How did it end up under his stairs? Ilya never took it off, as far as Shane knew. At least he’d never seen him without it, and Shane assumed it was something special.

Carefully, Shane untangled the chain—and barely managed to catch the cross pendant as it slipped off. His heart was thundering against his ribs as if he’d been running drills. He couldn’t help the little sigh of relief rushing out of him.

With the chain untangled, Shane saw that the clasp was broken.

Shit. Had he done that? They’d ripped more than a few seams getting each other out of clothes, so the thought wasn’t farfetched.

How long has the necklace been sitting under the stairs? At least a week. Montreal hosted the Raiders Thursday last week.

Ilya must’ve noticed his necklace was missing. Had he guessed it was with Shane? Was that why he hadn’t texted Shane about it? Would he not text Shane if he assumed it was with him? Shane—for a reason he couldn’t even explain to himself—was tying himself into knots wondering why he hadn’t heard from Ilya about it.

Shaking himself out of it, Shane jogged up to the bedroom and carefully put the necklace and pendant on his nightstand. He’d google where he could get the clasp fixed later.

Shane pulled his phone out of his pocket, fully intending to text Ilya, when his eyes got caught on the time.

Fuck. He was going to be late.

* * *

Today 12:26 PM

I found your necklace.

It was under the stairs. The clasp is broken.

I’m having it fixed.

Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t find it until earlier today.

Read 11:53 PM

No, keep it until next time.

Do you want me to mail it to you when it’s fixed?

Read 08:11 AM

* * *

Today 4:44 PM

Thank you.

* * *

Of course.

Read 4:44 PM

Dad pointed him to his trusty jeweler in Ottawa without asking too many questions that Shane couldn’t field. He felt the necklace was too precious to hand it over to a random stranger.

Luckily, he left the cross itself at home when he brought the chain in. (That was after he’d spent at least ten minutes wondering how safe it was to bring the necklace in for repairs without it being recognized as being Ilya’s.) This way, he could easily come up with a story should questions arise. It was just a simple chain after all.

“Will David be picking it up for you?” the jeweler asked.

Shane blinked at him in confusion. “Wha—why?”

“Oh, I assumed you wouldn’t be here next week.”

“Next week?” Shane could feel the skin between his eyebrows crease as his gaze dropped from the man to the necklace he was carefully handling. “Oh.” He stopped himself from chewing on his bottom lip. “I’m sorry, is there any chance I can pick it up tomorrow?”

The jeweler gave him a bemused look, and Shane felt his cheeks heat. “It’s—uh—it can’t wait. I mean. I would appreciate it if you could rush it.” He felt like such an entitled asshole. “I’ll p—”

“I see,” the man said with a knowing little smile. “Of course. You can pick it up first thing tomorrow.”

Shane left the shop still feeling like an ass and only slightly worried about a gossip piece popping up online tomorrow about him putting a rush on a jewelry order. He was soothed by the fact that he’d be getting Ilya’s necklace back in time, though.

* * *

Shane was barely through the door, when Ilya said, in an overly dramatic tone, “‘Shane Hollander spotted leaving a local jewelry shop in Ottawa.’”

“What?”

Ilya’s necklace was burning a hole through his pocket. He’d kept a hand on it almost at all times and had only barely managed to keep himself from putting it around his own neck to be sure he wouldn’t lose it.

“Were you shopping for jewelry for one of your hoes?” Ilya asked as he closed the door behind him with one hand, lowering his phone with the other.

“Seriously: what? I don’t have hoes.”

Ilya hummed. He herded Shane against the kitchen isle, that sly little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Fuck, he looked so good.

“Then what am I?” he asked, shoving his phone in his pocket before dropping both hands on Shane’s hips, fingertips slipping under the seam of his shirt easily.

With some difficulty, Shane gathered the strands of his thoughts that threatened to fly out of his head. “You’re not—you’re—”

“I’m—?” Ilya raised his eyebrows at him and his smirk grew. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Asshole.

That was what Shane intended to say but it was not at all what came out. “You’re—” More than I could’ve ever dreamed of asking for. “You’re Ilya.”

Ilya’s gaze softened, impossibly, without getting any less intense. Shane felt like he could barely breathe around the lump in his throat.

“I, uh,” he started and fumbled the little jewelry box out of the pocket of his jacket. “Your necklace—I brought your necklace. I got the clasp fixed.”

Shane flipped open the lid, holding the little box between them, and even his fucking ears were on fire. It was weird presenting the necklace like this, wasn’t it? As if he was gifting his. . .whatever they were, still, something, when in reality he was just giving him back what was his already.

Ilya’s gaze dropped to the box and his hands left Shane’s hips. He tried not to mourn the loss of the warmth of Ilya’s fingers against his skin. Reverently, Ilya ran his fingers over the cross, and when Shane looked at his face, the raw emotion on it almost made him avert his eyes.

When Ilya didn’t move, Shane dipped his head to try and catch his eyes. “Hey,” he said softly, touching the fingers of his free hand to Ilya’s wrist gingerly. “Hey.”

Ilya blinked rapidly, turning his head to the side. “Thank you,” he mumbled, the words coming out choked off. “I thought I lost it.”

“Why didn’t you ask me? I would’ve checked and probably would’ve found it way sooner than I have.” It was a question he’d turned over and over in his head.

Shane reached up to turn Ilya’s face back to him. He looked like he was trying really, really hard to hold back tears. It made Shane want to climb onto his lap and hold him tight again.

Instead, Shane lifted the necklace out of the box with careful fingers before putting the box away and unclasping the chain. He raised the ends and Ilya silently leaned in a little so Shane could fasten it behind his head, safe around his neck once more.

“There,” Shane said when he was done, lightly hooking his fingertips under the chain to adjust it as Ilya pulled back. “Good as new and back where it belongs.”

When he raised his eyes to look at Ilya’s, Ilya’s gaze was like a bottomless ocean, and well, maybe Shane wanted to be lost at sea for a second.

The kiss he received made Shane see stars. Ilya was holding onto his face with one hand, keeping him still, alternating between slipping his tongue into Shane’s mouth with deep, filthy strokes, and sucking and biting at his lips, until Shane felt so lightheaded from it (and, mostly, lack of air) that he had to push Ilya away with both hands on his chest.

His lips felt swollen and raw, and Ilya’s were shiny with their spit, and Shane couldn’t help but lean in for another kiss, though this one was just sweet and lingering.

Ilya sniffled quietly. He lightly knocked their foreheads together, and for a moment, they stayed like that as their breaths evened out. Shane reached up and wrapped one arm around Ilya’s shoulders and cupped the back of his head with the hand of the other, softly guiding Ilya into a hug that he reciprocated. He leaned heavily against Shane. It was a weight Shane was more than happy to hold.

Shane rested his cheek against Ilya’s head as he stroked his fingers through his hair.

Ilya said something against his skin, the words muffled and caught in the crook of his neck.

“Hm?” Shane asked.

Ilya shifted a little. “It was my mother’s. The necklace.”

“Oh.” Shane squeezed him against his body. “I’m glad I found it. I mean—”

There was a puff of air against his neck, the drag of skin against skin where he felt Ilya smile a little. “I know what you meant,” Ilya said, and then, “I thought I still had it when I left your place. So I didn’t want to waste your time.”

Shane moved to lean back but Ilya clung to him like an octopus, so Shane jostled them slightly instead. “Ilya.” He really loved saying his name, even when it sounded like now, disbelieving and halfway reprimanding. “You wouldn’t have wasted my time. Even if your necklace hadn’t been at my place, you wouldn’t have wasted my time asking to check if it was there. I would’ve looked. Of course I would’ve looked.”

Shane’s mouth feels dry. He can’t stop staring back at Ilya.

Finally, pulling the key out of the ignition, Ilya tells him, “Wait in the car.”

Shane, inexplicably, feels bereft without Ilya’s eyes on him; like he’s pushed back under water after being able to come up for air. He lifts his fingers to his eyelashes, comforted by the way the little hairs catch against the groves of his fingertips.

His mind is sluggish, thoughts muddled, more so from anxiety and stress than from a real lack of sleep. His shift, if he’d been able to finish it, would’ve been over an hour ago. He’d be on his way home now, probably, get some dinner or breakfast or whatever, consider calling his parents and then distract himself by reading a book or attempting to fix his leaking faucet for the millionth time. Maybe he’d have managed it this time. Maybe he would’ve called his parents, after all.

Maybe he fell asleep during his shift and this is all a debilitating dream that his brain refuses to let him wake up from.

Shane chances a glance out the window and finds Ilya looking back at him as he stands by the register, paying for the gas. His focus shifts from Shane to the cashier, movements easy and unhurried, a friendly enough smile on his face.

Closing his eyes, Shane lets his head fall back against the headrest and breathes in deep through his nose. He remembers what his meditation app told him, the handful of times he’d tried it: don’t latch onto thoughts, let them pass you by, watch them go; it’s normal that you feel like grabbing onto one; if you feel like you’ve done that, take a deep breath and release the thought. So, he doesn’t think about what it means that he obediently stays in the car, that the thought of disregarding the order doesn’t even cross his mind, that he doesn’t consider mapping out an escape. There’s no point anyway. Ilya took the car keys with him, Shane’s phone is miles and miles away, abandoned in his patrol car, and there’s no place he could run to hide. He has no chance of success, so why try?

Don’t latch on. Let them pass. Breathe through it.

The door on the driver’s side squeaks. Ilya drops into the seat and the whole car shakes with it.

Whatever slim chance he’s had is gone now.

Don’t latch on. Let them pass. Breathe through it.

They don’t go far. Ilya rounds the corner of the station, out of sight of the security cameras.

“Get out,” Ilya tells him, not unkindly.

Biting cold fall air stings his face when Shane gets out. Briefly, his mind snags on the fact that his door isn’t even locked. A sense of relief floods him then at the sensation of stretching his legs, straightening his spine, breathing in fresh air, only now understanding that the car wasn’t just stuffy with the weird tension between them. His shoulders ache from how tense he’s held himself. It’s not new.

His breath dissipates in a foggy gust as he exhales.

Ilya slamming the trunk of the car shut brings Shane back to the present. There’s a brown bag in his hand. Shane eyes it warily.

“Relax,” Ilya says with a smirk, “is hair dye. I like my hoes blonde now.”

Shane bites back the first comment that rises up his throat. He can’t help the eye roll, though. “If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you don’t have a type.”

Ilya’s eyes flash, with delight more than with danger, and he slowly walks up to him, pressing, pressing, and Shane doesn’t even realize he’s been giving ground until his back hits a cold wall with an audible thud.

Ilya hums. His nose is a hair-width away from Shane’s. “And is that the only wrong thing you know about me?”

Shane hates the way his breath hitches. Ilya’s smirk widens.

“It’s not wrong,” Shane argues back. It’s not. He’s spent a significant amount of time learning everything he could about Ilya off every scrap of information law enforcement had on him, and then several more years by getting to know him…more intimately.

He realizes Ilya’s crowded him against the restroom door when he reaches around to open it. Shane stumbles backwards and a strong, unreasonably warm hand catches him by the waist, stabilizing him.

“No? Мой любимый,” Ilya coos, and Shane flushes up to his ears, the nickname, coloured by the cadence of Ilya’s voice, how it sounds in Russian, hitting him so unexpectedly he gasps without meaning to. “You have always been a bad liar.”

Ilya keeps his hand on Shane’s waist, walking him into the restroom, close enough that Shane starts to feel the heat of his body through his clothes. He uses his other hand to carelessly pull the door closed behind them, locking it without even so much as a backward glance.

“Fooled you,” Shane shoots back and immediately clamps his mouth shut, biting at his tongue.

He feels a sick little thrill, a sort of vindication maybe, when Ilya’s breath catches.

There’s a hand around his throat between one blink of an eye and the next, and Ilya’s face is so close to his that his breath is ghosting across Shane’s skin. Heat slides down his vertebrae, syrupy, melting bones its wake. With enough pressure against Shane’s Adam’s apple to be more than just uncomfortable, Ilya walks him backwards again. The back of his head hits the wall so hard it hurts, knocking a grunt of pain from him.

Shane is sure his heart is pounding so loudly Ilya has to hear it, too. He’s breathless and not because Ilya is pressing at his wind pipe.

He needs to fucking get it together.

Without conscious thought, Shane finds himself wrapping his fingers around Ilya’s wrist. When he presses down over the tender skin right below the heel of his palm, Ilya’s pulse is beating a wild pace against his fingertips.

“No,” Ilya says, almost gently. Shane’s eyes flutter shut and Ilya presses at the hinges of his jaw, pulling Shane forward a bit before smacking his head back against the wall. “Eyes on me.”

Obediently, Shane blinks his eyes open. The cold at his back and the heat of Ilya’s body at his front make him shiver, charging up his nerves like an electrical storm.

Whisper-soft, Ilya says, “You almost killed me.”

The brown bag drops to the floor with a soft rustle as Ilya draws back a little. With his now free hand, he grabs Shane’s to guide it under his henley. His skin is warm against Shane’s, fingers nudging him to a spot between his ribs, until Shane feels raised skin under his fingertips.

This scar, he doesn’t know. Carefully, he traces it, its edges, its shape, before he lets his fingers skim over Ilya’s ribs, mapping where the new mark sits. White spots dance in his vision, head suddenly stuffed with cotton.

Ilya’s smile is as mean as it is mocking. Shane yanks his hand out from under Ilya’s grasp. He thinks he’s breathing, sucking in deep gulps of breath, maybe, but his lungs don’t seem to fill with air. The hand around his throat has gentled.

“Who?” He chokes out the word with effort.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ilya says. “They’re dead now.”

Shane nods slowly. He doesn’t look at the monster that lurks in the shadows of his mind, the one that is soothed by this knowledge. “Good.”

A smile with the hard edges of a smirk spreads over Ilya’s face. He moves his hand from Shane’s throat to grab his face. His thumb brushes across the line of his jaw. There’s a glint in his eyes that Shane has seen plenty of times before, and every time, it has kindled a hungry fire inside him.

Ilya lets go of him entirely. Shane tries not to sag against the wall. Jerking his chin at the paper bag now on the floor by Shane’s feet, Ilya takes a few steps back.

“Change,” he orders.

Shane stares at the bag for a moment while he carefully tries to gather himself. Only now does it occur to him that he’s still in his uniform; so distracted by the last few hours that he’s not even had the time to notice the discomfort of the fabric against his skin.

Small mercies.

He picks up the bag and pulls the first piece out, rubbing the hem of what he’s sure is a sweatshirt between his fingers. It’s soft and smooth against his skin, the kind of texture and fabric blend that dominate his own wardrobe. From the feel of it, it’s thick enough to keep him warm without making him overheat.

Shane closes his eyes on a soft inhale. He feels his jaw clench.

His eyes snap open when Ilya’s hand brushes his to take the bag from him. The once-over paired with raised eyebrows is enough to tell Shane what he means.

Shane doesn’t need to look at Ilya to know that he’s staring. It makes him feel like no time has passed between them at all. He can’t remember an instance when Ilya didn’t stare at him while he took his clothes off, even if it was a rushed and impatient strip—which, if he thinks about it, is how he shed his clothes most of the time when he was around Ilya.

Now, Shane focuses on undressing methodically to keep his mind from straying. He steps out of his boots first and makes a face at the icy cold floor against the soles of his feet. Shane drops the pants next, folds them and uses them as a barrier between the filthy, freezing floor and his feet. Through it all, he keeps his eyes fastidiously on his own hands.

He makes quick work of the buttons on his shirt, glad to finally rid himself of the stiff fabric, and shivers when the cold hits the naked skin of his arms.

There’s a sharp but soft inhale. Shane decidedly doesn’t look. Instead, he folds the shirt too, and then pulls his undershirt up and over his head: an extra layer between him and the chafing texture of his uniform.

Left with nothing else to do, Shane raises his gaze, only to find Ilya staring at his chest with an odd expression. Shane almost huffs, but then he remembers—

His hand flies up to curl around the ring resting on a chain over his heart. He’s gotten so used to it that sometimes he forgets it’s there. At this point it’s just as much a part of him as any of his limbs: a familiar weight around his neck, a comforting pressure against his breastbone, always close. Shane had fought with himself over it at first, but in the end the decision to carry a piece of Ilya—of them—around his neck was easy and made long before he became conscious of it.

Ilya drops the bag of clothes a second time. He crowds Shane up against the wall again. Shane barely feels the cold at all.

“Show me,” Ilya urges, eyes glued to where Shane’s fingers are still wrapped around the ring.

With a shudder, Shane lets go. Something in him roars at the look on Ilya’s face and the intensity of his eyes as he raises his own hand to the ring. Carefully, Ilya hooks his fingers under it, resting it on the pads of his fingers and looking at the ring as if he was appraising an especially invaluable piece of jewelry.

Shane’s heart hammers in his chest hard enough for Ilya to feel it against the backs of his fingers. Shane is sure of it.

Ilya lifts his eyes to Shane’s as he closes his fist around the ring. His lips are slightly parted and his breaths are coming hard, Shane can’t help but notice. His own breathing is shallow. Shane swallows, licks his lips; watches Ilya track the motion with his eyes.

Shane gasps when Ilya yanks him close by the chain around his neck.

Finally, finally, finally—Ilya’s mouth is on his.

As always with Ilya, Shane feels everything all at once: each touch to his skin, every slide of a palm running up his exposed body, every drag of Ilya’s tongue against his, the overwhelming pressure of their bodies colliding, the sting of fingers tangling in his hair, the firm but gentle press of fingers on his face, the feeling of solid muscle shifting under his hands. All of it buzzes through his nerves and bypasses whatever filter his brain usually applies, and floods him with each and every sensation, like an overcharge of his nervous system.

Until all Shane’s mind and body is left with is Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

Ilya uses his whole body to pin Shane to the wall. He licks into Shane’s mouth, once, twice, and Shane’s toes curl. There’s a hand on his face, tilting it just so, and another that’s smoothing up his side, squeezing at his chest, curling around his shoulder. A strange echo loops in his ears and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s their combined gasps and moans that reverberate around the restroom.

Shane runs his hands through Ilya’s hair, over his shoulders, his neck, his arms, grabbing at everything he gets between his fingers. He arches, just to feel Ilya use his weight to push him more firmly against the wall. Vaguely, Shane registers that Ilya lets go of his face to use both hands to run over his naked skin, skim his fingers along the waistline of his underwear, to reach around to grab at his ass.

One of Ilya’s thighs slots between Shane’s legs. A desperate groan crawls up Shane’s throat when hard muscle grinds against his straining dick. Ilya’s hard too, pushing his cock to Shane’s hip as if he’s looking for friction as well.

Shane’s lips are wet and tingling when Ilya draws back and moves on to his jaw, his neck. Every cell in his body is lit up, humming with a want so hungry it feels like a bottomless pit inside him, and each touch, each kiss, each press, each lick, everything Ilya gives him, feeds it and feeds it and feeds it. And Shane keeps wanting, all through Ilya licking and biting over his jaw, through the open-mouthed, wet kisses sucked along the line of his neck, through all the low hums and moans Ilya presses into his skin.

Shane fists a hand into the curls at the back of Ilya’s head and drags him up to kiss him again. He smiles when Ilya makes a noise between a growl and a moan that Shane licks out of his mouth. This kiss is hard and biting: filthier, hungrier, more urgent; mean, even.

It feels like a fight. It feels like an accusation.

It feels like a reconciliation, too; like an apology, maybe.

He feels like—It feels like—

Like a tilted picture frame on the wall, barely noticeable to anyone but him, and now he’s finally straightened it. Finally, it’s right again.

Ilya’s hand splays his hand out over the ring on his chest. Shane covers it with his own, tucks his fingers between Ilya’s palm and his sternum.

He turns his head into Ilya’s neck and latches onto his pulse point. It draws a low moan out of Ilya. Shane feels dizzy with it. Hand still fisted tightly in Ilya’s curls, Shane uses his grip to tilt his head, expose more of his neck, get better access. Against his tongue, Ilya’s pulse beats wildly, and Shane feels wild with it, too.

When he bites, Ilya almost flinches. Still so sensitive. Shane buries his own moan in Ilya’s neck. He slides his free hand down the slope of Ilya’s back and feels his fingers bump against something hard and smooth. His eyebrows furrow and—

Ilya’s hand on his chest pushes hard.

Shane blinks at him, panting, mind going a mile a minute with confusion. Ilya is holding him at arm’s length, panting too, with a strange expression on his face. He has his other arm behind his back and—

Oh.

“Ilya,” Shane says, swallowing. His breaths come harder now for a different reason. “Ilya, I wasn’t—”

In one fluid motion, Ilya steps away from him, taking the warmth of his hand with him, and pulls the gun from his waistband. Shane shudders, suddenly remembering the freezing cold surrounding them.

“Sure,” he says, clipped, as his face settles into hard lines.

“Ilya—”

Ilya almost sneers at him. He waves the gun. “Get dressed.”

Shane clenches his jaw, desperation tipping into frustration. As if he would’ve been in the wrong to try and go for the gun, fuck this guy. As if he hadn’t been kidnapped; as if he should just be the little lamb letting himself be led to the slaughter.

He exhales, hard, and Ilya raises his eyebrows at him, unimpressed.

“Fuck you.” He spits it, without meaning to, as he grabs the bag with clothes and starts pulling them on, feeling uncomfortably exposed now.

“You wish,” Ilya retorts, easily, effortlessly, in a tone that pushes all of Shane’s buttons at once.

Shane, like most of the time, doesn’t have a witty comeback. Maybe he should go for that gun.

He’s flushed with anger by the time he’s done dressing—even more annoyed by the fact that the clothes are comfortable—and stuffs his uniform into the bag when Ilya motions him to. Like he’s herding cattle.

Dick.

“Take off your watch,” Ilya orders. He sounds bored.

“It doesn’t have GPS,” Shane says, even as he’s undoing the clasp to slip the watch from his wrist. He holds it out to Ilya.

Ilya moves to grab it but lets it fall to the ground when Shane tries to drop it into his palm.

“How do you say,” Ilya starts. He stomps on it, once, and the sound of the watch breaking echoes around them. He looks at Shane, with something akin to…self-deprecation. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…?”

Shane’s stomach twists itself into a tight, tight knot, shame and anger weaving together into something ugly that makes him nauseous.

When Shane doesn’t argue, Ilya tips his head to the side, motioning to the door.

When they step outside, Ilya leads him back to the car with oddly gentle fingers at his elbow. A little tremor skitters through Shane.

As Ilya pulls the car back onto the road, he reaches out blindly, fingers dipping under the collar of Shane’s shirt until they hook around the chain. He pulls it out from under the fabric, ring resting openly against Shane’s chest.

His eyes flick down to Ilya’s thigh. There, balanced on the right, is his gun. In the dark between them it’s nearly just a dark shape. The gun he’s kept pressed to Shane’s ribs as he guided him to his car with a hand at the small of his back, that touch so incongruously gentle next to the weapon poised to tear his insides to shreds. It sits there now, like taunt, almost like a dare, and Shane stares at it for a bit too long because he hears Ilya’s quiet snort of laughter when he looks at Shane again, and his hand is still carding through Shane’s hair.

“I am happy to see you, золотой,” he says, his accented voice and the once familiar petname curl around Shane with the weight of comfort he shouldn’t be enjoying. “But it is a gun.”

Shane feels a faint heat in his cheeks and is grateful for the darkness. Ilya’s thumb strokes firmly over his pulse point, drawing an involuntary shudder out of him, a gasp that’s too revealing, or maybe not revealing at all.

“I know,” he mutters defensively, and Ilya chuckles again. The faint light from the dashboard illuminates his face enough for Shane to see how the smile transforms his whole face: his features soft and open in a way he’d rarely show, and only when it was the two of them, and even then this particular expression had always been special, a rare treat.

It makes Shane want to reach out and trace it with his fingers. A cherished memory come back to life, and it was both a nightmare and a dream, and a part of Shane is terrified how happy it makes him to see it again. How much the dream outweighs the nightmare.

A little nonsensically, Shane says, “They’ll look for me.” And then he almost laughs at himself. He’s not a big deal here, not the way he used to be, a promising detective with a bright future ahead of him. He’s built himself a small network of people here but it’s all superficial connections at best; nobody is going to miss him. Sure, they’ll do some sort of sweep, but there will be no effort put into finding him. His value has long since decreased. There’s nothing to gain from finding him.

Ilya cuts through his thoughts, his fingers are so gentle in Shane’s hair. “Your parents?” His voice is even, free of inflection, and Shane freezes. “Yuna and David Hollander, yes?”

The way Ilya’s accent wraps around his name, Hollander, makes Shane feel like someone put a branding iron to his skin.

No, Shane wants to say. Nothing comes out, voice lost and a vacuum in his lungs.

Ilya leans his head against the headrest and turns to look at Shane. Maybe they’ll hit a moose in a freak accident because Ilya wasn’t paying attention to the road, a tiny, panicked voice in Shane’s head says. Maybe then this will be over.

“They will not find you.” Ilya’s voice is still so eerily void of anything, smooth and slippery like a body drenched in blood.

Ilya’s thumb presses against his pulse point. Shane can feel his blood beat against his finger wildly. He’s found Shane out. Of course he knows about his parents. This is not a surprise. Shane knows what it is, he’s heard this voice often enough; it’s like another language he’s learned to speak and even though he’s not used it for years, he’s still fluent.

“What do you think is worse?” Ilya asks, and Shane feels himself brace for the question. “If they found out you are dead? Or all the horrible things you did that police did not ask you to do for me? That I asked you to do for me? That not even I asked you to do but that you did all yourself?”

Shane stares at the black hole in front of him.

Strong fingers curl around his chin. He doesn’t fight it when Ilya turns his head to face him, and he goes when Ilya pulls. The kiss is hard, a promise and a threat, and when Ilya pulls back, Shane’s lips tingle, his cupid’s bow wet and cool.

Ilya leans back against his seat and looks at the road. His hand goes back to Shane’s hair, gentling along the nape of his neck.

Shane wants to huff out a laugh but it comes out entirely breathy, on the verge of a moan, when Ilya pushes in even closer, his cock a hard, hot line against Shane’s ass.

“I can already see it,” Ilya continues and his lips brush Shane’s ear as he talks. His hands slide back around and over Shane’s quads, below the hem of the shorts, before drifting to the sensitive insides of his thighs, fingertips digging into muscle. “‘MHL star Shane Hollander causes series of accidents wearing slutty white satin shorts.’ ‘Scandalous: Canada’s golden boy Shane Hollander charged with public indecency.’”

Shane swallows a gasp but the shudder he can’t conceal. Ilya noses behind his ear, dipping his head down to mouth at his neck, and Shane is sure he can feel his pulse pounding against his lips. “Fuck off, they’re silk.”

“Oh, sorry. Silk shorts.” There’s a grin in his voice, and when he scrapes his teeth over Shane’s pulse point, the gasps slip out before Shane can catch them. “So you agree?”

“Agree?” It’s getting harder and harder to focus on words when Ilya is pushing, pushing, pushing him until the counter is pressing hard against Shane’s hipbones. Everywhere Ilya touches him leaves behind a pool of embers ready to ignite.

“Your silk shorts,” Ilya says, slowly, as if to make sure Shane understands him, “They are slutty.”

Shane scoffs, or at least he thinks he does. It comes out breathy. “They’re shorts,” he manages out as Ilya licks at the hinge of his jaw. His whole body jolts when Ilya slides his hand up under the inseam of the shorts, knuckles grazing Shane’s balls ever so lightly. “Fuck. I have worn shorts before.”

Ilya hums in agreement. “Yes. I know.” His hands come up to Shane’s hips to slide the tips of his fingers into the waistband of the shorts, firm and teasing and maddening and not nearly enough at all. “People have talked about you in shorts a lot. You have not seen because you are, how do you say, chronically offline.”

Shane grins at the tone in his voice. He covers Ilya’s hands with his own and pushes back against his hips, luxuriating in the delicious pressure of Ilya’s hard cock against him, pressing at the cleft of his ass where it belongs. Shane’s own dick is throbbing already, trapped between the shorts and just below the countertop. “Yeah? What did they say?”

“They said they never realized how hot you are until you married me.”

“Fuck off, that’s not what they said.”

Ilya’s fingertips dip deeper, grazing the crown of Shane’s dick just so, and Shane’s hips buck. He presses his grin against the back of Shane’s neck and pulls his hands out from under Shane’s. Strong fingers wrap around his wrists and Shane is glad for Ilya pushing at his back because he’s sure his knees would give out otherwise.

“They said your super hot husband rubbed off on you,” Ilya murmurs against his ear. He flattens Shane’s palms against the countertop before he runs his fingers up Shane’s arms, over his biceps, to his shoulders, down his sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake and drawing another shudder out of Shane.

“Mh, yes, he did. Countless times.”

Ilya growls playfully and squeezes his pec, and Shane chokes on his chuckle when a thumb rubs over his nipple with precise pressure, sending jolt after jolt straight to his dick. Shane exhales shuddery as Ilya kisses a hot trailing line across his shoulders. One of his hands snakes down to Shane’s crotch, tips of his fingers dancing over the line of his straining cock until they find the head. Slowly, with a barely there touch, Ilya traces his thumb around the outline, and Shane tries to shift, chase the feeling, get more pressure. Ilya’s hips pin him harder against the counter and his finger disappears.

A whine crawls up Shane’s throat one second and morphs into a choked off moan the next when Ilya grabs a fistful of the shorts’ fabric, pulling it tight across Shane’s dick. His other hand worms under Shane’s tank, palming over his stomach, his sternum, his chest, rucking it up in the process.

Ilya moves his hand, the one sunk into the leg of his shorts, dragging the fabric over Shane’s cock. It’s a maddening tease, not nearly enough, nowhere close to what Shane wants, what he fucking needs, but his dick is leaking anyway, wetting the fabric, creating a different kind of friction, and Shane groans, head falling forward, hips trying to grind forward, back, just move, get—more.

“Do you really want to know what other people said about you and your slutty little shorts?” Ilya asks, his voice a low rumble that settles over Shane like a weighted blanket. “Or do you want to know,” he starts again—a bite just below the hinge of Shane’s jaw, a rough exhale, “what I told them I would do to you and your slutty little shorts?  What I told them you would beg me to do?”

Shane’s breath catches in his throat. His heart pounds loudly in his ears, the heat of his own body and Ilya’s against his back suddenly almost unbearable. The words make his stomach clench and fingers press down hard against the countertop. He can’t help the whine that scrapes from his throat: at the words, at the way Ilya’s let go of the shorts and is now curling his fingers around the crown of Shane’s dick over the fabric, already soaked through.

It’s a fantasy Ilya loves to indulge him in, whenever he catches Shane in it. Half a fantasy, really, maybe, sometimes Shane isn’t sure how far Ilya really goes with his anonymous accounts, but right now it doesn’t matter. Right now, Shane wants to know what Ilya told the world about him, his slut of a husband, and that—it makes him burn, both with a sense of shame, and a hunger that is only ever sated, temporarily, by the satisfaction and pleasure Ilya grants him.

“Shane.” Ilya’s voice cuts cleanly through the haze in his head, punctuated by a slow, hard grind against his ass.

There are fingers at his face now, on his cheek, the line of his jaw, turning his head. Ilya’s dark gaze hits him like a freight train, always does, the bottomless desire in his eyes settling something deep inside Shane.

Ilya holds him steady as he leans in. He licks over Shane’s bottom lip and then into his mouth, deep, just once, and Shane might vibrate out of his skin or go deep under, the sensation of it making him dizzy. His lips are spit-slick, the air cool against the wetness, once Ilya withdraws, tipping Shane’s head back a little to catch his eyes again.

Shane makes a soft noise, from somewhere deep, when Ilya raises his eyebrows at him. “Tell me,” Shane says, or—slurs, maybe, whines. “What you told them.” He feels shivery despite the heat of his skin, the searing points of contact of Ilya’s fingers on his face. “About me.”

Ilya snaps the waistband of his shorts against Shane’s hip—a spark against the embers—and the sensation ripples through him. Shane feels boneless, his whole body nearly going limp against Ilya’s. Being held up so easily, so effortlessly like that, despite his own bulk, never fails to strike something deep inside him. There is something animalistic in it, the way Ilya could grab him, push him, pin him; how Shane can meet him beat for beat but chooses to yield more often than not; how sometimes, Ilya makes him feel like he truly can overpower him, force his submission, and how that makes Shane’s vision fuzzy around the edges and his head so empty he doesn’t even remember his own fucking name.

A slow, dangerous smile spreads over Ilya’s face. He leans in again for a kiss and this one is deep, sloppy; the kind of kiss that feels like Ilya wants to consume him—Shane would let him—while swallowing up the little, needy noises Shane can’t help but make in his throat.

Ilya’s mouth looks as wet and swollen as Shane’s feels once he withdraws. It enticing enough to make Shane lean in again, kiss him again, lick and bite at his lips, Ilya’s hand still on his face, and his tongue meets Shane’s, pushes it back between Shane’s teeth, kissing and sucking and biting at him until Shane is moaning with each breath.

Shane is panting by the time Ilya pulls back. He smirks when Shane makes a frustrated sound, trying to chase his mouth, and says, “Let’s not get sidetracked, yes?”

Ilya lets go of his face and uses his other hand to tip Shane’s head back against his shoulder, fingers drifting softly over his forehead, his hair, before he cups Shane’s chin briefly, runs a thumb over his bottom lip. His palm slides down then, over Shane’s exposed throat, soft pressure to his Adam's apple, to the base, and Shane’s knees almost give out.

Teasing fingers dance down the line of his body, grazing at the skin where it meets the waistband of his shorts. Ilya leans his own cheek against Shane’s and it would be sweet if it wasn’t for his hand sliding deeper to scrape blunt nails over the fabric over Shane’s now desperately aching dick. It tears a keen from his throat and another dribble of precome from his cock. Shane doesn’t need to see to know the front of his shorts is utterly soaked.

“Where were we?” Ilya asks conversationally, almost, but Shane hears the slight hitch in his voice. Ilya’s hips sway a little, moving them both just so, two magnets, one motion. “Ah, yes. Me telling all the people thirsting over you on the internet what a slut you are for me.”

Ilya says it so sweetly and Shane can feel his lips moving against his jaw and his fingers are still lightly dragging up and down Shane’s dick and he’s so close and not close at all and Ilya is toying with him.

Ilya’s low hum runs through Shane’s body like an earthquake. “I said I wouldn’t even wait to get you to bed. How I would get on my knees and suck you through your little shorts until your dick was hard and leaking and straining. I told them how you would moan so prettily for me, how you would make these beautiful, breathless little noises, and how flushed you would look. How pink your cheeks would be. Your freckles…” For a moment, Ilya’s hand leaves its spot at the base of his neck to draw his fingers over Shane’s cheek, across the bridge of his nose, before returning to settle heavily at the hollow of his throat. “And all these people that were reading, they asked for more.”

Shane feels his pulse stutter and his flush, impossibly, deepen.

“So then I told them how I would get you on the bed and how you would spread your legs for me,” he murmurs against the side of Shane’s face. His hand leaves his dick—Shane whines at the loss—and moves down to the inside of his thigh. His fingers tease at the inseam before they dig into the muscle, pushing, pushing, pushing until Shane clumsily spreads his legs a little. Blunt nails bite into his skin, leaving tingling imprints for sure, maybe enough to bruise.

Shane’s legs tremble. He turns his head a little on Ilya’s shoulder and Ilya licks at the corner of his mouth.

“Said your slutty little shorts would be bunched around your thighs and stretch tight over your dick,” Ilya continues. He hooks his chin over Shane’s shoulder as he idly brushes his knuckles along the inseam of the shorts. It’s a slow and teasing touch, one designed to drive Shane out of his mind, feeling like moving to strike a match but not hard enough to ignite it.

Shane hears himself make a truly ridiculous sound: something needy, from deep within his body, a noise straight out of porn.

“Told them how you would already be begging for my cock.” Ilya pushes his hand up and under the hem of the shorts. It’s a tight fit: between Shane’s dick, Ilya’s fingers and the hard stretch of the shorts the touch creates pressure. Enough so that Shane can feel his own pulse where Ilya’s fingers are dragging along a vein in his cock; enough to make Shane’s hip buck again. Another obscene sound crawls up his throat.

“W-what else?” There’s a tremor in Shane’s voice. He’s not even sure he really gets the words out fully articulated, stuck halfway between his tongue and vocal chords. A shudder runs through him when Ilya presses his thumb into his pulse point and Shane’s heartbeat cracks like thunder underneath.

Ilya sucks wet, messy kisses up the line of his neck and to his jaw. “They asked if I’d give it to you and I said that I could not ever deny you my dick.”

Shane mewls. Which he would be embarrassed about if he had the wherewithal to care about it but Ilya is pulling his hand back out of his shorts, and Shane’s cock is a throbbing, aching mess, and Ilya is doing nothing about it.

“Ilya—”

“Told them how you would be so impatient with me while I was getting us both ready. How I wouldn’t even let you take off your slutty shorts.” Ilya shifts behind him and grinds his own erection against Shane’s ass. “How I would fuck your hole through your shorts first. Not much, of course, just a little, just the tip.”

“Fuck,” Shane moans. He pushes back against him, trembling at the sensation of Ilya’s dick pressing into the cleft of his ass through his shorts. It’s too much and not enough all at the same time. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Get you all worked up until all you could say is ‘please, please, Ilya, please’,” Ilya says and fuck, Shane is dangerously close to just repeating that plea.

Ilya licks a stripe across Shane’s jawline. The hand at his throat skims down and back under his top, all the way back up to his chest, while the other palms at the inside of his thigh, close to Shane’s groin, his balls. Lazily, he rubs a thumb over Shane’s nipple and the rough drag of it is striking, hard-wired to his dick that pulses out another string of precome.

It occurs to Shane’s pleasure-hazy brain that that’s exactly what Ilya wants, what he’s waiting for: to hear Shane beg, for real.

He lolls his head on Ilya’s shoulder—it’s easier than to lift it, he doesn’t even know if he could, gooey as he feels—and looks at him. His lips, at first, because they’re in his eyeline: they’re swollen, shiny, reddened from Shane’s five o’clock shadow, and Shane strains for a kiss. Ilya, luckily, indulges him, and there’s a hand back at Shane’s neck, gently curling at his throat, below his jaw, to tip his head just so, and Shane’s entire body goes boneless.

Ilya laughs softly against his lips as he shifts a little to catch Shane’s weight, strong body catching him, holding him, and it’s so fucking hot, Shane is so fucking hot—

“Ilya.” He pants into Ilya’s open mouth. “Please.”

Ilya drags his tongue across Shane’s upper lip. “M-hm, just like that,” he says against Shane’s mouth, pressing a sloppy kiss to it. “So sweet, so perfect. My Shane.”

Shane groans. His palms slide over the countertop, squeaking, and he flexes his fingers, resisting the urge to lift his hands.

“Good boy,” Ilya whispers against his ear and, oh, Shane feels dizzy.

Below his shirt, Ilya flattens his palm to Shane’s skin and slides it from his chest down to his stomach, while his other hand returns to Shane’s dick to cup it through the shorts. The press of hot skin through wet fabric makes Shane realize how utterly drenched he is. That does make him lift his head off Ilya’s shoulder to look down at himself and—

He makes another obscene noise at the sight. The shorts are nearly translucent with wetness. The head of his dick is poking out from where the rest of it is covered by Ilya’s hand, shimmering through in a startling red, and that, too, is obscene. Shane’s entire body heaves with his breaths.

Ilya’s fingers slide over the head of his cock; it makes Shane whimper from how much he needs to come. But Ilya withdraws his hand again because there’s barely anything that he loves more than teasing Shane until he’s incoherent.

“And when you’ve begged me like that,” Ilya starts again as he slides his hands up over Shane’s ribs, pressing, pushing against them at each shuddering inhale. “Begged me and begged me, of course I could not deny you. And you know what they said?”

Shane shakes his head. “Tell me,” he says; mouths, really, barely making a sound.

“They said I was too easy. That they would hold out, wait, make you work for it. But you know what I think? I think they all couldn’t deny you either. They would all be so easy for you. So eager to give you what you want.”

Shane drops his head back against Ilya’s shoulder as shudder after shudder wrack him; gasping moan after gasping moan pulled from his lungs. He feels so close to the edge and so far away from it at the same time. His body is a live wire under Ilya’s hands and all Ilya does is ramp up the charge.

Or maybe it’s Ilya who’s the live wire, sending shock after shock after shock through Shane’s body, galvanizing him until he is helpless but to do whatever it is Ilya wants.

“I said I would turn you over, chest down and ass up, your favourite position, giving it all up for me.”

Shane groans low, guttural and pushes back against Ilya again. The heat of his cock against Shane’s ass is tantalizing, promising, and Shane wants.

“Told them I’d fuck you.” The way Ilya says fuck runs through Shane like a hot knife through butter. “Would pull aside your shorts and make you take it like that. Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you.”

Shane curses and squirms. It doesn’t matter that what Ilya’s saying is practically impossible, he doesn’t care, because the mere idea sparks red-hot want in his gut. Ilya’s hands have slid down, one cupping his hip and the other is at his ass, fingers questing along the inseam to his twitching hole.

“Ah! Fuck.” Shane pushes back and whines when Ilya withdraws his fingers again. “Ilya, c’mon.”

Ilya tsks at him. “You said to tell you, not show you.”

Shane huffs in frustration. “Rozanov.” He means it to sound like a warning. It comes out like a plea.

Shane feels him grin where he’s pressing his face against the side of Shane’s neck. Ilya’s fingers trace the spot where Shane’s ass meets his thigh, a lazy back and forth that draws another frustrated noise from him. He presses a kiss to Shane’s ear. The soft rustle of clothes and a quiet hiss from Ilya tell him that Ilya’s shoved his own pants and underwear down. His cock feels hot and heavy against the regretfully still clothed cleft of Shane’s ass.

“Always so impatient.” Ilya’s hand curls at Shane’s hip, the other at his own cock. “Don’t worry, Hollander, I will show you what I would do in reality.”

Shane’s retort dies on his tongue when Ilya squeezes his dick up the inseam of Shane’s shorts, bumping the head against his hole: a tease so tantalizing that whatever Shane has meant to say comes out garbled.

“Always so needy,” Ilya adds. There’s a different quality to his voice now: it’s lower, rougher, coloured by his own desire. He brushes the tip of his cock over Shane’s hole. There’s a splash of wetness as Ilya spurts precome, and all the air rushes out of Shane’s lungs on a moan.

Shane is pretty sure he can feel his pulse in his dick. “Always need you,” he pants. Distantly, he feels his own precome slide down his leg; the fabric of his shorts soaked all the way through, not absorbing the wetness any longer. He screws his eyes shut. “Please. Ilya, need you, please—”

Ilya’s answering moan may be one of the hottest things Shane’s ever heard.

“Fuck, Shane,” he groans. One of his hands pushes Shane’s legs back together while he gropes around for the drawer that has the lube. His cock slips out from under Shane’s shorts and it’s a loss Shane can’t help but whine at.

Ilya shushes him as he slicks himself up, the wet sounds echoing loudly in Shane’s ears, his body poised and waiting. And then Ilya’s guiding his cock between Shane’s thighs, hips pushing and pushing and pushing until Shane’s hips are pinned firmly against the counter. Shane squeezes his legs tighter and shudders out another moan when he feels Ilya’s dick throb between them.

“Yeah, like that, Shane, fuck—” Ilya’s mouth drags over his ear and his hands are everywhere: on his hips, his chest, his stomach, at his neck, in his hair, anywhere they can reach and grab and leave burning marks that pull whine after whimper from Shane.

Each thrust nudges the tip of Ilya’s cock against Shane’s balls and each time, it feels like cinders against his skin, white-hot and blistering. He’s constantly making sounds now, an endless stream of little noises that just fall from his mouth, egged on by the heavy pants and low groans that Ilya presses into his shoulders, his neck, his ears.

Ilya’s hands grip the counter next to Shane’s hips and he changes his pace from fast, shallow snaps to slow, deep thrusts. The sound is dulled by the fabric between their skin but even that is hot in a way that burns Shane up from inside. He drops his chin to his chest, vaguely aware that his mouth is open too, and a moan falls from it as if it’s being ripped out. The drag of Ilya’s cock between his thighs is spine-meltingly hot. Shane feels reduced to that single sensation.

“Ah, fuck, Jesus Christ.” Shane arches on a particularly hard thrust that grinds his hip bones against the edge of the counter and slams the head of Ilya’s cock against his sac just so. The insides of his thighs feel drenched.

Ilya’s breath is hot on his neck, open mouth dragging across the knob of his spine where Shane’s tipped his head forward, moaning aborted little things, Shane’s name, and his pace turns erratic, uncoordinated.

“Yeah, Ilya, c’mon, c’mon, I need—need to—” He needs so much. Shane turns his head, seeking, seeking, seeking, and presses his thighs together even tighter. He feels more than he hears Ilya groan in response and then their open mouths are catching against each other, with Ilya’s breath hot on Shane’s tongue.

Ilya pauses without breaking apart and gets a hand down between them, around his own cock, to drag the head from the cleft of Shane’s ass across his taint. The shorts, Shane thinks a little wildly, are undeniably ruined.

A low growl sends goosebumps scattering across Shane’s whole body, and then Ilya’s hand is between his shoulder blades, pushing him down onto the kitchen counter, pinning him, while his free hand stays just above Shane’s hip, gripping firmly enough to surely leave bruises, and Shane feels his head grow fuzzy.

“Touch—yourself,” Ilya pants above him. The hand between Shane’s shoulder blades slides up and over his shoulder, a thumb stroking firmly across his skin, with still enough pressure to pin Shane to the surface.

Shane’s hand flies to his cock. The sound he makes at the touch is ridiculously obscene. He doesn’t have room to shove his hand down the shorts with the waistband trapped between the counter and his abdomen, but his dick still jumps in his grip. When he feels how wet the shorts are for himself, it punches all the air out of him. Is there even a singly dry spot on them at this point? The thought makes him feel a little insane.

His dick throbs in his hand, hot and aching, and Shane whines high in his throat when he wraps his hand around it as much as he can on a downwards drag.

Shane looks over his shoulder and sees the glazed look on Ilya’s face, the black of his eyes, the flush high on his cheeks, looking, for all its worth, as if he’s on an entirely different plane of existence. Shane did that. Shane did that. It punches another moan out of him.

Ilya catches him looking. It feels like the dark of his eyes is swallowing him up and Shane wants to sink into it. He twists a little and Ilya goes, drapes his own body over Shane’s back, linking his fingers with Shane’s on the countertop and using his free hand to card over Shane’s hair. He presses an open-mouthed kiss to his cheek.

There’s barely a rhythm to what he’s doing anymore. Ilya’s rutting against him blindly, wildly, chasing his orgasm, his cock a hard, hot line between Shane’s thighs, twitching and throbbing and driving Shane further out of his mind than he already is.

Shane feels his own dick leak against his hand.

“Told them,” Ilya says between breathless gasps, “that you’re perfect for me.”

Shane’s fingers go tight around his dick, around Ilya’s fingers in his hand.

“You’re perfect for me, Shane.”

There’s static in Shane’s head, white spots dancing in his vision, and he’s so wholly surrounded by and surrendered to Ilya that his entire body locks tight, something deep inside snapping, unspooling so suddenly it makes his head spin.

“‘lya,” he slurs, more a sound than a name. “Y’re perfect for me, too.”

Ilya comes with a curse and Shane’s name on his lips, and Shane feels it, the hot splash of come through the soaked fabric of his shorts, smearing between his legs, under the hem, into his skin, and it’s enough to tip him over and into his orgasm.

It feels like it’s being torn from him, leaving him gasping for breaths that feel like they’re not coming. He shudders and shakes through it as streak upon streak of come spills from his dick, surely soaking the shorts beyond saving. Shane sucks in air once the peak passes but tremors keep running through him. Ilya’s body is still blanketing his. The touch feels like too much and not enough, and Shane wishes there weren’t clothes between them now.

Ilya is pressing soft, sweet kisses to the side of his face, gentling his fingers over his forehead, his hair, so achingly tender. He’s breathing heavily and each heave of his lungs presses Shane more firmly against the countertop.

“I could tell them whatever,” Ilya murmurs. He sounds fucked out and Shane’s lips curl a little. A kiss to the corner of his mouth makes his eyes flutter shut. “Nothing I say compares to reality.”

Shane hums quietly, happily, and they stay like this for a moment, glad for it because he’s certain his legs would give out under him if he tried to move now.

Then, Ilya hoists himself up and pulls Shane with him, and walks them to the bathroom draped across Shane’s backside. The insides of Shane’s thighs are slippery.

Turns out, there are dry spots on the shorts but they are few and small, and he’s going to have to keep them just to throw them out.

“What a waste,” Ilya says mournfully as he peels the shorts off Shane’s legs and drops them in the garbage.

“You wasted them,” Shane points out. His mind is starting to return to him.

Ilya sniffs. “Is your fault. You wore them and you went commando. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Shane muses. He probes at his thighs and shudders at the tender feeling. “Take them off?”

Ilya snorts inelegantly as he pads over to him and grabs Shane’s wrist. He turns it over to lick at his fingers, gathering the mixture of precome, come and lube sticking to his skin on his tongue. Shane groans softly.

“Would you have let me?” Ilya asks after releasing Shane’s finger from his mouth with an obscene pop.

When Shane doesn’t respond right away while his cheeks flush again, Ilya smirks at him before herding him into the shower. He raises his eyebrows and pulls Shane against him by the hips, and finally, Shane gets his skin on skin contact.

“Yes?” Ilya prompts. He grins shit-eatingly, knowing the answer full well.

“You told me to fuck off,” Ilya reminds him helpfully, grinning at his room at large when Hollander makes an annoyed sound.

“That’s not what I meant,” Hollander says as if he needs to clarify. Ilya feels his face soften into a smile and bites his tongue to stop himself. There should be no softness here.

Ilya hums and decides to be magnanimous. For Hollander’s sake. “What did you mean then?”

“I—fuck you, you know what I meant!”

Ilya sniffs theatrically. “I try to be helpful and you are always so mean.” 

There’s a pause, long enough that Ilya wonders if the call got disconnected maybe, his shitty ass phone does that sometimes, but then he hears Hollander’s soft exhale.

“Fuck,” he says, and it sounds like he aimed it more at himself than at Ilya. “I don’t—I don’t know why—forget it. Good night, Rozanov.”

Ilya is bowled over by the need to keep him on the line, all of a sudden. 

Stupid.

“Hollander,” he says before he can hang up. Hollander still spooks so easily, and Ilya knows to be gentle with him. “What’s wrong?”

Another pause, though now Ilya hears soft rustling. Hollander is wrestling with himself, probably, always so keen on keeping things in when they so desperately want to get out. Ilya wants to smooth out his edges, to give him a safe space to unwind, and that, too, is a dangerous thought.

Stupid, again.

“Nothing,” Hollander finally settles on. He doesn’t sound like it at all.

Then why did you call?

Ilya gives him a moment. It’s always best and easiest to wait him out.

“Just—” A soft, frustrated noise. “It’s—I’m trying but. It doesn’t seem to work—” It sounds as if the words are being ripped out of him violently. 

“Well, it is very hard and takes skill,” Ilya says and nods, despite the fact that Hollander can’t see him.

“It can’t be that hard if you’re doing it.” Hollander manages to sound both sullen and condescending at the same time, and it draws a laugh out of Ilya, unbidden.

“Ah, is natural talent. Not everyone has it,” Ilya explains in his sweetest tone, as if he was breaking bad news to a child. 

“Fuck you, you just said it’s a skill,” Hollander scoffs. It sounds more light-hearted than before. “Maybe you’re just a bad teacher.”

Ilya gasps in mock shock. “Maybe you are not just slow hockey player. You are slow learner, too.”

“I’m not a slow hockey player!”

Ilya grins. Of course that’s what he would focus on. “Slow learner, then.”

“I’m not—” Hollander cuts himself off. “It’s just sex. It can’t be that hard.”

Ilya snorts.

“Oh, fuck off, you know what I mean.”

Ilya settles against his headrest and considers for a moment. Some people, he’s learned, do not enjoy sex. For a moment, before he’s really gotten into this thing with Hollander and his girlfriend, Ilya thought maybe Hollander was one of those people. 

Now, Ilya is sure he’s not. He’s sure that Hollander views sex as a chore, not as a pleasure, not as something to make him feel good. He’s also sure that Hollander himself doesn’t realize that.

“Is not,” Ilya finally says, thoughtfully. He decides to spook the horse. “You enjoy it?”

“What?” Hollander sounds caught off guard.

“‘Just sex’,” Ilya repeats. “You like it?”

“Of course.” Hollander throws it out before Ilya even finishes asking the question. 

Ilya hums.

“I do!” Hollander insists, as if he thinks Ilya doesn’t believe him. 

Ilya doesn’t believe him.

“It’s fine,” Hollander adds.

That word again. Ilya almost feels bad for him. He does, a little, maybe. Another part of him, a much meaner part, doesn’t.

“What do you like about it?” Ilya asks. Maybe, maybe, if he pisses Hollander off enough, they won’t do it again. 

He doesn’t believe that either.

“What.”

Ilya rolls his eyes. “Sex, Hollander, pay attention. What do you like about it?”

“I like all of it,” Hollander says and Ilya almost laughs.

“What is ‘all of it’?” Ilya asks because he’s decided to push it. 

There’s silence on the other end of the line. Then, “I like—I—” He sounds as if he’s trying to think of something, desperate to give Ilya an answer. “Orgasms.”

Ilya almost bursts out laughing. “Okay,” he says, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. “Sure.” He takes a breath. “Orgasms is not all of it.”

“I like the rest, too,” Hollander says bitchily.

“M-hm. You have convinced me.”

“Fuck you, you asked.”

And you couldn’t even answer.

Now that he’s pushing, he might as well keep going. “What do you think about when you get yourself off?”

“What?” Hollander’s voice sounds oddly squeaky for a brief second.

“To feel good, to get off, what do you think about?” Ilya repeats, as nonchalant as he can, stomping down the sudden need to know the answer. “What do you do?”

“None of your fucking business,” Hollander says, full of outrage and something else that Ilya can’t quite place. Panic, maybe. Shame. Guilt. 

“Your girlfriend?” Ilya prompts, relentless, offering the one olive branch he knows Hollander would take, even if it’s a lie.

“Of course.”

So predictable. Such a liar.

Ilya hums. “If you want to make it good for Jessica, you have to feel good, too. So, what makes you feel good, Hollander?”

He hears a soft little gasp. Ilya grins to himself.

“Didn’t you say you don’t do remote maintenance?” Hollander asks.

Ilya grins wider. “I changed my mind. Now tell me.”

He can practically hear Hollander telling him to go fuck himself before he’s said it out loud. It doesn’t come though. Instead, there’s more silence and the soft sounds of breathing—heavy breathing. 

“Fine,” Ilya relents a little, afraid that Hollander might hyperventilate if he keeps pushing him to share his thoughts. Action then, since Hollander is a man of it. “Tell me what you would do. If it was just you.”

Hollander’s exhale is audible through the phone. He’s quiet otherwise, a few moments passing in silence before he speaks again.

“I’d—I’d touch myself,” he says quietly, slowly, carefully, as if he could spook himself with his own admissions. 

”Where?”

Hollander makes another soft sound. “I would…brush my neck.”

“Good,” Ilya murmurs. “What else?”

Hollander curses softly. “I’d—” He sucks in a breath. “I would. Run a hand over my chest and…I—rub my—” He breaks off, as if he can’t make himself say it.

Ilya shifts on his bed, ignoring the way his cock is stirring. “Nipple?” he offers, and hears Hollander release a rough exhale.

“Yeah. Yes.” Hollander’s voice sounds breathy. 

“Until it’s hard?”

A soft little gasp tumbles through the line. “Yes.”

“Continue.”

Hollander makes a bitten off sound and Ilya smiles.

“Continue telling me, Hollander,” he nudges. 

Hollander clears his throat. Ilya can practically see his flushed cheeks. 

“I would…fuck. I would rub my nipple until it’s hard and then—” 

Ilya palms his cock and a rough sound escapes him, loud enough for Hollander to hear, going by the way he falls silent again, and fuck—

“Fuck,” Hollander breathes. “I’d pinch it. Roll it between my fingers. I’d do it with the other one, too. Tug a little.”

“You like that, Hollander? A little pain?” Ilya swallows against the dryness in his mouth.

“No,” Hollander says, and then, “A little,” so quietly Ilya almost misses it. 

Ilya wishes he could see him now. Wishes he could see what Hollander looks like when he’s experiencing actual pleasure. But that’s probably a push too far for now. So he closes his eyes and imagines Hollander’s face, the freckles swallowed up by his blush, pupils blown wide, hands running over his own body.

“I would stroke myself,” Hollander continues, breath hitching. He sounds like he’s working to focus on his words. “Slowly at first but—not for long.”

Ilya feels oddly lightheaded. “You would be hard? From playing with your nipples?”

A pause, then, “Fuck off.”

“Yes?” he prompts, and when he hears Hollander’s drawn out exhale, he knows the answer.

“Yes.”

“Fuck, Hollander.” Ilya’s cock spurts precome, wetting his boxers. He takes a deep breath to even out his breathing. “You are freak?”

Hollander huffs. “I’m not, shut up.”

”Okay,” Ilya chuckles, still trying for casual. His cock jumps in his hand when he hears Hollander stifle a moan with medium success. “So you have your dick in hand. What now?”

“I stroke it. Slowly, at first. And then…faster. Tighter.”

“Good.”

“Fuck. Rozanov, you can’t say shit like that.”

”No? Why not? Feels good, no?”

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, breath shuddery. Ilya wonders if he’s touching himself right now the way he describes. 

“How long do you last?” Ilya feels the wet spot leak through his underwear and soak into his sweatpants.

“Jesus Christ, Rozanov,” Hollander’s voice sounds so different now, almost thin, toneless, as if he has to concentrate on speaking, forming words. “I—not long.”

Ilya grins. “Play with your balls?”

It’s meant as a question but even to his own ears, it sounds like an order. Hollander curses again.

“Yeah. Yeah, would—would do that.”

”Yeah? Would you feel them pull up before you shoot off all over yourself?” Ilya shoves his free hand in his boxers to get his fist on his dick and sucks in a breath at the first too rough, too dry drag.

Hollander gasps. “Yes.”

“How does your dick feel in your hand?” Ilya didn’t meant to ask but it is out before he can stop himself. 

The little gasp on the other end of the line zips straight to his cock, making it throb. Ilya spreads some of his pre over the tip of his dick.

“Hot,” Hollander breathes. He sounds out of it. “Wet.”

Now Ilya curses. “You leak, Hollander? Get all wet and messy?”

Hollander groans, low and guttural, and Ilya loses his fucking mind.

“How do you finish?”  

“I—” Hollander’s breath catches. “I jerk off and it’s. It’s wet and—there—there’s a spot behind my balls. When I press it just right—”

Ilya squeezes at the base of his cock to ground himself. He cannot come yet. Not just from this. He clenches his jaw, lets the fire lick low at his spine and Hollander’s voice wash over him.

“How does it feel? When you’re close?”

Hollander is breathing hard. Ilya is too, but he hides it better.

“It feels—”

“Just fine?”

“Fuck off, it feels. I don’t know…it feels. Great.”

Ah, Hollander’s ever superlative descriptions. Really evoking emotions. Ilya would laugh if he wasn't still trying not to shoot off. 

“How great? Describe it to me.”

“You know how it feels,” Hollander says, apparently breaking through his haze again, embarrassed and defensive.

“Yes. I do. But this is about you. If you want me to help you, I need to know how it feels for you.”

It’s not even a total lie.

There’s another brief moment of silence before Hollander speaks again. “It feels like—” He sounds even breathier now, stumbling over the words. “It feels like. Like when we’re on the power play.”

Of course Hollander would use hockey as a point of reference. 

“Like when I know we’re about to score. When it’s building and lining up perfectly, like when it’s all just right there. Just right.”

Ilya’s cock throbs in his hand. “I know.” He does. He knows that feeling, he knows what it’s like, and he knows how Hollander looks when it happens.

It feels like they’re the only two people in the world. 

But that is hockey. This is…something else. Something Ilya should not be chasing. He does anyway.

“And then you push yourself over the edge?” Ilya asks. Wants to ask, While you’re thinking about me? “Make a mess of yourself, Hollander?”

He hears his sharp intake of breath, and then a low, drawn out moan, a string of fuck fuck fuck, the wet, furious slide of wet skin, the undeniable sound of orgasm.

Ilya squeezes the head of his cock, a spurt of precome wetting his palm. 

“Good?”

Hollander shudders out a breath. “Good.”

“Now all you have to do is make yourself feel good like this when you’re fucking Jessica,” Ilya says matter-of-factly. 

He's met with another short silence. 

“Right,” Hollander mutters then. He sounds like his breathing is still evening out, like he’s not convinced of that strategy. And then, “I do feel good when fucking her.”

Ilya rolls his eyes even though Hollander can’t see him. “Yes, of course.”

“Well then what’s the fucking point?” 

Ah. Hollander is back. 

“Point is, think about doing with her what makes you feel good,” Ilya says with much more patience than is warranted, really, considering how hard his dick is. “You have fun, she has fun, you feel good, she feels good, both of you have great sex. Not ‘just sex’.”

“Sure.” 

By the tone of his voice, Ilya knows he’s reached Hollander’s limit. 

Did you feel now like when you fuck her? Ilya wants to ask, stupidly. He shouldn’t. 

He knows Hollander wouldn’t give an honest answer. Might not even know that it wouldn’t be honest.

“Well, then,” Hollander says, and he sounds like he’s ready to forget this ever happened. 

Ilya sighs, put-upon. “We will work on your skills, Hollander.”

“Fuck off.” 

“You may not have my natural talent, and you may be slow learner, you may not be giving it your best, but you are giving it a shot.”

Hollander huffs. “Go fuck yourself, Rozanov,” he scoffs, and ends the call.

Ilya drops his phone onto his bed.

Hollander’s quickly soured mood, unfortunately, has done nothing to soften his cock. Instead, all the sounds he’s made are playing in a loop in Ilya’s head, echoing, bouncing off the walls of his mind.

Ilya strokes himself firmly from base to tip, twisting his hand around his flushed, leaking head, and pictures Hollander doing the same earlier.

As his orgasm washes over him, Ilya realizes that it was the first time he’s heard Hollander make any noise at all, and the fleck of pity he feels is bowled over by another wave of arousal.