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He’s fallen down a stupid rabbit hole.
Sometimes Shane wishes he was an Alpha or Omega so that he’d have something to blame for his thoughts that spiral into out of control nothingness. Rut brain. Heat brain. Shane stays hormonally consistent year round. His ideas are his own doing.
Statistics about nests and scents and comfort during rut. Only forty eight percent of Alphas and Omegas with Beta partners say their ruts and heats are satisfactory. The number shoots up to sixty eight if they get to use performance assisting toys, which they don’t.
Fuck. Should they be?
Shane tries to think of heat and rut as a sport, but when he does that, he starts comparing it to going bowling with the bumpers up, and it irks him. He tries to gauge which percentile of satisfaction he’s providing Ilya. On some level, he knows that it’s good enough— otherwise Ilya wouldn’t have induced them on their nights together, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of people that would accompany him. Shane also knows he’s waited until the two of them were together often enough that he’s outranking a sizable portion of the competition. There really should be some kind of way to power scale this.
He can practically hear Ilya laughing at him for trying to quantify and study this stuff. Lot of numbers, Hollander. Should I buy you abacus? To help track? Abacus with dick shaped beads? Red beads for tracking blowjobs, blue beads for tracking—
It’s fine. If Ilya finds someone better suited to him, and they have to end this thing they’ve been doing for so fucking long, Shane can accept that, theoretically. Even though the idea of Ilya knowing that Shane likes him and hasn’t ever really been with anyone else in a way that counted and still throwing him out makes him feel a tightness in his chest that he feels like could kill him.
Someone who is willing to tag along for little stretches of away games. Someone he can take drinking and dancing. Theoretically, if Shane really wanted to, and they somehow presented themselves as friends to the media in some future, Shane could choose to go dancing. Theoretically, if Shane chose to stop giving a fuck about being regimented, he could charter flights to wherever Ilya’s team was, and they could pencil in a couple more meetings a year. All theoretical things he can control, so technically on his terms.
Except that it’s not fucking fine at all.
If Ilya wakes up and decides he wants to be with an Omega, there is nothing Shane can do about that.
His mind conjures up the cruelest outcome; a mean-mouthed Ilya who has decided it takes too long to finger him open, and that he doesn’t like the sensation of the normal lube, and Shane refusing to compromise on the synthetic slick lube because the sensation is strange is annoying, and it’s more hassle than it’s worth, and Ilya needs more. Something built to stretch and accommodate him instead of something he has to shape every time. Not something devoid of what he’s hardwired to want.
Well, if that is the case, then Shane really does not have any control over when this thing ends, and all of the power lies with Ilya, and the anchor in his stomach sinks impossibly deeper at the realization that this really could implode at any moment.
He knows, on some level, that this will not happen. But it’s in a realm of possibility. If the multiverse is real, there’s a split hair thread where this is happening to Shane, and he cannot, in any circumstances, be the Shane caught in that thread.
Maybe Shane is stubborn, and set in his ways, and so boring, Ilya’s voice reminds him, but he’s persistent, and he’s meticulous, and he can set the balance on this thing right, he’s sure of it.
For all of his reputation, Ilya very rarely discusses his preferences. Not to the media. Not the Shane. That evening at his house before Shane had freaked out and left because Ilya had made him a fucking sandwich, he said he liked women, and Svetlana, and he liked Omegas, but he also liked Shane. Svetlana is also a beta, but Ilya had given Omega as the general answer, and then also stated Svetlana and Shane, both Betas, separately. Standout performances. So maybe Omega was the rule and his general preference. But only Betas giving standout performances. There was no way to know for sure though, without all the data, but the data would probably send him into a psychotic episode. A spreadsheet of all the people Ilya’s fucked and how much he’s liked it each time is probably a csv file that would get him institutionalized if he was to somehow get access. Fuck. That’s a lot of competition.
He’s going to throw up.
Fine. Ilya, if you want to end this thing after we’ve gotten on first name basis after all these years, you’re a fucking idiot if you think I’ll make it easy.
Twenty minutes later he’s cracked open a diet ginger ale, he has seventeen tabs open and a notepad by his side. Shane knows how to build habits. He has years of knowledge on what Ilya likes on his side. He has decent discernment. He knows how to take what applies and dispose of what doesn’t. He’s going to win this thing. Two hours later, there’s scent projecting resin, lemon and ginger cologne and twelve ginger and citrus scented candles being delivered to his house tomorrow.
He keeps them lit throughout his apartment over the next few days while he rubs the scent resin into his skin every other hour religiously. He sprays the cologne on all of his stuff before he packs it into a duffle bag. He rubs the resin into the corners of white duvets and flakes off the parts that dry weird and he douses the things in body spray too before sealing them into vacuum bags.
Montreal suffered an early knockout from the playoffs this season, and he’s disappointed not to be going for the three-peat, but he’s made his peace with it, and the city had been overwhelmingly supportive and kind about the whole thing, all things considered. At least when it came to him.
Getting in his own head is the worst thing he could do about it. At the end of the day it’s about what he can control now.
Like Ilya staying with him.
Boston is playing Toronto in Toronto for their first two games. Shane books a hotel room seven minutes away from where he knows Ilya’s team is staying, and then he books a meeting with one of the Rolex representatives in their downtown office for some bullshit reason.
His sources on how to appeal to the primal instincts of Alphas are questionable at best and psychotic at worst, but Shane knows how to tone it down and play it cool.
Alphas like when Omegas play coy, hard to get. They also like it when Omegas showcase their desire, but let the Alpha decide when to act on it, the website had said.
Shane is kind of a sure thing in Montreal and Boston, but Toronto is new. What better place to showcase desire than Toronto?
It’s good to lay claim now, probably. His stomach twists at the idea of someone else getting ready to see Ilya at the same time.
Jane: There’s someone theoretically getting to Toronto two afternoons before your game that theoretically has a hotel room a few blocks from yours
The reply comes almost instantly. Shane’s heart leaps.
Lily: What are you doing in Toronto
A couple seconds later,
Lily: There is someone theoretically getting in the afternoon the day before the game that theoretically could get there the night before instead
Jane: All theoretical
Lily: of course
He stupidly wants Ilya to suggest taking his rut inducer that same day so they can really take advantage of the sixteen hours of alone time, but it’s not wise to risk the thing running long before a playoffs game. But Ilya plays for Boston, so Shane not objecting if he wanted to induce his rut was technically him being a good team captain.
Lily: can I get this theoretical address and room number
He gets there early to set up.
He lights the candles, tears off the hotel duvets and places his newly scent marked ones over the sheets, before refitting the duvet. He sprays the cologne over his clothes and into his hair and into the resin he’d mixed into his moisturizer and massaged into his neck. The texture kind of made him want to claw it off himself, but he’d gotten over it when he thought about Ilya reacting to all of this with appreciation.
When he gets the text that Ilya will be there in ten minutes, he blows out the candles and presses his wrists into the wispy smoke, a desperate last attempt at getting the scent to stick to his skin as much as possible. He tucks the candles under the bed to avoid questioning. After further consideration, he relights one of them and puts it on the table far enough from the bed that there’s minimal risk of it tipping over.
His goal is something undetectable but effective.
If it’s too effective, he has his answer on what Ilya prefers. He tries not to let that make him sick to his stomach.
He takes his neatly folded clothes out of his suitcase, and dumps them out onto the bed and carves a little hollow out in the center. He winces as he bunches up one of his nicest shirts.
There’s a knock at the door. He cringes as he sucks down on a slice of lemon, and throws it into the trash.
He opens it, and Ilya is standing there, flesh and blood. Ilya, he likes saying his name in his head almost as much as he likes saying it out loud. He tilts his head and observes Shane with that little quirk in his lip as he steps inside.
“Hello,” Ilya says as the door shuts behind them.
“Hello,” Shane says, his voice coming out in an odd echo of Ilya’s accent. “Ilya.”
“Shane,” Ilya is smiling now, hair short and neat, hands in his jean pockets.
In his panic, he’d almost forgotten how much he’d missed him. Almost. Ilya steps forward to settle a hand on his side as he kisses him, but it’s short, sweet, doesn’t have the same urgency as it used to.
He’s never done something like this before, gone somewhere Ilya was playing just to be with him. It’s a nice buzzing feeling in his chest, a step forward. Look Ilya. I can initiate things too.
“Is nice to not have to worry now, yes?” Ilya asks.
Shane groans. “Don’t remind me. I wanted to do it three years in a row, but honestly it’s a miracle we’ve made it to playoffs considering how—”
There’s a thumb brushing the corner of his cheekbone, and Ilya is smiling at him, fond. “I mean about… I feel like we can say… we can say what we want now.”
Oh.
“But,” Ilya continues. “Don’t worry. I am still very jealous of your extended break, Hollander.”
“Fuck off.”
“Must be nice to be home. Not playing for cup anymore.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“Would give Montreal our spot if it was up to me. Charity donation.”
“I’m sorry, who here’s been the defending champion twice?”
“Well, you are no longer defending,” Ilya’s mouth quirks into a smile, and then they’re kissing again, stumbling backwards towards the queen bed that’s closer to the table.
“Two beds?” Ilya asks.
Shane opens his mouth to tell him he doesn’t want to sleep in whatever mess they end up making, but then he just shrugs. “I just booked it randomly.”
“You did something randomly?” He says as he glances over at the mess of clothes on the bed they’re currently on the edge of. “What is that?”
“My clothes,” Shane says, his neck burning red. “I— I wanted to refold them all.”
Ilya laughs, and Shane’s nerves settle. The forum he’d scrolled through had said Alphas like slightly messy nests best because usually it meant Omegas were less likely to be angry with them for rearranging stuff.
“Do not let me stop you,” Ilya says, suddenly pulling back and crawling to sit at the foot of the bed beside Shane.
Shane short circuits. “What?”
“You can fold them while we talk,” Ilya clarifies. “It’s okay. We are not in a rush.”
He doesn’t remember reading anything about people having fetishes for watching Omegas put away their nest, but everyone is different, he supposes. The idea of Ilya watching someone else fold their clothes and put them away makes something burn in his chest. Maybe Ilya doesn’t even recognize that this is meant to be a nest. He’s irritated. He’s put a lot of time and a very heavy emotional stake in Ilya liking this thing.
Maybe it’s time to up the ante. “I don’t have to.”
Ilya looks at him, even more confused. “Do you have a concussion?”
Shane crawls backwards, props himself up on his elbows between the tangle of sweaters by the pillows. “Come here.”
He isn’t denied this time, Ilya moving to impose on his mouth, then his neck. Shane moves his hand up to Ilya’s pulse, where he has a scent patch securely attached to his skin. Ilya pulls away at the sensation.
Shane picks at the corner of it with his index finger, looks up at Ilya.
“Want something?” Ilya is pleased, wraps a hand around his wrist.
“Something,” Shane echoes. “I know you usually keep it on unless you’re in rut, but—”
Ilya peels it back and throws it onto the floor, not in need of any further justification. He tries to dip down to kiss at Shane’s neck again, but Shane stops him with a hand flat against his chest.
“Wait,” he asks, mouth dry as he looks up at Ilya. “Can I— just wait.”
He digs his nose right over where Ilya’s scent gland is, something else he’s only ever really done during Ilya’s ruts, and then flattens his tongue against the skin. He lines up his teeth around the approximate shape of it and bites, and he hears Ilya yelp like a dog, and then he’s running his tongue over it again to soothe the sting, trying not to smile.
Ilya smells like chamomile with something spicy underlying it, sweet and earthy and a little like some kind of home. Not overpowering and unbearable, like a lot of other Alphas. He hasn't heard anyone online talking about this, which makes something irrationally possessive inside him feel very sated. Mine.
There’s a hand grabbing at his collar and pulling him back. “Who fucking taught you how to do that?”
“Googled it,” Shane hears himself say smugly.
Ilya’s face, which had become tense and anxious for a moment, relaxes, and he grins so widely that Shane isn’t embarrassed anymore about admitting that he’s sat there in his house Googling how to make sure my alpha partner never leaves me beta reddit gay.
“Researching how to kiss?” Ilya’s hands are hooking into the undersides of Shane’s thighs, and he’s being dragged through the top half of his very dismantled nest. “You— hm.”
“No, just fun sex stuff,” Shane says back before thinking again, and he wants the Earth to open up and swallow him whole.
Ilya is so fucking delighted at this, on the upside. He scoops Shane up and stands and throws him onto the other bed, shrugging off his coat and fumbling with the buttons of Shane’s shirt mouth to mouth the entire time. Shane lets himself enjoy the closeness.
He almost wants to go to the game tomorrow, get stopped by a reporter who wants to get a sound bite from him badly, to hear Shane say he came to see Boston get crushed. Even though he knows Boston is probably going to crush Toronto.
The idea of being here after Ilya wins his game against someone else makes him kind of dizzy, sitting here in the room watching the game, waiting for Ilya to come up the elevator. Like a prize. Watching out the window at the blinking city lights after. Ilya sated and happy and relaxed, and Shane wouldn’t bring up anything impending that they were dreading. Room service dinner, and asking him to come to Shane’s cottage for the summer for a few weeks, if he wanted to. To talk. To be with each other without living out of their suitcases and flights and one thousand other things hanging over them. Alone, together.
And then he realizes.
He pries Ilya’s mouth off his chest. “Why are we on this bed?”
Ilya looks up at him, eyes glazed over. “What?”
“We were there,” Shane points.
“I do not want to dirty your clothes,” Ilya comes back to Earth to hook his thumbs into the waistband of Shane’s pants.
“I have more clothes,” Shane tells him. “It’s fine. Let’s go back there.”
“Hollander.” Hollander. Ilya’s spit is all over his chest and they’re back to last names. “Are you— what?”
Shane knows he’s not an Omega, and he’s never even wanted to be an Omega, but he doesn’t like being bad at things, and he’s never really been bad at Ilya, at least with sex.
“They’re just my clothes,” he defends himself.
Has Ilya gotten into an Omega’s nest before? Had he told them good job, before they got all tangled up together with some sort of primal understanding forged in that chemical haze Shane could never hope to have with him?
“You don’t like my nest?” Shane feels stupid as fuck saying the words out loud— he’s orderly and stiff, and he feels so plain looking up at Ilya, sitting in a pile of his own failure of a seduction mission.
Or does Ilya think Shane doesn’t want him bad enough?
The idea crashes into him like a freight train. When he’d run out after Ilya had made those sandwiches for them, after they’d slept together and woke up together in his bed. Courting ritual. Shane’s parents were not a courting ritual pair— they were practical gestures people. Maybe those practical gestures were courting ritual things too, and Shane just hadn’t realized it. The way he hadn’t realized what Ilya was trying to do then.
Shane’s sorry attempt of a courting ritual is a tangle of clothes on the bed.
Ilya knows Shane likes him. He’d said it explicitly, back in Miami after the All Star game, and he wouldn’t be here with Shane if it was a problem. It’s something they haven’t talked about but they’ve accepted, dipping their toes into foreign water. This was their playoffs.
Was Shane blowing this?
Ilya glances over at the bedside table, where Shane had placed a bottle of synthetic slick lube. “I thought you did not like this brand.”
“I don’t mind,” Shane tells him, quickly. “If you like it.”
“If you don’t like it, why would we use it?” Ilya asks.
Shane shrugs. “I didn’t like it, what, how many years ago? I just grabbed it randomly. We could try again.”
“I have the one you like in my jacket pocket,” Ilya tells him. “I will go get.” He seems unsure of what it is that is driving Shane crazy, but he offers a sweet kiss between the eyebrows as a consolation prize, or a soothing gesture. “Okay?”
Shane watches him walk five steps forward to fish the bottle out of his pocket, and drop his coat back onto the floor. He feels like he’s watching him walk ten kilometres away. Ilya’s scent is still stuck in his nose. Ilya blows out the candle before walking back to the not-nest bed and settling back into position.
“You don’t like the candle?” Shane’s voice cracks in the middle of the sentence, and his voice sounds suddenly pathetic.
“Is nice, but I can smell it. Whole room smells like it, I can barely smell you,” Ilya laughs.
That is Shane. That’s Shane’s scent, masterfully crafted, Shane thinks to himself irritatedly.
“Shane,” Ilya asks him, eyebrows furrowed. “Is something— are you okay?”
“Everything is fine,” Shane says again, but when he hears the words come out of his mouth even he doesn’t believe himself.
How does he explain something like this? I need to know if you prefer Betas or Omegas. I need to know where I stand. Do I stand? I like you. Can I do something about it or do I let you do something about it? Nothing’s stopping me. What’s stopping you?
“Shane,” Ilya’s voice is soft, gentle, and he’s pulling him into his arms with a carefulness, wrapping around him. “What is wrong? Why do you want to fuck on your clothes and light candles and use strange lube?”
It hangs over his head, taunts him. At the end of the day, Shane could shower in scented oils, devote himself to being prepped and ready for any given moment, but it just is not the same. His body is his body, and Ilya’s desire for him hinges on if he likes Shane enough to go through all of the extra trouble.
“Do you like me?” he asks before he can stop himself. “Because— I just think, if there’s any reason you don’t want to be with me, you should just tell me now.”
He doesn’t mean for it to sound like an ultimatum, because at the end of the day it isn’t, not really, not when Shane would go back to him at any given opportunity if this ends up as a you are out of chances, you are not giving me what I need, yes, the sex is fine, no, we are not compatible past that. Sorry. Did not think about it until now, because it was never something I ever thought about until you bought it up, because it is a crazy idea.
He doesn’t even think that’s how this is going to go, but now that he’s thought it up, he’s afraid of it. The lack of something intrinsic inside of him.
“Hollander. Shane,” Ilya says his name again, that same soft way that Shane doesn’t understand the true sentiment behind. “Of course I like you.”
The noise in his head turns to static.
“I am here,” Ilya gestures to the hotel room, and Shane’s chest goes tight, because it’s not enough, not anymore.
“What if we were somewhere else?”
Ilya looks at him, confused, and for a moment Shane can hear him, we fuck the same in Boston as Montreal, how is Toronto different, but instead he asks “what are you saying?”
“Well, would you go somewhere else with me?”
The question isn’t about where, but if. If we could, would you? How much do you like me? Is it enough to try?
“Where?”
“I want to see you,” Shane asks quietly. “I want— not in a hotel room. Somewhere else, and not for one or two days, longer than that. I want— I have a cottage by Ottawa.”
Ilya looks at him, eyebrows furrowed.
“So if you’d want to— I like you, and I want to spend some time with you properly, and I— I feel like we should do that without where we have to go next hanging over our heads. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but last time at your house was nice—” before I ruined it goes unsaid, “But if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but I think I deserve to know why.”
He expects some kind of immediate retort, or at least the ability to discern what kind of answer Ilya is going to give to his question judging by his expression, but Shane is trembling so hard that he can’t focus on a damn thing.
“Shane,” Ilya takes his hand gently, still not giving him an answer. “Hey—”
“I didn’t know a good nest was a make or break thing for you,” Shane ends up saying before he can stop himself, and he sounds pissed off, which is better than sounding hurt, he supposes. “You know, a lot of Omegas only nest with pillows and blankets and stuff. The only clothes they use are their partner's.”
“Shane,” Ilya’s voice is sharp, and Shane wishes he’d say something other than his fucking name. “It’s okay. Do not— let’s sit for a moment, then we talk. But I like you, okay? I like you. Don’t worry.”
“Just me?” he gambles.
Just me, Ilya. I can’t release pheromones out of my fucking neck when you cry to calm you down. All I have are my hands. Is that enough?
A beat of silence, a mouth pressed to the crown of his head, and then quietly, “yes, just you.”
A rush of relief better than anything he could ever take. He sticks his face into Ilya’s neck, breathes in his soft scent, and Alphas do release calming pheromones when someone they care about is distressed, and Shane is feeling calmed, which settles him even further. He’s almost embarrassed at freaking out, but Ilya handles him gently enough that he doesn’t care.
“Can I scent?” Ilya asks him quietly.
They’ve never done that before. Too risky, if something got taken off in the locker room or he forgot to put his patch back on and someone managed to recognize it on him, but there’s nowhere he really has to be that will put him in a position to lose his scent patch tomorrow. And he wants it. Needs some sort of physical proof. Wants to be marked, claimed, even though he has no way of claiming Ilya back.
He nods.
Ilya’s tongue moves over the space below his ear, and then he teethes at it gently, before brushing his nose against it. Then, they’re neck to neck, and Ilya moves his head so the skin catches against skin, and Shane can smell him better than he’s ever smelled him now.
“Better?” Ilya asks as Shane nods, dizzy, slumping into his chest.
Ilya’s eyes wander back to the bed with the clothes on it. “Is that your nest?”
“Don’t laugh,” Shane frowns. “I seriously tried.”
“I can see that.”
“You don’t like it?” Shane asks. “You didn’t even want to try getting in.”
“Because you do not want to try. You fold your clothes out of the dryer. And you use packing cubes, so I was so confused why you were saying your suitcase was messy.”
Shane’s chest goes warm at the idea of Ilya noticing how he packs. “I do use packing cubes.”
“Why are you nesting?” Ilya asks. “And— why does this room smell like a candy shop?”
“That’s my scent,” Shane says, like it explains anything.
“You want to be an Omega?” Ilya asks, confusion still on his face. “I don’t— that is fine, doesn’t change a thing for me. I just did not know.”
“I don’t want to be an Omega,” Shane’s cheeks go red. “But I— I don’t know if you want me to be an Omega, or if you would rather be sleeping with Omegas. Which is fine,” no it’s not, “but I can— if there’s something you like, I can do it too.”
The words hang between them for a moment, and Shane feels like he’s been pried open. Hey Ilya. Here are the fundamental performances of attraction you are biologically inclined to want. I hate them all. I’ll try really badly to be good at them. Hope that’s enough for the rest of your life. You can have your ruts in my hamper. Come to my cottage?
“There is something I like,” Ilya tells him. “I will tell you.”
Shane’s stomach drops. Something Ilya’s learned he’s liked from someone else. He tries to grow the fuck up about it.
“Are you ready?” Ilya asks. “Pay attention. Do you need notepad?”
Does he? No. Ilya is fucking with him.
“Yeah,” Shane tries not to sound as angry as he feels, tries to unclench his jaw.
“I really like this guy,” Ilya starts, and Shane almost keels over, “because every time before we fuck, he folds all of his clothes before. First time it happened, I am thinking, what is wrong with him? Come here. But he is so disciplined. He knows what he likes to do, needs to do,” a kiss pressed to Shane’s cheek, “so he does it no matter what. Is so hot.”
“Oh,” is all Shane can muster up, relief in the pit of his stomach blossoming like a flower in spring.
“I like that he is a good planner, I like that he fixes what he wants to fix. Like he used to dress garbage, so he hired a stylist—”
“I told you that in confidence,” Shane argues despite himself, despite the blood in his arms and his chest and his head running hot knowing Ilya pays attention to things he does, likes them.
“Now he dresses less like garbage. Even though he is not as good as me at hockey—”
“Okay, let me pull up the power rankings for the last three years really quick,” Shane goes to pull out his phone but Ilya takes it and tosses it to the failed nest bed.
“So I cannot benefit from there by learning anything from him,” Ilya continues. “I like him, and I do not need him to be doing this—” he flakes a piece of the scent preserving resin, which has started to pill off Shane’s neck, “offensive Omega impression.”
Maybe this is a little offensive, actually, now that he thinks about it.
“I just don’t want you to feel like you’re missing out on anything,” Shane tells him quietly, but selfishly he doesn’t mean it.
If you are missing something, don’t go looking for it. Come to me. I can make it happen.
“I have world’s second best hockey player in bed, waiting for me,” Ilya says in disbelief, looking at him with narrow, dark eyes. “He likes me so much that he has covered himself in candle wax and wrinkled all his clothes to get me to sleep with him. Why do I need anything else?”
Why do I need anything else sends something euphoric through him. Nothing compares, it implies, which is good, because nothing has compared for Shane for a very long time. When Ilya gets him desperate and writhing, Shane uses it as an excuse to say what he wants to say, want you and need you and only you, and asks inadvertently if Ilya feels the same. If there's anything Shane loves, it's being the best.
“My turn to ask you something. Tell you something,” Ilya sits up a little straighter, and takes both of Shane’s hands in his own. “My father is still very sick. I have to go back to Russia this summer, for at least a bit. I don’t know how he will be, or if he will— he is not so happy when I try to leave.”
Shane nods, swallows, and knows the question at the root of it. I know you’ve been waiting. Will you wait a little longer?
“But I will try. I will try,” Ilya rubs his thumb over Shane’s knuckles. “I like you– I like you very much too, Shane, but it is— every time I want to do something about this, there is something back there that pulls me back in to deal with it. I don’t know if— I want, to change something. But I am working on it.”
Shane’s heart swells up in his chest. He wishes there was a way he could help Ilya out of this.
“There is no one else,” Ilya says, quietly. “Nobody that can compete with you. Alpha, Omega, Beta, woman or man or anything, nobody. I already have so many of these, people who are acting like something they are not. I like you. Do not– do not think I am not sincere.”
“I don’t think you’re not sincere,” Shane has never had that thought cross his mind when it comes to Ilya. “I’m— I will wait, Ilya. It’s not a problem for me.”
“It is,” Ilya says grimly.
Shane shrugs. “If it’s you I don’t mind. I’m covered in resin and I was sucking on a lemon before you got here.”
“Ah, so that is what that gross thing was between your teeth.”
“It’s between my teeth?” Shane gets up to walk towards the mirror, but Ilya pulls him back, laughing.
“You are so easy to rile up, Hollander,” Ilya presses his nose back into Shane’s gland. “I thought for moment someone else had scented you. I was going to die.”
“It’s my scent,” Shane says again with a smile. “You don’t like it?”
“I like your normal smell, your skin,” Ilya presses their necks together again as he runs a hand under Shane’s shirt, and Shane almost goes cross-eyed. “I should scent you as you cum.”
“Does that make it better?” Shane asks, hand cradling the back of Ilya’s neck.
“I don’t know, I have never done it. Ask your sex experts online,” Ilya nudges him, and Shane slaps his arm as his face gets hot.
A shared first between the two of them makes everything inside of him hum with relief, but he says “Don’t be a dick.”
“Is so cute. You were so tense, I was so confused why you were lying in your laundry, and then I was thinking, do you nest now because you dated an Omega? I started remembering, Rose Landry, very close to laundry and I was getting mad.”
Ilya getting jealous sits deliciously in Shane’s stomach, though he’d never admit it.
"But you were building nest for me,” Ilya is gleeful now. “Sitting here all pretty and wrinkling up all your clothes and covering yourself in food—”
“Last chance to fuck in my nest,” Shane cuts him off, feels lighter now, with the promise of something at the end of this endless tunnel, and if he gets to walk it with Ilya, it’s not a problem at all.
“Okay, if it is once in a lifetime—”
“Nope, time’s up,” Shane takes off his shirt and folds it into fourths. “Normal bed.”
All of Ilya’s white teeth are on display as he grins. “Don’t you want to fold everything back into your suitcase first?”
Shane is going to ask if he’s crazy, but when he looks over at the pile on the bed, and the two shirts that have ended up on the floor, and he does have that meeting tomorrow. “Actually, do you mind?”
Ilya grins even wider. “No. Is my favourite part.”
“Me folding my clothes is your favourite part?”
“Means that we are getting started,” Ilya crosses his arms. “Gives me time to think about what I want to do with you. You have a lot of clothes, so now I have a lot of time to think about what I want to do.”
It’s hot but it’s sweet. Shane’s heart flutters foolishly in his chest as he moves towards the corner of the room with his suitcase to find his packing cubes.