Chapter Text
The sun has long since set, neither of them has had dinner, and Shane is testing Ilya’s patience.
Truthfully…but also not really.
It wasn’t often that his perfect, polite man was anything but perfect and polite.
“Shane.”
“Ilyusha.”
He hates Svetlana for teaching Shane that particular nickname. That soft, mushy uplift of his name that made his nostrils flare every time he heard it. God, he wanted to press Shane into a soft surface. Not even to fuck him but to hold him close and make him say it again. This, of course, would result in Ilya fucking him, so maybe he was a bit of a liar.
“Shane, come here,” Ilya requested gently.
But Shane was too practiced, too experienced, and too smart not to see the danger. Ilya was, in fact, on the prowl.
“Why?” Shane asked.
It had been pure questions today. Not the usual ones Shane asked, often one after the other, that were borne from genuinely wanting to know something.
Ilya, what do you like about…?
Ilya, have you ever had a…?
Ilya, do you know…?
…Am I being weird?
All questions Ilya would gladly entertain, and during rare — frequent, it was very frequent — cases, kiss straight out of Shane’s mouth.
But today it had just been…why, why, why?
“Do I need to explain myself to you?” He always gave the clearest orders he could. Shane’s brain was coded to attach to small chunks of missing information. Shane’s brain was honestly coded to do everything Ilya rarely thought about. But it was beautiful, and ever evolving, and it belonged to Shane, which meant it was Ilya’s to take care of.
Shane’s face shifted. It was microscopic and so insignificant that anyone else would have missed it, but Ilya could write numerous dissertations on the phenom that was Shane Hollander.
They would fashion him a mad Russian author by the time he got done.
“Yeah…” Shane replied, but it wasn’t a confident response. Oftentimes, Shane would confirm or deny things in a questioning tone. He was never completely sure, at least not until Ilya helped him.
“I do?” Ilya put out his own question, taking one innocent step forward.
Shane flustered, taking a wider step back. The arm of the sofa stopped him from going any further, and Ilya had to hold back a smirk, feeling a bit villainous, when Shane fell back with a yelp. “No. I meant, sorry, no.”
There was nowhere for Ilya’s beautiful, sweet brat of a man to go. He took delight in closing the gap between them, restricting Shane’s legs as he leaned over the arm of the sofa as well.
Shane was properly trapped now.
“Mm, no? Is no now, but yeah a moment ago?”
“Sorry,” Shane squirmed. His pretty dark lashes fanned as he blinked rapidly, nervous eyes darting about so that he wouldn’t have to meet Ilya’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
There is silence. For a long, terrible, and still moment, there is silence. Ilya waits until Shane has no choice but to give him just a second of eye contact. He gets what he needs, either way. He gets proof.
There, in Shane Hollander’s pretty fawn brown eyes, was the glint of expectation.
“So you are liar now?”
The glint is quickly extinguished, replaced by the same brainless panic that had surrounded Shane moments ago.
“What? I’m not lying, Ilya, I am—”
“Shut up,” Ilya sniffs. Shane’s mouth closes with a painful-sounding clack, and when he swallows, it's very clear to Ilya that he is nervous. Good. “You are liar because sorry is not really true. What? You piss me off, give me cute face, say sorry, and that’s it?”
Shane squirms beneath him again, pretty freckles smattered over his blushing cheeks. “…Sorry?” He offers weakly.
“Ah, I see,” Ilya nods, internally relishing in the ebb and flow of Shane’s panic. “You are polite Canadian boy only for show?”
“I’m not—”
“I didn’t ask you to talk.”
This time, Ilya manages to slip his thumb between Shane’s lips before he clenches his jaw shut and possibly fucks up his teeth. Shane is quick to accept it, burying the digit in his mouth beneath his tongue.
“Is this how your parents taught you to behave?”
He couldn’t imagine Yuna and David Hollander raising a brat with no respect for authority. They were good parents. Overly involved parents, too. They would have taught little Shane not to be two-faced. They wouldn’t let their baby go out into the world thinking every upset could be fixed with a well-practiced but entirely meaningless apology.
“Hm?” Ilya urges when Shane stays quiet and stiff. The thumb is removed even though Shane does his best to keep it.
He expects Shane to deny it. Perfect Shane Hollander with his perfect mother and father. Of course, they wouldn’t raise him so carelessly. But instead, Shane glances off to the side.
“You’re so quiet now…is okay to talk.”
It’s another subconscious act of defiance. Talking when Ilya told him not to, but suddenly at a loss for words when he was instructed to talk. Shane probably doesn’t even notice, and really, it’s Ilya’s fault for letting certain behaviors go unchecked.
He pulls Shane up slowly, smiling just barely at the mix of confused relief he gets before—
“Fuck!”
Shane collapses backward again, drawing his legs up while cradling his aching cheek. Already, tears are threatening to spill from those beautiful eyes that Ilya adores.
“I told you to talk, moya lyubov.”
His poor, betrayed love. Shoulders high up by his ears and cheek aching from the slap Ilya had given him. Shane wasn’t a stranger to being slapped, but they always came with a bit more playfulness. In bed, or in the shower, or against a wall. Shane would have to process this. Sort it out for all his little boxes before seeing if he needed to make a new one or throw it out completely.
Ilya gave him a moment, content to watch as Shane’s left cheek grew darker than the right one.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Shane mumbled after a minute.
It seems like he had made a new space for that slap. Ilya wondered what section it fell in. How did Shane go about organizing this?
Things I do with Ilya…submission…pain…slapping…bad slap.
Hm, Ilya thought, maybe that’s still too general.
“Is simple yes or no question. Is this how your parents taught you to behave?”
Shane groaned, a frustrated sound in the back of his throat as he pressed on his cheek again. Dramatic little shit, Ilya had made sure to catch the plumpest part of his cheek to avoid anything more than a wide stinging sensation.
“I don’t know,” Shane grumbled. “I don’t know how to answer that. Can you get off?”
Any other night, Ilya would make a joke. Why yes, Shane, of course I can get off. But tonight, Shane clearly is confused and needs Ilya’s help in understanding something.
“Maybe the answer is yes, and you don’t want to admit that,” Ilya sighs, reaching down to the buckle of his belt. It was rare to find him in jeans. Especially since his clubbing was strictly self-restricted to team celebrations nowadays, but one didn’t show up to a lunch date with Yuna Hollander wearing gym clothes — so jeans and a belt it was. “Is okay, I will teach you something new.”
“Ilya?”
“Turn over,” he tells Shane, but goes about doing most of the heavy lifting and manhandling when it becomes clear that Shane is too fixated on the belt.
“Wait,” Shane gasps, the arm of the sofa digging into his lower stomach. “Ilya, wait, wait! What’s that for?”
“I think you know,” Ilya folds the belt in two neatly, palm encasing the buckle. “What? You’ve never been spanked?”
“Yes?” Shane’s voice hitched, and Ilya immediately caught the misunderstanding. It was nice to always be at the forefront of Shane’s thoughts. Truly, it was one of Ilya's most potent ego boosters.
“No, dorogoy, I meant as punishment.”
Ilya already knew the answer would be a no. Yuna and David would never do something so terrible to Shane. They would never plague his childhood with fear over such a humiliating punishment. They wouldn’t lord their power over him like that.
The Hollanders were so boring. So cute.
“No,” Shane was already on the brink of crying, and for a second, Ilya felt like an asshole. Here he was, simultaneously jealous and grateful that Shane had the parents he had, all while getting ready to make him go through one of the things he had hated experiencing during childhood. “I’ve never — wouldn’t it hurt?”
“Da, there’s no other reason for it.”
“You're gonna hurt me?” Shane asked, a bit dazed.
“Yes. I’m going to hurt you now, and then later tonight I will get you to fly.”
That drunk, cloudy look Shane gets when he’s fucked out is directed at Ilya. His sweet face turned to look over his shoulder. All soft-eyed and flushed and marked from Ilya’s slap. “Please don’t…”
Ilya scoffs, wraps his hand more firmly around the belt buckle, and whips it through the air. Shane flinches at the whistle. “Is what happens when you don’t want to be a good boy.”
A soft, choked sob escapes Shane even before Ilya raises the belt and brings it across the seat of his navy blue sweatpants. They’re thick and a bit heavy. The type of clothing article that fucks up the balance in a washing machine drum. It helps Ilya feel a little less guilty when he does the second lash much harder.
Shane rises to his tiptoes, expelling a gasped curse before he falls back into the position Ilya had put him in. Even at his worst, Shane Hollander is still so good. The length of his legs was tense and Ilya wisely stood clear of them. A good idea, clearly, because Shane kicks out wildly after the third lash presses into his sweatpants.
“Shit,” Shane hisses, and Ilya briefly thinks of putting restrictions on that colorful little mouth. But Shane whimpers in the next breath, clearly at a loss for how he should hold himself, limbs trembling, and Ilya decides to have some mercy and spare the extra rules for next time.
There would be a next time.
Shane didn’t shut this down. Shane didn’t fight back when Ilya flipped him to be bent over the sofa. Shane didn’t call him a sadistic freak before storming away.
Shane wanted this just as much as he did. Or at least he was making himself want it…
“Do you think that was enough?” Ilya held the belt a bit loosely, eyes caught on the twitch of Shane’s hips.
And three lashes were hardly anything, especially not over sweatpants. Ilya had taken worse when he was smaller. But if Shane wanted out—
“Whatever you say is enough is…enough,” Shane’s earnest voice was clouded with tears. He weakly turned his head to look over his shoulder again, making steady eye contact with Ilya. “ ‘m sorry for being bad.”
Shane truly would bring him to his early grave.
“That one is better,” Ilya acknowledged. He snapped the belt through the air and watched Shane’s eyes slam shut before impact. “Soon you will give me real apology, yes?”
“Uh-huh,” Shane flinched at the fifth lash, turning his head back around. He flinched again at the sixth lash. The seventh and the eighth. “Sorry, sorry, ‘m sorry — ah — Ilya, I’m sorry!”
Shane’s babbling usually brought him great comfort. This time it made Ilya painfully aware of everything. Every twitch, every flinch, every kick, and every hissed exhale. Not a hair follicle on Shane’s head could move without Ilya being painfully aware of it. He loved it. He hated himself for loving it.
“Ow! Fuck! Ilya, I’m sorry!”
“Sorry for what, Hollander?”
They’re nearing the fifteenth lash when Shane expels his first real sob. The sound is mostly muffled in the bracket of Shane’s arms, but the heave it causes is full body. Ilya watches his boyfriend tremble apart, in pieces, over some silly lashes and a bit of condescending questioning.
“I wasn’t listening,” Shane responded tearfully. “I was bad— and not being a good boyfriend.”
Ilya honestly feels no guilt for giving the next one his all. Shane scrambles to his tiptoes, curses spilling from his lips because the hot stripe had been aimed right where his ass met his thighs.
“Last part was not needed,” Ilya tells him casually.
“Got it,” Shane wheezed. “I won’t— ah — say it again! Thank you…”
Good, good, so fucking good. Ilya could just crack him open and spend eternity analyzing his inner workings. Here he was, whooping Shane’s ass and the man had thanked him for it.
“What else?”
“Um, for provoking you? Ouch— Earlier! In the kitchen! I shouldn’t have done that—”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Ilya scolded, landing three licks of the belt in quick succession. Shane wailed, feet thumping restlessly as he did his best not to fling himself toward the other end of the sofa. “But is my fault mostly.”
“Huh?”
Ilya took a break, pleased with watching Shane’s feet flutter. Sappily, he wondered what color Shane’s poor ass was and if any welts had managed to form. They were well past twenty, close to thirty.
“Is my fault,” Ilya repeated. “I should have done this earlier, so you would not get bad ideas. Help take…ah, stopping before something gets bad?”
“Preventative measures?”
“Yes, da. Good boy.”
Shane shuddered, hiding his blotchy face in his arms. Ilya let the belt fall from his hand, the buckle thudding heavily against the carpet. He stepped forward, reaching out with one hand to touch the lowest part of Shane’s back. Right where those precious dimples were.
He pretended not to feel Shane shudder, taking his time to feel the bit of heat radiating from his boyfriend’s ass. “Mr. Crybaby…” Ilya sniped teasingly.
Shane puffed up, kicking his legs as Ilya sat down next to his hip. Perched on the sofa arm, it wasn’t hard for Ilya to take his right hand and slap it down.
“Ow,” Shane said, sounding a little blank now that his sobs had died down. He would hate being congested and puffy later, but Ilya would bring him water. And cold rags. And lotion. And pillows. And whatever the fuck else Shane wanted. “I’m not a crybaby.”
“No,” Ilya placated. “Just my baby who is crying right now.”
He tugs the sweatpants down, snagging Shane’s boxers in the same movement. The flesh before him is an even red, not too pale and not too bright. The only welt that was raised was the one Ilya had given Shane for his little ‘not good boyfriend’ comment. All in all, it was pretty solid work. He could breathe easier knowing that he hadn’t painted bruises on Shane from the get-go.
Ilya traced shapes into the heated flesh, dragging his blunted thumbnail over the beautiful lines of stretch marks. Through it all, he could feel the deadly muscles that allowed Shane to skate the way that he did. Take hits on the ice the way that he did.
They were tense, contracting and relaxing as Shane extended and kicked his legs, and Ilya thought…he wanted more.
“Don’t kick so much for this,” he warned Shane. Pulling Shane’s legs over his lap, Ilya readjusted both of them so that some level of comfort could be reached. It was a precarious position. Shane was close to being in an arching pose with how high the sofa arm and Ilya’s lap lifted the lower half of his body.
“More?” Shane mumbled.
Ilya didn’t bother responding, peppering the flesh with his open palm. Shane whined, tears starting anew, but he stayed perfectly still over Ilya’s lap, content to half-bury his face into one of the throw pillows.
He kept going, dusting Shane’s ass with smacks until the skin got a bit brighter, a bit deeper. All the while, Shane’s legs flexed like he was trying to dance in and out of the stinging pain. He was good, so good, listening to Ilya about minding his kicks. Shane didn't understand how helpful he was. He couldn't seem to grasp that his belief in Ilya had become his life source. He didn't even know that this moment was rewriting the botched structure of Ilya's framework.
It made it all the more helpful when Shane just…collapsed. Exhausted and clearly wrung-out.
The low, keening cry that he held, going boneless across Ilya’s thighs and the sofa. In the part that wasn’t hidden, Ilya could see the lost airiness that overcame Shane whenever he floated off into the clouds.
“посмотри на себя. как красиво,” Ilya murmured. “Мой милый мальчик, ты такой идеальный.”