Chapter Text
1.
When Ilya wakes up from his mid-afternoon nap, Shane is already sitting at the other end of the couch looking pensive. It is his default expression, of course, but Ilya is beginning to understand all the different flavors of pensive; “I am making serious life plans” pensive is different from “I am deciding what to cook for dinner” pensive. This expression is somewhere between the two.
Ilya sits up, only to slither forward, crawl over him, and drag him down to a more pleasantly horizontal position.
“Hi to you, too,” Shane says, smiling. His freckles have multiplied since they got here, with all the time they’ve been spending out in the sun.
“What is happening in here?” Ilya asks, booping his forehead with one finger. “What are you thinking about?”
Shane huffs out a laugh, gaze fixed on a random point on the couch, and he admits, “Sex, I guess?”
“Oh!” Ilya says. He folds his hands over Shane’s chest and rests his chin on them. “In that case, you have my attention.”
Shane rolls his eyes, but he slides his fingers into Ilya’s hair, combs them through, and Ilya hums appreciatively. “Remember the other day when — when I was on the phone with Hayden?”
“Hmm. Can you be more specific?”
“When I was sitting there,” Shane says pointedly, and jerks his chin at the back of the couch.
Ilya pretends to think about it. “Remind me, what was I doing while you were on the phone?”
“When you were… you know,” Shane says. He turns the prettiest shade of pink. “When you were sucking my dick?”
“Oh, that time. Rings bell, yes.”
“Do you remember how you… slapped me?”
“Slap? Would we call that slap?”
“I mean…”
“Was not slap. More like pat. Patted your face while I sucked your brain out through your cock.”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever.”
“Do you have point?”
“You could? For real, I mean. Sometime. Maybe.”
“Huh,” Ilya says. “Just to be clear – this has nothing to do with Hayden, correct?”
“Asshole,” Shane says. His eyes say something very different. “No. Of course not. I just meant the other thing.”
“You want me to slap you,” Ilya says. “On the cheek? Or…”
Shane sputters out a laugh, blushing darker now as he nods. “Or somewhere else. I don’t know. Yeah.”
“How hard?”
“Hard enough to… hurt? I don’t know, I’m not talking a punch, here, I just mean –”
“I don’t think I want to hurt you,” Ilya says bluntly. “Not in bed, at least. Or on couch. Only on the ice, sometimes, when you are scoring goals. Or chirping.” He thinks about it for a second. “Or when you are just being very annoying.”
Shane is doing that thing he does where he tries to hide his smile and completely fails to do so. “I could be annoying in bed, if I wanted to.”
“This is probably true.” Ilya shifts forward for a kiss.
“It’s not like we haven’t… been rough before,” Shane says shyly.
“This is also true.” He nips at Shane’s earlobe, letting his voice go husky and soft. “You like it when I’m a little rough. When I fuck you hard because I know you can take it.”
“Yeah,” Shane says. He shivers. “Yeah, that.”
“What else?”
“Hm?”
“What else do you like? In bed.”
“Like you don’t already know.”
“I know some things. Not everything.” He kisses the corner of Shane’s smile. “Tell.”
“I like… when you tell me what to do,” Shane says. “Sometimes.”
“Always.” Ilya kisses the other corner of his mouth. “Yes, we know this. You like when I’m a little bit mean. Don’t you?”
“Sure,” Shane says. “Except when you, like, kick me outta bed after.” His smile freezes, like he didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“What?” Ilya asks, frowning.
“Never mind.” Shane gives him a fake little laugh and avoids his eyes. “Forget about it.”
“I forget nothing,” Ilya says. “Mind like steel trap.” The laugh is more genuine this time, but there’s still a shadow of discomfort on Shane’s face. “What are you talking about?”
Shane rolls his eyes and huffs about it, acting exasperated, but Ilya doesn’t leave him any room to wriggle out of it.
“You know,” he eventually mumbles. “Like that time in Vegas.”
“Which time in Vegas?”
Shane rolls his eyes again. “When you pulled that bargain-bin Christian Grey bullshit?”
“Who is –” Ilya cuts himself off and frowns. “Bargain-bin?”
“That’s the part of that sentence you have a problem with?”
“I am never bargain bin,” Ilya says. “Very expensive, always.”
Shane looks frustrated, which is good; means he might lose his patience enough to arrive at a point soon.
“When you… told me what to do,” Shane says quietly. “Told me to touch myself.”
“Oh,” Ilya says. “Yes. You mean the night I won. That night.”
“Now who’s the annoying one?” Shane says, half-laughing.
“Still you. Spit it out, Hollander.”
Shane hesitates. “Sorry. This is dumb, it’s not even – that night was all about you, it wasn’t supposed to be about what I wanted, so. Doesn’t matter.”
“Was it not what you wanted?” Ilya asks. His mouth is very dry now.
“Not saying that it wasn’t hot,” Shane says hurriedly. “That was… Jesus, yeah, it was so fucking hot. But you never even kissed me, and –” Then he closes his mouth hard, like he regrets opening it at all. They stare at each other for one long, frozen moment.
“I was asshole,” Ilya says. “Even more than usual, that night.” He cups a hand around Shane’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together, and shuts his eyes for a moment.
“Sorry, this is so stupid,” Shane whispers.
“No. I mean, yes, that night was stupid. But not your fault.”
They’re both quiet for a long moment. When Ilya opens his eyes again, Shane’s have gone very soft and shiny.
“Six months,” Shane says. His voice breaks, and Ilya feels sick. “You’d been ignoring me for six months.”
“I am sorry, lyubimyy.” He’s trying to find the right words, but they’re all tangled up in a knot in his throat. “It was not what I wanted, trust me. I always want to kiss you.”
“Then why –”
“Do you remember the first time you stayed?” Ilya asks. “In Boston, at my house.”
“Of course. When I panicked, because I realized – you know. That I –” Shane blinks at him. “Wait.”
Ilya tries to smile. He’s probably not successful, but at least his voice doesn’t wobble too badly when he says, “Those six months – it was like that. That was me panicking.”
“But. You’ve felt – since then? It’s been that long?”
Ilya nods. “And then… when I saw you, I tried –”
He buries his face in the side of Shane’s throat, nosing into the clean-sheets-and-citrus smell of him. He’s not sure he even understands why he was such an asshole.
Except that it’s the same reason he’s always an asshole, isn’t it? To push people away. To keep them at a distance.
He wanted to pretend that he was in control, just for a night. And maybe he wanted to scare Shane off a little bit, too; that was back before they really knew each other, after all. He still thought of Hollander as uptight and repressed. Thought maybe Hollander would shy away from the idea of putting himself on display for Ilya like that.
Stupid. So very stupid. He knows better now. Shane always meets him halfway, and he never, ever chickens out. Instead he’d taken it a step further, fingered himself open while Ilya watched, and tore Ilya’s illusion of control to pieces.
“It’s fine,” Shane mutters, pulling Ilya out of his thoughts. “Really. It was a long time ago.”
Ilya kisses him again. One rogue tear trickles from the corner of his eye to splash onto Shane’s cheek. He didn’t even notice the tears gathering; his eyes are betraying him. He blinks away the rest. Shane’s mouth goes very pouty as he tries to scowl.
“It was cruel,” Ilya murmurs, brushing the saltwater from Shane’s freckles with a careful thumb. “I was cruel. To both of us. And I’m sorry.”
Shane breathes with him for a moment, both of them trying to pull themselves together, before he grumbles, “I don’t even remember why I brought that up.”
“Because you want to be annoying in bed until I slap you,” Ilya reminds him patiently.
“Oh. Right.” Shane laughs a little and wrinkles his nose, sniffing, trying to compose himself. It’s adorable. “I just meant – yeah, that time in Vegas – it was hot, but –”
“You don’t want it to feel like that,” Ilya fills in.
Shane exhales, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, relieved. “Yeah. Exactly.”
“Good,” Ilya says, businesslike now. “So, we are in agreement: I will always kiss you after. And maybe during. And all the other times I want to.” He thinks about how he felt after Shane left: like he’d scooped something out of his ribcage. He never wants to feel that way again. “Will need safeword. Mine is loon.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Shane mutters.
Ilya plants a loud kiss on his cheek, then another – trying to kiss every freckle he sees – until Shane starts to laugh and shove at him and, finally, kisses him back.
Yes, okay, Ilya can admit, Shane is very good at being annoying in bed.
“Is that the best you got?” Shane needles, even though he’s breathless and flushed and barely keeping it together.
“You know it’s not,” Ilya growls, and shifts to fuck into Shane harder, hitting that spot that makes Shane’s eyes go unfocused. “Look at me, Hollander.”
Shane very deliberately closes his eyes, so Ilya slaps him again – hard enough to sting – and Shane’s mouth forms a perfect red O as his head snaps to the side.
“Are you going to ask politely?” Ilya demands, slowing again, deliberately avoiding the right angle. Shane whines and squirms under him, overwhelmed, clawing at his back. At this point, he’s teasing himself just as much as Shane, but – worth it, for how pretty Shane looks when he comes undone. He’s shaking.
“Fuck,” Shane gasps, shaking his head from side to side. His cheeks are pink, but probably from the exertion and not the impact. His thighs are another story. Ilya likes the way his palm sounds when it makes contact with Shane’s thighs. (He likes everything about Shane’s thighs.)
“Look at me,” Ilya purrs, and Shane finally listens, wet lashes fluttering open. “There you are. That’s better. Are you ready to behave? Do you want my hand on your cock?”
“Please,” Shane groans, and it sounds more like a sob. “Please. Fuck, please, c’mon, please let me come.”
“Good,” Ilya grits out. “Now look at me while you come for me.”
Shane manages to meet his eyes for just a few more forceful thrusts before he throws his head back, mouth open in a silent shout, spine bowing up.
“Beautiful,” Ilya tells him, and fucks into him hard enough to make his toes curl, following him over the edge with a ragged gasp.
He doesn’t go anywhere, afterward. They clean up in the most perfunctory way, just enough to stop Shane from fussing about it. Ilya inspects him carefully, kissing each cheek, running his hands over the glowing pink marks on his thighs…
“Was this what you wanted?” Ilya asks hoarsely.
“Mmmmmm,” Shane hums, with a dreamy smile on his face. “What ‘bout you?”
“Acceptable,” Ilya concedes. “Yes, I think this was acceptable. You are very talented at being annoying.”
“You liked it,” Shane says confidently.
“I liked it,” Ilya confirms, and peppers a few soft kisses over his cheeks again. “I think I like this part even better. I will be rough with you whenever you want as long as I get to kiss you after. Deal?”
Shane grins up at him, all dopey and sweet like a little kitten, and Ilya almost wants to slap him again. He is getting – what is it called? Cuteness anger.
“Deal.”