can’t complain too much about the hockey porn, because Ilya also sends him pictures of the romantic scenes, simply captioned ‘us’.
And sex scenes captioned: ‘us?? next weekend maybe??’
Similarly to the Boston house, artworks grace the walls, but instead of abstract blobs against black and white backgrounds, there’s a picture of a lake on the wall.
And Shane knows that lake. He knows it the same way he knows his own heartbeat. Familiar and steady.
The windows are big, but there’s a hedge that blocks the view from the street. Lamps with dimming functions scattered across the room. Automatic blinds.
Everything in this house was done with Shane in mind. This is not just Ilya’s home.
It’s supposed to be theirs. Together.
Someday.
Shane gets almost dizzy as he pictures a future (soonsoonsoon) where he gets to come home to this every day.
Keys that clatter in the bowl by the front door, and a call of Malysh, I’m home!
A shared shopping list and laundry that gets so incredibly mixed that they both forget who originally bought which clothes. (And in this imagined future, Ilya makes sure to cut the tags out of all of his shirts to maximize the chance of Shane stealing his clothes. Naturally.)
Grumbling about the kitchen being left untidy and arguing about weekend plans, because there now are weekend plans to even argue about.
Shane has to take a deep breath, at risk if passing out from the force of his desire. It drums beneath his sternum, the steady pulse of want that he knows so well. The same want he feels every time he steps out onto the ice.
Except he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more than he wants this. A future.
With Ilya.
“His name is Karl Marx,” Ilya says, pulling Shane from his domestic fantasy.
Which is good, because he cannot get hard in the middle of a house tour. He would never hear the end of it. Mr. Interior Design, Ilya would tease, hands already reaching for Shane’s hips.
“Who?” Shane asks, eyes flitting across the space.
“Karl Marx? German philosopher? Famous anti-capitalist visionary?”
“Asshole. I know who Karl Marx is, I just don’t know who you’ve named Karl Marx.”
Ilya grabs Shane’s face, palms warm and rough, and forces his gaze back toward the windows.
There’s a cactus on the windowsill and Shane immediately knows that Ilya only got it because Shane said his own his interior designer had suggested adding some green in his Montreal apartment. But Ilya doesn’t want plants to die during the season, when he sees his suitcase more than his dresser, and his teammates more than his own reflection.
Ilya Rozanov, always more softhearted than he’d led people to believe.
Shane’s fingers twitch with the need to undo Ilya’s pants. But he can be good. He can be normal about the fact that Ilya listens to his interior design advice and buys his favorite foods and keeps enough books on hand for Shane to have something to read every times he’s here.
Consequently, the house tour becomes an exercise in restraint. Shane wonders if Ilya installed some sort of electromagnetic technology in the floors because there's a constant urge to drop to his knees, the pull only getting stronger the further they venture into the house.
They make their way through the home gym and the bathrooms and the guest rooms upstairs. Ilya spends the entire time eagerly highlighting whatever features he thinks Shane will like best.
His eyes track the strong line of Ilya’s shoulders as he moves about the space, perfectly at ease. Perfectly perfect.
You are the feature I like best, Shane thinks deliriously. Any room that has you in it, is my favorite room.
As if feeling the heat of Shane’s gaze, Ilya turns. His eyebrow quirks. A question and a challenge all in one as he turns the doorhandle to the bedroom.
Shane barely takes in the space. He just steps in close, draping his arms over Ilya’s shoulders as he murmurs, “Thank you for showing me around.”
Ilya shrugs. “Is no big deal.”
But the way Ilya had stood in the entryway, hands in his pockets and eyes flitting over his house as if seeing it anew through Shane’s eyes, tells a different story.
“Well, it can be hard to let people in, sometimes— do not make a joke about having been in me. Or about being hard.”
Ilya pulls his eyebrows up, exaggerated disbelief painted across his features. “What, you think I have sense of humor of little baby child?”
Shane loves when Ilya gets like this. When his walls are down and his accent is stronger and his grammar is looser. When he is so deeply comfortable that he doesn’t feel the need to perform.
Shane wonders how many people get to see this version of Ilya. The greedy part of him, which also happens to be the biggest part of him, hopes that no one else does. This feels like Shane’s Ilya.
The same way he currently is Ilya’s Shane. The Shane that doesn’t have to be hockey’s golden boy. The Shane that doesn’t spend his whole day in a room where he only feels like half a person. The Shane that can be a bit of an asshole, that can be himself in ways that he can’t be when anyone else is around.
“I know you have the sense of humor of a little baby child.”
Ilya's mouth ticks up in that annoying smirk that never fails to get Shane hot and bothered as he leans further into Shane's personal space. “And you still find me funny, so what does that say about you?”
“Shut up.”
But before Ilya can comply, Shane takes matters into his own hands.
He kisses Ilya. Hard. Insistent. Desperate. Shane moans into the kiss and Ilya immedately licks into his mouth, chasing the sound. It’s deep and wet and so, so good and Shane can’t even be embarrassed about how quickly he gets hard, because Ilya is right there with him.
He walks them back until they topple over onto the bed, hands already working to deftly undo Ilya's pants. They make quick work of their clothes and the fact that Shane doesn't pause to fold anything is a good indicator of his desperation. Or of Ilya's ability to make him lose his mind as he swallows Shane down to the root.
Lube seems to have been conveniently tucked beneath a pillow and it's only a matter of moments until Ilya's fingers are sliding into Shane.
The sheets are soft and cool where he has them gripped in his fist, and the feel is so familiar that it gives him pause.
Ilya rakes his eyes over Shane's face when he notices.
He seems to read Shane the same way Shane reads the ice during a game. That specific way you look at something you know inside out, almost like you were born with an inmate understanding.
“Sheets are the same as the cottage, yes. I asked Yuna for the brand.”
Shane's heart does that stupid fucking thing it's been doing all day, kicking in his chest like it's actively trying to expand because there's no way his heart is big enough to contain all the love he feels for Ilya without exploding.
“Don't— Ah! Talk about my mom while you have your fingers inside me,” Shane manages.
And Ilya's breathless chuckle shouldn't turn Shane on even more than he already is, but at this point in his life, Shane's coming to accept that everything about Ilya turns him on. For better or for worse.
And then there's no more talking for a while, there's just this:
Slick mouths and slick fingers and touches so warm Shane can't even remember ever having been cold.
Pleasure sparking beneath his skin as he finally gets to have Ilya as close as he wants, and for a moment, nothing else exists except for them in this room.
After their breathing has slowed and their heart rates are back to normal and sweat is cooling on their skin, Shane lies with his arm curled around Ilya, who — for some godforsaken reason — has his nose pressed near Shane’s armpit.
“Thank you.”
Ilya’s laugh is a warm puff of air against sensitive skin. “Shane, moy kardiostimulyator, you do not have to thank me for sex.”
“I'm not. I meant, thank you for all this. The sheets and the blinds and the books. It's…”
“Too much?”
“No. It’s just that no one has ever…”
Sometimes Shane wonders when Ilya will find the edge of it. There has to be a limit to how much he can be loved, with his oddities and tendencies. With his one-track mind and his monotone voice. It can’t be limitless.
There has to be an edge to how much Shane can be loved.
An edge or an expiration date.
“It is not burden to love you, you know.” Because Ilya always knows when Shane gets stuck in his head and is all too willing to wade in there with him, just to help him find the way out.
“I just— I know I’m a little particular.” Shane winces as he says it, acutely aware of the understatement.
“Shane, moy lyubimyy. You are very particular. But I love this about you, too. You are particular about your food and your clothes and your sheets. And you are also particular about the people you let into your life. It makes me feel like I am precious. And you are also particular about loving me. Like how you keep my favorite snacks in the house especially for me even though I know you would rather be held at gunpoint than to eat them.”
“I just don’t believe red dye 40 is part of your official nutrition plan...” Shane mutters, drawing a slow smile from Ilya.
It is bright and blinding, and Shane feels like a cat lying in a patch of sunlight, deeply content to simply soak in the warmth. He wonders what his own face is doing. If it betrays the fondness that threatens to spill from him at any given moment.
“You act like it is some big chore to love you, but so many people do it.”
“Well, the fans love me because I’m good at hockey. My parents love me because I’m their son.” It comes out more simply than Shane intends. He knows it’s not a sure thing for all parents to love their kids.
“No one loves you because. Is supposed to be uncon— con—”
“Unconditional?” Shane asks. He places the word in the space between them, just in case it’s the one Ilya is reaching for.
A second later, Shane is pinned under two hundred pounds of pure muscle and he's struggling to breathe as a mess of curls somehow ends up in his mouth, Ilya having gracelessly flopped his entire body right on top of Shane.
“I love when you do this.” The words are spoken directly into Shane's skin, Ilya's warm breath tickling his neck. “You offer words like suggestions instead of corrections. Makes me feel like we are trying to figure out what I want to say together, instead of you knowing what I want to say and me playing catch-up.”
Shane works one hand into Ilya’s hair, untangling sweaty knots. His other hand traces lazy constellations on Ilya’s back, like he’s playing connect the dots.
“I just wish my Russian were better. It’s not fair that you have to do all the work.”
“Don’t worry, malysh, I like doing all the work.” Ilya grinds his hips down suggestively, even though neither of them are quite ready to go again. “Besides, would be very bad for me if you spoke Russian fluently.”
“What? Why?” Shane uses the hand tangled in Ilya’s hair to tug his head back and pretends not to see the flash of heat in Ilya’s eyes. “I thought it would make things easier.”
“Would be bad for my heart.” Ilya sighs, shaking his head mournfully. “Is too romantic, you see.”
“You learned English! It’s only fair.”
Ilya ducks down, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth.
“I learned English to understand America and to be understood by my team. You learn Russian to understand me. To be understood by me. Is very different and very romantic and it would give me heart attack. So you have to stay boring forever so I can live long, healthy life.”
As if to punctuate the sentence, Ilya flops down again, boneless on top of Shane.
“Maybe you should tip off ESPN. Hockey Phenom Shane Hollanders Attempts to Sabotage Rival by Learning Russian.” Shane puts on his best newscaster voice, although it's not as good as the one Hayden does.
“Hmm, no. You would never sabotage me, you live and breathe for the game.”
I live and breathe for you, Shane wants to say. He doesn’t.
Instead, he locks eyes with Ilya, to make sure he knows he means it. “It’s not a chore or burden to love you, either. You know that, right? It’s my favorite thing to do, actually.”
“More than hockey?” Ilya teases.
You are hockey, to me. You are hockey and hockey is sex and sex is love. There is no hockey without you. Or no hockey worth playing, Shane wants to say. He doesn’t.
What comes out is: “Don’t push it, Rozanov.”
But they both know the answer is yes.