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"Is it weird," Ilya says, and Shane turns a little to meet his eyes, "That I have never done this?"
"What, fingered me on a couch? I'm sure…"
"No, Hollander," Ilya says, in the voice he reserves for when Shane is being particularly obtuse. "That is not what I mean."
The problem with asking Ilya Rozanov to be honest and say what he thinks is that sometimes, he really does say just whatever is on his mind. This never seems to take the form of "Hey, Shane, this is probably stupid but I'm anxious about negotiating a move to Ottawa, and you're making it worse." Of course not: that Shane has to figure out by trial and error (and by talking to his mother, of all the embarrassing things).
The honest, unfiltered Ilya experience comes at times like this: two fingers deep in Shane's ass, at about the point when Shane starts wondering if Ilya has in mind a long, slow process that will wring everything out of him.
Shane reaches down and touches Ilya’s wrist. “Clearly you have fingered me before, so what are you talking about?”
“I have not…” Ilya withdraws his fingers from inside Shane’s body, and Shane takes note of the crinkle in his forehead. “You knew you liked this, before you met me, yes?”
Ilya’s vocabulary has gaps in it, sure, but usually not his sexual vocabulary. It’s not like him to be so evasive.
“If you mean penetration, yes, I had a fair idea.”
Ilya leans closer to Shane, one hand on Shane’s jaw in that soft way he has that makes Shane melt a little every time.
“That is so hot,” Ilya says, looking at him so intensely Shane has to fight himself to keep meeting his eyes. “I love that. Even when we were young, I loved that about you. You had that dildo, you touch yourself with it, you know before I suggest it that you want me to fuck you.”
He’s losing the thread of English grammar, past tense collapsing into present, which tells Shane that Ilya isn’t just praising him. He’s working something out, or working up to saying something. Shane turns his head a little, kisses Ilya’s palm.
“I’m thinking,” Ilya says, “perhaps it is weird that I never do this?” Ilya draws away from Shane a little. “Not even by myself?”
“Wait - never?” Eleven years, and Shane never thought to ask. “I thought you said - in Russia, with…”
“Tch, no,” Ilya says. “We tried - he fucked me, I fucked him, once each way: fair.. But it was not good for me, and it was good for him, so.”
“Let me guess,” Shane says, “he didn’t spend much time on…” He wiggles his fingers indicatively.
“I was not so fantastic for him, either,” Ilya says. “But I learned better, I am very motivated like that.”
Shane kisses him, nipping gently at Ilya’s lower lip. “You’re so good to me,” he says. “I think about it, when you’re not here. I think about you fucking me, of course, but sometimes…” Shane has to pause, to gather up the expectation from earlier. Ilya’s thumb rubs gently at Shane’s jaw. “I take extra time, I lie here thinking about that time, in Boston, when you didn’t even fuck me at all. You spent so long with just your fingers, and then...”
“You came the moment I put your dick in my mouth,” Ilya finishes the memory. “Which is spoiling my fun, so…” So Ilya had put a plug in Shane’s ass, made him kneel there with the feeling of it while he sucked Ilya off. By the time that was done Shane had been half-hard again and Ilya had laid him back out on the bed and, well. Fingered the hell out of him. At some point Ilya had taken Shane’s dick in his mouth, but Shane is pretty sure he was too wrecked to get hard and unclear, in hindsight, if he ejaculated at all. Whatever happened to his dick was really not the focal point of that experience. He’d come, certainly, at least once more. Once or maybe forever.
“I thought I was going to die,” Shane says. “Or - no - to fly, like I was going to float right off the bed with nothing to keep me there except you.”
Ilya hums in pleasure and moves a hand down to Shane’s chest. He traces Shane’s pec before focusing on the nipple, making Shane’s breath catch.
Deliberately, Shane mirrors the gesture, tweaking Ilya’s nipple. He is, if anything, more sensitive there than Shane is; Shane leans down to take the other one in his mouth, balancing a sharper pinch of his fingers with the softer attention of his lips and tongue.
He hasn’t forgotten where the conversation started, and he’s fairly sure Ilya hasn’t either.
“It’s not weird,” Shane says, when Ilya’s breath is noticeably faster and Shane can feel his dick stirring against Shane’s hip. “But if you want to try, we can find out together.”
Ilya pulls Shane’s head up to kiss him again, rolls him flat on the couch and practically climbs on top of him, groping him like he’s trying to cover every inch of Shane with his two hands. That’s one way to signal enthusiasm, Shane supposes, and goes with it, lets Ilya cover him and kiss him and envelop him whole.
It’s not bad. It’s okay, even. Ilya Rozanov has had someone’s finger in his ass and he didn’t hate it. Well. He’s had Shane’s finger - just one, and secretly he’s relieved about that - in his ass. Maybe he’d like anything if it’s Shane, if it comes with Shane’s serious expression as he focuses on Ilya’s responses, and Shane’s beautiful, generous mouth on his dick.
If Ilya grabbed Shane’s head a little harder than usual, if, as the edge of orgasm approached - ragged, a little overwhelming with the new sensation - he pulled Shane forward, breaking his focus, so that Shane’s finger-work was abandoned, well. Shane likes that, likes Ilya to take hold of him and fuck his face, the same way he positions Shane’s hips when he fucks him.
They are both busy men, and perhaps that’s why neither of them mentions it for a while. Or perhaps the pattern of the season pushes them both back toward the familiar. When they’re together, Ilya pushes, and Shane gives. Ilya pulls Shane out of his tightly-wound routines and Shane opens for Ilya to fall into him. Into Shane’s ass and mouth, sure, but Ilya sometimes thinks Shane takes up more space in bed than he does in his life. Even in his pads and gear, Shane doesn’t sprawl on the bench the way some guys do. He doesn’t gesture much during interviews. He’s self-contained. The man who splays out across hotel room beds after sex takes Ilya’s weight, holds him and runs fingers through his hair. Shane takes in everything that Ilya can manage to find the English words for, and probably a lot that he can’t find words for at all.
Ilya drifts awake one morning in Montreal, to the still too-rare sight of Shane beside him. He has his glasses on, and a book in his lap, but the moment Ilya’s eyes open he’s smiling down at him.
“I fucking love you,” Ilya says.
“I love you too,” Shane says, and the sentence ends in a huff of surprise - without waiting for a reply Ilya has leaned over, pressed his mouth to Shane’s soft cock.
“I fucking love your dick,” Ilya mumbles, and sets to work. He loves this, loves these infrequent opportunities when they wake up together, the edge taken off by reunion sex the night before. Shane’s legs making room for him, his soft moan: those are as responsive as ever, but his dick is just a little slower firming up in Ilya’s mouth. They don’t have anywhere to be, and Ilya can take his time, adoring Shane with his mouth. Shane’s hands touch his face as he does, not guiding him but stroking Ilya’s cheek, petting his hair; Ilya luxuriates in the attention.
The sensation of being petted is barely interrupted by Shane coming; Ilya nuzzles into Shane’s hip and Shane scrapes fingernails across Ilya’s scalp.
“Like a cat, you are,” Shane says, fondly. Ilya does his best imitation of a purr.
Shane’s nails keep doing the gentle scrape-scratch, down Ilya’s neck, which feels amazing. Ilya turns onto his stomach as Shane continues, alternately kissing and scratching down Ilya’s back and then over the surface of his butt.
“I must be the luckiest man in Canada,” Shane says, kneading Ilya’s glutes. “This is the best ass in the league and I get to grope it.”
Ilya is boneless already, every stubborn streak in him coaxed into quiescence by the magic of Shane’s hands. Shane doesn’t need Ilya to be anything, right now, other than to be here. In the end, he doesn’t have to say anything at all; he just reaches under the pillow and hands Shane the lube they left there last night.
“Oh, I am the luckiest man in Canada. Here, turn over, I want to see your face. Fuck, Ilya,” Shane says, pressing with his thumb, just deep enough to circle and stretch. “I’ll be thinking about you like this all week. Beautiful.”
If anyone asked, Shane Hollander would not have said that there was anything missing from his sex life, other than more opportunities to be together in the first place. Certainly, he has not been nursing any regrets about Ilya’s disinterest in bottoming.
Shane is, however, very much enjoying fingering his boyfriend whenever he gets the chance to do so. Highlight of his year, maybe the decade. He loves that he can give Ilya this, give him the gift of his own body, some tiny fraction of what Ilya has given him.
Ilya’s body isn’t the same as Shane’s, of course. It turns out he doesn’t like pressure or stimulation on his taint, that spot that works so well for Shane. Shane lets Ilya decide when to take a second finger, or, rarely, more. Without a hand or mouth on his dick, direct pressure on his prostate is too much. Shane has to notice that himself, guess, adjust, because the first few times, Ilya must have been forcing himself still, determined to see the experiment through. Eventually, when Ilya is comfortable enough to let Shane see him squirm, Shane asks about it.
“We could try with a toy,” he suggests. “You’d get more back-and-forth, that way, instead of me pressing directly onto the spot.”
The expression on Ilya’s face is… odd, Shane thinks. They are sprawled on Shane’s bed in Montreal, with a scant few hours before Shane is due at the rink.
“I don’t know,” Ilya says, and there is none of his usual cockiness in it. He leans his head into Shane’s shoulder. “I feel stupid that I don’t know.”
They don’t have time, Shane thinks. They don’t have time for what Shane wants to do, which is to give Ilya space to think. Shane has more experience in this, which is an odd realisation. It’s hard for Shane to picture what it is he wants, here, let alone what Ilya needs. If they had time, he’d pull out his own toys - all two of them - and suggest that Ilya choose one for himself, try it himself. Try it with Shane watching, or - advising? Not leading him, not the way Ilya stepped into Shane’s inexperience and guided him. Ilya’s confidence is an anchor for Shane, now, but once, it was a snowplough, pushing fear aside and clearing a path.
They don’t even have time for Shane to work out a plan. No, that’s not right; Shane has had weeks since last he saw Ilya to work out a plan, or at least to think of options.
“I have an idea,” Shane says, trying to sound more certain than he is. He rolls over and rummages in a drawer - Ilya leans after him and smacks Shane’s ass lightly. “Quit that,” Shane tells him. “Here.” He holds out a dildo. Ilya visibly recoils.
“Not now!” Shane says. “Or not ever, I just. You could borrow it. Take it home with you.”
“Hollander,” Ilya says, “are you offering me your prized possession?”
“Uh.” Shane says.
Although he had recoiled originally, Ilya plucks the toy out of Shane’s hand now. It’s not particularly remarkable, Shane thinks. Medium. Has a sort of cockhead shape to it, but none of the realistic veining.
“Is this the one you told me about,” Ilya asks, turning it over in his hands. “The one you had when we were rookies?”
“Um.” Shane says. “No. That one got, uh.” He wrinkles his nose. “Dusty and weird. Cheap material.”
“Pity,” Ilya says. “That could have been hot. Would you have liked that, Hollander?” He’s using Shane’s surname again, which could mean a number of things. Probably it’s a hangover from the past they’re speaking about, creeping in. “You want me to take home with me the toy that you had inside of you before I ever fuck you? Want me to fuck myself and think about you, like you fucked yourself thinking about me?”
Fuck. Well, now Shane does want that. He thinks wistfully of the long-discarded toy.
“I bought that one,” Shane says, “after the Olympics.” He and Ilya both look at the toy in Ilya’s hands. Shane can see Ilya doing the calculations in his head.
The truth is, Shane had thought, when he tossed out his previous dildo and bought this sleeker, more expensive, less sleazy option, that he was somehow moving on. This was a toy for a single man who can look after his own needs, not for the scared, horny kid he had been.
Ilya lifts the dildo to his mouth and licks it, slowly and exaggeratedly. “Did you think of me, when you used this one, too?”
Shane is pretty sure he has not specified to Ilya that he did think of him, prior to that night when Ilya had first raised the question of fucking Shane, like, actual fucking. Ilya has assumed that Shane, with no experience aside from Ilya, must have thought of Ilya when he fucked himself with the toy in question. He’s right.
“Once or twice,” Shane tells him, as off-hand as he can manage. The expression on his face probably doesn’t look at all like Ilya’s smirk but it feels close enough, and Ilya’s response - fellating the dildo - matches Shane’s aim perfectly.
Then realism hits. “Oh shit, no, sorry,” Shane says. “Airports. You can’t - of course, sorry.”
For a moment, Ilya looks devastated, then, “What the fuck are you talking about, Hollander?”
It’s Shane’s turn to recoil. “Do you have a good explanation for how this will show up on the airport scanners?” he demands. “I mean, maybe you do, I don’t know what–” There’s a private gut-punch there, which isn’t even really about Ilya. Shane has seen people (women) pulled aside to explain the unusual shapes in their carry-on luggage. On one occasion, he could have expired on the spot of embarrassment, listening to a young woman fumble her way through with the incomprehensible term “aides matrimoniales”. He’d been young, but not sufficiently stupid as to suppose this woman was actually married, or even heterosexual. He almost wishes he’d helped her.
Shane’s toy collection is not large, and it is also geographically limited to his Montreal apartment and places within driving distance of same.
Ilya might, in fact, be relieved. “Well, shit,” he says. “A good idea, though, something to think about.”
They shower, and mostly keep their hands off each other. Shane will drive to the rink: the Metros have first practice. Ilya takes an Uber back to the hotel and the jibes of his teammates, before picking up his gear and heading to the rink with the Raiders. Ilya is not at all perturbed about returning to his shared hotel room without having disturbed the bed, nor about the odds of housekeeping interrupting his last-minute preparations. He regards these concerns on the same level as he does his teammates: “Walk of shame? What is this?” he had said to Shane, many years ago now. “I am not ashamed of having good sex.”
Many years ago, Ilya had stopped for a moment after saying that, and touched Shane’s chin. He had seen Shane’s anxiety, and said, “If I go out and fuck women, I do not sneak back. If I sneak back this morning, that says there is something new, maybe something to have shame of.” Ilya had looked at him for a moment, and held Shane’s chin in his hand. Shane had wanted to melt into him, or to push him against the door and devour him. Ilya had said, “So I do not do this walk of shame.” He had rubbed his thumb against Shane’s jaw. “Not for you. Not for anyone. This is stupid, this walk of shame.”
In the locker room after practice, some of the younger guys are watching highlights from the Admirals game last night.
Shane’s phone dings. Ilya ought to be on the ice right now, but it’s Boston’s problem if they let their star player slack off at practice.
LILY: Points per player, just this match. My stats will be 150% of yours. If I win this bet, I expect photos of you fucking yourself with that dildo when I get off my plane tonight.
Shane doesn’t bother texting back and if you lose?
“Hunter’s skating badly,” Berkes is saying, leaning over the rookies’ shoulders to peer at the tablet they’re watching on. “Slower than usual.”
“Probably took it up the ass the morning before a game,” someone says. Shane feels himself flush hot, and stares into his locker. His own ass clenches reflexively. He hasn’t - not today, as it happens, but he has before, and it’s never affected his game.
“Cut that out,” Hayden says, from the other side of the room. “He took a stick to the knee on Wednesday and you know it.” Hayden’s a decent guy.
“Took a stick somewhere, all right,” someone else mutters.
“Do you reckon Hunter does, though?” JJ asks. “I’d have thought it’d be his boyfriend who is, you know…” JJ stalls, as he sometimes does in English. He probably doesn’t expect anyone to hear, let alone understand, when he finishes the sentence: “la tapette.”
Shane is fairly sure that’s not the right word, but Shane should not - cannot - have a better grasp of faggot French than JJ. He shoves that into one of the boxes in his mind.
“Can everyone quit speculating about Scott Hunter’s sex life?” Shane growls, instead. “You’ll put all of us off our game.”
There’s a chorus of agreement as to the performance-depleting effects of thinking about gay sex before a game. Shane really would prefer not to be thinking about gay sex right now. Scott Hunter and the boys’ attitudes toward him are one thing, but the memory of Ilya recoiling from the dildo as Shane held it out - that memory is fighting his efforts to put it into a corner of his mind, away from the rink and the locker room and everything that comes with that.
Shane had known he wanted to be fucked before he’d been sure he was gay. It was as if, having proven to himself that yes, he did enjoy sucking cock, that was the next logical step: Ilya bending him over and taking him hard. Or other men, but it was in that first hotel room with his mouth on Ilya’s cock that he’d accepted this about himself: if Rozanov wanted to fuck him, Shane would let him.
That Ilya had wanted to do so - wanted it enough to pursue Shane for years - transformed Shane’s half-fearful, half-shamed desires into something else. Let Ilya fuck him: nonsense. Shane has begged him for it, or held Ilya down and ridden him at Shane’s pleasure.
It might have been more difficult if Ilya gave any sign that he thought of himself as taking something from Shane, or thought less of Shane somehow. Clearly, Shane’s teammates would. Shane’s rational mind knows that they’d think less of Ilya, too. A cocksucker is a cocksucker at the end of the day, no matter whether he fucks men or is fucked by them. That doesn’t make the shit-talking any easier to hear.
And then: Ilya’s face when Shane offered him the dildo. Shane doesn’t know what to say to him: it’s okay, you’re allowed to try? It’s okay, no one will know? It’s okay, we both know I’m the bottom here?
It’s almost a relief when the Metros media liaison calls Shane out to speak to the press. At least he knows what to say to them.
The Raiders have a rest day after they get back to Boston, and then a handful of training days before their next home game. Ilya gets lunch and goes back to the rink to work out, putting off going home to his empty apartment. A handful of the guys do the same - the rooks, who won’t have the kind of equipment at home that Ilya has, and Kohn, who says he’s given up fighting his teenage sons for the home gym. Ilya spots Kohn, although truth be told, Kohn can press significantly more than Ilya can lift - if Kohn trains to failure, it’s an open question whether Ilya’s spotting would help.
The young guys are chatting in the locker room when he and Kohn are done.
“Shit, man, she let you fuck her in the ass?”
“Hell yeah.”
“How do you–”
“Man, a hole’s a hole.”
“I mean how’d you convince her to do it? My ex would never–”
“It helps to be a handsome hockey star.”
“Fuck you.”
“Nah man, you gotta ease her into it. Girls, right? You ask ‘em and they always say no, but you gotta show them it’s worth their while. Put a finger in her ass when you’re eating her out, they go wild for it.”
“And then you–”
“Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes they’re still scared,” the anally-experienced rookie says, rolling his eyes.
“Amateurs,” Ilya says, before he’s really thought about it. “You should start with your tongue, this way everything is relaxing. This way they know that you will do something–” he stalls, grasping for the English word. Dirty isn’t right, but he uses it anyway, “dirty if it is good for them.”
The looks on the rookies’ faces give him a hot flush of satisfaction. Neither are sure whether to be repelled or impressed. Ilya leaves them, heading to the showers before they can ask any more questions - before they notice Ilya didn’t say if it is good for her. He feels slightly sick.
“Is this your new thing now, Roz?” Kohn asks, following him into the showers. “Sex advice for the rookies?”
“I do not like how they talk about women sometimes,” he says, tightly. “Not just the young guys. Too many of us.”
Maybe this could be his thing, Ilya thinks. It wouldn’t be the worst addition to his personal brand (no. He already knows what the worst thing for his reputation would be).
Kohn, who is a married man, makes a vague agreement-sounding noise. Ilya’s not heard him tossing around details about his sex life; he neither boasts nor complains about his wife.
“I hear guys talking in here,” Ilya goes on - and he knows he should quit but for some reason he can’t, “and it’s like… do they not know that women enjoy sex? If it is all about, hmm, convincing,” and that’s putting it positively, “a girl to fuck you, or who can convince a girl to do the–” he waves his hand, the difficulty of his second language made worse by the fact that the person he actually talks to about sex these days is Shane. “The most,” he settles on, and that will have to do. “If this the goal, that is fucked up.” Ilya turns off the faucet, and turns his best ‘famous womanizer Ilya Rozanov’ smile on poor Kohn. “Also, that is not a good way to get laid. I am a good captain, I will share my wisdom with the team.”
The rookies have cleared out, thankfully. Ilya heads home.
There’s a parcel for him, addressed by hand. Later, it will wring his heart that he doesn’t even recognise Shane Hollander’s handwriting. The postmark is a town he’s never heard of: Champlain, NY.
The contents: Shane’s dildo. The one Shane wanted him to take with him from Montreal. The one Shane bought after the Sochi Olympics and did - absolutely, Ilya has no doubt about this - use to fuck himself and think about Ilya fucking him. Fucking hell.
The name in the “Sender” field is “Jane Matsuoka”. The dildo is… Well, it’s Shane’s dildo, wrapped in an Ottawa Titans hoodie. Ilya does not understand baseball, but he is smart enough to understand this. The Titans hoodie says: this is not about hockey. Shane could have used his own briefs as packing material, and frankly Ilya would have preferred that - or pyjamas! Shane could have set him a dildo wrapped in the world’s most boring plaid pyjamas! - but the Titans hoodie does the job it was intended to do.
Ilya looks at the parcel. He re-runs the conversations he has had at work today. He ignores both. He texts Shane a photo from his bathroom: Ilya’s hand around his dick, taken at the end of the day and of his tether. The message he sends with it says simply: “Tired. I miss you.”
Ilya confirms he received Shane’s parcel, but he doesn’t bring it up over the phone or when they call. Shane doesn’t ask; maybe Ilya just needs time. Maybe Ilya is experimenting on his own (with Shane’s toy, and that thought warms something deep and possessive inside him). Shane files a mental note to ask him about it, when they see each other next.
The next time they see each other is the All-Star weekend. Ilya has been appointed captain this year, and is far too smug about it for what is, essentially, a marketing gimmick in the middle of the season.
The press, predictably, asks him about Shane. Ilya, predictably, finds the clip as soon as it is live and texts it to Shane.
“I will make sure that Hollander calls me Captain,” Ilya says, smouldering directly at the camera. Is he looking forward to playing on a team with Shane again? “Hollander won the Premier Passing challenge today,” Ilya says, “So I expect him to assist me to many goals.”
“I think I’ll turn in early,” Shane says to Carter Vaughn, who he’s been standing next to, part of a small cluster at the edge of the bar. “See you tomorrow,” Shane adds, to Hunter on Vaughn’s other side. He moves through the gathering, stopping to say farewells to more of his colleagues than he normally would. “Looking forward to playing with you,” he says to Detroit’s new star winger, and “Try not to stop too many pucks tomorrow,” to the Western Conference team’s top goalie.
“See you tomorrow, Captain,” Shane says as he comes within arm’s reach of Ilya. Ilya’s head whips around, like he hasn’t been covertly watching Shane work his way across the room toward him (Shane knows he has).
“Finally, some respect from Canada’s most boring man,” Ilya says. Someone on Ilya’s other side smothers a snicker.
“Don’t get used to it,” Shane warns him, and heads toward the elevators.
It’s only about twenty minutes before Ilya knocks on Shane’s door. Shane lets him in, and they are in each other’s arms in a heartbeat, grabbing and pulling at clothes and kissing frantically. It’s - oh god, it’s so good. They’re here, in the middle of the season, and they get to have this, this private, desperate adoring thing between them.
The knowledge that, as long as the weeks between seeing each other are, they have a plan steadies Shane. In a few months it will be summer, and they’ll spend two weeks at the cottage; Ilya will move to Ottawa and Shane will be able to drive to see him on off days. Around training camps and pre-season games, they’ll make space. The thought of it makes him giddy, makes him want to climb into Ilya’s skin. It makes him want to focus all his attention and all the knowledge he has built up of Ilya - how he feels, how he tastes, what makes him moan, what makes his self-control crumble - into loving him right now, into making this right now the best hotel hookup Ilya has ever had.
Unfortunately, Shane fucks it up. He fucks up their reunion-hookup and, for a while, he fears he’s fucked up the new, fragile trust Ilya has in him, whatever it is that meant Ilya has asked Shane to do with him things no one has done with him before.
Shane reaches back, mid-blowjob, and rubs a finger around the creased edges of Ilya’s asshole. He tastes a spurt of pre-come, which he takes as a good sign; Ilya continues making appreciative noises. There’s a moment after Shane slips a finger in when Ilya’s dick throbs, and fuck, that’s hot; Shane mumbles something to that effect around Ilya’s dick.
He’s startled when Ilya flinches away, pulling his cock out of Shane’s mouth.
“Don’t -“ Ilya says, and Shane has already drawn his hand back.
“Don’t,” Ilya says, looking away from him. “Don’t surprise me like that.”
Shane’s response is, in hindsight, not the best for the situation. “I was touching you back there before I started fingering you properly, you seemed to like it!”
“Hollander, you were doing that thing with your tongue,” Ilya says, rolling his eyes. “I am not aware of anything else on this earth when you are doing that thing with your tongue.”
Leave it to Ilya to find a way to make commenting on Shane’s oral prowess both an insult and an accusation.
“Sorry,” Shane says, and kisses Ilya’s thigh. “I won’t do it again.” Ilya puts one hand on Shane’s head, and that could have been the end of it. Except it doesn’t make sense. Shane excuses himself to the bathroom, and when he comes back he’s still turning the situation around in his head.
“You are thinking too much,” Ilya says, putting out one hand and pulling Shane down onto the bed beside him.
“Probably,” Shane agrees. Ilya has put his briefs back on. Fair enough.
“Tell me,” says Ilya.
“No, you tell me.” Shane hates the tone he hears himself take, knows this is not how you’re supposed to handle yourself when you’ve committed a consent violation - if that’s what this is. “You finger me like that all the time.” Great, he thinks, just great. Whiny is so much of an improvement over argumentative.
“Sorry,” he says again. “I guess I got used to that being something you’re into.”
Ilya looks at the ceiling for a long moment, then says, “The problem is, I am the hypocrite.”
“Maybe?” Shane says. He certainly feels as if Ilya has changed the rules on him.
“When I am the one touching you,” Ilya says, slowly, “I know what you like. If you are uncomfortable or maybe anxious about what I am doing, I can usually tell that. Can’t I?” There’s a slightly ragged edge to his voice.
Shane nods.
“And then I will ask. But when you are relaxed, you are… your body is easy to read, it says you would like more.”
“Don’t make this about my body,” Shane grumbles.
“Would you like me to ask you, before I fuck you?” It’s hard to resent Ilya when he looks this earnest.
“What, every time?” Shane thinks about that for a split second, and has a horrifying vision of the future. “Christ no. No, I like that you know me, that you can tell when I’m ready.” He pushes the heel of his hand against his forehead for a moment. “Sometimes…. I’m already feeling good, I wouldn’t necessarily ask for something more, but you think of something to–”
“Make it awesome,” Ilya says, with a smirk.
“Yeah. Like-” and here they come back around to the point - “like a finger during a blowjob, that’s a classic one.”
Ilya shrugs. “I know. This is why I am a hypocrite.” Correct article this time, Shane notes, in the back of his mind.
“I like this too,” Ilya goes on. “For everything else. You know… you touch my dick, I get hard; I make nice noises, you put my dick in your mouth.”
A laugh surprises itself out of Shane. “Yeah, okay, we both rely on, ehh... context.” He leans over and kisses Ilya, feels some of the tension leech out of both of them. “But not for ass stuff. I’ll wait for you to ask.”
Ilya wraps his arms around Shane and lays his head on Shane’s shoulder. “I think it would be okay if you asked. You know: you have a good idea; this will make good head awesome - you can ask me. Maybe I will say, ‘My boyfriend is a genius!’”
Shane folds that suggestion into his mind and counts himself lucky - the luckiest man in North America - that this evening’s hookup-gone-wrong, with his actual honest to god boyfriend, ended up here, instead of all the horrifying other directions it could have gone.
Watching game recaps at 10pm at night is the kind of boring thing Shane Hollander would do. Ilya knows this, because he has more than once had get his dick out to divert Shane from his default hobby of caring too much about hockey.
Watching recaps of Shane Hollander’s most recent game performance at 10pm at night, despite having watched the game earlier, however, is a very Ilya Rozanov thing to do. It’s not even a new development. What is new, this season, is that sometimes their schedules work out so that Ilya can be lying on his bed in Boston, waiting for Shane to get home in Montreal and call him. It’s nowhere near enough but it’s also so much more than he ever expected. It almost makes him want to send Scott Hunter a thank you card. Huh. If he sends Scott Hunter a thank you card, would that get rid of the unwanted instinct to be nicer to Scott Hunter on the ice?
Whatever. Right now, Ilya is lying across his bed, in one of his many aesthetically pleasing pairs of briefs, watching game recaps. Shane will call, some time soon-ish. Shane will almost certainly have already removed his league-approved suit and put on his most boring hoodie, or maybe a t-shirt. When the home game plus gap in one’s partner’s schedule situation has Shane playing and Ilya at home, Ilya is either still in his suit, or very undressed. Shane puts on a hoodie - not the exact same hoodie he wore that first time in Montreal, but very similar - and Ilya knows why. Ilya loves knowing why. Sure, back then - and for many years after - the hoodie was a weird defensive thing, but it said I’m not being sexy for you, and fuck. It took Ilya a while, but now he’s figured that out, almost fifty percent of his spank bank is “Shane being Not Sexy for me and then I make him horny about it”.
It dawns on Ilya that he is lying across his bed, watching game recaps, and holding Shane’s dildo in one hand. Yes, he’s sort of thinking about sex - because Shane won, and winning loosens Shane’s inhibitions a little and makes him filthy-mouthed and demanding. Ilya could be holding this otherwise unremarkable sex toy with the intent to make good use of it on camera for his spectacularly hot boyfriend. He could also be holding Shane’s dildo like a child holds a favoured toy. Or just because it’s Shane’s. It’s roughly six inches of silicone that has been inside Shane Hollander, that Shane chose for the purposes of getting himself off. And Shane has given it to him.
The incoming video call hits at the same moment that Ilya realises he’s no longer idly watching game recaps, he’s lying across his bed holding Shane’s dildo and really fucking turned on about it.
“Wow, hi,” Shane says, “Starting without me?” Ilya had already set up his tablet on the nightstand, so Shane has a full view of Ilya, including both the bulge in his briefs and the toy in his hand.
“What can I say? I watch you play hockey, it is very arousing.”
“Deviant. Give me a second here.” The screen shows the ceiling of Shane’s bedroom for a moment, and then a tilting image of Shane’s arm as he sets the phone up on a stand. “Hi. Good to see you.”
Ilya cups a hand under his dick, to show it off better. “Good to see you, too. Two goals, not bad.”
“And two assists to Hayden in the third period,” Shane says, always precise.
“Don’t talk about Pike when I’m touching my dick.” Ilya makes a face.
“That’s not all you’re touching,” Shane says, a glimmer of mischief in his expression.
Ilya doesn’t have a plan here, but he does a lot of things without planning them. He sets up situations and trusts that when it comes down to it, he’ll be able to get himself from there to where he needs to be. It’s like scoring a goal, or picking up Shane Hollander in a locker room shower.
He brings the toy close to his mouth and licks up the length of it. Shane’s eyes widen a little.
“Hollander, I am all new and inexperienced. I have not done this before.” He takes a moment to fellate the dildo - this toy, this thing that is not part of Shane’s body but is part of his life. Ilya does not bother to feign lack of skill.
“Fuck,” Shane says. “I wish you were here.”
“Ah, but if I was there, this,” Ilya says, running his hand up the toy and rubbing his thumb under the under-stated head-shape of it, the way he would with Shane’s dick, “this would not be there, because I cannot take it through the airport security.”
“I think I could cope,” Shane says. “But you want… that, tonight?”
“I do want this,” Ilya says. “But as I said, I am very inexperienced. I have not fucked myself like this before… you must help me.”
He’s playing it up, but there’s a ragged truth to it. He hasn’t. He has done a lot of things before, but not this, and for some reason, he can’t bring himself to do it alone.
Shane nods, and touches his hand to his mouth. “Tell you what to do? How to do it?”
“Tell me how you do this,” Ilya says. “I want to learn from the best, and you are grand master of taking it up the ass.” Shane hesitates, again. “Unless you don’t want to, I just…”
“I have an idea,” Shane says. “Give me a minute. Get lube, if you haven’t already.” Ah, Shane Hollander in planning mode, one of Ilya’s favourite things. Shane disappears from the camera and comes back - shirtless, now, bruises visible from the game.
“How about I show you?” Shane offers, holding up another dildo - one Ilya recognises from other video calls, significantly wider than the one Ilya is holding in his hand. “This is a physical skill - you need a demonstration in order to learn.”
Something warm and giddy bursts in Ilya’s chest. “Show me, then. Wise and experienced Hollander, teach me everything you know.”