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"This is such a bad idea."
"Maybe. Not first time you say this." Ilya pinches his thigh. "Stop moving."
"It tickles."
"Stop," Ilya says, "moving."
Shane stops moving. The buzzing that's in his ears is all florescent and artificial. There's no machine. There's just the needle and the glove and the antiseptic. There's just Ilya's curly head bent over Shane's body. His hair's frizzy and copper-tinged from drying post-lake, from a summer spent lounging draped over Shane as the sun draped over them, unrelenting.
It's like a bee. A tiny little bee, kissing Shane's skin every few seconds.
He can feel every methodical pierce of needle into his skin. The pooling blood. The soft hush of Ilya's breath over his stomach. The spasming flip flop of his muscles heating outward from the spot Ilya chose on his hip, nestled nearly into his groin.
He's hot, sweating into the sheets. The meager breeze crawling half-heartedly through the open windows. The sun is almost gone, but the heat has yet to break. Hottest day of the year so far. They spent it showering, in the water, in each other, and then Ilya touched Shane's hip and said, here. Like Shane had already agreed to the joke Ilya's been throwing around for the past week and a half.
And Shane opened his mouth and what came out was, "did you bring stuff with you?"
"Yes," Ilya had said, and sucked a kiss to Shane's five o'clock shadow. "Dopp kit," Ilya pronounced, over-exaggerated, eyebrow flicking up.
And Shane went and brought it back, feeling his pulse trying to leap ahead of himself, trying to kneel at Rozy— Ilya's feet.
When Ilya looked at him, Shane saw himself reflected there, in the blooming black, biting his own lip, nails pressing to his hip.
"Will it be—" Shane breathes out as the needle goes over bone. It feels deeper, stronger, like the needle is bigger. How Shane's hole feels sometimes, when they flip to a new position, swollen against the hard—
"Be what?" Ilya asks, pulling out the needle. Picking the next spot.
Be like yours. Be forever. Be clear enough to see who did it. Whose it is, really.
Shane shakes his head. Doesn't want to know. Wants to stay in the haze of Ilya's voice saying, a hockey stick here. My hockey stick. Would you like that, Shane? A stick and poke stick? Tongue between his teeth at the joke. Tongue between Shane's teeth at Shane's gasp. He wants to breathe in that wildfire smoke coming off Ilya's hot, sunburn-cigarette drenched skin for a moment longer. The musk of him gone woodsy, the cottage taking root in him. And unchanged still, roaring between them, is the same precipice before the flame where they both play their best games, at each other's throats, at the steel edge of the world owning them and never ever knowing them, and now, in their shared bed, with Shane sprawled open for Ilya to tattoo.
This is for them and no one will ever know, because what they both are, is hockey to the marrow, to the wick, through the stick to the ice, and sharp to the good hit.
So, Shane can have this. Ilya can give it to him in plain sight.
Ilya taps his hand around the hot swell of Shane's hip. Sucks his lip in concentration at the next spot. He's flippant and silly and doesn't take half the things Shane needs to take seriously as anything other than a challenge to his levity.
But, Ilya's also exacting. Well informed. Precise as his wicked one-timer. He's careful with his stuff. His stuff that matters.
Shane swallows and swallows, stomach flickering. Pain building in his hip.
"What, Shane. Speak." Ilya's knee to his shin.
"How deep is it?"
Sea-glass flickers up at him. "Not very. Balance. Not too deep, not too close."
"Shallow," Shane offers.
"Yes, shallow," Ilya says. "It hurts?"
Shane swallows, throat dry. Nods.
Ilya looks back down at his handiwork. Pierces again. "It hurts?" he repeats.
"Yes," Shane says. "It hurts."
"How else?"
"How else what?"
"How do you feel."
Ilya is doing something in what feels like one spot, piercing and re-piercing. The pain building, spearing into his nerves.
"Hot," Shane says, blinking long blinks.
Ilya laughs at him and Shane nearly shivers. Gets a slap on his stomach for it. "No moving. Describe it to me."
"It's hard."
"It is," Ilya says coyly, "so are you, Holly. Hard for another man's stick in you. You think I should fuck you with it next season? Big knob in your tight hole?"
Shane's cock blurts pre and Shane can't help the shiver then, hadn't even— hadn't quite thought he was that hard, but he is, his cock twitching in time with his hip muscles.
Ilya licks his lips, knee grinding into Shane's shin, a contending bloom of pain. "I tape it extra big for you. It," Ilya's throat bobs, a vein pulsing beside it, "it could be dry, hard. How you like." He looks at Shane like he'd swallow him whole, digest him for a hundred years.
Shane's body has gone desperate, running on seven years of instinct. Because he is imagining it, Ilya taping his stick like he rolls on a condom, preparing to make Shane's flesh his own, another tool in his duffel bag to be pulled out; waxing his stick, lubing Shane, putting them together. Ilya's head in his lap has a specific association and Shane is just a guy, and Ilya's lips are plush and pink right now and he always sucks like he's demanding Shane's come and expecting to get it in twenty seconds flat and who is Shane to deny him. He twitches, tries to arch up.
Ilya is holding the needle aloft. His gloved hand holding taut the skin of his workspace pushes down, shoves Shane into the mattress. Makes it hurt.
"Greedy," Ilya says, missing disapproval by about ten kilometres.
"Yeah," Shane says, anyways, because he's had two handfuls of Ilya this whole week and there's nothing like it. He understands why people smoke, now. To wrap themselves around something that burns and lingers in their lungs so long. Shane's going to be airing himself out for weeks after this, when Ilya has to leave— but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. This can't be aired out. This is Ilya inside him, to keep. Just like Shane is always pushing back for, longer, stay inside, don't go, let me warm you, let me hold you. This is a trace of Ilya slowly carved into Shane's skin by his own hands. By the repetitive press and puncture of the needle, the very tiny dip into the pot of ink on the side table. The swipe of the alcohol wipe that zaps and bites the forming wounds. Not normal, Ilya said, but that Shane would like it better, the clean alcohol-hurt like this.
And he did. He does.
Ilya is focused, again. Picking his next spot. Executing the play. Stick handling. Boxing Shane into his own end. Keeping the puck bouncing off the boards again and again while Shane stands there and lets it hit him and quivers in place for it.
His hair is sticking to his forehead and his hands are clenching into the sheets when Ilya next looks up.
He breathes evenly but deep, flaring out his nose. His cross catches the light. His t-shirt is Shane's. Some of the saliva in his mouth is Shane's too, from his tongue, ten minutes ago.
"Ilya," Shane says, helpless.
"No," Ilya says, licking his lips, not looking away. "Not done."
"Okay," Shane says, and leans his head back into the pillows, rucking up the sheets.
The sting and scrape and splintering builds on itself. Swirls hazily around his hips, into his gut and groin. He can feel Ilya shifting similarly, tensing back and forth, in the hand on Shane's hip, and the press of his hard thigh into Shane's knee. Pinning Shane. Keeping him safe to float.
Pain beats through his veins in a routine of Ilya's making. It makes more sense, now. Why Ilya goes under the needle.
Ilya's tattoos are silly, stupid, a range of memories like a sheaf of drawing paper, held tight to his skin. This here, he'll say to Shane, Minnesota. First year, after game six. That? Moscow. Here, San Francisco, artist for some Hollywood redhead. Maybe your Rose knows. Oh, she isn't your Rose— is that me? Rose-y? Rozy, yes. That? Portland's wife is hot. Real tits. Real bossy. Portland is curious, as you love to say— you get so red— and wife wanted to celebrate first threesome. No, I have never lied in my life. Yes, well, three headed dog doesn't make sense, Portland and wife, they have turtles, not dogs. Very strange man. Good throat. Not as good as you, shanezhka, no.
Shane draws his fingers across them sometimes, one line per fingertip, finding ways across the images to join his fingers back together. Sometimes, Ilya watches him, eyelids low, hand tucked under his cheek, and then reaches out to press his fingers to a new constellation of Shane's summer freckles and draw Shane to him, easy as closing his own hand.
"Almost done," Ilya says now, fingers pressing into Shane's skin.
"Okay," Shane says, maybe. His tongue is heavy, his head is foam rolled. A throbbing purpose.
He could look and see. He doesn't.
Shane stares at Ilya's messy curls, finds his hands in it. Thumbs the mole on Ilya's neck.
"Don't move," Ilya says.
Shane's mouth is wet. Shane's fingers grip his curls. Ilya allows it.
One more insertion. One more rush.
Ilya wipes the area, smudges twelve different sensations over Shane's skin. Puts the towel to the side. Moves, so Shane's hand slips and falls to his side. His body is a tight coil, ready to burst. Ilya smears something over Shane's hip.
The needle is still in his left hand.
Shane gets caught in the riptide of his eyes. Ilya hovers the needle over the top of Shane's straining cock, begging for attention against his stomach.
"Here, too," Ilya says. Not a question.
Shane shivers around the spike of fear. Swallows spit.
"Ilya."
"Number 81. Small."
"Roz," Shane says instead, and licking his lips, "that's tacky."
Ilya laughs. Big, wide, beautiful. Shane's.
His heart thumps in his chest, in his cock. Ilya's.
"Okay, then. Gold bell."
Shane inhales a gasp. His hips jerk.
"Pretty thing for this big," Ilya rubs his forearm across Shane's cock, alights him with scratchy sensation. "Big useless cock. Listen to it jingle as you beg me to fuck you harder—"
"Fuck."
"And then I lock it away. Between my bed. You don't need it." He circles the needle around, in the air above Shane's puce cockhead.
"I do," Shane says, watching it twitch and dribble on his stomach, tickling at his happy trail.
The needle is so close. Twined into Ilya's square-ended fingers.
"Do you?"
Shane swallows again and it doesn't do anything. There's an ocean in his mouth. There's a pool of magma in his hip and its connected to his cock and his asshole where he is still sore and the channels of him are thrown wide open, mixing everything together so messily. He looks down his body at Ilya and half expects steam to rise between them.
"Do I need it?" Shane asks.
And Ilya's eyes slide closed. His hand twitches.
Shane would let him.
Shane would let him change the entire landscape of his body. The science he has built his world on, and Ilya moves right through it and changes it all. Remakes him into something he didn't know could exist. He knows what he can bench, knows what his top speed on good ice is. Knows how much protein he needs to have by 6:15 on game day.
But these things: Ilya working the glove off one of his hands to touch Shane's bare skin, to rub in his streams of sweat, to pinch a freckle still dry from alcohol, tap Shane's jumping pec, peak it and pull it and test the give, needle inching closer and Shane thinking yes, yes— these are fresh turned snow. Clean, unknown.
"Not right needle," Ilya says, finally. "I need to have gold. Diamonds."
Flashy. Shane is flushed. "I don't need—"
"No." Ilya says. "I know what you need." He hooks his bare hand under Shane's damp knee, pushes Shane's left leg up.
Shane shuts his mouth, holds his knee up against his body. It pulls the fresh-inked skin in a stomach twisting way and Ilya watches his face, watches his hip where it tickles and throbs. He knows.
"It looks good?" Shane asks, finally.
"It does," Ilya says, confident, but his voice is rough at the edges.
Shane imagines pressing the sound of it to the raw slant across his hip, imagines dipping it in his own blood. Sucking on Ilya's fingers meanwhile, so they are matching. Shane imagines the shape of the hockey stick. The swoop of the blade. If Ilya put tiny letters in between the lines on the shaft; Sherwood instead of CCM. Rozanov instead of Hollander. Imagines the 81 at the top of the shaft, like Sherwood manufactured, for the last custom model for Ilya. Tacky, for sure. Immolating, also. Forbidden, too much of a sick risk, too.
Does not ask to see.
Lets the blue of it live in his peripheral vision. Lightning on the horizon. Can't look directly.
"You are still wet?" Ilya asks, and shoves two fingers up Shane's thigh and inside Shane's hole, testing him out, before Shane can muster any sort of response. Shane manages a grunt, trying to grab onto Ilya's summer-jacked bicep. He is so rough inside Shane, hilting his fingers, thumb digging into Shane's perineum.
"Wet enough," Ilya answers for him, and pushes on Shane's left leg more.
"Yes," Shane agrees.
Shane takes the hint, jerks his leg higher. Right leg pushing for purchase and forcing a hiss out of him, as it tugs the tattoo. Exposes himself to Ilya feeling like he's on a 10 second TV delay, everything taking on a sort of fuzzy, filtered look, as the pain echoes the movement of his legs, a prickling unavoidable thing. Ilya is surrounded by dying sunlight, his body sculpted out of deep shadows, his hair like stormclouds, trailing down around the peaks of his nipples, the canyon of his abs, the thick heft of his cock. He catches Shane's eyes, as he pulls out of Shane's body to stroke himself to full hardness. Barely takes a moment, the foreskin popping over the glistening head, making Shane's tongue itch.
"It looks good," Ilya says again, and cups his still-gloved hand over Shane's hip, conversely hiding it away.
"Everyone's going to see," Shane murmurs.
"Yes," Ilya says, and pushes inside Shane yet again.
It hurts. It hurts. It's phenomenal. It's lightning right in front of him. Afterimages behind his eyelids. Shane digs his nails into Ilya's broad shoulders, as they both push on his thigh, rotating Shane's leg out to improve the angle. The stretch is so good, tugs just right at his hip with the fresh ink, at his rim, bullied open by Ilya launching straight into thrusting. No warm-up. Hard thudding flesh. Deep and churning and dry in the way Shane can only do with Ilya, only wants with him. Head down, Ilya's lip is in between his teeth, looking at himself moving into Shane's body, at his hand holding Shane's hip, Shane's body clutching back, Shane's body a swollen, red, wet thing, at his behest.
Shane rolls his hips into every thrust, moans.
Catches Ilya's shimmering cross in his hand, drags it against Ilya's bouncing chest, his ink. Scratches across the skin, to watch it go red, to feel Ilya lean up and twist Shane's nipple. Then, he pauses, plucking Shane's chest off the bed, rising into his touch. Lets go, moves down to Shane's cock.
He is so close, a single touch. A hard stroke, two.
Shane wiggles into it, gets Ilya's hand crushing his hip, his fingers pincering around the tip of Shane's cock. He thrashes, gets nowhere, too heavy, too drunk on the pain and the potential.
"No," Ilya orders.
"Rozy," Shane says, maybe a gasp, definitely a plea.
"Bad for tattoo to have anything on it," Ilya says to him, with a smile curling the corners of his lips. Shane's chest skips with foreboding. "Better if you don't come like this. Okay?"
Shane's eyes prickle, go wet and wide as his mouth and Ilya thrusts in, slaps their bodies together, smears their skin, slots Shane whole.
It's so good. It's always so good. Shane is desperate for every moment because there is never a bad one and Ilya knows that. Ilya loves that. Loves to cage him in with the earthquake he causes and watch Shane be reduced to pieces.
He could come like this so easy. The slightest tilt of his hips to put the spongey head of Ilya's cock right where he needs it, if he arches, balances on his shoulder blades, grinds down as Ilya pistons between his legs, his voice rough, catching the open edges of Shane's body, flaying him, remaking—
"Okay?" Ilya prompts.
"Okay," Shane says, hoarse. "Thank you for looking out for me."
Ilya grunts, smothers it into a kiss, a suck on Shane's lip, a fierce bite around Shane's unmarred nipple.
"Yes," Ilya says, around his flesh, with a wet thrust, "always." He bites down harder, groans again.
"Thank you," Shane says again and then, "love you." Means it from the bottom of his clenched toes to the tingly, sweaty top of his head, and is no less thrilled by it than he was four days ago, when Ilya spoke it in the quiet cave of Shane's— their bedroom for the first time. Like it was something they could do. Like it was okay. Like they could have that. A future.
"I love you, ya tebya lyublyu," Ilya says, and then again, to Shane's neck, to his cheek, to his lips, his gloved hand cupped securely over the tattoo of his stick forever on Shane's body. It stings in beautiful waves. The lake, held between them, Shane the shore and Ilya the pine and the ink that cannot be washed away. A proof.
"Ya tebya lyublyu," Shane tries. He buries his hands into Ilya's curls and holds on. Outside, the sun settles into horizon, and inside Shane's eyelids, it rises, coalesces into a pleasure. Into a pertusion. Into a promise. Into them.