Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Angst and Feels, Feels, Vomiting, Shallergies, Shane Hollander Has Food Allergies, Anaphylaxis, Caring Ilya Rozanov, Soft Ilya Rozanov, Soft Shane Hollander, Soft Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Being Idiots, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Idiots in Love, Shane Hollander Whump, Anxious Shane Hollander, Self-Worth Issues, Emotional Whump, Emotional Vulnerability, Sick Shane Hollander, Guilty Ilya Rozanov

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-24 Words: 16,723 Chapters: 1/1

cotinine

Summary

Shane gets approximately ten minutes of feeling blissful and content after Ilya Rozanov leaves his apartment-

-and then he has to bolt to the bathroom to get ill with a violence he hasn’t experienced since he was still conditioning for the season as a rookie.

In the aftermath, he runs a cold washcloth over his face while swishing his mouth out and tries to convince himself that it had to have just been something he ate.

He wonders if he should text Rozanov and give him a warning, but having to send a, “Thanks for taking my virginity, by the way I just puked my guts up and you might have caught whatever this is from me” doesn’t really seem like it’s a very sexy follow-up text to get from someone. As a “congrats on getting fucked” present to himself in honor of the occasion, he decides he’ll chalk it up to the sudden release of nerves and only send the text if it lasts past the night.

(shane is EXTREMELY sensitive to nicotine) (the problem with this? he isn't actually aware of it and thus doesn't understand why fucking ilya rozanov sometimes makes him sick afterwards)

Notes

i made a post a while ago about the idea of shane being really sensitive to nicotine but not knowing that or putting together why he sometimes feel nauseous after hooking up with ilya and i FINALLY microwaved it enough in my head so ENJOY

as a note: nicotine does indeed make some people sick at any level of exposure, but i did get kind of hand wavy with actual science here for the sake of playing dolls with my blorbos. i hope you can love me through it and enjoy these idiots. <3

(also as a warning, shane is working through struggling with his own sexual identity in this fic including a sex scene with rose that he isn't really enjoying and feels guilty about, so read with caution if that would be upsetting for you)

(also fam this was supposed to be a quick funny haha what if and then it became THIS) (wowzers)

Really, it’s almost a relief that Rozanov being a jackass about Shane winning Rookie of the Year and refusing to make an appearance dims the shine of his night after getting his award. 

It means getting back to his hotel room about an hour later and puking up every ill-advised shot doesn’t end up being the lowest point of his night. 

Small fucking victories. 

“Fuck,” he groans, leaning forward again, even though he’s not sure what’s even left to come up. 

Really, it’s probably good he stopped Rozanov from pushing any further when he kissed him up on the rooftop. He’d done it because he was pissed and confused and not to save his pride by not being humiliatingly unable to hold his liquor in front of a guy who already has a reputation for clubbing like he was born for it, but it has led to the same result. If he has to end his night on a hotel bathroom floor puking his guts up, at least he gets to do it without any witnesses. 

Gagging miserably after a wave of renewed nausea hits him, he makes a solemn vow that he will never touch anything else but ginger ale for the rest of his fucking life. 

*

Shane gets approximately ten minutes of feeling blissful and content after Ilya Rozanov leaves his apartment-

-and then he has to bolt to the bathroom to get ill with a violence he hasn’t experienced since he was still conditioning for the season as a rookie. 

In the aftermath, he runs a cold washcloth over his face while swishing his mouth out and tries to convince himself that it had to have just been something he ate. 

He wonders if he should text Rozanov and give him a warning, but having to send a, “Thanks for taking my virginity, by the way I just puked my guts up and you might have caught whatever this is from me” doesn’t really seem like it’s a very sexy follow-up text to get from someone. As a “congrats on getting fucked” present to himself in honor of the occasion, he decides he’ll chalk it up to the sudden release of nerves and only send the text if it lasts past the night. 

It’s not the first time winding himself up about something would have been responsible for making him puke, after all. It’s not as bad as it was when he was a kid, but it does still happen from time to time, the pressure cooker in his brain directing it all to his stomach, winding him tighter and tighter until something has to give. As an adult, it usually stops at just nausea now, manageable with some deep breathing, a heavy workout to get the nervous energy out, or an occasional sniff of an alcohol wipe if things are really bad—a helpful tip from a nurse years ago that means he usually has at least a couple in his wallet in case of emergencies—but it has still happened a couple of times. 

When his stomach settles, he swishes his mouth out and spits, wiping his mouth with a cold washcloth. Tomorrow, he decides. He’ll send the text tomorrow if he still feels sick. 

For tonight, he thinks with a small, pleased smile, he’ll just let himself enjoy the hottest fucking thing he’s ever experienced. 

*

As he learns only later, it wouldn’t have mattered if he sent the text or not. 

Not when Rozanov doesn’t answer anything he sends him. 

*

When he’s feeling especially sorry for himself after the first time, after Sochi, after months of silence when Rozanov got what he wanted and thus doesn’t need him for anything anymore, he wonders if it was his body’s way of telling him he made a mistake, some primal kind of hindbrain thing trying to give him a warning not to get attached. 

Feeling stupid and naive and used, he wishes he could have gotten the warning a little earlier. 

*

Shane feels nauseous leading up to their joint appearance at the awards show, and he wonders distantly whether it would be worth telling Rozanov that the very idea of having to be around him makes him feel sick. It might feel good, possibly, getting to hit back in some way, having some petty little revenge in exchange for Sochi. 

But he’s also afraid it’ll just make him seem pathetic. 

He manages to willpower his way out of it by the time Rozanov is actually in front of him, and even if he’s annoyed at the additional stress of having to figure out if he was going to have to present the award alone or not, he decides it was probably for the best that Rozanov wasn’t there to witness him holding onto the curtain ropes and desperately trying to will his stomach to settle. 

Still, he makes a beeline for the bathroom afterwards for multiple reasons. 

And of fucking course the asshole has to follow before he even gets a chance to splash some cold water on his face. 

And then of fucking course the motherfucker laughs. 

Shane’s vague nausea tips sharply over into very un-vague irritation, especially when the first fucking thing out of Rozanov’s mouth next is a demand to suck his dick, confirmation that anything else Shane thought might exist between them—understanding, camaraderie, basic fucking respect—was his own stupid mistake. He feels like an idiot, like a stupid, inexperienced, pathetic fool who bought something he apparently wasn’t even being sold. That’s the worst part, really, knowing it’s his own fucking fault. After the CCM shoot, after All Stars, after two years of texting before he was ready to actually pull the trigger on admitting that maybe a fantasy wasn’t just a fantasy but a desire of his that he actually wanted to experience, he’d thought maybe Rozanov might be something almost like a friend, someone who wanted to fuck him because it’s him and not just because fucking him would be a conquest, another achievement to store in a mental trophy room. 

Ilya Rozanov got to fuck his rival up the ass, and Shane fell for it hook, line, and pathetic fucking sinker. 

He hates himself even more when Rozanov grabs him by the chin and all he feels is his shoulders unwinding a little, his body reacting without his permission to the firm, confident pressure holding him where Rozanov wants him. 

“This bathroom floor is disgusting,” Rozanov says, voice quiet, even. “If you want me to get on my knees on this filthy bathroom floor, you will need to ask nicer than that.” 

A distant part of Shane would like to say he’s tempted to knock Rozanov on his ass on this filthy bathroom floor. 

But the rest of him is too bowed under the relief at this little sign that maybe Rozanov wasn’t one and done with him after all. 

“Please,” he says, not pulling away but only able to meet Rozanov’s eyes briefly, directing the rest of the words to the lapel of his jacket, “get on your knees on this filthy bathroom floor and suck my dick.” It’s not even just the sex he wants, per se. It’s the possibility that Rozanov would do it, that hooking up would be worth the hassle (and grossness) of the logistics at present. “Please.” 

Already this deep into being pathetic instead of righteously angry, he doesn’t resist it when Rozanov nudges his head to the side, guiding him down to rest it against his shoulder. It’s nice, being able to close his eyes and press them against the firm solidity of Rozanov. He smells like the cologne he wore when he came to Shane’s apartment, and it presses on the bruise at the same time it eases the sting of the cut, tapping into scent memory and how good that night felt. It’s the goodness that’s left him so fucking confused in the aftermath. He’s gathered that getting too cuddly at the end wrecked it—he’s still not sure why a forehead kiss isn’t okay but Rozanov kissing his thighs and hips and stomach and shoulders and back was, but it’s the only thing he’s been able to work out as the reason Rozanov abruptly decided it was time to go—but before that, he’d felt comfortable and turned on and safe, in a way he had never experienced before, like whatever he wanted was okay, like shame couldn't make it past the edges of the mattress because Rozanov’s hand and mouth on his skin scared it off. It had been nice, to let go and let Rozanov make the calls, knowing they would be made with him in mind. He’d worked himself up while waiting for him to get there, wondering if he made a mistake, but after they’d gotten started, it had just been…easy. Rozanov had teased him when his nerves made an appearance, got him loose and slick and hungry enough to take him without a problem, and had put the guardrails in place when he’d needed them, pushing his leg up at the angle it needed to be at, guiding him into place to take him from behind in the right position, checking in to make sure he wasn’t in pain to the point that Shane had eventually lost patience with him a little bit, so far in the opposite end of hurting that he’d wanted Rozanov to get the fuck on with it and drive him the final distance into fucking amazing. And he had. He’d sent Shane over the edge and stayed close in the aftermath, curled close and still touching him, giving him something sturdy to focus on while coming back to himself, warm skin and a steady hand and slow little kisses pressed to his shoulder and neck while he processed the overwhelming reality of what just happened. 

And then he’d ghosted him for literal fucking months. 

“No.” 

The answer is so unexpected that it takes him a moment to process it, lifting his head slightly from the safe haven of Rozanov’s shoulder to make sure he’s heard right. 

“What?” 

“No,” Rozanov says, not harshly but firmly. “We will go back to our seats, watch the rest of this boring show, and go to boring party after,” he nudges Shane back upright, and he doesn’t have it in him to resist, his body feeling a little looser for the first time in weeks after resting against Rozanov’s even for such a brief time, “and then, when you have been waiting all night, you will come back to my hotel room, and I will maybe—maybe—do more than just suck your dick.” 

It’s ridiculous, maybe, to have so much worry lift off of him at this plan, but he feels physically lighter afterwards. It’s nice, to return to something borderline teasing between them. 

It’s nicer still to know that Rozanov apparently wasn’t satisfied at just fucking him once to check him off of a list. 

And it’s enough to make him feel almost a little drunk when Rozanov kisses him with the same amount of want he always has, a touchpoint of comfortable territory after being lost in so many questions for so long. 

He almost feels tired, afterwards, from the release of so much tension all at once. 

But for the first time all day, he doesn’t feel sick. 

*

He doesn’t feel physically sick after they fuck and he leaves, either. 

He just also doesn’t feel particularly good. 

It’s his own stupid fault for having expectations beyond reality again, and he knows it. Just because the first few times they were physical together felt different—felt…warmer, somehow, Rozanov more present and responsive to him—doesn’t mean he should have expected it to happen again. It’s not even that it was bad sex, per se, because it wasn’t. It was good enough that he already knows he’s probably going to be getting himself off to the memory of it in the future, in fact. 

It’s just that Shane failed to understand that the way Rozanov wanted to fuck him wasn’t just a game they were playing. 

Is that how you usually fuck people? He types up and doesn’t send, no matter how much he wants to. It’s not quite as embarrassing as his original We didn’t even kiss, but it’s not that much better. So is that how we’ll fuck next time? He types it up, but he thinks it might be taken wrong. He’d just like to know, is the thing. If the first time was a one-off, if Rozanov being touchy and warm and teasing isn’t how he usually fucks, then Shane would at least like to know ahead of time instead of having to guess. It makes a certain amount of sense, really, that Rozanov would fuck a virgin differently than he would fuck someone who already has some experience, but he doesn’t like the surprise of it, the lack of warning that they weren’t playing a game with each other; that Rozanov meant it when he touched Shane like he was just the nearest warm body this time. 

Honestly, the faint nausea is almost a relief, a minor distraction from his own pathetic inward spiraling. 

Can we fuck more like we did before the next time we meet up? The text sits on his screen for a long, long time. He edits. Next time we fuck, can you kiss me after? That one he deletes far faster. I didn’t like fucking like that. That one is true, but not all the way. He liked the starting point, and he liked the middle. He would have liked all of it, really, if…

If Rozanov hadn’t gone so distant afterwards, there but not really. 

I don’t want to fuck like that next time. 

He deletes that one slowly, letter by letter. 

He decides to send nothing at all. 

*

Shane would like to say he has to stop and consider it before he agrees to meet up before their first match the next season. 

In reality, after a summer of texts that went increasingly flirty the closer Rozanov got to being able to act on them, it takes barely ten seconds before receiving a text asking your hotel? and answering with a Yes. 

*

“Fuck, Rozanov,” Shane grits out, grabbing fistfuls of bedding so tight it’s a miracle he hasn’t ripped any of it yet. 

“Is good?” Rozanov pants into his ear. 

“It’s-oh God.” The only answer he can give beyond that is holding his hips perfectly still to keep Rozanov right where he is, each thrust working him just where he needs it. 

“Good boy,” Rozanov says, which pulls a noise out of Shane that can only be described as a whine. “Taking it so good.” 

Shane’s breath seizes in his chest, and he feels the muscles in his stomach and thighs going tight, toes tingling as-

When Rozanov pulls out, there is a moment in which he contemplates straight fucking manslaughter. 

“What the fuck?” He demands, giving into the pressure at his hip to turn over. “I was close, asshole.” 

“Poor baby,” Rozanov coos obnoxiously, but the annoyance of it is tempered when he hooks his hands beneath Shane’s knees and spreads him wide. It’s a terrifyingly vulnerable position to be in, especially when Rozanov doesn’t move to lay on top of him for a long moment, instead just taking him in. There’s a part of him that wants to close his legs immediately, shy at being stared at so intensely. 

The rest of him, though, just finds it really, really fucking hot. 

“Are you going to finish the job,” he finally prompts, “or just keep looking?” 

“Hm,” Rozanov says with a small smile, leaning in to kiss his knee and then his thigh before sliding forward, letting go of Shane’s legs but keeping one looped over his elbow. “Sorry. Is even prettier than I remembered.” 

“You’re so fucking weird,” Shane says, inhaling and tipping his head back when Rozanov finally pushes inside of him again. 

“What?” Rozanov asks, voice all but a purr right into his ear. “You are shy suddenly?” 

“Stop talking and fuck me,” Shane demands, wrapping his free leg around Rozanov’s lower back, determined to hold him the fuck in place if he gets any ideas about pulling out again. 

“You think I cannot do both?” Rozanov asks, and Shane can feel the shape of his smile when he kisses him before he pulls back, only going far enough to rest his forehead against Shane’s jaw. “Fuck, Hollander, so fucking tight.” 

Absurdly, Shane preens under the compliment.

“Is good?” Rozanov asks, nuzzling at his neck until Shane presses at his face to kiss him again. He doesn’t know what changed this time, why kissing and fucking face to face is suddenly back on the table, but he’ll take it while he can. 

“Yes,” he breathes out between kisses. 

“Feels good?” Rozanov asks, and Shane frowns, a little irritated now. He gets the feeling that Rozanov is angling for something, but he doesn’t know what. 

And he feels his stomach go tight in something other than pleasure at the idea that he’s about to fuck this up when it finally feels good again. 

“Hollander?” Rozanov asks, and it’s all Shane can do not to groan when he stops once more, not pulling out this time but disrupting a rhythm and angle that was really working for him. “Okay?” 

“Yes,” Shane says, and there’s a snap to it now. He rocks his hips impatiently. “Now make me cum.” 

Rozanov looks surprised for a moment, and his expression shifts into something that suggests Shane riding the edge of bratty is really doing it for him. 

Him finally starting to move again really does it for Shane, so all’s well that ends in orgasm. 

*

Rozanov doesn’t linger long after they’re finished, pressed against Shane until they both get their breath back and then pulling away to dispose of the condom and take a shower. Shane waits in the bed feeling loose and satisfied and tries not to think about how tonight is going to end. It felt better tonight, Rozanov more attentive than in Las Vegas, but he doesn’t know if that’s going to extend to afterwards, too. He wants it to, he realizes. He doesn’t want Rozanov to suddenly not look at him, like he’s either disgusted or disinterested. 

Shane doesn’t like having to wonder whether he caused either. 

Rozanov emerges from the shower, and Shane is still relaxed just enough that he allows himself to watch him get dressed. He’s jealous in a vague kind of way, how unselfconscious Rozanov is even while wriggling his jeans up over his hips. Not that he has much experience behind him at this point, but Shane finds the transitions between elements of fucking awkward-feeling. The fucking is good and the before and after are manageable, but it feels strangely vulnerable in the in between, taking his clothes off and putting them back on. He’d been happy their first time in his apartment had involved Rozanov stripping him and then getting dressed at the same time as him. In Vegas, taking his clothes off while Rozanov watched him do it was almost worse than fingering himself while Rozanov watched, the power dynamic feeling skewed sharply away from his control. 

Tugging his shirt back on now, Rozanov looks as in-control as ever. 

It’s both attractive and annoying. 

“I want to watch you with your thing next time,” Rozanov says, standing back up after retrieving his sock from where it escaped under the bed. 

“What?” Shane asks, thrown. 

“Your ‘thing,’” Rozanov repeats. “Your dildo.” 

Shane feels his face go hot and desperately hopes it isn’t visible. 

“Why?” He asks, flustered and confused. “Getting tired of fucking me yourself?” 

Rozanov grins, a wicked thing that makes Shane consider whether or not he could be tempted to stay for another round. 

“Oh, I still want to fuck you,” Rozanov says, getting a knee onto the mattress and then crawling over until he’s braced above Shane. He leans down and kisses him, nipping his lip before he pulls back. “But first I want to fuck you with your dildo, I think. Will be hot, yes?” 

The way certain parts of Shane’s anatomy are trying to defy the necessity of a refractory period is enough of an answer, and the way Rozanov glances down briefly before continuing says he’s registered it. 

“Hm, yes,” he says, giving Shane another kiss that’s more of a peck than anything. “Good plan.” He gives Shane a solid slap to the hip before climbing off of him, sliding his feet into his boots and then grabbing his jacket. He stops at the door, turning back. “Goodnight, Hollander.” 

“Night,” Shane echoes. 

For a moment, it looks like he’s going to say something else, but he apparently thinks better of it, nodding his head slightly and then taking his leave. 

*

Shane doesn’t get sick that night. In fact, he sleeps so deeply it takes until his third “get your ass out of bed now” contingency alarm goes off for him to wake up, feeling rested and content and good. 

Maybe the third time was the charm for his nerves not getting the better of him, he considers optimistically. 

*

He does indeed let Rozanov use his dildo on him the next time he’s up in Montreal, wielding the silicone to what feels like near-deadly effect, pushing Shane past the point where he thought his limits were and into three orgasms in one hour. He smoked before he came over, but Shane is so mind-melted with pleasure that he doesn’t even mind it, turning his head to the right angle and letting Rozanov take over from there. He’s so high after coming a fourth time—near-painful and into the borderlands of overstimulation to the point that his first instinct is to pull away before it hits him but still so fucking good—that he doesn’t even protest when Rozanov cleans him up after, boneless and not fully in his right mind. It’s oddly sweet, the tending, Rozanov even bugging him until he sits up enough to drink some water and even washing his dildo for him, leaving it in the bathroom suctioned to the counter. 

Which Shane only discovers after he has to bolt to said bathroom to puke his guts up about thirty minutes after Rozanov leaves. 

Clutching at the tank as his stomach cramps painfully and forces another gag out of him, he wonders if this is just the price he has to pay for feeling so good before. 

*

Trying to get ahead of his own anxiety, Shane takes the time to do some yoga and deep breathing before he and Rozanov meet up next time. 

He succeeds, and he leaves the hookup feeling nothing but pleasantly sore. 

*

He tries the same thing before Rozanov comes to his place after that. 

He ends his night puking. 

*

He does make an attempt at understanding what the fuck is going on with him. Given that there is no way he will be saying anything to anyone about how he fucks a man and then pukes after sometimes, he turns to the only medical professional he can trust. 

Google. 

“vomiting after sex” offers vertigo, pelvic inflammatory disease, dehydration, urinary tract infection, and endometriosis. Given the fact that he doesn’t even have the right organs for all of those, he changes tracks slightly. “vomiting after sex with men” offers an expanded scope of being allergic to semen, which is a horrifying possibility he hadn’t previously considered, and exposure to allergens through semen, which is annoying but at least a little less alarming than being allergic to cum entirely. He dismisses the first since it doesn’t happen every single time—and because he really, really doesn’t want that to be what it is—and he pauses about the second. It’s possible, obviously, but the nausea doesn’t feel like any of his reactions. It’s a little concerning that it’s not something he knew he needed to worry about before, but he wonders if he even does now. The response hasn’t gotten more intense the way his allergies have in the past, and it doesn’t always line up with what they’ve done, either. He puked once after he hadn’t had any cum in his mouth at all, going down on Rozanov briefly after he’d already put a condom on to get ready to fuck him. If the semen was the problem, that wouldn’t have made sense. He moves on. He learns about something called post orgasmic illness syndrome that he’s glad he didn’t know about before puberty because Jesus, but that doesn’t make sense, either. The symptoms don’t quite line up, and he doesn’t experience them on his own or even with the couple of girls he’s messed around with. It’s just with Rozanov. 

Which leads to refining his diagnosis attempt with a surefire way of getting actual answers. 

“vomiting after sex with men reddit” 

It gets him more specific answers, yes. 

It’s just that he doesn’t particularly like those answers. 

“listen, babe,” reads one commenter, and Shane is vaguely offended on behalf of himself and the original asker at getting “babed” in this tone, “listen to your fucking body. that guy is no good. GET! OUT!” 

Shane chooses to scroll on. 

He gets more suggestions of the same things Google tried to tell him, and he dismisses those once again. The information about something called vaginismus is new and makes him very thankful that it’s not something he needs to worry about, and he sees a few reports of nausea after anal, which is more relevant but still doesn’t line up. He’s gotten nauseous just after blowjobs, after all, and with as careful as Rozanov always is with him, he doubts it’s a physical issue of not being prepared or lubed up enough; he’s also been totally fine using his dildo on himself. 

Which leads to what he already suspected but didn’t want to be true: anxiety. 

“Sex is mental, too,” says another commenter that Shane appreciates for being nicer than the “babe” and “bitch, get it together” and “girl” commenters he’s scrolled through before, “If you’re not ready or if you’re not in the mood, it’s not going to feel good. First of all, you’re probably going to be too tight or not wet enough,” the latter doesn’t apply to him and the former is not an issue, but he keeps going, “and your head isn’t going to be in the game. If you’re worked up, you’re not going to be feeling good.” 

The problem is that he does feel good. He feels really fucking good. He feels better than he ever has with girls before, in fact, even if he tries not to think about that part too much. 

There is the element of never knowing what to expect, though, and he can’t deny that aspect. There hasn’t been a repeat of Vegas, but it’s not like he’s forgotten it. They’ve played around with getting rougher like in Vegas, which does always make Shane feel a little nervous when he’s not in the thick of it, worried it’s going to end the same way and leave him feeling like shit, but Rozanov has never pulled away like he did in Vegas again. He’s not always the most attentive and focused on Shane at the end, but he’s not cold. He always kisses him at least a little bit, and some nights he holds Shane after like he’s not in any hurry to let go. It does make him a little unsettled sometimes, honestly, never quite knowing what to expect, feeling like he’s been dropped in a game no one will tell him the rules to. 

He wonders…he wonders if he should ask Rozanov about it, if he should ask for some guidelines. 

Then he thinks about how it would feel if Rozanov laughed at him being such a fucking loser that he doesn’t even know the rules for a casual hookup. 

He decides at once that puking now and then is still preferable to how that would feel. 

He snaps his laptop shut with feeling. 

*

“You okay in there, buddy?” 

Shane starts to open his mouth to tell Hayden to fuck off and let him die in peace, but he gags before he gets the chance, which Hayden apparently decides to take as an answer on its own, making the executive decision of opening the door. 

“Jesus, pal,” Hayden says, ignoring the brief side eye Shane cuts him before he’s retching again. “You eat something bad, do you think? Told you that sandwich wrap looked suspect.” 

“It was…it was fine,” Shane gasps out. In all honesty, it was kind of gross, but it had been his only option for an allergy-free dinner without the luxury of his own kitchen, so having opinions about it isn’t really relevant. It was food. It wouldn’t kill him. Down the hatch. Done. 

“I mean current evidence would suggest otherwise,” Hayden observes. “You want a cold washcloth? Jackie says putting them on the back of her neck helps with her morning sickness.” 

Shane is wildly insulted by the idea of being treated like a pregnant woman, but another wave of nausea prevents him from telling Hayden off about it. If the wrap sucked on the way down, its journey up doesn’t offer any improvements, he thinks darkly. He hears the tap run and jumps slightly when a cold cloth is put on the back of his neck, Hayden pressing it down in a way that feels oddly good. 

“Want me to text medical?” Hayden asks. “See what they say?” 

“No,” Shane says, because he has his own suspicions about the cause of this, and there is no fucking way he’ll be sharing them. 

He’d gone back and forth with himself about meeting up with Rozanov at all tonight, not even opening their text thread until after the game, which meant Rozanov was even more of an asshole on the ice with his checks and that Shane certainly wasn’t encouraged to go fuck him after he was a dick all night when he was already wound up. News just broke about an MLB player being outed after a sex tape of him with a guy had leaked, and the responses online had been a painful reminder of what exactly the world of professional sports thinks about guys who fuck guys. He tries to keep the locker room talk on his own team relatively contained, tries to keep anyone from saying anything too off-color, but he has to give on some things to keep others off limits or he runs the risk of mutiny. He’d felt bad about it, but some insulting jokes about bats and their possible applications when it comes to gay sex were hardly the worst the player is currently facing, especially when they were contained to a single locker room, not posted on Twitter to be retweeted and expanded on. 

But it doesn’t mean it felt good to hear it. 

He’d dragged out responding long enough that kissing Rozanov had felt like eating a cigarette when they finally met up, the man apparently having decided to kill time by smoking like a freight train. The sex had been good enough afterwards to make up for it, but they hadn’t had time to linger, and Rozanov hadn’t wanted to discuss the MLB player, cutting him off and making a pointed comment about how soon Shane would need to leave to make it back to the hotel to avoid missing curfew. It had stung, the dismissal, but he’d taken it as the obvious hint it was and headed back. 

The lack of anyone else to talk about this with is something he’s paying for now, though, his anxiety getting a brief reprieve courtesy of fucking Rozanov but coming back with a vengeance to get him now. 

Because isn’t that just his fucking luck. 

*

“Here.” 

Shane opens his eyes about an hour later, the nausea having thankfully stopped (primarily, he’s pretty sure, because there was nothing left to bring up). He’d taken a shower and then come out to find no Hayden in the room, and he’d half-wondered if his roomie had ditched him to avoid bunking with what would appear to be Typhoid Mary. Now, though, he’s back. 

And holding a bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale. 

Hayden taps him on the cheek with it gently when he doesn’t initially move to take it, and Shane gives him a look but accepts it, sitting up and unscrewing the cap as Hayden returns to his own bed, setting a box of saltines down on the nightstand between them. He doesn’t feel sick anymore, but the ginger ale still tastes good, and he is hungry now. 

“Label looked good for you on the crackers,” Hayden says, picking up his phone and starting to scroll, “but double-check me, please. I think all of Canada might kill me if I take out Shane Hollander with rogue peanut dust.” 

Shane snorts but does glance over the label, confirming that it is safe. 

“Where’d you get this?” He asks, opening the box and pulling out a sleeve. 

“Walked to CVS,” Hayden says with a shrug. 

Shane blinks. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, a little uncomfortable in the face of the effort, honestly. He’d thought maybe he’d gone down to the front desk and asked. He hadn’t known he’d fully left to go get them for him, especially after curfew. 

“Oh, it’s not for free,” Hayden says, looking up from his phone and smiling playfully. “You will have to give me your firstborn child in exchange whenever you finally get around to making one.” 

Shane settles down, the box of crackers at his hip, washing down a mouthful with a swig of ginger ale before responding. 

“You don’t have enough already?” He teases. “You’re on what, baby seven?” 

“Okay, asshole, watch the tone or I’m repo-ing the saltines,” Hayden says without heat. “And I’m just being smart about it. Shane Hollander progeny? I’m putting them on ice as soon as they can walk and then looking forward to my retirement.” 

“Seems pretty expensive for a ginger ale and some saltines,” Shane teases. 

“Supply and demand, buddy,” Hayden says with a shrug. “He who has the ability to walk and not puke controls the market.” 

Shane snorts, working his way through a few more crackers. 

“Thanks, Hayd,” he says quietly, when he’s about halfway through the sleeve. 

“Don’t mention it, buddy,” Hayden says without concern. 

Saltines and ginger ale aren’t exactly a performance diet ideal dinner, especially on a night after a game, but he goes to bed with at least something on his stomach, and the reassurance that he’s got at least one really good friend. He doesn’t know if being willing to go out into Boston at 11 o’clock at night just to get him saltines and a ginger ale means he’d stick by him if certain things ever leaked, but…

For now he lets himself think it might. 

*

When he’s feeling particularly honest with himself, Shane thinks it might be the moments like this that keep him coming back as much as the orgasms, the relief and release of turning his brain off and being able to trust that someone else will put guardrails up, will take over thinking for a bit. His only purpose is the joint pursuit of what feels good, his thoughts transformed into hazy, unformed things, wordless satisfaction and little sparks to do something again because it felt particularly good. Over the years, he’s started taking the lead more in bed, experimenting with ideas he’s had or things he’s seen, Rozanov always an eager participant. He’d been more nervous in the their first few hookups at doing something wrong, at turning Rozanov off by looking stupid, but he’s settled into it by now, in the way that apparently anything he wants is fair game. If it’s silly or it doesn’t work, they’ll laugh it off and move into something that does work. If he’s trying something and can’t figure it out, Rozanov seems to have a sixth sense for what he wants and will nudge him in the right direction, teasing him, maybe, but also indulging him. 

What Shane’s doing now certainly feels indulgent. 

It took two years before he was comfortable with riding Rozanov like this, worried about looking stupid or getting the angle or the speed wrong. He’d ended up kneeing Rozanov in the stomach by accident during his first attempt, in fact, something that he’d been mortified by, but Rozanov had just made a stupid joke about knocking the breath out of him in a more enjoyable way and they’d moved on, Rozanov letting him roll back onto his back and taking over, sensing that Shane hadn’t been up for a second attempt that night, too embarrassed and needing to work his nerve up again. 

Now the hands on his hips are more embellishment than necessity, big and warm and pleasurable in the way they’re squeezing him but not essential to doing it right. He even smiles faintly when Rozanov tries to pick up the pace, enjoying the rare role reversal of Rozanov trying to be the one to speed things up for once. 

“You want something?” Shane asks, stealing a classic Rozanov line and feeling a little drunk on his own audacity. Riding the wave of it, he even dares to slow down slightly. 

The way Rozanov’s eyes flash makes him clench even without deciding to do it, which punches a lovely little noise out of the man under him. 

He files it away as a technique to explore on purpose later. 

“Did you come to fuck or just fuck around?” Rozanov asks, but there’s no actual anger to it. Shane knows he could get up and leave right now and Rozanov would let him. Anything that happens is in his power to stop if he wants to. He could let Rozanov tie him to the bed and gag him, and he could still pull away and be obeyed at once. 

The rush of his own power almost sends him over the edge before he’s ready. 

“No one likes a backseat driver,” he taunts.

“No one likes a tease, either,” Rozanov shoots back, but then he smiles faintly and lets go of Shane’s hips, resting his hands back behind his head. “Okay. You want to drive? Drive. I will just sit here.” 

It’s possible there’s something wrong with him that the challenge makes him so horny that his head goes a little light for a second. 

Adjusting his weight on his knees to give him some better leverage, he decides to see if he can make Rozanov equally dizzy. 

*

(From the way neither of them can even move after finishing for a good few minutes, he thinks smugly that he succeeded quite well.) 

*

“Ugh,” Shane complains between kisses, “you taste like cigarettes.” Even four years into this, he still can’t stand the smell of them. 

Or, more relevantly at this moment, the taste. 

“So picky,” Rozanov says, nudging his head to the side to nip at his neck like a puppy being annoying, “what? I should do the vape thing instead? You would rather have blue raspberry or whatever the fuck those flavors are?” 

“You shouldn’t be inhaling that shit at all,” Shane says, nudging his head back upright for another kiss. Despite his complaints, he relaxes into the slick pressure of Rozanov’s mouth against his. 

Even if other parts of him do the opposite of relax when Rozanov slips a thigh between both of his, giving him something to press against. 

“Fuck, Roz,” he gets out. A wildly embarrassing noise escapes from him when Rozanov takes hold of his hips and controls the angle and speed of his rocking. 

“What?” Rozanov asks into his ear, sending little shivers through him at the sensation of warm breath against such sensitive skin. “You want to lecture me more on smoking or you want to fuck?” 

“I can-oh fuck,” Shane says, white knuckling his focus back, “I can do both.” 

Rozanov huffs out a laugh and then pulls away, nudging Shane towards the bed. 

“Strip,” he orders. 

“You strip,” Shane shoots back, but he’s grinning when he does. 

It’s been four months since they last saw each other, and he’s dying for the relief of Rozanov inside of him again, thick and heavy and filling him just right. He finally upgraded his dildo last year to a larger one, but even over the internet and not having to explain it to anyone, he’d felt shy about buying one exactly the same size as Rozanov, so it still doesn’t scratch the itch the same way. 

When Rozanov crowds him down to the bed, then, he goes easily. 

“Fuck, Hollander,” Rozanov groans when Shane gets a hand on him, pressing their mouths together again. He tastes like cigarettes, still, stronger than he has before, and Shane wonders if that’s why it’s making his throat feel a little itchy. He doesn’t know if smoke gets caught in saliva or not, but he can taste it on him. The pleasure is intense enough to ignore it—especially when Rozanov slicks up two of his fingers and sinks them in at just the right angle, pressing up and up until Shane can feel the familiar zing of pleasure at being touched right on that wonderful bundle of nerves inside–but it registers, still. He tries to inhale through it and then shifts when it feels like he can’t expand his chest enough. He frowns, faintly, not pulling back from the kiss, wondering why Rozanov would suddenly feel heavy enough to do that. He’s a big guy, certainly, but so is Shane, and he’s always found the weight of him pleasurable before. It’s never been enough to make him feel like he can’t inhale all the way before, like-

In an instant, his brain offers an alternate suggestion for the increasing presence of these separate elements, and the horror of the idea makes him freeze. 

“Hollander?” Rozanov asks, pulling back at once, shifting enough to rest his weight on his knees on either side of Shane instead of pressing down against him, hands on either side of his shoulders. “Is okay?” 

“Y-yeah,” Shane says, trying to convince himself that Rozanov was just a little too heavy, that-

His next inhale wheezes, and he sits up sharply enough that he slams his head against Rozanov’s, making them both bow forward and curse, hands pressing to the spot on each of their heads. 

“Blyat,” Rozanov hisses, climbing off of him. 

Shane would like to apologize, but he’s a little busy trying to tell himself that what appears to be happening to him is not fucking happening to him. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to convince himself it’s just-it’s just-

“Fuck,” he hisses, the word more air than noise. 

“What’s wrong?” Rozanov asks, reaching for him, but Shane brushes him off, scrambling for his clothes and then mouthing another swear when he knocks the neat pile off of the dresser, dropping to his knees in pursuit. “Hollander?” 

Shane doesn’t respond, his throat getting tighter and tighter like the reaction was just biding its time to wait for him to notice. 

Well, he certainly fucking notices now. 

Cursing at his fingers suddenly deciding to be made of lead, he finally manages to get his Auvi-Q out of his jacket pocket, making his wobbly way back to the mattress. Rozanov is talking again, keeping to his own side of the bed but not going farther than that, but Shane doesn’t have it in him to respond, not when he can feel his head going lighter, his blood pressure dropping, even as he can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears. It takes him two tries to get the safety cover off, and then he jabs the device against his thigh, wincing reflexively at the pressure-pain of the needle going into his skin and making a face at the faint sting of the epinephrine but already anticipating the relief of being able to breathe all the way. The robotic voice fades into background noise along with Rozanov’s, his attention focused on trying to keep his chest expanding beyond what it feels like it’s capable of. He tunes in enough to hear the Auvi-Q tell him the injection is complete, and he pulls it free, keeping hold of it as he lays back, still dizzy enough that he needs to be horizontal for a moment to let the epinephrine finish working before he’ll feel confident that he’s not about to topple over. 

When the painful tightness in his chest and throat eases enough for him to pull in a full breath, he opens his eyes to find Rozanov looking significantly less relieved. 

Oops. 

“Hollander,” Rozanov says, and Shane can hear the strain as he tries to keep his voice even, “what the fuck is happening?” 

Shane wonders if he might be able to get away with pretending to pass out or not. 

*

“-cking tell me you have fucking allergies, Hollander? What the fuck?” 

Given that he’s the one just out of a hospital, Shane feels like he should be able to play the injured party card right now, but Rozanov doesn’t exactly sound like he’s in a place to let that happen. 

“It didn’t come up,” he says, even if the excuse seems thin on this side of anaphylactic consequences. 

It’s true, though. It’s not something he’s ever really had to think about before. He’d had a few girls he went on dates with in high school, but hockey had been a convenient excuse for not spending a lot of time with them, and his career had filled in on that score later. He’d kissed enough to feel like he probably had a normal amount of it under his belt, but they’d always taken place on date one or two or three, when popping mints or going to the bathroom to swish some mouthwash around still felt important. He’s never had to consider before that his allergies might be able to be triggered by what someone else has eaten and then kisses into his mouth. 

Now that it has happened, he feels like Rozanov should maybe get at least a little blame for smoking right before hooking up, hiding the smell of the peanut butter brownie one of the WAGs had sent along with her husband for the players after the game. 

The peanut butter brownie that meant Shane got a hospital visit instead of laid tonight, he thinks, more than a little grumpy about it. 

Making his mood plummet even worse is that he feels more nauseous right now than he normally does after a reaction. He’d mentioned it in the hospital and been told that it’s possible his allergies might be getting worse along with a suggestion to see his allergist and see what she thinks. 

He thinks the anxiety of having to face the idea of something that already impacts his life so much getting worse certainly isn’t helping with his stomach still feeling unsettled. 

“Then you make it come up, Hollander,” Rozanov says, clearly not in a mood to coddle him. 

Shane rolls his eyes, embarrassed and irritated. He thinks to bring up that maybe he would have been able to smell the peanut butter on Rozanov’s breath if he hadn’t chased it with a pack of cigarettes, but he’s not sure he has the energy for it, his body feeling heavier and heavier, especially with the anti-nausea meds the hospital sent him home with. 

“That’s fucking dangerous, Hollander,” Rozanov continues, because apparently he’s really on one tonight. “You cannot-” 

“You think I don’t fucking know that?” Shane snaps, his patience gone. “I fucking know how dangerous my own goddamn allergies are, Rozanov. Sorry I fucked your night up and you didn’t get laid. Get off my fucking back about it. Lesson fucking learned, okay?” His impulse is to hang up, to punctuate his irritation by ending the conversation, but the lack of any immediate response stops him. He pulls his phone away slightly to make sure he hasn’t been accidentally hung up on, but it looks like the call is still connected. 

“Okay,” Rozanov finally says, and his voice sounds quieter now. 

Well now Shane just feels a little overdramatic, which is annoying when he was provoked into it. 

“You are okay now?” Rozanov asks, and Shane frowns slightly, thrown by the shift in conversation with no warning. “You are not hurt?” 

“I-no,” Shane says. “I’m fine. I’m out of playing for a few days, but I should be back by next week. I’m just really tired.” 

“I will let you go to sleep, then,” Rozanov says, and Shane wishes he wasn’t a little disappointed about it, stupid as it is. He doubts Rozanov is going to be in the mood for phone sex, but he’d still like to talk a little longer. He doesn’t know how to ask for that, though, and especially not when Rozanov doesn’t seem to want it. 

Shane curls up under his blanket a little tighter, feeling stupid and needy. 

(And nauseous.) 

“Okay,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound disappointed. 

“Text me tomorrow, yes?” Rozanov asks, and Shane blinks, surprised. 

“Text you?” 

“Mm,” Rozanov agrees. “Let me know you are okay?” 

Shane smiles, a little, oddly touched by the show of concern. 

“Okay,” he agrees. 

“Goodnight, Hollander.” 

“Goodnight.” 

*

Like he’s proving a point, Rozanov shows up to their next hookup with his breath minty fresh. 

“You are not planning on dramatic hospital visit again, are you?” He teases, crowding Shane backwards onto his couch. 

“If you don’t hurry up and fuck me,” Shane says, tugging at buttons impatiently, “you’ll be the one going to the hospital, Rozanov.” 

“Promises, promises,” Rozanov teases, nuzzling at the side of his jaw before pulling back. 

Despite the teasing, he does get the fuck on with it. 

Thank fucking God. 

*

“Why did you not tell me?” 

A little hazy, still, in the aftermath of a fucking that did indeed feel like making up for the extra-long stretch between partnered orgasms, it takes a moment for Shane to get his brain back online enough to answer, his focus not helped by being curled up under his covers in a shared bubble of bodyheat with Rozanov. They don’t usually stick around together this long afterwards, but Shane had forgotten to turn his heat on this morning, so the sudden cold snap they’re in has made his apartment colder than it usually is. If Rozanov is reluctant to leave warm sheets, it’s not like Shane can really blame him. 

Especially when he gets to enjoy just getting to lay down together for a little bit, stupid as he knows it is to find it so relaxing. 

“Tell you what?” He asks around a yawn, shifting a little closer into the shared bodywarmth between them. He’d put a towel down before they fucked tonight despite Rozanov’s chirping about it, so the sheets are also still clean for once, something that isn’t helping him resist the temptation of falling asleep. Not that he would ever admit it, but he finds Rozanov’s presence oddly soothing, and on this side of fucking, it’s making him feel pleasantly tired, like someone went into his brain and flipped all the over-active neurons off, leaving his mind quiet and content in a way he rarely gets to experience. 

Really, if Rozanov sticking around to talk wasn’t novel enough to pique his interest, he might be almost resentful that he’s being prevented from taking what seems like it’s going to be a fucking excellent nap. 

“About your allergies,” Rozanov says. He shifts onto his side, settling until he can look at Shane. It feels intimate in a way that flusters him a little, stupid as that is when they've absolutely done things to and with each other far more intimate than just looking at each other while lying down, but it feels like edging towards something more than what they are, talking like this. “We have known each other for years and you did not tell me anything.” 

“Because you’re so chatty about yourself?” Shane asks before he thinks better of it. He doesn’t take it back, though. It’s true, after all. It’s hypocritical as fuck for Rozanov to talk about Shane not being forthcoming when trying to get information out of him is like trying to bite through a puck, probably impossible and only likely to fuck you up in the process of trying. From years of getting snapped at, he’s learned to stop trying. 

Even if he hasn’t quite mastered the art of stopping himself from wondering. 

“Well, I don’t have allergies you could kill me with, so there, I have already beaten you,” Rozanov says, smirking slightly. “Which you should be used to by now, yes?” 

“Asshole,” Shane grumbles, pulling the covers up over himself some more. He ends up tugging them more over Rozanov in the process, too, and he half-expects that to be the thing to break his nerve and make him decide to leave. That’s how it always seems to work, after all; Rozanov always goes right when Shane is comfortable. “That’s our thing, isn’t it? We meet up and we fuck and we don’t talk about ourselves.” That’s the understanding he’s been operating under, at least, based off of what Rozanov has demonstrated. He’s just assumed that’s how hookups work, honestly. It’s not like he has a ton of personal experience to draw on. He’s been counting on following Rozanov's sometimes-confusing lead. 

Rozanov processes this for a moment. 

“You want to talk more?” He asks, and Shane resists the kneejerk urge to pull the covers up over his head so Rozanov will stop looking at him when yes, actually. He does want that. 

He’s just gathered by now that Rozanov doesn’t. 

“I mean don’t hang around just on my account if you’d rather go,” he says with a shrug, “but yeah, it might be nice sometimes, maybe.” It makes him feel naked in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that he’s not wearing clothes right now to say it out loud, and he tries to come up with something to cover himself with. “Who the fuck else understands what it’s like being us?” He means it in more than once sense, honestly, but he checks the urge to over-explain, feeling like he’s already offered up more than he should. 

“Well,” Rozanov says, “I don’t know what it feels like being second best player in the league-” 

“You’re such a dick,” Shane says, but he’s smiling when he says it. 

“What?” Rozanov asks, smirking. “You have a problem with my dick suddenly?” 

“Okay, get the fuck out of my house,” Shane complains. “I changed my mind. You suck, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” 

Despite the words, he doesn’t move to make Rozanov leave, and Rozanov stays as he is. 

They kill almost an hour like that, just laying together and talking. 

It’s nicer than Shane knows what to do with, honestly. 

Rozanov kisses him before he goes, not hungry, not pushing for another round of sex, just something sweet, like a goodbye kiss, almost. 

Shane doesn’t know what to do with that, either. 

(Not that it stops him from wanting it to happen again.) 

*

“-can’t believe you let him keep pushing you to his right,” Shane says tonight, making a noise of protest but not stopping Rozanov when he helps himself to a forkful of Shane’s noodles without asking. “If you’d kept on his left, you could have gotten the puck every single time.” He takes a piece of Rozanov’s chicken in exchange for his noodles. 

They’re at an AirBnB in Boston tonight. Rozanov is in the process of moving from his apartment to a new house he’s bought in the city, so when he’d suggested meeting up somewhere else, Shane hadn’t been surprised. He knows he’d hate to have someone over before he was fully moved in somewhere, after all. 

Rozanov showing up with takeout that’s safe for him was a surprise, though. He’d planned on just getting something from a supermarket afterward or something, but Rozanov had said someone on the team has a kid with allergies and liked the place, and Shane does have to admit that it’s really good. 

Not that he’ll tell Rozanov as much, of course, afraid of inflating his ego further. 

“What,” Rozanov asks, “you are coaching other teams now? Your team will not be happy with you, I think.” 

“Why?” Shane asks with a grin. “PR is always pushing us to do charity work.” 

Rozanov laughs, shaking his head and stealing another bite of Shane’s pasta. 

He offers another piece of his chicken without Shane stealing it in exchange. 

It might be one of the most delicious things he’s ever eaten. 

*

Having an understanding between them seems to have resolved Shane’s occasional nausea for the most part. He wonders exactly how pathetic it makes him, that apparently all he needed to keep from puking after fucking another guy was a little conversation and a slightly clearer answer about how they’re supposed to behave with each other. It feels needy in a way that’s wildly embarrassing, needing to be centered by Rozanov lingering and talking with him and sometimes even doing what feels hazardously close to cuddling with him, but it also appears to be effective. Rozanov always shows up knowing not to eat any allergies—and now without having smoked before, like he’s trying to prove he’s not hiding anything, which is oddly sweet—and he stays longer afterwards, running a hand over Shane’s side when they talk and sometimes even watching a game or a TV show with him. He’s read things here and there about the benefit of touch and skin contact and oxytocin, but if he’s being honest in the safety of his own mind, it feels like even more than that. He leaves their hookups feeling good now, content and satisfied, refreshed in a way he doesn’t experience with other people, even with the two men he’s experimented with before. It might be a problem, Rozanov specifically being what makes him feel like this. 

But for the sake of feeling as good as he does in the aftermath, he’s willing to let himself ignore that part.

*

His sex with Rose is…bad. He would like to be able to lie about it, but there just isn’t really another adjective for it. He goes down on her because it seems polite to at least satisfy her at some point in their encounters, but he knows she knows he’s not lost in it, not the way he should be. He feels guilty the night she guides his hand to her breast and he has to move it away immediately, afraid of going soft if he focuses too much on it. 

If he thinks too long about how he wishes it was the firm muscle of a pec instead. 

Still, the consistent lack of nausea after at least suggests that his body knows he’s making the right choice even if his mind can’t quite get on board. 

No matter how much he would like it to. 

He thinks it makes him a very, very, very bad person that he’s relieved Rose decided to flip over and let them do it doggy style tonight. Even thinking the term makes him feel guilty, like he’s disrespecting her somehow, but the fact that this is the easiest time he’s ever had fucking her and not having to create an elaborate scenario in his head to do it feels even more disrespectful. He apologizes for the crime she doesn’t know he’s committing by leaning forward to kiss her shoulder, but the touch just makes him think of all of the times he’s received the gesture. 

And from who. 

“Oh, fuck, right there,” she says, back arching slightly for a better angle, and there’s a distant kind of satisfaction to it, being able to make her feel good at least. “Oh-oh fuck, Shane, I’m close.” 

He hates himself down to his fucking bones that her speaking, her soft, girlish voice offsetting the smooth, androgynous plane of her back that makes it easy to not think too hard about what’s happening, means he is not close. 

He hates himself, too, when she’s the one to reach for her clit because he’s too lost in his own head to think to do it, her arm moving in focused little circles until her breath goes rough and she clenches tight around him, shaking a little and dropping forward as she finishes. 

Shane follows her down to the mattress, kissing her neck and at least offering her the courtesy of brushing her hair out of the way for her so neither of them will end up accidentally yanking it. 

(...and pulling out hopefully before she notices that he didn’t follow her over the edge.)

She turns her head for a kiss, eyes still half-closed, hazy and orgasm-content, and he gives it to her. It’s easier, the kissing. His eyes are closed and lips feel the same on almost anyone. 

(This isn’t true, really.) 

(There’s a certain someone whose lips have always felt different against his.) 

(But he can’t pursue that thought, not when he’s in bed with his girlfriend, who is beautiful and funny and kind and sweet.) 

(And yet who still can’t get him hard unless he’s picturing taking her spot in the equation.) 

(His own disgust with himself at the thought finishes the job of making him soft, and he pretends he has a filled condom to deal with, kissing her again once, twice, before pulling away and turning his back to take care of it.) 

He doesn’t feel nauseous in the aftermath, Rose curled up in his arms and drawing idle patterns across his chest. 

But he does feel sick in a different way. 

*

Not that Shane would ever willingly put them through what it took to get here again, but he can admit that it turns out reunion sex after weeks of not even texting? 

Mind meltingly fucking incredible. 

He thinks they have, at this point, lost maybe all of the pillows on the bed, and from the way he thinks it’s only dangling off of his foot held to the side, he thinks the comforter might be following soon. In the part of his mind that isn’t full of oh fuck fuck yes right there oh fuck oh God, he considers that sleeping in this bed tonight is probably going to suck for Ilya. 

That’s a very, very, very small part of his mind, though. 

“Is good?” Ilya pants into his ear, and Shane nods his agreement so hard he almost ends up knocking their heads together. “Tell me.” The words are almost plaintive, rough as they are, and it makes Shane feel hopelessly fond, this little signal that maybe he wasn’t the only one missing this. 

“So fucking good,” he manages, because he does aim to please. 

It also gets him nearly folded in half and fucked so hard he thinks he’s going to have bruises tomorrow, so…

Wins all around. 

*

“Jesus,” Shane observes afterwards, laying in the center of bedding shrapnel with Ilya still inside of him. “You’re going to be lucky if you don’t get charged for this mess.” 

Ilya huffs a laugh, pressing kisses along his shoulder and then to his neck. 

“Worth it,” he says, squeezing Shane’s hip teasingly. “Ass good enough to pay for.” 

“Fuck you,” Shane says, but through a laugh. He closes his eyes and presses back a bit, just to feel the warm solidity of Ilya behind him. Ilya is tracing slow strokes over his thigh that feel almost reverent, and Shane finds it makes his eyes sting a little, to be touched like that. 

To be wanted enough to be touched like that. 

Unwilling to be empty before he absolutely has to but feeling affectionate in a way that demands action, he reaches up, sinking his fingers through Ilya’s—more than a little sweaty—hair, pressing against his scalp gently, hoping he can press the sincerity through the touch, ridiculous as that is. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” He asks, voice quiet. 

“Another?” Ilya asks, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I am worried I will have to sign NDA soon.” 

“Oh, it’s coming in the mail,” Shane teases. Ilya huffs a laugh that he feels against his skin. “I’m serious. You better watch your ass.” 

“I’m so scared,” Ilya says dryly. He presses another kiss to Shane’s shoulder like a punctuation mark, moving his hand up to squeeze his hip gently again. “Tell me your secret you will take me to court for, then.” 

“I really missed you,” Shane says, and somehow it makes him feel even more naked than his current naked state. He doesn’t take it back, though. 

He’s had enough biting back the things he wants to say. 

Ilya is quiet for a long moment, and Shane doesn’t push. It’s not like he can blame him, after all, not when even doing so much as using first names made him bolt before. He can let Ilya take his time after that. It’s only fair. 

Ilya, though, just presses closer against him after a moment and leans up, pressing a sweet, lingering kiss to his cheek. 

“I really missed you, too,” he says, voice even quieter. 

Shane cranes his head enough to kiss him. It’s slow and gentle and feels full of emotions that neither of them are quite ready to say in words. 

That’s okay, though, Shane thinks, tired and content, as they part and settle back in to just lay together for a while longer. 

They have time. 

He settles in to soak in the way he feels better than he has in a long, long time. 

*

For reasons unknown to Shane, experimenting with making allergy-friendly versions of the things Ilya likes becomes something he wants to try out at the cottage. Shane has no real desire for things he’s never had in the first place, but for the sake of making Ilya happy, he agrees. 

Staring at the gloop of what is supposedly going to be the filling of a peanut-free Reese’s cup, he has a few regrets about this. 

“I mean, I don’t think this is right, and I’ve never even tasted them,” Shane observes, watching a plop of soy butter drop back into the bowl the mixture is in with a sound that is the opposite of enticing. 

“Well, I am an expert, and I say is perfect substitution,” Ilya says, a little testily, and Shane wonders if he’s trying to lie to both of them or just himself. 

“Well, I say you’ve been smoking something other than cigarettes if you think this is anywhere near perfect anything,” Shane says, scooping up another plop of Not Reese’s Filling before Ilya confiscates the spoon. 

“I am trying to share something with you, Hollander,” Ilya complains. “Participate.” 

“In sharing swamp gloop?” Shane asks dryly, hopping up onto the counter. 

“Reese’s were my favorite when I was a kid,” Ilya says. “I want to share them with you. I ate your very strange Canadian maple candy and did not say anything. Your turn to try my favorite.” 

“Do they sell Reese’s in Russia?” Shane asks, deciding to stop complaining if it means that much to him. 

“Maybe somewhere, but Svetlana always brought them back after she and her father were in America.” 

The fact that this is a Svetlana-adjacent treasured childhood memory does not make him more excited for it, but he doesn’t say that. 

“My mother loved them,” Ilya says, quietly, and Shane knows from the way he’s focusing only the still-very-sad filling that this is something potentially painful he’s sharing. “They still make me think of her.” 

Well now Shane just feels like a jackass. 

He hops down from the counter and ducks down to wriggle his way under Ilya’s arm, making him smile and rest it around his back, pulling him in tight. His kiss tastes like soy butter that’s been way oversweetened in a vain attempt at trying to fix the texture with powdered sugar. 

Shane still goes back for seconds. 

*

Ilya has mostly quit smoking over the years, but Shane knows that nicotine addiction isn’t generally considered easy to shake completely. As a gesture of consolation when the would-be fake Reese’s indeed just turned into bizarre chunky soy butter and chocolate goo, he bravely doesn’t even complain when the kiss he’s offered after joining Ilya on the patio tastes of cigarette smoke. 

(He’s still not sure if it tastes better or worse than their failure at Reese’s.)

“What made you want to buy here, so close to your parents?” Ilya asks after a good thirty minutes of watching a pair of geese chase each other around, both of them narrating it like a game. “You could just stay at their house in the summer, yes? You didn’t want to invest somewhere farther away?” 

“Mmm,” Shane hums thoughtfully, tilting sideways to rest his head on Ilya’s shoulder and bringing his legs up. “I could, I guess. I have been thinking about the pros and cons of beach property.” 

“Mr. Real Estate,” Ilya says fondly. Shane elbows him gently. 

“I just feel like all of my best memories were at the lake when I was growing up. I wanted a piece of it that’s just mine, you know?” 

“Hm,” Ilya says, resting his cheek against Shane’s hair. “Makes sense. Is a nice place, I think, to make memories.” 

“Better ones now that you’re here with me,” Shane offers, feeling a little shy after he says it. 

Ilya, though, just smiles, and it’s warm enough that Shane feels like he can feel it on his skin. The cigarette smoke tastes far fainter now, and he pushes himself up on his knees to straddle Ilya’s lap, wondering if he should revisit his previous refusal of sex on the patio furni-

His stomach lurches. 

“Shane?” Ilya asks, after he pulls back sharply and closes his eyes, breathing deeply and refusing to let himself be nauseous right now. Now right now. Jesus fuck, any time but now. “Shane, what is the matter? What is-” 

Shane is already scrambling off of Ilya even as he reaches for him, swallowing against the way his mouth is watering. 

“Stay,” he orders Ilya, because a week and a half into a relationship is not enough time for him to be willing to have his hot boyfriend watch him puke. 

He might not be an expert in relationships, but on that point, he is fucking confident. 

*

As it turns out, worse than puking his guts up on vacation? 

Puking his guts up on vacation when his very hot boyfriend is in very close proximity. 

Still hunched over the toilet, he decides firmly that this will not be a detail that Rose gets to know about later. 

*

Ilya does thankfully heed the admittedly very sharp “No” he got after knocking softly on the door and doesn’t hover, Shane finding him on the couch when he finally emerges, feeling a little shaky. 

And more than a little embarrassed. 

“Hey,” Ilya says softly, half-rising until Shane waves him back down, joining him on the couch and laying against him, too tired to resist what he wants to do. “You are okay?” 

“Mm,” Shane says with a shrug. “I think so? I haven’t had that soy butter stuff before; I guess it just isn’t for me or something.” 

(Fuck those fucking fake Reese’s.)

“Do you need anything?” Ilya asks, rubbing a hand up and down his arm. “You have medicine here? Or should I go get something?” 

“I think I’m okay,” Shane says. “I might just, like, chill out the rest of the day if that’s cool with you.” 

“Oh no,” Ilya says, clearly teasing as he shifts to bring one leg up so he can pull Shane to sit with his back to his chest, “we will have to relax on vacation. What a fucking tragedy.” 

“Fuck off,” Shane says. 

Still, he doesn’t make an effort to get away. 

*

His stomach settles after a little time, but he still plays it safe and sticks to some toast for dinner, Ilya heating up the chicken and potatoes they had the night before only after confirming that Shane didn’t think the smell would make him feel sick. It was a sweet question, and Shane regrets that he couldn’t kiss him for it, wary of making him any more likely to catch something if that’s what made him sick. They end their night on the couch again watching a movie, Ilya making him ginger tea and refilling his water bottle for him even after Shane insists he can do it himself, and sweet or not, it does make Shane feel bad that Ilya is stuck playing nurse when they’re supposed to be having fun together. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly that night after they go to bed without having sex for the first time since Ilya got here, and he hears Ilya hum a question, pressing a kiss to his hair. 

“For what?” 

“Ruining our time here,” he says, knowing objectively that it’s a little ridiculous but unable to help it. When they already have so little, he hates wasting any of it. 

(Soy butter can go to hell for doing this to him.)

“I am in luxury Canadian cottage on free vacation with my very beautiful boyfriend,” Ilya says. “What is the waste?” 

“Still, this wasn’t-” 

Despite Shane’s earlier insistence at him not doing it, Ilya kisses him anyway. (Shane pretends he resists it more than he does). When he pulls back, it’s only far enough for Ilya to kiss his nose and then the space between his eyebrows. 

“I am here with you,” Ilya says quietly, smoothing his hair back and then guiding Shane’s head back to his shoulder. “Believe me, there is nothing ruined.” 

“I love you,” Shane says, pressing his cheek a little tighter against him. 

“I love you, too,” Ilya says, resting his chin against the crown of his head. “Now time for sleep so you can feel better, yes?” 

Shane drifts off to the soothing sensation of warm fingers tracing patterns over his skin. 

*

By the next morning, Shane feels back to normal, and after a one hour waiting period to make sure breakfast stays down, they make up for last night with sex right on the living room floor. 

(And in the kitchen.) 

(And against the windows looking out over the lake.) 

(And in the hallway on the way to the bedroom.) 

(And before even reaching the bed.)

(And-) 

(Really, the only significant break they take from making up for lost time is to throw away the stupid soy butter.)

(Shane makes a mental note to write a very strongly worded letter to their customer care department and then turns his mind back to more important matters, such as getting his mouth back on things far more appetizing.)

*

As one year turns into two as committed boyfriends, Shane sometimes thinks about his past experiences with gay-anxiety-fueled nausea with slightly embarrassed nostalgia. He wonders what sad, puking Shane Hollander would think to see him now, with a boyfriend two hours away with a key to his place and a key to his in return, settled in a committed, monogamous relationship with the same boy he once had to take an hour to work up the nerve to say hi to in a Saskatchewan parking lot. Really, Shane thinks with equal parts fondness and chagrin, it’s probably little wonder he made himself anxious enough to puke at the prospect of fucking Ilya Rozanov back in the day. 

It used to be something he wouldn’t have been able to imagine even in a fantasy. 

They’ve both settled into it, relaxing into their relationship. Everything surrounding their relationship is still a fucking mess, but them, the two of them together, is comfortable and safe and solid. Even with their disagreements, even with the strain of having to be long distance when they want nothing more than to be with each other at all times, there’s still an understanding between them of being a unit, an “us” no matter what. For his own part, Shane finds it to be something that relaxes him on hard days, just knowing there’s someone who loves him and wants to be with him, and he’s pretty sure it’s at least similar for Ilya, to judge by the way Shane always feels his muscles go a little less tense under his hands whenever they’re reunited. 

Today, though, he thinks even kissing him isn’t quite enough to make up for the tension Ilya is carrying right now, not when his brother has suddenly been blowing his phone up with threats and demands and even the fucking audacity to put Ilya’s niece on the phone to try and cajole money from him, something that had Shane wrathful enough at the devastated look on Ilya’s face that he hopes Alexei senses how fucking lucky he is that there’s an ocean between them. 

He’s not sure he wouldn’t be calling his dad to pay bail for him otherwise. 

After years of smoking less and less, Ilya has essentially given it up completely now, except for days like today, when he breaks out nicotine gum for a hit of something, which Shane doesn’t hold against him, even though he’ll also be offering his own attempt at settling him, kneeling over Ilya’s lap and tilting his face up into a kiss. They only part for air and Shane pauses to let Ilya let him know if he wants to continue or not, but when Ilya pulls him back in, he takes him at his word. 

“God, that gum is gross,” he pulls back just long enough to complain a few minutes in, when the gum has slipped past his tongue for the second time. 

Not that it stops him from kissing him again right after. 

“You are the one who kissed me with no warning,” Ilya teases, nudging him back just long enough to pull the gum from his mouth and drop it into his empty coke can. Shane contemplates asking him to rinse his mouth out at least—the taste of that stuff is strong—but he doesn’t have it in him to make Ilya stop kissing him that long, especially when he’s already-

O-oh fuck. 

“I-wait,” he says, pressing his fingertips over Ilya’s mouth when he tries to chase him for another kiss after he pulls back. Ilya kisses his fingers but obeys, face going concerned at whatever he sees on Shane’s. 

“Sweetheart?” He asks, his hand brushing over his cheek before resting against his neck, thumb against his jaw. “What’s wrong? You are pale suddenly. What-” 

Shane slaps a hand over his mouth and scrambles off of the couch, his foot getting caught between both of Ilya’s before he manages to get it free, making it to the half-bath beside Ilya’s living room literally just in time, not even able to shut the door, which he imagines he’s going to be embarrassed about later. 

Just as soon as he can think things other than “oh God oh fuck oh God oh fuck oh Go-” 

He jumps slightly when a hand lands on his back, but he doesn’t have the ability to command Ilya to get the fuck away until this is over, maybe out of the house. Or out of the neighborhood. Or out of the province. 

Or out of the country. 

Maybe across the Atlantic would be far enough. 

“So-sorry,” is all he manages between painful gags, but Ilya’s hand remains gentle on his back. 

“Is okay,” he says quietly. “You’re okay.” 

Shane is very fucking much not okay, but he doesn’t have the ability to tell him that right now. 

He tries to think back to what the fuck could have caused this, but none of the likely suspects present themselves. No one on the team is sick, none of the Pike children have had anything lately, and on this long weekend, he and Ilya have been eating the same thing for every meal, so if Shane is this sick, then Ilya should have been taken down, too. He hasn’t even had anything to eat yet today beyond his protein smoothie when he first woke up, and Ilya had had half of that, too. Lunch had been delayed for the sake of sex, and then further delayed by the call from Alexei. 

Tense as things are with his team right now, he doesn’t even feel particularly anxious at present, not in the safety of Ilya’s house, with his favorite person, who knows how to talk him down from a panic attack better than anyone else. He’s angry on Ilya’s behalf about his brother, yes, but even that shouldn’t be enough to be having a physical impact on him. There’s nothing that should be making him feel sick, not here, not right now. He has a boyfriend kneeling next to him and rubbing a soothing hand over his back as he pukes his guts up like this isn’t the least sexy thing in the entire fucking universe, a boyfriend who already had a hard day, a boyfriend good enough to not even smoke after a hard day just because Shane doesn’t like the smell of-

Something clicks into place for Shane in an instant, the dominoes of years and years falling against each other until they form a picture. 

When he catches his breath for a moment, Shane glances up at Ilya over his arm, his boyfriend’s expression going a little startled when he sees the fierce annoyance Shane imagines must be clear in his own. 

“Motherfucker,” Shane grits out. 

And then he whips forward to gag once more. 

*

Some quick Googling confirms that nicotine can indeed make people puke if they’re sensitive enough to it. 

And isn’t it just Shane’s fucking luck that he’s sensitive enough to it. 

“-so sorry, malysh,” Ilya says, looking so much like a kicked puppy that any potential annoyance Shane might have been able to hold onto is impossible to commit to. “I didn’t-” 

“I mean, yeah,” Shane says from his place still on the floor because the way his stomach still feels doesn’t fill him with a ton of confidence that he isn’t going to have a repeat of his exorcist impression at any moment, regardless of the fact that he feels like he just puked up everything he’s ever eaten. “I know it wasn’t on purpose. It-no, oh my God, do not kiss me right now. I am so fucking gross.” 

Ilya ignores him and kisses his forehead and then his temple, resting his hand on the back of his head gently. 

“I am so fucking sorry, Shane,” he says, and the guilt in his voice is a palpable thing. “Moya lyubov, I-” 

“I love you so much, and I am probably going to be annoyed later, but can we please, please put a pin in it until I can be sure I’m not going to puke on you?” Shane says. He means it to come out as a joke, but it just sounds more tired than anything else. 

Ilya doesn’t get a chance to respond before Shane has to whip back to the side to gag once more. 

*

An hour and a half later, the nausea has stopped enough for Shane to keep down some water, and he lets Ilya bundle him upstairs. He insists on showering first because sitting on a bathroom floor is disgusting no matter how often he knows Ilya has cleaners in, and he doesn’t protest when Ilya joins him, even though he knows they’re both fully aware that nothing else is going to happen. 

“You’re being ridiculous,” he tells Ilya fondly, when his soap and washcloth are confiscated so Ilya can do it for him. “I can handle taking a shower.” 

Ilya doesn’t respond, and Shane submits to the tending, the combination of Ilya’s gentle touch, the warmth of the water, and his exhaustion from his stomach doing its best to turn inside out combining to make him sway slightly when he half falls asleep. He opens his eyes after making a noise Ilya always teases him about sounding like a purr, expecting to see a familiar smile on his face, but instead Ilya’s jaw is tense, his eyes focused on his task, like washing Shane’s hair for him is a matter of life or death. 

“Hey,” he says, waiting until Ilya glances down and meets his eyes. “I’m okay. I promise.” 

A muscle in Ilya’s jaw twitches. 

Shane moves to kiss him, and Ilya pulls away. 

“Ilya,” he says, “it’s probably not-” 

“Later, okay?” Ilya interrupts, leaning in and kissing the side of his mouth, as if in apology. “Let me brush my teeth first, yes?” 

Shane tilts Ilya’s head down enough to kiss his forehead. 

“Okay.” 

*

Shane doesn’t miss the tension in Ilya’s arms as they lay down together, regardless of the fact that it is, as of the last time Shane glanced at a clock, barely past 4:30 in the afternoon. The nausea isn’t as bad now—though he did send Ilya to grab the alcohol wipes out of his wallet, just in case, something he promised to explain later—but his stomach hurts in the aftermath, and he feels a little shaky, still, worn out. 

But not enough to not notice how tightly Ilya is holding him. 

“Hey,” he says, pressing his hand over Ilya’s where it’s resting over his chest. “It’s okay, really.” 

“It is not okay,” Ilya says, voice rough. “I made you sick.” 

“Not on purpose,” Shane says, trying and failing to turn when Ilya refuses to release him. “You didn’t know. I mean fuck, I didn’t even know, and I had years to-” 

“What?” Ilya asks. “What are you talking about, years?” 

Shane realizes far too late that Ilya wasn’t exactly working on the same amount of information as him. 

“It doesn’t matt-” 

“Shane,” Ilya says, and now he’s the one to turn him. “What are you talking about? What do you mean years? This has happened before?” He looks so horrified at the idea that Shane contemplates whether or not he should just lie and say no. 

“Sometimes,” he says, deciding to try and hedge his way around the truth. “But not that often.” 

“How often?” Ilya demands. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Shane says. “Now we know-” 

“It does matter,” Ilya says, looking absolutely miserable. “I hurt you, Shane. I-” 

“You didn’t hurt me,” Shane says, clearly and finally. He reaches up to cup Ilya’s face in his hand. “You didn’t know about it.” 

Ilya’s expression clearly says he isn’t satisfied at this absolution, but he just curls Shane closer. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, fingers sinking into Shane’s hair. 

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Shane says back, just as quietly. 

Ilya doesn’t respond. 

Shane doesn’t make him. 

*

Shane tries and fails to keep some dinner down after waking up from a nap, and the way it clearly makes Ilya feel even guiltier just makes him feel worse. He tries to offer comfort by holding Ilya close on the couch while they watch a movie, but he can tell from the uncharacteristic quietness that his boyfriend is already hard at work building barbed wire he can wrap himself in about this. 

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his fingertips gently across Ilya’s breastbone until he looks up, clearly guilty and miserable. Shane leans down and kisses his nose, trying to make him smile. “It’s okay, really.” 

“Is not okay,” Ilya says, firm and final. 

“How the fuck were you even supposed to know?” Shane asks. As the injured party, he considers that he could be annoyed here past the initial, reflexive moment of “oh, you motherfucker” at realizing Ilya’s bad habit had consequences for him, too, but it’s not like Ilya knew he was accidentally lightly poisoning him, especially not when Shane never even brought it up to him, so sure it was just anxiety getting the best of him. 

He’s not sure if it’s more or less embarrassing that it was just his body betraying him in a different way, but he can work the math out on that one later. 

“I made you sick,” Ilya says, tucking his head back down against his shoulder. 

“Wrong,” Shane says, kissing his forehead. 

“Right.” 

“Wrong.” 

“Right.” 

Shane decides to let it drop for now before it devolves into something stupid, just tugging Ilya a little closer. 

*

Shane’s patience with the guilt trip Ilya decided to send himself on runs out when he wakes up cold instead of snuggled up with a warm boyfriend beside him the next morning. The blankets have clearly been tucked in around him, but with how cold he likes the room while sleeping, the lack of someone else to provide some body heat under the blankets with him is deeply annoying as a wake up call. 

As a result, Ilya is barely back inside from an uncharacteristically early morning run before Shane is in front of him, herding him away from the door to prevent any escape attempts before they work this out. 

“You can’t just drown yourself in guilt about this,” he says in a cold open because he’d rather get it over as fast as possible if they have to fight about this. 

Really, he’d prefer to be fucking right now, but if pushed into something significantly less fun instead, he’s at least going to be efficient about it. 

“I’m not-” Ilya says, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over a chair. 

“Yes,” Shane says, crossing his arms over his chest. “You are.” 

“Fine,” Ilya says, mirroring his posture. “Yes, I feel fucking guilty, Shane. I made you sick. For fucking years. Yes, it makes me feel guilty that I hurt you.” 

“I’m not some delicate baby bunny you have to take care of,” Shane says. “I’m a grown man. I could have told you, ‘Hey, sometimes after we fuck, I puke for some reason. Thoughts about why that’s happening?’”

“You thought I was making you sick and you kept fucking me,” Ilya says, clearly offended on his behalf in a way that Shane can’t help but smile at faintly, which seems to just make Ilya more wound up about it, edging into his personal space. 

“It wasn’t all the time,” Shane says with a shrug, not backing up. It’s not like he’s ever had a problem with Ilya Rozanov in close proximity, after all. 

“Even sometimes is too many times, Shane,” Ilya says, clearly judgemental. “You should not have-” 

“I didn’t even know for sure that it was just you, or if it was just-” 

“-making you throw up after we fucked because-” 

“-could have been anything, dude, I didn’t know for sure it was-” 

“-let me hurt you over and over, Shane, for fucking years of-” 

 “-group presentations in class made me puke, too, and that doesn’t mean I just-” 

Shane picks up quickly on the fact that this argument isn’t getting them anywhere. Words have never been where they shine, really. They’ve gotten better about it with time, but action has always been their best communication, something he decides to take advantage of now. Lost in arguing back, Ilya doesn’t even resist when Shane picks his arm up by the wrist, adjusting his hold-

-and then sending it flying towards his own face. 

Ilya pulls back at once, almost whiplashing Shane with how abruptly and completely he stops the force Shane was about to put into the puppeted slap. Ilya looks at him, horrified, like he thinks Shane might have lost his fucking mind, turning the hold he has on his wrist until he’s the one with control over Shane’s hand like Shane might turn around and slap himself if he isn’t held back. 

For his part, Shane just lifts his eyebrows. 

“Shane, what the fuck?” Ilya asks, eyes searching. 

Shane nudges him back with his free hand against his chest until his knees fold and make him sit on the couch, climbing on after him to straddle his lap. He pulls his hand free from Ilya’s grip gently, bringing both of his up to cup Ilya’s face to make sure he has his full attention. 

To make sure he doesn’t turn away from something it would seem he’s the last to fucking know. 

“You would never hurt me on purpose,” Shane says, slowly and clearly. “I know that. My parents know that. Anyone who watches what you’re like when it’s just us would know that.” 

Ilya’s hands come up to squeeze at his wrists gently. 

“I made you sick,” he says, voice a little rough. 

Shane leans in, kissing him, once, twice, and then resting their foreheads together. 

“And then you found out and now you won’t do it again,” he says quietly. He bonks their heads together gently. “You would never have never done it if you’d known. You didn’t know.” 

“I knew sometimes,” Ilya says, and Shane frowns slightly, sitting back, genuinely thrown. 

“What?” 

“Not the cigarettes,” Ilya says, “but sometimes, I knew I hurt you. I wouldn’t talk or I would snap at you. I knew I was doing it. And I still did it.” 

“That’s not-” 

“I don’t like that I did that to you,” Ilya says, sounding miserable. “And now I know I hurt you even more than I thought.” 

Sometimes Shane wonders how it’s possible to feel so much love inside of him and not burst under the force of containing it. Right now, he just tries to express as much of it as he can with a kiss. 

“Neither of us have a perfect history,” he says softly. “We’ve both fucked up, Ilya. We’ve both hurt each other, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. We can’t change that. I wouldn’t want to.” 

Ilya nudges him back, brow furrowed. 

“You want to go back and get sick for years again?” 

“If I had to,” Shane says with a shrug. “Whatever happened in the past happened, and it got us here, together. I would do all of it again. No hesitation. I’d do every fucking minute of it all over again if it meant I would end up here, with you.” 

Ilya swallows, hard. 

“There’s not a tally, baby,” Shane says. The pet name feels foreign in his mouth, a little clumsy, but he means it, means the sweetness and the claim behind it. “No one is keeping score. I love you. You love me. What happened to get here is in the past, and it was worth it, to me. It will always be worth it, because it meant I ended up with the love of my life. I’d puke a thousand more times if it meant ending up with you.” 

Ilya exhales what Shane thinks is an attempt at a laugh. When he speaks, his voice is tight. 

“Your romantic statements need work, I think. Usually there is less offers of puking.” 

Shane laughs, leaning in to kiss Ilya’s cheek, his jaw, his temple. 

“I’ll figure it out,” he says, still smiling. “We’re in this for the long haul. I’ve got time.” 

“Promise to tell me if you’re not okay,” Ilya says, and Shane sits back, tilting his head in question. “If you are sick or just…not okay, promise you will tell me. Please.” 

Shane is thrown, and his confusion must show on his face. Ilya’s hold on his waist goes a little tighter. 

“With my mother, I didn’t know,” he says. “Not until-” He cuts himself off, closing his eyes and inhaling and exhaling deliberately before he looks at Shane again and continues. “Promise me, if you are not okay, it will not be a secret. Promise you will tell me.” 

“I promise,” Shane agrees, because he would do just about anything to make Ilya be okay right now. “But you have to promise, too.” 

Ilya, because he is a hypocrite, hesitates. Shane gives him a look. 

“This is an equal partnership, asshole,” Shane says dryly. “Same condition for you. C’mon. Promise me.” 

“Or what?” Ilya says, a little flicker of humor in his eyes. “You will beat me up?” 

“Maybe,” Shane taunts, squeezing his thighs on either side of Ilya in a playful threat. “You want to test me on it?” 

“Could be fun,” Ilya observes, but at the look Shane gives him, he goes more serious, nodding once. “I promise. I will tell you.” 

When he’s pulled in for a kiss, Shane goes easily, not bothering to pull back even when they part, instead leaning forward and sliding his arms around Ilya, tucking his face into his neck. 

“God, I fucking love you,” he says, squeezing Ilya once in emphasis. “So, so fucking much.” 

“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu. Tak sil'no, chto inogda mne stanovitsya strashno,” Ilya says, voice a little muffled. 

Shane doesn’t understand all of the words, but that’s okay. 

He understands the most important ones. 

*

Shane can’t say that every step of the way towards getting to be together publicly was enjoyable. Most of it was “white knuckle your way through and breathe even when you feel like you can’t,” honestly. 

But for the end result of being able to sit in a restaurant next to Ilya with matching gold bands on their ring fingers, not hiding, not ashamed, not pretending they’re nothing more than rivals, then it feels worth it. 

“-your fucking dreams, Rozy,” Marlow says. “You know I love you, man, but that doesn’t mean your ass isn’t toast tomorrow.” 

“You see, dorogoy,” Ilya says, looking to Shane with mock solemnity. “Is like I was telling you. Is a good thing I left Boston when I did. The brain damage of their players. So sad to see it in person like this.” 

Shane laughs as Marlow jeers, flipping Ilya off but grinning when he returns the gesture, the conversation devolving into playful bickering. 

They’re out tonight with a small group, just a few of the Ottawa players and a couple of the Boston team, the ones Ilya was closest to, the ones Shane knows he misses the most. It’s a restaurant they used to order from when Ilya lived in Boston, so Shane’s actually been able to relax for once, even stealing a few fries from Ilya’s plate that he got dire threats for but no actual move to stop him. 

It’s one of the perks of being married, he’s learned: getting the moral high ground of not ordering fried food while still having access to fried food. 

They’re sitting on the patio to soak up a rare warm fall day in Boston, so it’s not a surprise when Marlow pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, tapping one out and reaching for a lighter. Shane considers asking him not to—at least not so close—but before he can decide if it’s actually worth bothering with or not, Ilya reaches over and plucks it from Marlow’s hand, stubbing it out and wrapping it in a napkin. 

“Not here,” he says shortly. “Go somewhere else if you want to smoke.”

“Since when are you so anti-smoking?” Marlow asks, clearly thrown but good natured enough to not make a scene about it, tucking his pack back in his pocket. “You used to smoke like a fucking chimney, man.” 

“Things change,” Ilya says with a shrug. 

Shane, who knows exactly why Ilya is now the nicotine police when he’s present somewhere even though Shane has told him before that he doesn’t need to be so hardcore about it, says nothing. 

Ilya’s foot taps his beneath the table. 

Shane returns the gesture. 

When he subtly reaches under the table to take hold of Ilya’s hand, he’s already reaching back.