Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Bottom Ilya Rozanov, Top Shane Hollander, First Time Bottoming, First Time Topping, this one is very dumbass4dumbass, They are so deep in the situationship here there are no tuna melts in sight, Coming Untouched, 2014-2016 Montage in Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry), Rimming, Handcuffs, Sub Ilya Rozanov, Crying During Sex, (we did it folks), Ilya vs Vulnerability (spoiler: he loses.), Dom/sub, Sub Drop, Toxic Masculinity, Soft Dom Shane Hollander, Aftercare

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-04 Completed: 2026-05-29 Words: 23,870 Chapters: 6/6

anything you can do, I can do better

Summary

"And is like I said, very easy to do. You just lay back and let someone else do work. Could do it in my sleep, would not be problem at all for me to come hands-free.”

Hollander scowled, full competitive personality shining through. “Prove it.”

“Fine, I will,” Ilya snapped back.

Hollander's eyes went wide, and so did Ilya's when he realized what he had promised. His words hung in the air between them, suddenly heavy with implication.

---
Ilya doesn't think switching with Hollander one time for the sake of settling a bet will change anything about their arrangement, and it certainly wouldn't make him discover anything about himself. Afterall, it would only be one time, right?

Notes

This one is set not too long into the situationship after Las Vegas, so feelings are thoroughly bottled up, the Metros are on their way to the Stanley Cup, Ilya is a fullblown fuckboy, and there are no tuna melts in sight.

A note about consent in this chapter that may be overly precautious but I give it anyways: everyone here is consenting and into it, but Ilya during this first chapter is very much not comfortable at first, and I could see that feeling like dubious consent for some people, so I'm warning you up front if that's sensitive for you. In later chapters we will get enthusiastic consent!

Chapter 1: Sooner or later, I can be greater than you.

Chapter Notes

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Rozanov, shit, Roz- ah-”

“Are you-? Fuck-”

Ilya barely manages to pull out of Hollander before collapsing next to him on the bed. He would rank that as one of the best orgasms of his life if it weren't the case that Hollander continually forced Ilya to update that list, so it was becoming pointless to keep track. Either way, Ilya felt bone-deep satisfied and utterly exhausted.

To his left, Hollander looked much the same. The man hadn't even rolled back over yet from where he had collapsed onto the bed face-first. It would almost look like he was trying to suffocate himself into the pillow if Ilya couldn't see Hollander's shoulders move with each deep gulp of air.

Silence filled the hotel room, broken only by the sound of their panting breaths as they both came down from the edge. The cautious part of Ilya warned him that now is when he should be getting up and showering so he can leave, but fuck it, he had just seen stars and gotten Shane Hollander off without even touching him. He wanted to enjoy the afterglow a little longer. He took off the condom, tied it off, and chucked it at the trashcan, then returned to his basking in the afterglow while he caught his breath.

Ilya's panting finally slowed down, and he realized the room felt too quiet. He looked over at Hollander, who was still face planted into the bed. “Hollander? Hollander, did I kill you with my dick?”

Hollander let out a deep huff of air all at once, rolling over finally. “Shut up, Rozanov.”

“Sorry for being worried I was going to be framed for murder.” Ilya grumbled, “What do I say when police ask why I am alone with dead body covered in cum and lube? ‘Sorry, Mr. Police, I made him cum hands-free so hard he died?’”

Hollander whacked him with a pillow, “Oh my god, you asshole, shut up already.”

“Nooo,” Ilya grinned, “I want to talk more about how you cum so easily for me. I get my dick in you and then don't need to do more, that is how much you like it.”

Hollander flushed. Ilya wanted to prod more and see if he could get that blush to deepen.

“Never have I seen someone cum so easy, no hands needed!” Ilya purred and leaned in, “Should I feel proud, or is it more that you are just so easy?”

Hollander's brows scrunched together, like one of the angry cats Ilya has seen on the internet. “Fuck off. Like you could even come untouched if you tried.”

Ilya stiffened. That was a challenge, and Hollander was the one person that Ilya could never stop from wanting to beat, or at least argue he could.

“Is much harder to make someone come untouched.” Ilya protested. “Requires skill, and stamina. You would not know, you only experience other side with me doing it so well. You could not make anyone do it.”

Hollander's brows dipped even further, into the competitive glare Ilya often saw at face-off when the scores are tied.

“Yeah, right. Like you have so much experience getting off without your dick being involved.” He paused, unsure. “Uh, do you?”

Ilya paused too, feeling like he had suddenly landed in a conversation topic he would not have broached if he had the choice.

“...No,” he said guardedly. “I have only done what we do.”

“Oh,” Hollander looked surprised, like he couldn't comprehend someone not wanting to get fucked. Awkwardly, he said, “Like cause you just didn't want to? Or just didn't find someone who wanted to…?”

Ilya sniffed, deeply offended on the principle that someone wouldn't want to fuck him. “My ass looks like this, and you think people do not want? No, is me not wanting.”

Ilya saw Hollander's eyes drift down to look at his ass, and he smirked when he saw Hollander visibly lose his train of thought. It didn’t last long though, as Hollander’s eyes flashed with realization, and he regained his momentum.

“So you don't have any experience then! You don't know at all if you could do it. At least I have experience being on top,” He stopped and winced ever so slightly, clearly trying to hide his grimace but failing.

Ilya couldn't resist the opening, “Oh, and you were so good at it?”

Hollander's mouth opened to protest, but Ilya cut him off.

“And is like I said, very easy to do. You just lay back and let someone else do work. Could do it in my sleep, would not be problem at all for me to come hands free.”

Hollander scowled, full competitive personality shining through. “Prove it.”

“Fine, I will,” Ilya snapped back.

Hollander's eyes went wide, and so did Ilya's when he realized what he had promised. His words hung in the air between them, suddenly heavy with implication.

Hollander swallowed, and somewhat nervously said, “I guess we will see if you're able to then.”

“Yes. We will.” Ilya said, with bravado he didn't feel all of sudden, “Like I said, easy.”

The silence stretched then, both of them staring the other down until Hollander broke it, looking at the clock on the nightstand. “Uh, next time though. I need to get back.”

Ilya nodded quickly. “Next time.”

“Cool.” Hollander said, then stared at him again.

“Yes. Cool.” Ilya stared back.

Silence filled the room again, giving Ilya plenty of space to think, What the fuck did I just agree to?

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Thankfully, their next game together was a few weeks away, giving Ilya time to come to terms with what he had agreed to.

He was not panicking. Panicking was not something Russians did, and it certainly was not something Ilya did. The anxiety he felt was about other things, like the season, and his family, and definitely not the fact that next time he saw Hollander it would be very different from his normal encounters with Hollander.

So what that he had never even been fingered before? He meant what he said about it being easy to just lay back and let someone else do the work. Hollander and Sasha had both clearly enjoyed the experience, so this was really just an opportunity for Ilya to see what was so good about it, check it off the list of sex positions and kinks he had tried, mock Hollander a bit, and go on with his life just like before.

He pictured it, Hollander between his legs and leaning over him, fingers shining with lube. He very quickly stopped picturing it.

Maybe it was time for a run. His brain suddenly seemed interested in the idea of running very fast, possibly away from things.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Ilya went on a lot of runs after that, thinking, and not thinking, then thinking again. At one point, he makes the decision to try fingering himself first.

Like getting practice in before an important game. He thinks to himself as he coats his fingers with lube.

He starts to reach down between his legs, and ends up with his hand on his cock instead, stroking himself and thinking of Hollander. This was just the warm-up, then he would get into the actual practice.

He has plenty of experience picturing Hollander’s body so this part is easy. He pictures the man’s abs, his arms that were toned, but concealed how much strength the man truly had. His ass, that was also quite muscular, and which Ilya knew the shape and feel of very well after years of doing everything he could to it. His hand sped up and he bit his lip.

He pictured Hollander’s face next, the way that he looked when he took Ilya into his mouth, lips pink and freckles sprinkled across his cheeks. The way his eyes always looked that little bit darker, and focused, like there was nowhere Hollander would rather be than on his knees in front of Ilya.

Ilya started to creep his other hand down between his legs, not stopping the movement of the hand stroking away at his cock urgently.

He was getting closer and decided to go for an old favorite for this next part, so he thought about that first night in Montreal at Hollander’s sex condo. The first night he opened Hollander up and fucked him. The first time he made him come untouched, shaking and clenching around Ilya.

His hand is starting to trace behind his balls when he remembers the feeling of excitement he had had over finally getting a response from Hollander that night. The built up anticipation that had made the actual sex so much better. Getting that address had been a hard-fought victory won after two years of baiting and seduction.

Ilya’s fingers have just begun to brush up against his asshole when suddenly he is hit by the memory of Hollander throwing him against the wall angrily that night, swearing at him about the sexting. He remembers the firm press of Hollander’s hands against him, the look in his eyes as he held Ilya in place.

His brain stutters. The memory of Ilya slowly opening up Hollander that night inverts, flips. Suddenly, Hollander is on top instead, leaning over Ilya as he thrusts his fingers in. Ilya pictures himself, legs pushed up and exposed, as Hollander-

He comes, gasping. His fingertip rests against his rim, just on the verge of pressing inside.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

After that, Ilya decides it is better for Hollander to get the full experience of how much skill goes into topping. He wasn’t going to make it easier for the man by learning how to get himself off with his fingers beforehand. Let Hollander learn it on the job, and then Ilya really can just lay back and let someone else do the work.

The idea doesn't quite sit right with Ilya, but this would be a one time thing, and once Ilya’s point was proven, they would go right back into Ilya giving Hollander what he craved.

Ilya still believed that this would be easy on his end. He meant what he said to Hollander, it couldn’t be that difficult to come untouched, even if Hollander was one of the only people he had seen do it. At the end of the day, Hollander was only second best. If he could do it, then that means Ilya should be able to as well.

Their next game was only a week away. When he got himself off next, Ilya made sure to keep his mind on images of faceless women, and not freckled men.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

The time passes quicker than the gaps between seeing Hollander normally go for Ilya, and it’s soon that Ilya is stepping out of his cab to the back entrance of Hollander’s sex condo after stopping first at his hotel room for a quick post-game shower. He feels nervous in a way he hasn’t felt with Hollander in a long time but at least he has the buoying satisfaction of having just won a difficult game to help curb the nerves.

He enters the door code and steps inside. The door clicks shut behind him, the sound overly loud. Hollander is waiting for him in the stairwell, looking somewhat awkward with his thumbs hooked into his front pockets. Ilya fights down a surge of fondness at the sight.

“Rozanov.” Hollander's voice is flat in the way he often sounds when the man isn’t sure how to act in the current scenario.

Ilya wasn't quite sure about the situation either, but he was a much better actor. He forces a cocky expression onto his face. “Hollander, you are ready to eat words now?”

Hollander’s eyebrows do that cute scrunch together. “I’m ready to see you admit you were wrong, actually.”

“Ah, you will wait long time for that.” Ilya shrugs off his jacket, and takes satisfaction in the way that Hollander’s eyes instantly lock onto his biceps as they are revealed. “You already have bad streak for winning tonight, I think it will continue.”

Hollander’s eyes jump back to Ilya’s face as he scowls. “God, you are such an asshole.”

“You always call me sweetest things, Hollander.” Ilya purrs. “Save pet names for main event, yes?”

Hollander’s stormy expression clears at the reminder, and suddenly he has that awkward expression back on again, and the flat affect to his voice is back as he says, “Did you, uh-”

Ilya nods to cut him off before he can finish that sentence. “Yes, before this.”

That had been an uncomfortable shower, but Ilya had gotten through it semi-hard with a dedication to not thinking too hard about what he was doing. Ilya was an asshole, but not so much of an asshole that he wasn’t going to make sure his was completely clean for this.

Hollander nodded, then did a little motion towards the staircase like he was beckoning a guest forward and not someone who had been in this condo, and inside Hollander, many times.

Ilya rolled his eyes, but started up the stairs. Best to just get the “proving Ilya can come hands-free” part done with so they could get onto the real main event. He hoped that if they were fast enough, there would be enough time for him to get hard again. It would be a shame to miss out on one of the few opportunities he had each year to fuck Hollander. The memories of how Hollander felt around him had kept Ilya warm on many a cold Boston night, and he planned on making new memories tonight if he could.

But first, proving his point. It was always better fucking Hollander in the afterglow of victory anyways.

As soon as Hollander enters the apartment behind Ilya, Ilya spins around to slam Hollander up against the door and kiss him. Hollander tenses at first, then melts into it in the way he always does around Ilya, returning the kiss with the same passion.

Ilya licks into Hollander’s mouth, kissing him deeply before moving to give the side of his neck the same treatment. He wishes he could bite down, and suck a bruise into Hollander’s neck. He wants to mark Hollander in such a way that all of his teammates would see and wonder at who had been the one to sleep with golden boy Hollander. If he could, the marks would be dark and numerous enough to make them all curious who unraveled all of that control into a gasping, sweaty mess.

He’s thinking about this, and focused on the tremble to Hollander’s breath as he licks the curve of his ear, when Hollander’s hand moves down his back to land on his ass and squeeze.

Ilya starts, body tensing at the reminder of where this was going. He instantly wishes he could time travel back a second just to undo the reaction.

Hollander immediately lifts his hand away. “Uh, sorry?”

Ilya recovers quickly and covers his reaction with a leer, “So impatient, you must have thought a lot about this, haven't you?”

Hollander scowls, but he flushes in a way that makes it clear he had actually thought about this quite a bit. Maybe even as much as Ilya has. “Shut up, let's just get to the bed already.”

Ilya steps back, and does the same little doorman gesture that Hollander had done before. “Please, after you.”

Hollander scowls at him, then turns to walk away, stripping off his shirt as he does so. Ilya trails behind him, enjoying the view of Hollander’s shoulder muscles working as he pulls the shirt off. And the view of his ass as he walked. Really, just the view of Hollander overall.

Once they get to the bedroom, Ilya waits long enough for Hollander to get his clothes off and fold everything before he pounces, grabbing onto Hollander and grabbing his chin to force his mouth open for Ilya to plunge his tongue inside. Ilya had stripped completely while Hollander folded his clothes, so when Hollander moans into his mouth and grabs at Ilya, his hands land onto Ilya's naked hips.

Ilya walks Hollander backwards towards the bed as he continues to kiss him. A push has Hollander falling down onto the bed with a bounce. Ilya follows him down, mouth still biting away at his. He ends up propped over Hollander with one hand as support as the other trails down to wrap his hand around the both of them and make a loose fist he can thrust into, rubbing against Hollander's cock as he does.

“Fuck,” Hollander pants, looking down at where Ilya is holding them together. He seems lost in the pleasure of it already, until his brain kicks back in and he says, this time in a completely different tone, “Fuck, wait.”

Ilya stops immediately, pulling his hand away even as his cock aches with the loss, “What, what is wrong?”

“The bet, Rozanov. We have to-” Hollander stops, flushing. “You know.”

“Ah, yes.” Ilya swallows. “That.”

Hollander looks up at him hesitantly. “It’s probably best if we swap, I guess?”

“Swap?”

“Like if you roll over, here, come on.”

In a sudden motion, Hollander hooks his leg around Ilya and rolls them over to flip their positions. Ilya blinks up at Hollander, suddenly cornered underneath Hollander with the man propped up on his hands over him, blocking out the rest of the room so that all Ilya can see and feel is Hollander.

“Fuck, Hollander.” Unexpectedly, a heat stirs in him. He knows the man is strong, he sees it often on the ice, but it’s not normally something he is reminded of in bed. He’s used to being turned on by Hollander melting at his touch, bending at Ilya’s commands. This is… different. It’s a new facet to his attraction to Hollander, one he did not expect. He feels his dick twitch against his stomach, but thankfully it goes unnoticed by Hollander.

“This ok?” Hollander’s voice is quiet, and there is a gentle tone to it that Ilya internally flinches away from.

He couldn’t let Hollander keep looking at him like that, like Ilya was something to be careful with, someone to care about. He puts on the same casual tone he uses to be an asshole for chirps on the ice.

“Yes, yes, is ok. Can we prove I am right about everything now?”

It works. The gentleness of Hollander’s expression is definitely gone as he bites out, “Fine, turn over.”

Ilya pictures it, him face down and ass up underneath Hollander, and instantly shakes his head. “No, like this is fine.”

“It will be a lot easier though-”

“Oh, you are admitting it is hard to do this? Worried you do not have what it takes?”

“Fuck off, Rozanov, Jesus.” Hollander scowls, and grabs one of the many pillows and says, “Put this under yourself at least. Asshole.”

“Yes, my asshole, finally we are getting to point of this.” Ilya snarks back, but puts the pillow in place. When he looks up again, it is to see that Hollander has shuffled to a kneeling position between Ilya’s legs. He swallows at the sight, then represses a shiver when Hollander puts his hands on his legs, not pushing them open yet, just holding onto them.

Abruptly, Ilya regrets the position. For one thing, being here in the bed where he had first fucked Hollander, in the very same position he opened Hollander up the first time made the whole thing feel virginal in a way Ilya strongly disliked when it was turned onto himself. For another thing, he is suddenly envious of how being ass up for this actually would have kept him from needing to look at Hollander while he opened him up. It was far too revealing to ask for that now however. Ilya was already too far in to turn back on any of this.

Hollander huffed out a breath, and finally moved to part Ilya's legs. He meets resistance at first, before Ilya overrides his instinctive reaction and lets Hollander push his legs open.

Ilya's eyes immediately go to the ceiling. He would need to make eye contact again with Hollander at some point during this, but right now he was going to delay that as long as he can.

As long as he can ends up being around 30 seconds, as he feels Hollander part his legs, then the man just… stops.

Exasperated, full of nerves that Ilya would not admit at gunpoint, and trying to figure out why Hollander was edging him when they hadn't even begun, Ilya shoots his eyes back down at the man with a scowl.

Hollander is frozen, staring between Ilya's legs at his hole with a look of unconcealed panic. The sight of someone staring so intently at a piece of his anatomy no one has stared at before initially makes Ilya want to squirm with discomfort, but then it goes on long enough that the discomfort turns over to impatience. He gives a kick to Hollander's side. “Hollander, you are staring.”

Hollander jolts and looks up at Ilya, “What?”

“Did you forget how this works? Finger goes inside.” Ilya gestures down to his ass, just to make sure Hollander really understands the mechanics of what they were doing.

“Yes, I fucking know how it works.” Hollander snaps, then his eyes trail back down and he tenses up again.

Ilya lets him panic for another long moment, then says, “Sooo, is this happening today, or…?”

Ilya's ability to aggravate Hollander has always worked to break through the man's panic before, and that holds true now, as Hollander grumbles, “Shut up, Rozanov,” and grabs at the lube.

It's as Hollander is coating his fingers in it that Ilya's body seems to catch up to what is about to happen. Ilya was laying here, legs spread and exposed, with Hollander over him about to take his ass virginity. Fuck, why the hell had he agreed to this? His body tensed, and a flood of heat rushed through him, followed by a trickle of cold nervousness.

Easy, remember? He told himself. Show Hollander you were right, then fuck him till he is the one coming untouched. No big deal.

“Hey.”

Ilya looks up again at Hollander, and is alarmed to see a concerned look on his face.

“You don't have to do this, ok?” Hollander continues, “We can just do it our normal way, and forget the deal.”

Ilya is overcome with how much he hates the idea of two things right now. The first was Hollander looking at him with that concerned, gentle expression, like Ilya was a scared animal that needed coaxing. The second, and this was the one that felt rooted deep in Ilya's soul, was conceding in any way to Hollander.

Ilya immediately shakes his head, “No.”

Hollander’s brows go up, then he seems to take Ilya at his word and nods before moving a finger down to brush up against Ilya's hole.

Ilya is ready this time, and forces his body to keep from reacting visibly to the touch, but he still lets out a slow exhale. Hollander seems to take this as a sign to continue as he starts to rub his finger in a gentle circle against Ilya's rim, still not pushing in.

Ilya's stomach is doing flips inside him, his body feels overheated, yet at the same time it feels like he could start shivering at any moment. He needs to move this along. He gives another kick to Hollander and says, “Today please, I have a flight to catch.”

Hollander scowls at him and says, “Fine, I guess there goes that method.” He leans in a little more, and Ilya feels a pressure pushing on his rim. He sucks in a breath, his whole body tense as he waits to feel Hollander inside him.

The pressure stays where it was, just outside his rim, not even a fingertip inside yet.

Ilya groans, long and loud, “Seriously, Hollander?”

“It's not my fault! You're so clenched, you have to let me in.”

Ilya realizes that unfortunately Hollander might be right, as his body is currently tight with tension all over, including probably his ass. Ilya was being betrayed by his own asshole. He was working very hard to make this not be a big deal, so he could just get it done with quickly, and that (literal) asshole has to make this harder for him and show Hollander his nerves in the process?

The pressure at his rim falls away, and Hollander is suddenly shuffling further down the bed so that his mouth is hovering over Ilya's dick.

“What?” Ilya asks, “You are giving up? You love sucking my cock too much to even try anything else?”

Hollander glares at him, and shuts Ilya up by ducking down and sucking the head of Ilya's cock into his mouth. Ilya's head falls back with a groan as the wet heat envelops him, then it shoots back up to stare indignantly at Hollander when it's taken away a moment later.

“Now that I have your attention,” Hollander says, looking slightly smug. “This doesn't really work well unless you're hard, and uh.”

Ilya looked down at his dick, which had apparently mostly softened in the past few minutes. This truly was a betrayal. His asshole was one thing, he barely interacted with it, but his dick? Who he showed loving attention to everyday, and who he gave so many gifts? After everything he had done for it over the years, now is when it turns on him? In front of Hollander, no less?

Hollander continues, unaware of Ilya's crisis over being backstabbed by his own anatomy. “Obviously I won't do this later on, otherwise it's not coming untouched, but starting like this will help you relax a bit and it will be easier to find your prostate too.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow, “Easier? Because you will see so much better with my dick down your throat?”

Hollander nodded, “I looked it up once, when you're hard it actually makes the prostate easier to find, because it moves the gland-”

“Oh my god,” Ilya moaned, and not even in the sexy way. This night was going terribly. “Hollander, how are you making fingering so boring?”

Hollander scowled at him, and apparently decided that his version of having the last word would be swallowing down Ilya's entire dick in one go. Ilya groaned at the feeling, and moved a hand to grip Hollander's hair as the man started to bob his head with small movements that kept most of Ilya inside his mouth. Ilya could feel his dick, who he decided to forgive for now, start to harden in Hollander's mouth.

This was familiar territory for Ilya, and soon Ilya was enjoying the feeling and sight of Hollander moving his mouth up and down Ilya's fully hard cock. Just as Hollander is doing something truly talented with his tongue, Ilya feels the return of the slick finger pressing at his asshole.

Before he can tense up again, Hollander swallows him down until his nose is pressed to Ilya's pelvis. At the same time, the finger pushes in, and this time makes it past Ilya's rim, pushing inside.

Ilya gasps at the dual sensations. The intruding finger is decidedly not sexy for him right now, it feels uncomfortable more than anything, but it's countered by Hollander starting to bob his head again, this time in a slow rhythm that matches the slow drag in and out of his finger.

Ilya feels a heat stir in his stomach, surprisingly different to what he's experienced before. He still doesn't quite see the appeal, but he knew that it normally wasn't an immediate thing, and there was certainly something to be said for having Hollander so fully focused on him, especially when it was paired with the tight suction of his mouth and pink lips stretched wide around Ilya. Ilya grips Hollander's hair, and lets himself just feel all of it. Without thinking about it, one of his legs creeps up to hook around Hollander.

Now that he is relaxed into it a bit more, the finger thrusting inside him has started to feel a bit better, and speed up. Hollander quickens his pace with his mouth to match, and the tension in Ilya's gut starts to sharpen into something new.

The finger pushes in deeper on the next stroke, and Ilya grits out another moan through clenched teeth, “Fuck, Hollander.”

Hollander answers with a moan of his own, vibrating around Ilya's dick, and he feels the pressure at his rim widen, as a second finger pushes in and thrusts upwards, sending a jolt through Ilya. It's only two fingers, but right then, it's more than Ilya has ever felt before, and as Hollander spreads his fingers out, Ilya can feel the stretch at his rim, widening him out around Hollander. For Hollander.

Ilya's hips jerk forward slightly, either away from Hollander's fingers or into his mouth, he isn't sure, and Hollander follows him with another hard thrust forward with his fingers, this time curling them as he pushes them in further than Ilya has felt yet. Ilya feels them brush something inside him with a forceful jab, and it's like a riptide pulling him under, drowning him in pleasure until he realizes he's gone from hard to on the very edge of coming in just a few seconds.

Hollander is still going, sucking at his cock with vigor and thrusting his fingers in deep, and Ilya is moaning so hard it's a struggle to get any words out, “Hollander, fuck, Holland-”

His hips thrust again, this time back into Hollander's fingers because his whole body is a traitor apparently, and the motion drives Hollander’s fingers directly into Ilya’s prostate, sending fireworks sparkling behind his closed eyelids as he tips his head back, lets out a noise he is certain he has never made before in his entire life, and comes down Hollander's throat.

Hollander makes a noise of surprise around Ilya's dick, and the feeling of it fries his nerve endings even further, pushing out another pathetic moan and spurt of cum from Ilya. Thankfully, Hollander holds still after that for the overstimulation to ebb enough that he can take his mouth off of Ilya without wrecking him even further.

Shane looks down at Ilya, who is still panting and borderline trembling from an orgasm unlike any he has ever had before, and says, “Holy shit.”

Ilya catches his breath long enough to register what the fuck just happened, and realizes abruptly that he needs to shut Hollander up, now.

He surges up the bed to grab at Shane’s shoulders and push him down, flipping their positions. He dives in with an open-mouthed kiss, licking in past Shane’s lips to taste himself, like he can hide the evidence of what happened if he licks Hollander’s mouth clean.

Shane makes a startled noise into Ilya’s mouth which quickly turns into a moan as Ilya moves a hand up to pinch at a nipple. Shane’s eyes close, and Ilya moves to mouth down Shane’s neck as he reaches for the lube that is still sitting to the side of them.

He moves his mouth to the untouched nipple and starts to bite there just as he takes one hand and shoves Hollander’s knee up to his chest.

“Wh- holy shit, fuck!” Shane yelps, first in surprise, then in pleasure, as Ilya pushes a finger in and starts a merciless rhythm, aiming directly for where he knows the other man’s prostate is. Hollander gasps, and Ilya bites down harder on Shane’s nipple on his next thrust in, adding a second finger as he does so.

By the time Ilya has three fingers rubbing away at Hollander’s prostate till his legs are trembling around Ilya, Ilya’s traitor dick has hardened again, and at Hollander’s moan of, “Fuck, come on, Rozanov, fuck me,” he pulls out his fingers, moves Hollander’s legs up onto his shoulders, and fucks in in one smooth motion.

Both of them groan in unison, and then the sound is drowned out by the noise of the headboard hitting the wall as Ilya tried as hard as he could to fuck the memory of what just happened out of Hollander.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Despite Ilya’s best efforts, it doesn’t work. He had ducked into the shower as soon as they both finished, which means he is clean of any physical evidence when Hollander says, “So that absolutely was not coming untouched.”

Ilya stiffens, “No, Hollander, because you sabotaged me.” Ilya had had plenty of time to think in the shower about his argument for this, and even doublechecked the definition of sabotage on his phone to make sure he was ready for this.

“I didn’t think you would come that quick!”

“Oh, sorry, how is this my fault? You were deepthroating me!”

Shane blushes, like he hasn’t deepthroated Ilya every single time he has seen him after their first hookup.

Ilya determinedly ignores how endeared he is by the sight of that freckled blush as he continues, “I could have done it, if I was not sabotaged by blowjobs. If anything, this is proof it would be no problem for me.”

“No way,” Shane protests, “This doesn’t prove shit!”

“And whose fault is that?” Ilya deadpanned.

“Sure, fine, it’s my fault, whatever.” Shane says, “But that doesn’t mean you get to just say you did it when you absolutely did not. We need a redo.”

Ilya froze. “A redo.”

Shane nods stubbornly. “Yeah, one more go, this time I keep my mouth and hands away from your dick, and then we really will see if you can come untouched.”

Ilya hesitated. This was supposed to be a one-time thing, a quick victory for future gloating, and something which did not change his arrangement with Hollander at all. Now there were plans for a second appointment of Hollander’s fingers with Ilya’s ass, and Ilya still hadn’t processed how intense his orgasm had been this time. Still, refusing meant saying that he couldn’t do something Hollander did often, and Ilya refused to be second-place to Hollander, especially in the bedroom.

There was also a curiosity nibbling away at him about how different it felt. He was used to his orgasms being a slow build, centered around his dick. This had been a whole body sensation, hitting him forcefully like someone had hooked him in the gut and pulled him completely over the edge without asking. He wondered how good it could be a second time. If this is what it had felt like when Ilya was barely letting Hollander in, how would it feel to truly come untouched?

At his core, Ilya was a hedonist. He didn't leave pleasure unchecked once he had gotten a taste of it, and this had been more than enough to make him curious, even if he did still want to run away at the thought of Hollander looking at him like that again.

“Fine,” He bit out. “Next time.”

Shane huffs out a breath. “Next time.”

Ilya squared his shoulders, and started to put his clothes back on. He had a plane to catch, and plans to make for how to come untouched and show absolutely no vulnerabilities while doing it.

“Hey,” Ilya looks up again to find Hollander had crossed the room to stand in front of him. Hollander puts out a hand to cup the back of Ilya's neck and pull him into a kiss. Ilya leans into it without thinking about it, eyes falling shut as he does.

Shane pulls back slowly, and says, “Next time, ok?” There was a look in Shane's eyes he couldn't decipher, something soft and thoughtful.

Ilya blinked at him, one thought ringing out inside him.

Fuck.

Chapter End Notes

Some notes:
-It's so funny going from writing my post-TLG first time bottoming fic to writing this fic because in that one Ilya is very much so like, "this is intimidating but it's Shane, so I can be vulnerable and not in control ❤️"
Meanwhile fuckboy Ilya is like, "If I am vulnerable in front of Hollander for 1 second then I think I will die actually."
-Also yall, this one fought me so hard, I basically wrote it a few sentences at a time. Hopefully, now that Ilya has a taste of bottoming, the next chapter will go easier.
-At several points, I went, "It's just smut, I don't need to be this serious about it" and then Jacob Tierney came to me in a dream and told me, "Even if it is smut, that isn't a reason to not take it seriously. Their whole relationship and how they know each other is through the sex, so that is how they fall in love." So then I went back to taking it very seriously. There's plot in this yall.
-As a fun lil easter egg, try to spot the first time Ilya's inner dialogue switches from Hollander to Shane :)

Chapter 2: Anything you can say, I can say softer

Chapter Notes

Ilya returns to Boston, and immediately hits the club. He takes home a girl one night, eats her out until she is borderline screaming with pleasure, then fucks her until she really is screaming as she comes. Then he does it again the next night, and the next.

Three no-strings-attached hookups down, he feels more like himself again. So Hollander had given him an orgasm that completely changed his understanding of what orgasms could feel like. So what? This hadn't changed anything, and one more attempt without any sabotage from Hollander, and the deal really would be done and they could both move on. He had certainly figured out what all the men he had fucked before now were so hungry for, but he had a nice setup with Hollander that was too good to threaten changing.

And that cautious part of Ilya that had him always leave the bed before their sweat had even had a chance to dry was hissing in alarm. This new dynamic, where Hollander handles Ilya like he is something he needs to be careful with, it could give either of them the wrong idea about what this was between them, what it had to be. Ilya had worked very hard to keep feelings separate from Hollander. He didn't talk about things other than hockey or sex. He left as soon as they were done. He didn't let Hollander see him nervous, didn't give Hollander any reason to be gentle with him, or kiss him like he had last time. That kiss, the kiss that first time in Montreal… it was better not to think about it at all.

So Ilya would hold up his end of the deal, get one more taste of what it was like on the other side of things, then that would be it. Maybe if it was good enough it could be something he does with other men, ones who he wouldn't see longer than a night, but not Hollander.

Frustratingly, when he tries again to get himself off with his fingers on his own, it isn't the same. He just can't get the angle right on his own, and he stays tense throughout in a way that leaves the whole thing unsatisfying. He ends up giving up and just jerking off like normal, with an extra edge of irritation to it.

It makes him wonder if last time was an outlier, really only due to Hollander's skill at giving head, something Ilya had plenty of first hand proof of. Still, the way it had felt had been so different, so all consuming. It pissed Ilya off that it didn't seem achievable on his own. He supposed that was what toys were for, but something inside him balked at the idea of using a toy on himself. No, he would wait till the second attempt and see if it was a fluke.

Strangely, the whole experience leaves him with anticipation for the next try rather than nerves. He catches himself thinking about it often, and counting down the days to the next Metros game. Of course, that wasn't a new development, he had been doing that for years. Really, he had been doing that since a freckled boy first gave him a second handshake five minutes after the first.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

This time they are meeting in a hotel room in Boston. When Hollander steps through the door, nervously glancing down the hallway as he does, his hair is still wet from his post-game shower and his sweater is the one Ilya has seen often before, in a way that makes him think it might be a favorite of Shane’s.

He looks soft and clean, a thought that always made Ilya want to dirty him up and bring out the flaws in all that perfect. Deeper down, it also made him want to do criminal, idiotic things, like wrap his arms around him and press a kiss to his temple, see how warm that sweater was when it wasn't folded neatly far away from the bed. He focuses on the thoughts of making Hollander come instead.

He doesn't leave time for awkward greetings this time, choosing instead to immediately cross the room to Hollander and pull him into a kiss. Shane meets him halfway, like he normally does, and throws himself into the kiss with just as much passion. It had been a month since their last game, and Ilya had been thinking about this the whole time. The way Hollander leans into the kiss and clutches onto him makes Ilya think that Hollander has been too.

Wordlessly, they both stumble back to the bed, not letting go of each other. Once they are there however, they need to break apart to strip, and in Hollander's case, fold his clothes. Away the well-worn sweater goes, safe on the dresser.

As soon as his clothes are taken care of, Hollander falls to his knees in front of where Ilya is sitting on the side of the bed. He leans in, breathes in the scent of Ilya right where it is strongest. Fuck, Ilya wanted so badly to let him suck him off like he so clearly wanted to, but first they needed to end this challenge once and for all first. Then he would let Hollander get his fill.

“Hollander.”

Hollander darts his eyes up to him, an inch away from taking Ilya into his mouth. Fuck, what in the hell had Ilya been about to say again?

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Hollander remembers for him.

“Oh, yeah.” Hollander pulls away, casting one last regretful look down at Ilya's dick as he did so.

Ilya chuckled, “He will wait for you, don't worry. Soon you can suck him for as long as you want.”

See? He gave his dick the nicest things, even if it was an ungrateful bastard last time.

Shane glared up at him, annoyed. Instead of answering, he puts his hands on Ilya's knees to pull himself up into looking down at Ilya, one knee between Ilya's legs and hands pushing Ilya down onto the bed.

Here we go again, Ilya thought. Then he sent a scolding command down to his dick and asshole. Do not fuck this up for us.

Ilya thought Hollander might go right into it, fingers lubed up and rearranging Ilya's understanding of his body again, but instead he finds himself getting kissed into the bed, Hollander biting at his lips like Ilya was his favorite meal and he had been starving for weeks. As it continues it gentles into something less forceful. The jitter of nerves in Ilya quiets, and the tension in his body drops away as they kiss. It's surprisingly unhurried for them, but Ilya finds himself pathetically grateful for it, if still a bit suspicious and thrown off by it.

Shane pulls back after one final kiss to his lip, and says, with some of his own nerves evident, “Hey, I know last time you didn't want to, but could you flip over this time? I think it would make it easier.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow, “Ah, you must remove temptation, yes? Too hard to not suck my dick?”

Some of the tension returns to his body at the thought of himself, face-down and waiting for Hollander to do whatever he wanted to him, but he had thought about it over the past month, and the best way to avoid any more soft glances was to make it so Hollander couldn't even look at him. Also, it would give Ilya the opportunity to hide any reactions he had better.

He slaps lightly at Hollander's side, “Will need to get off me. You can give dick farewell kiss since you will miss it so much.”

“Fuck off,” Hollander says, rolling his eyes, but he gets off Ilya long enough for Ilya to settle onto his stomach, head propped up on his crossed arms. Strangely, the position reminds him of when he lays down for a massage from the Raiders’ sports physical therapist.

It's not so different, he tells himself. Just hands, some discomfort, then feeling good. And Hollander was far prettier than the Raiders’ masseuse.

The position is also good in that when Hollander spreads his cheeks, and the cold air hits his asshole, his face is hidden between his arms as he fights against the discomfort of feeling so exposed.

“You cleaned up again first, right?”

Ilya groans into his arms, “Hollander, you are literally staring at my asshole right now. Yes, is clean.”

Shane huffs, then Ilya feels warm breath against his skin back there. Oh.

There's a pause, like Hollander is gathering his courage. Then Ilya feels the warm, wet brush of a tongue starting on the skin behind his balls, traveling up the cleft of his ass in a broad stroke that crosses over his hole. Ilya is startled by the moan that comes out of him, an airy, high thing that shouldn't be coming from him.

“Fuck,” He breathes.

“Yeah?” Shane whispers, then spreads Ilya further and goes back in for more. He licks over top again, traces the rim with his tongue in small circles. Finally, when Ilya is close to gasping at the sensations, he plunges his tongue in.

“Fuck!” Ilya moans, louder this time.

Shane hums against his skin, sounding pleased with himself, before he sets himself to fucking Ilya with his tongue. In and out, with a swipe over top occasionally when Ilya isn't expecting it.

Ilya was really understanding the bottoms in his life now. Fucking hell. He needed to eat Hollander out more than he already did now that he knew just how fucking good it felt. Hollander had certainly earned it too, he was eating Ilya's ass with the same focus and vigor that he sucked his dick. Ilya felt like his thoughts were scattering apart, and there was no longer any room for him to overthink this. All he could do was feel it.

A pressure accompanied Shane's tongue on the next thrust in, and Ilya moaned again as a finger pushed in alongside the warmth of the tongue. It pulls at his rim, stretching it enough that Shane is able to plunge his tongue in further on the next dive in. Ilya gasped into his arms as the finger starts to thrust alongside the licking.

He's surprised to realize the moans he is hearing are from him. They sound pleading, with a few Russian swears mixed in. Nothing like he normally would do in bed with Hollander. Even worse, he’s spilling out desperate words in Russian too.

”Ty takoy molodets, vsegda takoy ideal'nyy, mne nuzhno-”

He bites his arm to try to muffle the words, and his hip rocks against the bed ever so slightly, the small bit of friction adding fuel to the fire growing in him.

He feels Shane's mouth leave him, and swallows down another pathetic noise at the loss, turning it into a groan of frustration instead.

Then he hears, “Hey, stop that,” and there's a sharp tug to his hips, forcing his ass into the air where his dick can't get any friction. His breath catches in his throat. If he felt exposed before, it was nothing compared to now, ass up and head down in the bed. And Hollander was the one to force him into the position, moving Ilya like he wasn't over 200 pounds of muscle. A rush of heat pours through him at the thought, and he scrambles to get onto his elbows to try and get some control back.

Hollander continues, unaware of what he had just done to Ilya with one simple movement. “You're getting friction from the bed, that doesn't fucking count.”

“It would be hand-free though, no?” Ilya says sarcastically, and looks back over his shoulder at Hollander, and swallows at the sight. Hollander is kneeling behind him now, hands still tightly gripping Ilya's hips. He's clearly hard and a distant, small part of Ilya is going mad over the thought of other things he could do in that position. He drops his head down again.

“Not the fucking deal, asshole. You're not proving anything if you come after rubbing off against something.”

“Okie, okie, we do it this way.” Ilya said, in what he hoped was a casual voice and not the one of a man who had been moaning over getting rimmed a moment ago. “Can we go before I get too bored to come?”

Hollander doesn’t say anything, but Ilya can practically hear his scowl, before he feels a new pressure against his rim as Hollander shoves two fingers in and thrusts them deep inside, stretching Ilya past where Hollander had penetrated before. The thrust strikes Ilya's prostate, and Ilya shouts out a, “Fuck!” and drops his head down between his arms as he groans loudly.

“This too boring for you?” Shane asks smugly, and rubs his fingers harder into Ilya's prostate.

Ilya can't even respond, too busy biting his lip to keep a whining noise trapped in his throat. He's not fully successful, as another loud moan rolls out of him.

Shane's other hand strokes down his leg, “Rozanov, people are going to hear.” Then the hand moves up his body, and two fingers push gently at his lips.

Ilya's grateful for the opportunity to muffle his noises, and sucks them into his mouth. They rest on his tongue, moving ever so slightly in time with the movements of Shane’s hands.

Behind him, he hears Shane let out a soft, “Fuck, Roz,” before another thrust in with his fingers, gentler this time but still aimed directly at his prostate.

Time stretches and blurs then, sweet and hazy as Shane thrusts his fingers in and out. Ilya realizes belatedly that at some point he had started twitching his hips back into the thrusts. Ilya's face burns. He knew he was a slut, proud of it frankly, but he had never felt more like it then, moaning around Shane's fingers in his mouth and still needing more.

He stops sucking, and thankfully, Shane understands he needs to speak and withdraws his fingers. He catches his breath for a moment, panting through the sensations coursing through him, then tries to be as authoritative as he normally is with Hollander as he says, “More.”

A moment of pause, then a groan of, “Fuck.” comes from behind him. A moment later, Ilya has three fingers inside him, more than he's ever had before. His hips twitch, his whole body twitches really. Then he feels Hollander's hand move back to his ass and pull him wide open.

He hears a heartfelt, “Holy shit, Rozanov.” It sounds soft and awed, and there's a silence after as Shane stares at where Ilya is stretched around his fingers. Then he feels a kiss placed softly in the dip of his lower back, lingering there for a long moment as the fingers keep rubbing inside him. The kiss is gentle, it’s kind, and it hurts as much as it soothes.

Absurdly, this is what makes Ilya truly feel on the edge. He feels like he is teetering there, ready at any moment to go over, but unable to get that last inch. He wants a hand on his cock right now, or the friction of the sheets. Anything to just let him out of this sweet torture. He wants more, but nothing he is allowed to have.

With a start, he realizes that his eyes feel hot, and his vision is blurred. No. No, no, no.

Fuck the competition. He would take the gloating. He would lie, deflect, whatever he needed to do. He was not going to cry in front of Hollander.

Ilya reaches down, and strokes his cock.

Behind him he hears, “Wait-”

There’s no time for Hollander to stop him. It only takes three quick brushes of his hand over himself before Ilya is coming. The sensation flashes through him, and leaves him feeling boneless as he slumps down to the bed, Hollander's fingers coming free with a wet noise as he does so.

There's a stunned silence then, “What the hell, Rozanov!”

Ilya rolls over to his back, and sees Hollander staring down at him, surprised and angry.

Thankfully, his eyes feel dry as he forces a casual shrug and says, “Ah, was taking too long. Maybe you need to practice with fingers on yourself more? I told you making someone come hands-free is not so easy.”

“Fuck no, this is not on me!” Hollander said. “You fucking chickened out!”

Ilya propped himself up on his elbows so he could scowl at Hollander, “No, I did not do this. Was I supposed to wait all day to get off?”

“I thought it was supposed to be so easy for you?”

“And I thought you were supposed to be so good at making me come without touching my dick?”

They both glared at each other for a moment, before Ilya looks down at Hollander’s still hard cock and decided there was another way he could get Hollander to drop the topic.

He moves up the bed to Hollander and grabs at his shoulder, flipping him over to his stomach. He allows Ilya to do it with a grunt, and an annoyed, “Rozanov, don’t fucking try to-”

Ilya grabs his hips and pulls Hollander up onto his knees, ass up, face down. Then he says, “Let me show you how to do this good,” and dives in face first.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Ilya leaves Hollander so exhausted after making him come three times, once untouched on his tongue and the other two on his dick, that the man doesn’t have any words for him when Ilya hurriedly dresses after his shower and leaves. Still, he gets a text shortly after he gets back to his apartment.

Text from Jane:
This isn’t over.

Ilya feels his heart thud in his chest, half dread and half anticipation.

Chapter End Notes

-This chapter was way easier to write then the first, and I've had devious plans for future chapters so as long as defending my stupid thesis doesn't get in the way, there should be more soon.
-There is a method to Ilya's swapping between Shane and Hollander in his internal monologue. Let me know if you figure it out. :)

Chapter 3: I can drink it quicker, and get even sicker

Chapter Notes

I'm being so normal about this fic and not ignoring my responsibilities to write it, no way.

Also, if you're reading this at any point and wondering, "What the hell is Ilya's problem with bottoming?" I will shamelessly point you to my other fic, 'started with a chirp (ended with a bang)' where a married, more emotionally aware Ilya unpacks some internalized thoughts on the subject and then gets railed.

Trigger Warnings Below:

Undernegotiated kink and general lack of safewords in this one, because god forbid they communicate. Brief description of a subdrop at the end.

The next time he sees Hollander, Ilya has him bent over the couch with his pants shoved down his thighs within a minute of getting in the door.

“Fuck, Roz, the deal-” Hollander gasps out as Ilya nibbles and licks at his neck. He cuts off as Ilya rubs a thumb over his entrance, teasingly pushing on the rim.

“Not now,” Ilya murmurs into his ear, “I miss being inside you. And you miss my cock, don’t you?” He grinds it against Hollander.

Hollander shudders, and the way he shuts up after that must mean he really had missed Ilya. Well, he missed Ilya’s dick at least. Beggars can't be choosers, Ilya will take it.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

His evasion tactics don’t last forever, though he does get in one more normal hookup purely on the basis of how much Hollander loves going down on him.

On the third hookup after Ilya's aborted attempt, he’s kissing Hollander in his Montreal condo, trying to move them both to the bed when he feels a small push to his chest. He immediately pulls back, “What? What is wrong?”

“Nothing, just…” Hollander hesitates, then continues, “Are we still doing the competition or not?”

Ilya pauses. Last time was dangerous, extremely dangerous. But it was also good, in a way that had lingered with him, despite multiple hookups with Hollander since. Still, the right thing to do is say no, accept whatever gloating Hollander has in response to that and not risk it.

At the same time, saying the deal was off was almost just as revealing. Hollander would know that Ilya felt strongly enough about it that he was willing to take the loss. If he backs out, Shane might know what having him like that was doing to him.

He's between a rock and a hard cock, so he might as well choose the one that has him coming like that again.

“No, deal is not off. I will still show you I am right.” Ilya pauses, faking a curious expression. “Did you practice your fingering more? Maybe you show me on yourself first so I can give pointers?”

An expression flickers over Shane’s face, too fast for Ilya to read, then Shane says haltingly, “Uh, actually. About that…”

Then he apparently gathers his courage enough to say, “I was thinking about how to do this, and you can say no, of course you can say no, but I wanted to maybe try, uh… swapping?”

“Swapping.” Ilya says. It's not a question.

Shane nods. “Like me on top and you…”

“Getting fucked.” Still not a question.

Shane flushes but keeps going. “Yeah, maybe, if you want to.” If Ilya’s thoughts were racing less, he would almost be proud of how far Shane has come in his ability to ask for things. Right now it was backfiring on him though. He's silent enough that Shane keeps talking.

“I think you would like it,” Hollander paused, looking nervous. “I think I would like it.”

Fuck. Ilya knew he had had one weakness for years and that was that Ilya wanted to give Shane what he wanted, anything he wanted. He also knew there was very little he could give him, but here was something Ilya had the ability to give even if the thought felt acidic in his gut.

“Fine.” Ilya says, then tries to sound less like he was agreeing to an execution. “We will see how good you actually are at topping, yes? What is saying, put money where mouth is?”

“Oh, uh, cool. Thanks. For being cool. With it, I mean.” Hollander, and said tentatively. “There's another thing.”

“Another thing,” Ilya groaned. “Hollander, how many things are there going to be?”

“Just one more!” Hollander rushes to say. “I had this idea after last time.” He glances up at Ilya with a glare. “After you chickened out.”

“I did not-”

“You fucking did. Whatever, that's not what I wanted to talk about.” Hollander chewed on his lip again, Ilya wondered if it would be bloody when he kissed him next. Finally, Hollander seems to decide that showing Ilya was better than having to find the words to describe it, and walks over to his nightstand and searches inside. Ilya watches with a sense of dread creeping up his spine.

Shane pulls out a set of handcuffs, padded leather on the inside. They looked expensive, but Ilya supposed that Hollander could afford the nicest stuff on the market. He had probably researched what was the most comfortable, the least likely to cut off circulation for the person wearing them. For Ilya, wearing them while Hollander fucked him. Fuck.

“So I know you won't give up and touch yourself again.”

“Obviously.” Ilya heard himself say. He hesitated. They had never done full bondage, but Ilya had certainly held Hollander's hands down while he fucked him enough that this wasn't a fully foreign concept. Still, that cautious part of him was screaming now. But again, it told Hollander far too much to say no. It was basically admitting fear.

“You are really getting into topping, aren’t you, Hollander? Should I feel complimented? Is because my ass is just so good? You are addicted now.”

“Shut up, it's not like that.” Hollander grumbled, then said, “Do you want to or not?”

“Hmm, you are apparently craving being big top now, it feels cruel to say no when you are just so eager.” Ilya teased, still managing a casual tone while feeling anything but.

Shane didn't take the bait, looking directly at Ilya as he said, “I need to hear you say it.”

Ilya stopped, and looked at Shane. Then he bit out, “Yes, I want.”

It was the truth, Ilya realized suddenly, even as it made his heart start to beat faster.

“Oh,” Shane said, looking like he hadn't really expected that. “Good.” He paused, then said somewhat hesitantly. “Thanks.”

Ilya needed this conversation to fucking end. “No thanking, if this is what it takes to show you I can do this, then is easy to do.” He broke eye contact with Hollander, finally, and started stripping as he walked over to the bed.

He looked back at Hollander as he pushed off his pants. “You coming or not?”

Hollander was still staring at him, and Ilya couldn’t read his expression. Probably for the best, he was sure he wouldn’t like it. Ilya's words jolted him into motion though, and he started to shrug out of his own clothes.

He tosses the cuffs on the bed as he does so, and Ilya takes the moment where Hollander's shirt is over his head to look at where they lie innocently on the sheets, like they aren’t Ilya's worst enemy. Then Hollander is kneeling on the bed, and saying, “Here, lay down.”

Ilya tries to look confident as he moves to the headboard, on his knees facing it, but then he hears, “No, no, you've gotta be this way, otherwise you can just rub off on the bed again.”

This deal was getting worse all the time. Ilya turned over, saying sarcastically, “You want to look at my pretty face so badly?”

Hollander's face does something strange, and Ilya's stomach drops. Then Hollander is scowling again at him, and straddling his lap, his ass hovering over Ilya’s dick.

“Wow, I am getting mixed messages now, Hollander.” Ilya says, and takes the opportunity to grind upwards into Hollander's ass. Because his dick apparently has a mind of its own and makes its own decisions, it's actually hardened over the course of this conversation despite Ilya's trepidation.

Hollander ignores Ilya, and says, “Hands up.”

It was time. Ilya puts his hands up, and keeps his body as relaxed as possible as Hollander cuffs his hands over his head with two soft clicks. Those quiet noises feel like they are ringing in his ears, along with his heartbeat thudding. He hopes Hollander can’t hear.

Hollander looks him over, feels the inside of the cuffs against Ilya’s wrists, “Is that comfortable?”

Absolutely not, but it wasn't uncomfortable in the way Hollander was asking.

Ilya tests the cuffs, pulling slightly. They hold. He’s had girls tie him up before with ties and silk scarves. He could have broken out easily enough then. This was nothing like that. He'd have to break the headboard to get out. He wasn't going anywhere till Shane was done with him.

Fuck, why was he so hard right now?

“Ok?” Hollander is saying over him. Ilya needs to think for a moment before he realizes Shane's repeating his question from before.

“Ok.” He nods. “Let's get going sometime today, yes?”

“Christ, you're an asshole.” Shane mutters, then says, “Lift your hips, I'm putting a pillow underneath them.”

Ilya huffs out a breath and does so. Then he's tied up, legs spread with Hollander between them. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

This is the last time. He swears to himself. We are not fucking doing this again.

Maybe Hollander is thinking the same thing, because as he is slicking his fingers, he cracks a nervous smile and says, “Third times the charm right?”

Ilya is surprised by the laugh that bubbles out of him, fueled by nervous tension. “It fucking better be, Hollander.”

Shane smiles back, and the moment feels strange, but good, in the way these rare, wordless moments that only happened with Shane were. Like they just couldn't help but be happy to be there, with each other, despite every reason they shouldn't be.

Then Shane is trailing his hand down Ilya's leg, toward his entrance. Ilya doesn't even realize he's holding his breath until Hollander says, “Breathe, Rozanov.”

Ilya wanted to snap something back about Hollander trying to just breathe through this, but he reminded himself this was something Hollander did literally every time they saw each other. Maybe not while handcuffed, but the point stood. This should be easy.

The hand reaches his rim, rubs against it in a way that teases at more, then finally a finger is pushing into Ilya. He exhales, and lets himself anticipate what would come next. This could be good, he knew it could be good. Maybe this time would affect him less, afterall he had some experience with this now.

Shane looks like he wants to ask Ilya how he is doing, but he clearly knows at this point what would happen if he did. Instead, he just starts a slow motion to his fingers, moving his finger in and out in a gentle, deepening motion that made Ilya want to squirm. Just as he is on the edge of pushing Hollander into moving along, Hollander finally deems Ilya ready and a second finger is pressing into him.

This is the part last time where it had started to feel good, the stretch moving from uncomfortable to wanted. This time was no exception, and apparently the past experiences had also given Hollander some skill, because he curls his fingers and finds that spot inside Ilya fairly quickly.

Ilya's breath catches, and he closes his eyes and bites his lip. Desperately, he wishes there was any way to keep his reactions from Hollander, to not be looking right at him for this. But that's not an option, so he tips his head back and tries to force down a gasping moan.

He feels a kiss against his knee, and it startles him into looking back down. Hollander is staring at him, eyes studying Ilya's face. Ilya felt more exposed then when Hollander was staring directly at his asshole. He wanted to snap, to push back like he’s done again and again, but he feels pinned by that gaze.

A third finger pushes into him, and he pants, “Fuck, Hollander,” but keeps his eyes on Shane, who places another kiss to the inside of his knee, an unspoken reward.

Shane quirks a smile at him, like he knew exactly how Ilya was feeling. Ilya supposed he did, and realized that here he was again, in the same bed where he had first fucked Shane. Here he was, about to have the same happen to him.

And here Shane was, dropping light kisses along his skin as he opened Ilya up for him. This is where Ilya would normally try to hurry things along, push Shane away before he saw too much, but he felt frozen in the feeling of this moment, trapped by the look in Shane's eyes even more than the cuffs on his wrists.

Shane curled his fingers again, stroked over his prostate. Ilya gasped, moaned. His body was trying to move, towards Shane then away, unsure what it wanted even as his cock dripped onto his stomach, but the cuffs held as he pulled on them. For lack of any other option he found himself wrapping his legs around Shane and rocking into his fingers.

Shane's other hand smoothed down his leg and up to his chest, grabbing a handful like Ilya so often did. He thumbed over Ilya's nipple, making a small circle around it. The sensation ripped out another groan, and Ilya rocked down harder onto his fingers with a quiet curse. Those fingers started to rub against his prostate, pressing into it until Ilya was panting, knowing he could come if he just got the slightest touch to his cock.

The fingers left him, and Ilya felt empty, so fucking empty. A noise came out of him before he could stop it, something more animal than human.

Shane's hand stroked his cheek. “Hey, it's okay. I'll take care of it.” There was a shade of awe to Shane's expression, like he was looking at something rare and beautiful.

He leaned forward and captured Ilya's lips in a kiss. Ilya leaned into it, instinctively biting at Shane's lips, aggressive like he was used to, but Shane resisted, gentling it instead. Ilya was forced to slow into it, feel the weight of Shane pressing him down into the bed and the pressure of the cuffs holding him right where Shane wanted him. He was sinking down, his only lifeline Shane's touch. Shane pulled back from the kiss and Ilya tried to chase his lips but he couldn't move far enough to follow him.

“Ready?” Shane's voice was a whisper, like if he spoke louder it might break the bubble surrounding this moment, keeping them insulated from the rest of the world.

“Da,” Ilya said back, equally quiet, then forced his words back into English. His thoughts felt sluggish, muffled. “Yes, ready.”

Shane nods, the tiniest movement, then grabs a condom and the lube again. He fumbles through putting on the condom, clearly not having done it often, and takes the time to warm a generous amount of lube between his hands before slicking it over his cock. His eyes flutter shut, and there's a catch to his breath as a moan comes out of him. Ilya is transfixed, taking in the sight of Shane kneeling between his legs, looking so beautiful, just for Ilya. Then those dark eyes are blinking open again, and looking at him with that gentle, careful look again.

He puts his hands on Ilya's hip, tugs him just the tiniest bit forward to position him where he can take Shane best. Inside Ilya, there's a panicked voice fighting to be heard, but it's quieted by one last light kiss to Ilya's lips, before Shane reaches down and lines himself up with Ilya.

He catches Ilya’s eyes. “Okay?”

Ilya nods, not trusting his voice.

Then Shane is pressing forward, and Ilya has no words at all. Gasping, he feels the world shift, as his body makes room for Shane within it. It’s a lightning strike, a devastation, a remaking.

Shane bottoms out in him, and it’s too much. He shuts his eyes, turns his face, but a hand on his chin stops him, moves him back.

“Don’t hide from me.” Shane whispers, looking just as undone as Ilya. “Let me see.”

Then he pulls back, leaving Ilya empty and aching, before thrusting in and filling him so much that he barely felt like he had enough air left in his lungs to breathe.

“Oh god,” Ilya moans. The sensation is overwhelming. He could feel his body reshaping itself around Shane, letting him in eagerly with the slightest burn of pain from an ass that had never been fucked before to make it feel even better.

Shane thrusts again, pulling Ilya by the hips into him. Ilya helps, clutching tightly with his legs around Shane’s waist, and pushing back into him. They fit together beautifully, they always do, and within a few strokes, Shane has found his prostate and is hitting it with every thrust forward.

“Oh god,” Ilya repeats, then says it in Russian. “Bozhe, blyat. Bol’she-”

Those noises can’t be coming from Ilya, the whimpering gasps, the whining requests for more.

They sing in unison with Shane’s moans, his groans of, “Fuck, Roz, god, you-”, and the wet noises of Shane's hips slamming into Ilya's ass, over and over.

Ilya rolls his hips into Shane’s next thrust, making the head of his cock grind over his prostate. He gasps, and squeezes his eyes shut. It makes a warm trickle of heat spill down his cheek, and with a sudden jolt of horror he realizes he is crying. Fucking crying as he whimpers on Shane Hollander’s dick while he gets fucked.

He glances up at Shane, hoping he’s too overcome to notice, and instead sees Shane looking at him, face a wreck of startled pleasure. His eyes dart across Ilya, from his trembling body, to his bound hands, and finally back to his teary face.

“God, you look…”

Ilya shakes his head, trying to find a way to hide, but there’s nowhere to go. He’s forced to watch as Shane’s gaze softens, as he brings one hand up to cradle Ilya's face as the other continues to hold Ilya down so he could thrust in even deeper. Shane strokes his thumb under Ilya's eye, then dives down and kisses the tears off his lips.

“I’ve got you, it's ok. I’m right here.” He murmurs into the kiss.

Ilya sobs, a broken noise escaping from his lips into Shane's. He's overcome by every sensation, the sweet torture of Shane fucking into him again and again, the feeling of the cuffs holding him in place as he tries to jerk out of them, the slap of his aching dick against his stomach, the words Shane is repeating over and over into his lips as he holds him. All of it is too much.

“Please,” He gasps, “Please.”

He’s not even sure what he’s begging for. A hand on his cock? To be let out of the cuffs, out of this bed, out of the look in Shane’s eyes as he fucks him to madness? Ilya doesn’t fucking know, he’s just drowning in it all.

“Shane,” He hears himself say "Shane, fuck, please, I can’t-

Shane’s eyes go wide.

“Ilya,” He says in a soft breath, quiet and startled. Then he drops his other hand back to Ilya’s hip, pulls him hard into his thrust, getting impossibly deeper and says, “Ilya, you can, I know you can. I've got you, just, god-”

Ilya moans, whines, sobs, as he’s driven closer and closer to that cliff edge.

“Shane, fuck, Shane, it’s too much.”

“Just let yourself feel it, fuck-” He drops his head down against Ilya’s shoulder, panting into it and sounding overcome himself.

“Ilya,” He says one more time, like it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever had on his tongue.

Ilya gasps, and goes over the edge.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Ilya is floating high over his body, drifting. Then he wakes up, and crashes back down.

Shane is still panting against him. His cock is still in Ilya's ass, starting to soften inside him. Ilya’s thoughts are coming slowly at first, then quickly getting faster as he thinks about everything he did, all the things he said.

There’s a cold shiver running through him. He feels sick. He needs out.

“Off,” Ilya yanks his hands against the handcuffs. Shane stares at him, still dazed and looking stunned, until Ilya says again, louder this time, “Take them off, Hollander!”

Shane rushes to do so, fumbling slightly with the cuffs as he unlocks them. As soon as they are off, Ilya is pushing Shane off him and getting out of the bed. He starts to struggle into his pants.

“Il- Rozanov, what are you-”

Ilya doesn't even have his shirt on, just his pants, as he grabs at his shirt and jacket and heads to the door.

“Rozanov, wait!” Shane shouts behind him.

He doesn't look back, just pushes the door open and takes the steps two at a time.

As he bursts out the door, the frigid Montreal winter air fills his lungs and stings at the saltwater on his cheek. He can still feel the imprints of the cuffs on his wrists, likely starting to bruise from the force of his fighting against them. His own cum is drying against his stomach, flaking off into the inside of his shirt. He heads down the street at a brisk pace, and tells himself that the cold is the reason for the tremble running through him.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Jane:
I didn’t think it would be that like that.
I shouldn't have pushed you to do it.
Are you okay?

Thirty minutes later, another text comes through.

Jane:
I'm sorry.

Chapter End Notes

…So.
I did say I was taking it seriously in ch 1.
-Ilya said, “anything you can do, I can do better” and that includes panicking and running before the jizz has even dried.
-There was an earlier version of this draft where I was like “What if first names happen when Ilya starts crying while getting railed? Shane is not going to run while Ilya is crying on his dick.” But then I stopped and went, “If 2014/2015 fuckboy Ilya is forced to truly be vulnerable and cry in front of Shane, he wouldn't just stay and cuddle, he would run.” So this all kinda unspooled from there.
-So many times I went, “would they seriously be this soft at this point in the timeline,” but then I reminded myself they are in love even now while they are denying it. Also, look at that first bottoming scene. This is just the mirror of that, several years on and more down bad.

If you want some rambling thoughts on Shane’s POV, it’s under this.

So in my head, at this point in the timeline, Shane has really only gotten glimpses of Ilya behind the big bad Russian mask, and those have only ever really occurred when Ilya was being gentle with him through his early experiences with bottoming and being with a man, and Ilya has never been vulnerable with him. So now this Shane has 3 things happening to him.
-He’s seeing Ilya be nervous, even if it’s mostly masked, and it’s a side he’s never seen from him before, and Shane craves getting to see any new part of Ilya.
-He’s in Ilya’s position for once, seeing Ilya experience new things that are a bit intimidating and weirdly Shane has more experience for once cause he’s the professional bottom. And guess what, all his experiences with Ilya when Shane was in this position was Ilya being kind and taking care of him! And we already know from Shane’s lil forehead kissie in episode 2, and all the cottage stuff that he wants to take care of Ilya. Ilya just does not want to let him. In Ch 1., the “Next time, ok?” kiss in my head was Shane going, “what did I want most after my first experience with this/what did Ilya do?” and the answer to that is the most tender fucking kiss in the whole series.
-He’s finding that he in fact does not have to be the hole to be deeply into sex. In fact, he’s never felt this good being in this exact same position with a woman. Really makes you think, huh Shane?
So he’s finally got Ilya in a position where the mask has cracked, and Shane is allowed to take care of him for fucking once after trying for YEARS. And also, *taps the sign that just says in bold letters ‘THEY ARE ALREADY IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER”*
Too bad for both of them that the only real reason Ilya has allowed it is that he went into subspace because Shane’s version of “too much, too fast, too tuna melt” was going right for topping and handcuffs in one go because he will google the best handcuffs to use but not know what a safeword is or even what fucking subspace is. Ilya meanwhile has such a self-destructive relationship with sex that he barely knows what a safeword is and would never ask to use one. Dumbass4Dumbass.

-I read the Vegas Ilya POV scene near the end of writing Ch 2, then put on my devastatingly sad Hollanov playlist while I added in details and proofread my smut and posted the chapter all with a thousand yard stare thinking, “None of them know what I'm about to do to them.”
-I feel like I baited you guys in with smut then locked the doors and shouted, “IT'S ABOUT VULNERABILITY.” So… *Ilya in hotel gym voice* Sorry.
-The end goal was always bondage and Ilya getting railed though, that's not a lie. The first version of this was fully just fun smut for 3 chapters but I think my track record shows that I can't just write smut for them without feelings creeping in, which we all know Ilya is allergic to here.
-I almost cried writing this chapter. I had already written the end scene before I wrote the smut so it was fucking HOVERING THERE where I could see it a few lines down the whole time I was writing the scenes where they are just so painfully in love.
-The Big Rat Guarantee is that if Ilya is bottoming in my fic, he is crying from how good it feels. I have officially delivered on my campaign promises.

Some song inspos for this chapter if you are curious :)

General this fic vibes:
Cool About It by boygenius- “Trying to be cool about it, feeling like an absolute fool about it.” is 100% Ilya in this fic. Also "took your medication" line is funny in the context of this fic, and gives you a lil Shane POV as well. :)
Nauseous by Conan Gray- Oh, Ilya, buddy.
Accidentally tender loving banging:
Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier- Love is the apocalypse! And Ilya is Shane's baby, TO ME.

Finally, I am being so normal about this fic and have already written almost all of the final two chapters of this fic.

Chapter 4: I wanna know peace again, wanna be singing a different song

Chapter Notes

*stumbles in covered in blood* I defended my thesis... *diploma drops onto me* Successfully! This rat is now a Master of Experimental Psychology! (No, despite everything I've ever written, I'm not a therapist.)

Anyways, I'm back and have more heartbreak for yall :)

Trigger Warnings:

Death of a parent, child abuse

The last time Ilya cried, his mother had just died. It was not when he found her, though he had cried for long hours after that. No, his last tears were moments before his mother's funeral. The funeral itself had a priest droning on in a long sermon about everything Ilya's mother had decided to leave Ilya for while Ilya choked on air thick with incense and candlesmoke. He certainly felt like crying for the entirety of it, but his last tears were before the mass began, when Ilya walked into the cathedral, and saw Mama laying as still inside that casket as when he found her draped over the side of her bed.

She looked beautiful. Her hands were delicately crossed across her chest like a doll carefully arranged for display, skin pale as porcelain. Her face had makeup to give it the illusion of health, and her hair was carefully curled and coiffed, laying across the pillow perfectly. Altogether, she looked like an angel on earth, resting briefly against the silk of the casket before returning to heaven. Her expression was peaceful, serene, and had absolutely none of the light which would shine out in her rare crooked smiles she only ever had for him and Alexei. He looked in that casket and saw everything that was missing, and silently began to cry.

His father glanced over from where he was greeting a fellow officer, one of a higher rank than him, and saw the tears glistening on Ilya's face. He said something quickly to the other man, then strode over to Ilya and gripped his arm painfully tight to pull him into an alcove away from any watching eyes.

Then he struck Ilya, a backhanded slap across the face.

“You do not cry. No son of mine will look so pathetic. There are important people here. You will not embarrass me, Ilyusha.”

Ilya didn't say anything, still reeling from the sight of that remnant of Mama as much as the force of the hit. His father shook him by the shoulder.

“Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“I understand.”

He understood, and he obeyed, right up until Shane cracked him open and peered inside.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

He redownloads Grindr while he is in San Jose. It’s western conference, out in California where people care less about hockey and aren’t as likely to recognize a hockey player from Boston, but it’s still a stupid idea. He does it anyways.

He changes his profile to say that he is open to bottoming, makes sure some of his faceless pictures of his body show off at least a bit of his ass, and waits. Within an hour, he’s gotten a message.

When he gets to his hookup’s place, the man who greets him is tall and blonde. Nothing like Shane. Ilya had made sure of that.

He steps in the door quickly, and when it shuts behind him, he immediately gets in close to his hookup. He thinks the name on his profile was Aaron, but it hardly matters.

Aaron looks at him with a slight smile, “Hey-”

Ilya doesn’t let him finish, pushing into his space to bite at his lips. The other man is clearly startled, but quickly starts to return it, licking into Ilya’s mouth. The taste of him feels off, bitter in some way Ilya can’t place. He ignores it.

Ilya feels a push to his shoulders, and pulls back enough to look at the other man.

He's looking confused at Ilya, but pleased. “Alright, guess we can get right to it.”

20 minutes later, Ilya is on his stomach on Aaron's bed, two fingers stretching him out. He was worried about another betrayal from his body, but the vodka he had knocked back before getting in the cab seems to have done its job, so the other man had been able to get his fingers into him easily enough even if he had growled, “Jesus, you’re tight,” into Ilya’s ear as he did so.

Ilya is only half hard, despite the man hitting his prostate occasionally. Aaron’s fingers are bigger than Hollander’s, it makes sense it would be more uncomfortable.

“Ready, we can go now.” Ilya says after tolerating another minute of fingering and Aaron whispering things into his ear about Ilya’s ass.

The other man stops the movement of his fingers, “Really? You sure? It’s only two fingers and I’m bigger-”

Ilya was not going to lay here and listen to someone several inches shorter than him tell him about the size of his cock. “I am ready, put it in. Fuck me.”

There’s another moment of hesitation, before Ilya hears the noise of a condom wrapper getting ripped open, and then there’s the feeling of a cock pushing into him. He lets out a long exhale, letting it rock him forward when Aaron bottoms out in him. There’s a groan from behind him, and then the man drapes himself over Ilya’s back to put his arms on either side of him for leverage as he starts thrusting.

Ilya glances down and stills. Aaron is saying more things about Ilya’s ass and how tight it is, but Ilya can’t focus on that. He’s too busy looking at the man’s arms, which have light brown freckles scattered underneath the blonde hair covering them.

“Freckles.” Ilya says dumbly. “You have freckles.”

“What?” Aaron stops in him, sounding slightly out of breath. “Was that a safeword or something?”

Ilya realizes how insane he sounds. “Nothing. Fuck me harder, I am falling asleep.”

The other man sputters, sounding offended as he says, “Ok, asshole. I’ll show you hard.”

The insult sounds wrong in Ilya’s ears, the intonation all off. He ignores it, and looks to the side as the man starts to fuck him with greater force, apparently spurred on by anger now. He definitely should have taken another finger first, but the burn of it helps drown out his head slightly, especially once Aaron finally figures out where his prostate is. This man would not be winning any shot accuracy contests anytime soon.

The thought makes Ilya ache, and when he finally reaches down to stroke his half-hearted erection into getting off, he keeps his eyes on the man’s arm, looking at the foreign patterns of something so familiar.

It’s not coming untouched, but Ilya had no one to prove anything to here. Except himself, and this had really just done the opposite.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

His dreams give him no reprieve. A month out from that night in Montreal, and he is still waking up from dreams with Shane's name on his lips, phantom sensations of cuffs around his wrist, and an aching erection begging to be touched.

Again and again, he finds himself looking at his phone, and that last, desperate, “I'm sorry.” Even though the reminder of that night makes shame burn deep in his chest, he's unable to force himself to delete the text, the entire chat log, or Jane from his phone.

For the past month, he's fucked, fought, and tried to drink away all his feelings so he wouldn't need to think about what happened, but none of it works. The next morning, that text is still there, and so are the memories.

Ilya wishes he could go back to who he was before that night, like if he could just find the smug, idiotic Ilya Rozanov who had made that bet and scream in his face that he was about to ruin everything, about to have everything ruined for him, then Ilya wouldn't be dealing with these feelings right now. He could still be seeing Shane, sparingly and for brief moments, just like he had been for years before this.

But he did boast that night, he did make that bet, and he did let Shane change everything for him, for them. So now here he was, staring at that last text, and fucking wishing he could bring himself to reply.

It would be one thing if it had just been the embarassment, and bozhe moy, it had been fucking embarassing. Ilya had cried, and then to make it all worse, he had run away after, like a fucking scared child. And it would have been bad for anyone to see him like that, but for it to be Hollander…

But no, it wasn't the embarrassment that kept him from texting. There were other things far worse than feeling himself choke on shame.

He doesn't reply because he can't stop thinking about how he had sunk so easily into it, had fucking enjoyed it even. How, for that brief period, he had let Shane have all the control and he had wanted him to have it. Wanted Shane fucking him, wanted Shane whispering soft reassurances, wanted Shane holding him like Ilya was something more than a good fuck to pass the time.

And that was how Shane had held him. That was how he had touched him, and kissed him, like Ilya was something fragile and precious, so precious. It had all felt so real that for a moment, Ilya had let himself forget. He had let himself forget who he was, who Hollander was, what this thing was between them and what it had to be. He had forgotten, and let Shane inside. And it had changed him. It had changed everything. Then it all came crashing down.

So he stares at the text, but he doesn't answer.

It’s better for both of them. It's better for Shane, really, to not have Ilya Rozanov complicating his life anymore.

He still can't bring himself to delete it.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

He ignores Shane at games, avoids even checking him unless it's completely necessary. To his credit, Shane does the same.

Maybe that's the reason why Boston gets knocked out of the playoffs early, though several injuries on the team hobbling their play certainly doesn't help. The Metros don't have the same problem, soaring through the playoffs with a vengeance.

Svetlana says this could be the Metros' year to finally take home the Cup again. The sports commentators say Hollander is playing with more drive than ever, like he's got something to prove. Ilya doesn't say anything. When he's asked about Shane in the post-game interview for the Raiders’ last game of the season, he dodges the question with an insult towards the Metros as a whole.

He still watches every game after that though. He's not sure if it's not just another way of digging in the knife on himself every time he spots Shane’s smile after a win.

When the Metros get the win that pushes them into the final round of playoffs, and Shane's smile for once is unguarded and delighted out on the ice, just like Ilya had seen his face bloom into in dark hotel rooms, he finds himself thinking, It fucking had to be you, didn’t it?

He complains his way out of watching the Stanley Cup finals with Svetlana and the Raiders. It's not too hard to do, considering he's been in a foul mood for the last three months. If anything, the Raiders are probably happy to get away from the storm cloud that is Ilya.

Svetlana is harder to convince, but he manages to piss her off enough till she acquiesces. She ends the call with a curt, “When you want to quit being miserable all by yourself, Ilyusha, give me a call.”

So he's alone when he watches the final. He watches Shane play beautifully, maybe better than Ilya has ever seen him play when not on the ice with him. He watches Shane slam the puck into the goal before the goalie can even think about blocking it. He watches as the timer ticks down, closer and closer to Shane making history.

3…

2…

1.

Shane grins when the buzzer sounds, right before he is buried in a pile of whooping teammates.

They bring out the Cup, and Ilya watches Shane lift the Cup up high and kiss it. Just last year, Ilya had kissed it in the same spot. Water bottles and Stanley Cups, years and years apart.

He's smiling, he realizes. Smiling as his eyes grow hot, like Shane had left a crack in him that tears could spill from freely now.

He's proud, even as his heart constricts.

He wishes he could text Shane. Maybe a compliment wrapped in a teasing joke. Without even thinking about it, he's got his phone open, and is looking at their chat log.

The last text from Jane stares up at him.

I'm sorry.

Chapter End Notes

…Technically Ilya bottoms in this chapter? *dodges tomatoes*
-It's short and I'm honestly not quite happy with this but at some point you need to let it go. The next chapter is essentially entirely written but it's got some important conversations that I want to be a 100% confident on before posting.
-Yall seemed to like my rambling last chapter so here's more
-A fun lil detail that I feel far too many feelings about: Before now all of the chapter titles have been lines from the song Anything You Can Do, which is a duet (and it's a comedy duet at that because this is dumbass4dumbass. Even better, it's from a play about two rivals at the top of their sport who have to balance their rivalry with their love for each other. At least that's what wikipedia says, I haven't seen it.)
-This chapter title however is from a new song, a solo song called Pushing It Down And Praying by Lizzy McAlpine. Ilya wants to sing a different song, and this time he's singing alone.
-A fun fact about this fic is that originally it was going to be named “Wanna take you there” like the line from Like a Prayer by Madonna (iykyk). In that universe, Ch. 3’s title would have been, “when you call my name, it's like a little prayer” and this chapter would have been, “I have no choice, I hear your voice.”

Songs I listened to a lot for this chapter since I like sharing them!

-Pushing It Down and Praying by Lizzy McAlpine
-Bite the Hand by boygenius- Ilya's vulnerability issues anthem
-Winner by Conan Gray- not a perfect fit but its got the ✨️vibes✨️
-Next chapter I have a song to share that is Shane's pov during this time :)

A funny snippet from my notes on Ilya's thought process(which are long and ramble about internalized homophobia, ideas of masculinity and how he thinks about himself, etc.) but then there's also these notes at the end:

(said like the BONE?!? bit from Brooklyn 99)
-love?!?!? LOVE?!?!?
-submission?!?! SUBMISSION?!?!
-I CRIED?!?!
-and SHANE SAW IT ALL.

-I have been convinced by the many lovely comments to do a bonus chapter with more subspace Ilya, so next chapter wraps up the plot, but there will still be more dumbass content after.

Chapter 5: I can sing sweeter /I can sing anything sweeter with you

Chapter Notes

The NHL awards are hosted in Vegas again, because God loves sick jokes at Ilya's expense. He wouldn't go if he had the choice, but he was nominated, and there was only so much he could get away with on his asshole reputation. Besides, he has a flight to Moscow scheduled in 5 days, and there is plenty of top shelf vodka to distract himself with in Las Vegas as he dodges his family's calls. As well as other distractions.

So he goes, and because it would be stranger not to look at Shane, he allows himself quick glances which turn to longer glances. Success looks good on Shane. His tuxedo is fitted well, and his smile as people congratulate him is awkward and small, but still genuine. Ilya aches with the looking, but he can't stop himself.

When Shane walks up to the podium for his speech, it's dark in the crowd and all eyes are on the stage, so Ilya looks and looks and looks, finally soaking in the sight of Shane, like a desert plant finding rain after months of drought.

“I would like to start with thanking some people,” Shane says in a tone that makes it clear this speech was rehearsed a dozen times before this. “My coach and my teammates, who pulled the Metros this season into making history for this team. Without your hard work, none of this would have been possible.”

He pauses for the polite round of applause resulting from that to calm down, along with a few celebratory hoots from the other Metros in attendance.

“I of course also need to thank my parents, who have given me unending support from when I first stepped onto the ice as a kid, to now, when they attend every game they can and celebrate every win alongside me. Thank you, Mom and Dad. I couldn't have done it without you.”

The script is extremely standard, crowd-pleasing and polished to non-provocative perfection like a dozen NHL speeches before it. It's so painfully Shane that Ilya has to fight down a smile as he watches him shuffle his cue cards. Then his breath catches as Shane looks out at the audience, squinting past the bright stage lights to lock on Ilya.

“I also need to thank my competitors, who have worked equally hard out there on the ice. Facing you game after game has pushed me, and made me stronger overall. It's given me the drive to work harder, play longer, and discover what I'm capable of.” Shane pauses, and there's a glint to his eyes that could just be bright stage lights, or could be something more. “You have made me better in so many ways. Thank you.”

Ilya's heart is thumping like it's trying to escape his rib cage. To everyone else, Shane had just been Mr. Sportsmanship, the cordial Canadian even as he stands at the top. But Shane was only talking to one person just now. Even now, a room full of people between them, Ilya feels pinned by that gaze.

I'm better because of you.

Shane had taken the words straight out of Ilya's heart, where he hadn't even let himself think them.

Shane wraps up his speech with more standard ‘thank you’s and pretty sayings about honor and legacy. Ilya barely even hears it. His mind is racing.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

He finds Shane out on the balcony where he once confronted Ilya. He's leaning against the railing, looking out over it as Ilya approaches.

“Is not worth jumping over.”

Shane jolts, looking over at him. “Rozanov, I…”

“Was waiting?”

Shane turns to face him, backlit now by the neon lights of Vegas, and the barely visible desert stars beyond it. “You were looking?”

Ilya’s lips quirk into a small smile without him thinking about it. “Was nice speech.”

“Nice enough for you to look at me again?” Despite his words, Shane doesn't sound angry with him. Just quiet and sad. And if Ilya isn’t imagining from sheer want, maybe a bit hopeful.

Ilya steps a bit closer, and leans against the railing himself, a few feet away from Shane. He stares down at the city and doesn’t look at Shane when he repeats, “Was a very nice speech.”

There's the quiet noise of movement beside him, before Shane moves closer, standing just a bit closer than was wise to do out in public.

“Hey.” A hand brushes slightly against Ilya’s on the balcony, before moving back to a safe distance. Inhaling, Ilya looks back at Shane.

“I know last time was… A lot.” Shane says. “It was too much, and I pushed and made you do it. I know how it can feel doing that, of course it was too much. And I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-”

Ilya can see Shane is spiraling into guilty panic, and cuts him off, shaking his head as he does so. “I'm the one who is sorry. I, ah, wasn't ready for it, yes. And I did not say that, even though I knew. That is my fault, not yours.” He hesitates, wondering if it really was smart to do this. But the way he had felt the past few months was undeniable. The way he had felt when Shane found him in the crowd and said those words was undeniable. He had tried so hard to fight this and after months apart, the feeling in his chest when he looked at Shane was stronger than ever.

So Ilya bit the bullet, and was honest. “Before I left, it was... nice. Good.”

“...It was good for me too.” Shane says slowly. There was definitely a tinge of hope in his voice now, Ilya couldn’t be imagining it when Shane was looking at him like that.

The lights of the city were reflecting in Shane's dark eyes and illuminating his freckles, and fuck, Ilya wanted to kiss him. He had gone much longer before without Shane, but the three months they had spent apart seemed unbearable now. But it couldn't happen here.

“Maybe we should talk somewhere else?” He says quietly, half expecting a rejection.

It doesn't come. Instead a small, tentative smile blooms on Shane's face, and he says, “Yeah, let's do that.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

They both need to make their excuses for leaving, then time their exits separately. So by the time Ilya finally walks into Shane’s penthouse suite, it's over an hour later. It gives Ilya a sense of deja vu despite the roles being flipped, Shane now the Cup champion and Ilya the one unsure of what was about to happen. At the same time, it feels appropriate to have them end up in the same place, the same position albeit swapped, again and again, pulled back into each other's orbit no matter how much they fought it.

Ilya didn't know how this would go, what Shane would want. Would they move right to the bedroom, like they have always done, or has Shane decided that he was finally angry with Ilya and let that out? Would he want to try what they did before again?

Instead, Shane looks at him when he walks in, then over to the couch in an unspoken question. Ilya sighs and sits down with a nod.

Shane sits next to him, a few feet away but still closer than Ilya thinks he would if he was truly mad. He's fiddling with the buttons on his jacket, undoing them in a way that's less seductive, and more just a need after hours of being so buttoned up. It still makes his mouth go dry with want.

Finally, after a long moment that has Ilya itching to just fucking say something and finally break the silence, Shane says, “Can I- Can I ask?”

Ilya would actually hate if he did that, but Shane certainly deserved it.

“You can ask.”

Shane chews his lip, like he hadn’t thought Ilya would say yes, and now didn't even know what to say. Finally, he just said, “Why did you leave like that?”

Ilya sighs and drops his head down like Shane wouldn't be able to see him if he just couldn't see his face. Though he supposed it was far too late for hiding. He decided to start in relatively safe territory.

“First off, I have never felt like that in my entire fucking life, Hollander, so fucking congrats on that.” He grumbled, half bitter and half genuinely complimentary.

“Thanks?” When Ilya looked over at Shane, he saw that there was a confused, but hesitantly pleased expression on his face. Then it flattened into the neutral expression he gets when he’s thinking through every word he says. “So I was- it, it was good then? For you?”

Ilya sighed, and nodded. “Da. Too fucking good. Is why I ran.”

Shan blinks at him, mind visibly working to put it all together. “So you enjoyed it too much, and that what, scared you?”

Ilya started to bristle, instinctively itching to snap at what would have been an accusation from anyone else. But this was Shane, who had apologized to Ilya like it had been eating him alive for three months, and who Ilya had ran out on while Shane was still naked and trying to figure out what was going on. He needed to be honest, even if it felt like scraping out his guts and offering them out for judgement.

Still, how does he find the words for this in English? How does he find the words for this at all? Ilya felt like he barely understood everything he had felt that night, even after three months of thinking about it over and over again. He has to try though, for Shane.

“It scared me, yes.” He hesitates, and tries to find the words. “You scared me.”

“I’m so sorry-”

Ilya waves a hand and cuts him, “No, shut up and let me finish before you get Canadian.”

Shane huffs, trying to look annoyed, but can’t quite pull it off.

Ilya clenches his jaw, stares at the floor as he chooses a different place to start. “I am asshole, yes? I don’t know how not to be asshole. I don’t know how not to hurt and to yell and to push. Is who I am, I think.”

“...You weren’t like that when we were together though.” Shane says slowly.

There’s something wrong with Ilya’s voice as he says, “...No. I was not like that. I was… different. I wanted to be different, because of you… for you. That is what scared me.”

“Ilya,” His name hits Ilya like an arrow. The last time he had heard Shane say his name, Shane was inside him, gasping it into his skin as Ilya came apart. To hear it now… Ilya didn’t know what to do with all of the emotion he felt. All he could do was look at Shane, and see how he looks in this moment with Ilya’s name on his lips.

Shane has that soft warmth in his eyes again, the one that scared Ilya so fucking much that night. It still made his heart skip a beat now, but in a different way.

His heart constricts even further, when Shane says, “Maybe it wasn’t in the same way, but I’ve seen you be different from that before. You've done it with me. You can be kind, and gentle. You were so fucking nice to me that first time we fucked. I… Fuck, Ilya, I kinda wanted to be that for you, you know?”

“Shane…” Ilya was speechless, but thankfully Shane had the words for him.

“Ilya,” Shane moved closer to Ilya, close enough now to lean in and kiss him, and said, “Ilya, I really fucking want to be that for you. I want to be nice to you. I can't keep pretending I don’t like you. And I want to take care of you sometimes, if you’ll just let me.”

“Hollander-”

Shane cut him off, “Shane, it’s too fucking late for the last names. Call me Shane.”

“Shane.” Ilya felt too much emotion for something as simple as a name right now. But of course it meant so much. Afterall, it was Shane’s name. He swallows it down and says, “This thing, this being nice to each other, this caring about each other, it is terrible idea, you know this.”

Shane huffed out a small laugh. “I don’t really think I have a choice in the matter, not at this point. And even if I did, I think I'd make the same one again.”

Ilya felt like he was being pulled into Shane, like that gravitational pull was pushing him to close those few inches separating their lips. God, he wanted to kiss Shane so badly. But still, he protested, for Shane’s sake instead of his own. “I will hurt you, you know this? All I do is hurt you.”

“And I’ve hurt you! I did so much research after and there’s all this stuff I should have been doing apparently, and I read all this stuff about how awful it is to not-” Shane cuts himself off, clearly biting down three months of spiraling and guilt. “Whatever, not important right now. What I’m trying to say is that I want to figure out together how to fucking hurt each other less, okay? Whatever that looks like.”

He looked down, took a slightly shaky breath, then caught Ilya’s eyes again. “And maybe, if you’re ok with it, I’d like to take care of you as much as you’ve taken care of me. We can take care of each other. Would you like that?”

A small, broken noise clawed its way out from Ilya, and he couldn’t stop himself any longer from kissing Shane. Shane kisses him back immediately, grabbing onto Ilya’s shoulders with the same desperation Ilya was feeling.

It was a terrible idea, even as intentionally unlabeled as it is. There were so many reasons it was a terrible idea, all of them colossal and unavoidable- Russia, their careers, and that scared part of him screaming in Ilya's head to stop this before he wants even more. But fuck, Ilya had been fighting this for so long. Five years of pretending he didn't want more, three months of trying to not answer that text.

One moment where he felt safe for the first time in a decade.

He didn't think he could fight it anymore.

You have made me better. Thank you.

There was an emotion bubbling up in Ilya that he didn't have the courage to name right now, but he pours it into the kiss all the same. When he finally pulls back from Shane, he can feel tears in his eyes on the edge of spilling over. Fuck it, it was Shane. He lets them fall and whispers softly, “I think I would like that.”

Shane's smile is equally teary eyed. “Okay, let’s try then.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Epilogue: Ottawa, 2022

“Come on, baby. Just let go.” Shane leans down, and kisses at the tears on Ilya's cheek. He had his hands on Ilya's wrists, pinning them down as he fucked into him.

Ilya moans desperately, rocking his hips into Shane with the legs he has wrapped around Shane as leverage. “Please, fuck, Shane. Please. I can’t, I really can't-”

“No, you can do it, baby. I know you can do it.” Shane doesn't stop his thrusts in even as he cracks a small, smug smile and says, "Show me how easy it is for you.”

“Will you ever fucking let that go?” Ilya tries to groan, but it turns into a moan halfway through as Shane shows off that perfect accuracy and makes him see stars.

“Maybe, ah, three more times and then I'll manage it. Fuck, Ilya.” Shane grinds in as deep inside Ilya as he can with a groan.

“You- fuck, bol'she, lyubov, pozhaluysta, please- are SUCH an asshole.”

“Don't worry, baby. I can be nice too.” Shane kisses Ilya and starts giving him the deep, slow thrusts that drive Ilya up the fucking wall, and made him see stars each time.

Ilya had gotten teased open on Shane’s fingers and tongue before this, then fucked with incredible, mind-blowing, fucking-frustrating-as-hell thrusts that purposefully missed his prostate as much as they hit it for so long that Ilya had been contemplating biting Shane if it would get a fucking hand on his cock or for him to start really fucking him. Begging certainly hadn't worked at all, but of course it would be Ilya insulting Shane that finally got his husband to start seriously fucking him.

Ilya couldn’t come untouched nearly as easily as Shane, but when Shane got into this mood, there was no stopping him from getting Ilya off like that no matter how long it took. And when Ilya finally managed it, it was always one of the most intense orgasms he ever had, to the point that he sometimes passed out afterwards. So his protests were normally more playful than anything, until he got desperate, like now.

He knew he had done it before, but god if it didn’t feel impossible right now. He was still crying, his face wet and probably a little red. Shane loved fucking him till he was crying, the absolute bastard.

Case in point, he felt Shane move a hand from his wrist to brush the tears off his face and fondly say, “My crybaby, it’s always too much for you, huh?”

Ilya had no fucking idea how Shane could even be this calm, the man had a hairtrigger when he was getting fucked but when he was on top he suddenly had superhuman stamina. Ilya loved him so much he could strangle him sometimes, like right now, when Ilya feels like he's been pulled so tight he's on the verge of snapping.

“It is too much because-” Ilya let out a soft whimper as Shane hit his prostate again, then bit out, “Because you are a fucking pervert who- fuck, blyat! Likes to see me cry, bozhe, ohhh fuck-”

Shane dropped his head against Ilya, looking into his eyes as he gasped into the air between them, “I can't help it, baby, you’re so pretty when you’re crying.”

It wasn’t the first time he had said those words to Ilya, but they always hit him like a punch to the gut. “Shane,” Ilya whined, rocked into Shane’s hips as hard as he could, trying to get him just that impossible bit deeper. “Pozhaluysta, moy lyubov, ya tak blizok, pozhaluysta-”

Shane’s thrusts were speeding up, and getting erratic. “I’ve got you, Ilya, baby, I’ve got you.”

He leaned down and whispered into Ilya’s ear, “I want to come with you, Ilyusha. You can do it, come for me.”

Ilya couldn’t deny Shane anything. He whimpered, felt himself shake apart in Shane's arms, and let himself fall.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

.
.
.

Ilya finally caught his breath, and groaned from where he was face down on the bed, completely fucking drained after that orgasm. “Give me another 15 minutes then I can get you back.”

“Make it 20, fuck.” Shane groans from where he had also collapsed into the bed. “Holy shit, Ilya.”

“Do not ‘holy shit, Ilya’ me, you asshole. I just got tortured by my beautiful husband for an hour!”

“Well, come faster next time then.”

“Solnyshko, sweetheart, moy lyubov,” Ilya growled, “I am going to absolutely destroy you once my dick comes back to life.”

“Well, destroy me in 20 minutes then.” Shane groaned. “And I am not riding you. God, my legs are tired.”

Ilya lifts his head up to squint at his husband. “I did not realize you are so scared of cardio.”

Shane rolled over, and glared at him. “Oh, you asshole.”

Apparently, 20 minutes was unnecessary, because a moment later Ilya has a lapful of Shane, who says, "I'll fuckin’ show you cardio.”

“Mmm,” Ilya hums with a smile and a challenging tone. “Prove it.”

Shane grins down at him, happy, exhausted, and yet still so competitive. “Fine, I will.”

Chapter End Notes

And with this chapter title, we return to the duet. :)
-Dear reader, I leave it to you to decide if Shane has a crying kink or if he simply loves that Ilya is comfortable crying in front of him.
-Shortly after Ilya tuna melted, Shane found a kink forum with instructions on safewords, bondage, how subdrop feels, etc and proceeded to have A Bad Time for the next 3 months.
-Shane at one point woke up at 2 AM in a cold sweat, thinking, "If I don't win the Cup and make a thinly veiled romantic gesture through it then the last thing I'll ever have done to Ilya is fuck him into a panic attack." (He gets a hat trick on his next game.)

Some notes below for the rambling enjoyers

-this fic was written so out of order. Ilya's bad hookup, the subdrop, the first half of this chapter, and part of the epilogue were all written before the actual bottoming scene in ch 3. I basically had to write the epilogue and them getting back together to make myself less sad and remind myself they are happy in the end!
- With every Ilya fic, I struggle with figuring out 1. His internalized issues and terrible perception of himself 2. What of those he is actually aware of and would make it into his internal dialogue 3. What he would actually say aloud (not much, folks, not much at all) then finally, 4. What is he actually capable of saying in English. At this point in the timeline, there's not much of those last three, and Shane isn't much better. They absolutely do not know the term "internalized homophobia" and Ilya has buried any feelings on his relationship with masculinity very, very deep down. 3 months is not enough time to fix years/a lifetime of working through all this, but it got the ball rolling and the whole experience cracked the seal on emotional vulnerability and recognizing their own desires in a way that could not be undone.
-Y’all this was really supposed to be just an excuse for me to write bottom Ilya smut, then I got so emotional about it I almost cried. What the hell did they put in this show. Then again, I did promise Dream Jacob Tierney that I would take it seriously. Message heard, king. 🫡
-In chirpverse(my other bottom Ilya fic) I picture them as still most often doing what we see in canon, but I think in this universe it's much more 50/50 switching based on who needs what in the moment, especially since it's so emotionally meaningful for them since it's what got them to realize they were in love. Here, switching very much is an expression of their love and intimacy and is how they care for each other.
-It's also another thing they are insanely competitive about. YES, they are having sex marathons just to try to prove they can fuck the other one into the bed better. Yes, they are getting revenge for getting overstimulated till they cry by doing it to the other one immediately after. No one help them, they both are exactly where they want to be.

Song inspos :)

-Eleven Eleven by Conan Gray- Shane's song during this whole period. I listened to this so much that every time I read the speech where he thanks Ilya, I hear the climax of this song (“I just can't accept that it's too late to save us.”)
-Ankles by Lucy Dacus- epilogue song!
-Real Love Baby by Father John Misty- other epilogue song, they figure it out folks!!

-There have been many very nice comments about sub Ilya, so I am now writing a bonus chapter where both of them are exploring that dynamic with, round of applause here, safewords!
-Finally, to the two individuals who recced this fic and chirpverse on reddit: Thank you and you gave me a heart attack seeing my fics in the wild like that.

Chapter 6: BONUS: I want to take you there

Chapter Notes

EDIT: Holy moly, there's so many of you here, and a ton of you just showed up yesterday? Did this fic get recommended somewhere? Please tell me if it did, I'm so curious.

Please, I'm begging here, please do not treat this as a how to for any of this. Do your own research, from people who know far more than me if you want to try any dom/sub dynamic. I tried to research before writing this (Shane and I have both now read a lot of reddit threads and articles about this stuff, some of the cognitive process stuff is actually really interesting) but this is not a guide!

Timing-wise, this is basically set a few days into the cottage stay that occurs in the summer after their MHL awards reunion. The I-love-you's and boyfriend label all happen relatively similar to canon, with the exception that Ottawa is not discussed because Ilya's not a free agent for several years more. They have waited this long (while doing their normal dynamic) because they needed to discuss this quite a bit first given how it ended the previous time, and Shane needed to do more panicked research on how to be a dom. Yes, Shane researching and giving himself homework prior to topping is canon to me. It's in fact far more urgent in this one for him than chirpverse because he fucked up last time then guilt spiraled for 3 months on kink reddit. He knows more about kink then Ilya does at this point, something that would certainly come up for them both in different ways in the future. His naturally kinky mind is now backed up by RESEARCH.

Also... Huh. Sometimes you say, "Oh, I'll write a little bonus chapter, that sounds fun!" Then you look down at the end and realize that your bonus chapter is so long it's now going to be a quarter of the final word count for your 6 chapter fic. You're welcome, yall.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Traffic light system?”

“Mmm, no.”

“What? Why not?”

“You expect me to remember colors in English while I am like that?”

“Ok, fair. What if you tell me them in Russian-”

“You think you can remember Russian colors while you are like that?”

“....Alright, yeah. I guess that leaves safewords?”

“I still do not think this is necess-”

“It is, Ilya. I'm not fucking doing that to you again. It scared the hell out of me, okay?”

“...Okay.”

“Now what's your safeword? Mine is going to be infraction.”

“....You are so fucking predictable sometimes, Hollander.”

“Hey! What's yours then?”

“Ferrari.”

“Oh, COME ON-”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

The Cottage, June 2015

It’s a beautiful day in Ontario. Birds, both normal and concerningly wolf-like, can be heard outside, and golden, leaf-dappled sunlight is scattered across the bed as Shane asks Ilya for probably the 100th time if he was okay with getting fucked.

His boyfriend, a term which still made Ilya's heart do a somersault every time he heard it, and full on jumping jacks when he remembered that Shane loved him, was kneeling in front of him on the bed, naked and clearly anxious. Ilya was also naked, legs casually parted, as he leans back against Shane's ridiculous mountain of pillows while Shane frets.

“You really aren't doing this just to make me happy right? You really do want to do it again?”

Ilya rolls his eyes with a huff as he repeats what he has been telling Shane since they first began to plan this. “Yes, Hollander, I really do want you to fuck me again.”

“Ok, but you know I understand if you don’t want to, I get if after last time-”

Ilya catches Shane’s hands in his, and pulls him in so that he is kneeling fully between Ilya’s legs. “Shane, Shane. Listen to me this time.” He makes sure Shane is looking him in the eyes as he says, “We both made mistakes before. This is different. I want you to fuck me.”

He's trying to be as confident as he can for Shane as he says it, pushing down the nervous part of him that remembers the cold, sick feeling that had clung to him for days after that night, and the three months after where all he could think about was the embarassment of being seen like that, and worse, the shock at having liked it.

Thankfully, that voice inside him has grown quieter with every day spent at the cottage, and he's able to counter the memory of those shaky, fucked up hours after he ran out of Shane's condo in Montreal with the good parts of that night, like the way the pleasure of it had rippled through him with such force that he could barely think, let alone hold anything back in that moment. Or the simple fact that Ilya had never felt closer to Shane than when he was inside him like that, holding him and talking to him with such care while he fell apart. To have that again with Shane… That was worth silencing the scared, embarassed part of Ilya once and for all.

Perhaps Shane can see some of that on Ilya's face, because his shoulders inch downwards from their tense, worried position. However, he still reminds him, like he has several times before, “And you remember you can safeword at any point? Or tap me three times if you can't talk. Or-”

Ilya groans, but there’s an edge of laughter to it. “Or fucking say slow down, yes, Shane. I know how this works. You have explained it many times, and I was right there, listening to you, remember? And is not like this is first time I have kinky sex, so really, is fine.”

Shane still looks worried, with an edge of frustration. “Yeah, but I need to know you'll actually do it if you need to, not just pretend you're totally fine with it when you're not.” His frown gentles into the kind of earnest sincerity that still hits Ilya like a punch to the gut. “I don't want to hurt you again, Ilya. Promise me you’ll say something before then? Please?”

Ilya exhales and rubs his hand up Shane's arm in a comforting caress, as the humor in his tone fades into sincerity. “I promise, moy lyubimyy. Okay?”

Shane's eyes search Ilya's face, and apparently he finds what he's looking for there, because the tension in his body finally drops away as he sighs and smiles. “Okay.”

Ilya isn't sure who leans in for the kiss first, but the end result is the same: a deep, lingering kiss, with Shane's weight pressing him into the bed and his hand weaving through the curls at the nape of Ilya's neck.

Ilya normally would try to lead the kiss, pull Shane deeper into it and make him moan, but he reminded himself that wasn’t how it was going to be this time. They had talked about it since coming to the cottage, haltingly on Ilya’s part, and with several technical terms taken from the internet on Shane’s part, and came to the conclusion that there were multiple aspects of that night that they were both interested in repeating.

It had felt fucking scary as hell to admit he wanted to submit again, but Ilya was trying so hard to be honest with Shane these days, even if it felt like it went against every survival instinct he had. And as Shane had proposed tentatively, maybe repeating the experience could help fix some of the negative feelings they both had about how that night had ended.

“Like a redo?” Shane had said. “And we do it right this time.”

Ilya wanted that. He wanted to eliminate that chilling unease from the memory of the night where he first realized he was in love with Shane, something he could only admit to himself now. This time would be different. They would make it different.

It went against everything he knew to willingly let himself be this vulnerable, but it was Shane. His boyfriend. Who loves him, the first to ever do so, and the first Ilya has ever loved as well. So he forces himself to relax into the bed as the kiss deepens, and give up control to Shane.

Shane must have been waiting for the tension to leave Ilya’s body as well, because it’s only once he has fully melted into the kiss that Shane pulls back, dropping one final, light kiss to Ilya’s lips as he does so. He stares down into Ilya’s eyes with a considering expression for a long moment, then says in a low voice, “Hands over your head.”

Ilya hesitates, the memory of how it had gone last time halting his body despite knowing that he wants this. Shane notices it, and cups his cheek to say gently, “No cuffs, I just want you to hold them there for me, alright?”

Ilya exhaled and nodded, then moved so that his wrists were crossed over his head. It stretched his torso out, putting his body on full display, something Shane clearly appreciated, as Ilya felt his cock twitch against his leg. He smirked, enjoying the familiarity of turning Shane on just with the sight of his body. Maybe it’s because of that return of his usual confidence that he says, “You are not worried I will decide to get myself off without you again?”

Shane doesn’t take the bait, instead, his eyes darken and he says slowly, “No, because you're not going to move, and you're not going to come, not till I say so. Don't you want to be good for me, Ilya?”

Fuck.

Now Ilya was the one whose blood was rushing downwards so fast his dick twitched.

Shane smirks at Ilya’s reaction. Then he pulls his expression back into the intensity from before. “Well, don’t you?”

Ilya nods, still feeling a bit stunned. What the hell had happened to his Shane who had always submitted so eagerly for Ilya in bed and blushed while talking about it afterwards? How much time had Shane spent on all of those kink forums while researching this?

Shane surprises him even further, demanding in a firm tone, “Say it out loud. Say you want to be good for me.”

“Yes,” Ilya says slowly, somewhat shocked at how aroused he was at the words he was saying. “I want to be good for you.”

Shane smiles at him, looking pleased, and gives Ilya a quick kiss. Then he moves his mouth to Ilya’s ear and whispers into it, “Trust me, baby, I’m going to make you feel so good.”

Ilya's whole body floods with heat at both the petname and the promise. Ilya has called Shane various names in Russian over the years, ranging from filthy to embarassingly earnest, but Shane had never done it in return. Until now, apparently. Ilya's face feels hot, and he suspects he might actually be blushing as he stares wide-eyed at his boyfriend.

“Shane…” There's almost a whining tone to his voice already, and Shane hadn't even touched him yet.

Then for some inexplicable reason Shane is moving away from him to get off the bed. Ilya instinctually twitches forward to stop him, but doesn’t get far. Shane immediately shoots him a look and says, “You said you were going to be good, baby. Don’t move those hands. Or am I going to have to tie you up again?”

“No, I'll be good, I promise.” Ilya says, the words coming out quickly enough that embarassment claws at him right after. However, the embarrassment is not as strong as it would have been normally. Instead, his focus is narrowed down to the thudding of his pulse where his wrists are crossed, and the pleased expression on Shane's face as he smiles down at him.

Then he's fully off the bed, moving to stand at the foot of it. Ilya mourns the lack of contact, but only for a moment before Shane grabs his ankles and pulls him to the edge of the bed.

The air leaves Ilya at being just manhandled into place without a thought or request for permission, like Shane is demonstrating to Ilya he can do anything to him he wants. Because he could. Ilya wanted him to.

Now Ilya really is stretched out along the bed, arms still crossed over his head, legs spread with Shane standing between them, and his ass at the edge of the bed where Shane had full access. Ilya can feel the brush of Shane's hardening cock down there for a moment and it makes his pulse quicken at the reminder of where this was going. Unlike all the previous times however, this time he's looking forward to it.

Shane takes a long moment just running his eyes over Ilya, a wait that makes Ilya itch to move, to touch him and move this along like he wanted. But that wasn't his role today. Still, he was Ilya Rozanov, known menace on and off the ice, especially to one Shane Hollander. It’s simply engrained in him at this point to preen and poke when Shane is looking at him like this.

So he smirks at Shane, and arches his head back to show off the line of his neck as he purrs, “Like what you see?”

Shane's eyes return to Ilya's face, and the look on his face makes the smirk fall away as his breath catches in his throat.

“Do you know what you look like right now, Ilya?” Shane murmurs in a low voice that drips with intent.

He feels Shane’s hands petting down his sides, moving down to the inside of his thighs, before Ilya's legs are being pushed further open as Shane says, “You look like you're mine.”

Ilya's brain fully turns to static for a minute, just a long moment where his only thought is Holy fucking hell, Hollander.

He must have said it aloud as well, because a small smile tugs at Shane's lips before it smoothes out as he whispers, “I want you to do something else, baby.”

Shane starts to lower himself into a kneeling position between Ilya's legs, holding eye contact the whole time.

“Be loud for me.”

Then Ilya feels Shane's mouth on his ass, hot, wet, and tongue immediately plunging inside. He tips his head back, and like a good boy, his moan is loud and clear.

It had been so many months since Ilya felt this, and he had forgotten just how unspeakably good it feels to be stroked inside like that. How could memory possibly compare to the sensation of Shane fucking him with his tongue? Or how it feels to have him licking around his rim, getting it wet with spit for everything that would come next? Ilya is cursing in Russian as he feels how spit-soaked he is becoming down there, and he swears that he can feel Shane's smile against his skin on the next thrust of his tongue inside.

Distantly, he hears the click of a cap opening, and soon there is also a lubed finger stretching him open alongside Shane's tongue, the two working together to make him dripping wet and loose enough to fuck. The push in and out of them is utterly obscene, each motion pulling small gasps out of Ilya.

Then Shane chooses to make his mouth useful somewhere else, moving up to suck at Ilya's balls just as his finger curls to stroke directly over Ilya's prostate.

“Blyad!, ah- Shane!” Ilya’s voice breaks on Shane’s name, and instinct has him biting his lip to try to quiet the next moan rolling out of him. However, as soon as he muffles his moan, he feels a second finger shove in ruthlessly, making him keen at the sudden stretch.

It's accompanied by a growl against his inner thigh of, “Your moans are mine too, Ilya. Don't you dare hide them from me.”

Then Shane's fingers jab inwards with precision to make stars scatter across Ilya's vision. Ilya chokes, then moans loudly as they pull out to do it again, beginning a quick, dirty rhythm against Ilya's prostate. The whine that comes out of Ilya feels like it was ripped out of him, and the thought that those wet noises he could hear were from Shane fingerfucking his ass makes Ilya's whole body go hot.

Shane's fingers start to scissor, dragging up and tugging on Ilya's rim before plunging back in. Soon a third finger is pushing in as well, and Ilya can feel his body relaxing to let Shane in even as the sensation makes his back arch off the bed.

Ilya is fucking trembling at this point with the effort of trying to not grab at Shane's head and move it those few inches up to his dick. He wants Shane's mouth on him, wants to come now. But he knows he's not allowed. Instead, he's forced to just lie back and feel it, no control over what Shane will do to him next. That lack of control is pulling him down, making his mind go fuzzy and muffled in a way he's only felt once before. It may have been scary, if it weren't for the fact that it was Shane who was lowering Ilya down into that raw, vulnerable state, one where all he was able to do was beg for more.

“Please,” he gasps, sounding desperate. “Please, Shane, ah-”

Unfortunately, his words have the opposite effect, as Shane's fingers slow to a stop inside him, causing a whine to force its way out of Ilya. There's the slightest pause, then the fingers start to move again, this time a slow drag in and out, as Shane asks carefully, “How are you doing, Ilya?”

“Good, bozhe, so fucking good, pozhaluysta, please, can you-” Ilya's pleading broke off into panting moans as Shane changes from thrusting to pressing his fingers deep inside and rubbing.

When he blinks open his eyes from where they had shut without him realizing, he sees that Shane has moved to be over Ilya, three fingers still stroking inside him, and the other hand propping him up as he searches Ilya's face with a hint of concern to his lust.

“What do you want, baby? I'm here, I’ll take care of you.”

Ilya looks up at Shane through tears, out of breath and desperate. “Inside me, please, moy lyubov, I want you inside me.”

Shane's mouth drops open, and his hand stops inside Ilya. Then he's diving down to bite at Ilya's lips, groaning against them, “Fuck, Ilya, baby, fuck-”

His fingers pull out of Ilya, leaving him uncomfortably empty, but Ilya doesn't have much time to mourn the loss as Shane immediately presses Ilya’s knees up to his chest and positions himself at Ilya's entrance. Ilya feels like he’s on the edge of a cliff, teetering on the brink with the knowledge that the blunt pressure against his rim, right on the verge of entering him, is Shane’s cock, not even a condom to separate them.

Then Shane begins pushing in.

It's just as devastating the second time as the first, perhaps even more so because this time Ilya has dreamed about the feeling of Shane inside him for months. He's fucked fingers into himself to the memory, even tried to recreate it with strangers. All unsuccessful attempts because none of those experiences even slightly compared to the hot stretch of Shane’s cock penetrating inward as Ilya's body welcomes him home.

Each inch further in has Ilya struggling to breathe, and his fingers are twisted in the bedsheets over his head, practically clawing at them as Shane bottoms out inside him. For a few seconds, neither of them move once he’s fully sheathed inside Ilya, both of them just catching their breath. Ilya realizes at some point in the past minute he crossed over the line into fully crying, but this time, he’s past the point of caring.

“Oh, baby,” he hears, and then Shane’s thumb is brushing away the tears under his eyes as he cups his face and says gently, “You’re doing so good, I’m so proud of you.”

The laugh that chokes out of Ilya is wet and strained, and he leans up to kiss Shane rather than trying to remember how to speak English.

Shane kisses him back, steadying Ilya as his mind goes increasingly quiet. Then Shane breaks the kiss to murmur, “Here, put your arms around me, hold on to me.”

Ilya complies instantly, looping his arms behind Shane's neck, relieved to have the comfort of touching Shane again. Shane looks down at him for a second, looking so, so happy. He leans down to place another kiss upon Ilya's lips, which Ilya presses into with a sigh.

Then Shane's hips rock ever so slightly forward into Ilya, and he asks gently, “Are you ready for more?”

Ilya tucks his head into Shane’s shoulder as he tries to focus enough to speak. Shane wanted him to talk to him, to communicate, he was very clear about that before they started. With a struggle, he finds his words again, and against Shane's skin he whispers, “Please fuck me?”

He can hear the smile in Shane's voice as he says, “Yeah, I can do that. Hold on tight.”

Shane certainly didn't need to tell him twice. His grip on Shane’s shoulders is probably bruising him with how tight it is, and he crosses his legs behind Shane's back as well just as Shane pulls back before rolling a long, deep thrust into Ilya.

Ilya’s neck arches back into a gasp, and Shane moves down to kiss at the curve of it as he begins a rhythm of slow, deep thrusts into Ilya. He’s pressing soft words into Ilya’s skin alongside the kisses, quiet murmurs of, “Baby, I’ve got you, I'm not going anywhere, I'm all yours.”

Ilya whimpered, as much overcome by the feeling of Shane loving him as he is by the feeling of being fucked. Once again, English has left him, but there are three words he knows by heart, ”Ya tebya lyublyu, ah- ya tebya lyublyu-”

Shane's reply is out of breath, strongly accented, but surprisingly understandable for having only heard the words a few times, and for doing it while fucking increasingly harder into Ilya. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

He catches Ilya’s lips again, and the kiss tastes like saltwater, lube, and sweat, but somehow it’s still the best kiss Ilya has ever had.

Shane reaches down and starts to stroke Ilya's cock in time with his thrusts, speeding up as he does so. Ilya clenches around him at the first hit to his prostate, making Shane let out a low curse as his hips jolt instinctively into Ilya's body, before he adjusts his angle to do it again.

Ilya doesn’t want this to end, he wants to stay in this moment, held in Shane’s arms and pressed as close together as possible for as long as he can, but he doesn’t think he can hold on much longer, not when he feels like each motion of Shane's dick inside him, or his hand on his cock, are fraying him to the point of snapping.

Still, he wants to be good. He promised he would be good.

“Shane, can I- fuck, please, please.” Ilya is shaking with the effort of holding off his orgasm, and he can feel himself clenching around Shane with each thrust that hits his prostate.

Shane surprises him by changing his grip to a firm hand around the base of Ilya's cock, holding him off from coming. “Soon, baby, but right now I want more of you. You can be good for me, hold on just a bit longer.”

Ilya shakes his head, panting, and wanting to come so bad. “Shane, fuck, I need-”

Shane's grip tightens, as he growls, “I'm deciding what you need right now, baby. You're going to feel my cum in you, then you can come.”

He punctuates this command with a hard bite on Ilya's shoulder right as he delivers a deep thrust forward. Ilya couldn't hold back the whimper that comes out of him even if he wanted to.

Ilya's ability to think is fully gone now. Instead, he's reduced to gasps and moans as Shane continues to fuck into him, the speed and force of it contrasted by the gentle way he is kissing up Ilya's neck and jaw. When he reaches the wet tear tracks on Ilya's cheek, Shane pulls back to look into his eyes as his hips drive forward into him and whispers, “You're so fucking beautiful like this, Ilya. God, I love you.”

New tears spring up into Ilya's eyes, and he whines, far past words. Shane groans and captures Ilya's lips in a kiss, just as he thrusts deep once more, and spills into him with a gasp. As Shane's hips twitch inside him, fucking his cum just that little bit further into Ilya, his hand releases Ilya and moves up to stroke his cock instead.

Shane’s voice is barely a whisper in Ilya's ear. “Now.”

Ilya comes harder than he's ever come in his life.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Consciousness comes back to Ilya slowly, sensations fading back in gradually. The first thing he is aware of is the feeling of Shane's arms wrapped around him, a hand tracing small patterns across his skin as he patiently waits for Ilya to return.

Ilya opens his eyes to see Shane’s face lighting up with a relieved smile, finding that at some point his boyfriend had repositioned them to be lying on their sides facing each other with Ilya's leg hooked over Shane’s hip so that he could still remain mostly inside Ilya. A blanket has been pulled over both of them like a shield against the rest of the world, adding to the dream-like quality of the moment.

“Hey, baby. How are you feeling?” Shane asks, sounding gentle.

The ability to think stalls for a moment, then slowly churns back to life. “...Koroshiy.” He frowns, and tries again, “Ah, okay. Not bad, but tired?”

He hesitates a moment, then the remnants of the thought he was holding onto so desperately from before has him asking, “...Was I good?”

Something softens in Shane's eyes to such a level of tender warmth that Ilya has never seen before. He leans in to kiss him softly, then whispers against his lips with a smile, “You were perfect, baby. I'm so proud of you.”

A hand moves up to stroke his cheek, and Ilya leans into it. There's a wetness to his eyes that he blinks away, wanting to just soak in the warmth of that smile without tears.

Shane holds onto him a little while longer, letting them both breathe, and once they are both more settled, asks, “Will you be okay if I get up for a second so I can clean you off?”

Ilya's face must show some of the unexpected jolt of panic he feels at the idea of losing Shane when he still feels like he's only partially in his body, but Shane gives him a quick kiss and a tight squeeze of a hug with his free arm, the pressure grounding Ilya further as he says reassuringly, “Only for a few seconds, I swear. I'll be right back.”

Ilya doesn't quite like it, but they are starting to stick together a bit, a fact which he is sure Shane hates but is hiding well. “...Okie.”

Shane gives him another smile, and presses a kiss to his forehead, before pulling completely out of Ilya. Ilya must make another face, because Shane gives a little huff of laughter and says, “I know, it's weird. Don't worry, I'll clean you up in a second.”

The sensation of Shane pulling out from him, leaving him empty and sore was strange and unpleasant, triggering a series of uneasy emotions in him, but overall it wasn’t as uncomfortable as Shane probably thought. Ilya knew from the past few days of them fucking without a condom that Shane disliked the aftermath of Ilya cumming in him, the sensation turning uncomfortable almost immediately after they finished. So he's surprised to find that the small trickle of Shane's cum from his hole is actually turning him on a bit. Perhaps it's not surprising though, Ilya has always loved the dirtiness of sex, the sweat and spit of it all making it even better. So rather than grossing him out, feeling that reminder that Shane was inside him, is still inside him even now, had Ilya imagining flipping them over and riding Shane.

Maybe next time.

Right now, he feels tired and floaty, his thoughts quiet. There's a pang of loss when Shane rolls out of bed but it's quickly replaced by confusion when, rather than heading right for the bathroom, he sees Shane go to the nightstand and rummage inside before pulling out a water bottle and Ilya’s favorite brand of chocolate candy.

“Here, baby, eat and drink some of this, okay?”

Ilya bemusedly takes both of them, looking from the candy to Shane. Shane flushes and says, “I saw a lot of people online saying that sugar helps after, especially chocolate. It produces endorphins, and dopamine, and helps prevent dropping after the adrenaline wears off, as well as-”

Shane stops, seeing the amused expression on Ilya's face, “What?”

“You are sex nerd now,” Ilya murmurs with a small smile.

Ilya had already known that fact from their conversations leading up to this, in which he had discovered that those three months apart for Shane had involved long internet rabbit holes into subspace and subdrops. He's sure that leading up to this Shane had done even more research, determined to make this good for Ilya. Still, it was funny to see it in practice while Ilya still had Shane’s cum dripping out of him.

“It’s important to know!” Shane protests.

Then he gets more serious, expression softening as he says. “Eat some, okay? No dropping this time, I want you to only have good feelings right now. Can you do it for me?”

A wave of emotion washes over Ilya at that, more than he knew what to do with right now, so he breaks off a piece of the chocolate, and pops it in his mouth. The sweetness on his tongue is almost as good as the pleased expression on Shane's face.

Now reassured that Ilya would be okay on his own at least for the moment, Shane heads to the bathroom. There's the sound of running water, then he reemerges, wet washcloth in hand.

He gets under the covers with Ilya as Ilya finishes off the water bottle and chocolate. The washcloth is warm on his face as Shane gently cleans up the dried tears there before running it over Ilya's stomach, and then down between his legs. Ilya does wrinkle his nose at this part, somewhat uncomfortable with having someone touching him there without the rush of arousal distracting him. Still, it's far better than the quick scrub he had given himself between his legs with shaking hands last time, replaying everything that had happened and feeling sick. He supposes this was just another experience they were rewriting for the better.

Shane finishes the cleanup, and drops the washcloth onto the nightstand, uncharacteristically unconcerned by the mess. Instead, he's rolling over onto Ilya, pinning him down with his weight like he's anchoring him as he asks, “How are you feeling now?”

Ilya stops and assesses, noticing that his thoughts are coming to him quicker now, with more awareness of things beyond a need to be good for Shane. “Better? More, ah, awake?”

Shane beams at him, looking relieved. “You seem a bit more present. Did the chocolate and water help?”

Ilya nodded. In all honesty, the best thing about the food and water had been the thoughtfulness of their presence, placed deliberately where Shane could give them to him immediately. He had considered exactly what Ilya would need, and planned ahead to give him comfort while he couldn’t be right next to him, even getting Ilya’s favorite type of chocolate, which he hadn’t even realized Shane knew. That, and the gentleness with which Shane had cleaned him up, like Ilya was something fragile that needed care… Ilya had never been treated this way in his entire life, and he frankly didn’t know how to express to Shane what that meant to him. There was only one way that could even begin to do it, the same wordless communication that had gotten them here.

He pulled Shane in closer with a hand on the back of his neck.

“And you,” he says, drawing Shane into a kiss.

Shane opens up for it immediately, and Ilya lets out a huff of laughter when he tastes the minty bite of mouthwash on Shane’s lips.

“Solnyshko, how long was the lube taste bothering you?”

Shane looks a bit flustered at being caught, and admits, “Only after. I was kinda, um, distracted during.”

Ilya raises an eyebrow. “During part where you fingerfucked me until I cried? Made me beg then told me no?”

“Ilya!”

Ilya laughs, somewhat surprised at how easy the words were coming to him, only the barest hints of embarrassment at the memory. He's too happy right now to second guess his reactions or desires. Shane is warm in his arms, blushing furiously, and the sun is making his features glow, every freckle stark against his skin like constellations.

He hooks a leg around Shane and rolls them over, so he is now looking down at Shane with a smile as he says, “Was good. I liked it.”

Shane smiles up at him, still a bit pink in the face but too happy to hold onto the playful consternation of a moment ago. “Yeah?”

He bites his lip, then says somewhat nervously, “You liked all of it? Even though I was a bit mean at the end?”

“Shane, I came so hard I passed out. Was good. I promise,” Ilya deadpanned, then said a bit cheekily, “besides, I have been much meaner to you before. I am surprised you did not get revenge, you could have been very mean to me as well.”

Shane stops, and there's that soft look in his eyes again that Ilya had dreaded so much when this first started. The look he now knew was full of love.

“I think,” Shane murmurs thoughtfully, “you've gotten enough of that from others. I'd rather be kind to you instead.”

Ilya stares at Shane, stunned. There's a growing warmth inside his chest right now, spreading to fill his whole body, more than he knows how to handle.

He drops his head down against Shane's shoulder and groans, “Moy lyubov, you are going to kill me saying these things.”

Shane chuckles, and a second later Ilya feels a kiss against the side of his head, gentle and soft against his curls.

Then Shane adds, sounding a bit smug, “Besides, I think you like it more when I'm nice to you anyways. Right, baby?”

Shane can't see Ilya's face like this, but he is sure he can feel the heat of Ilya's blush against his skin.

“No,” He mumbles unconvincingly.

Shane laughs and nuzzles his face further into Ilya's curls. “It's okay, I like you being my baby too.”

He pauses, then says, “But I can still be a little mean to my baby. After all, I remember you liking that a lot too.”

Ilya buried his blush further into Shane's shoulder as his boyfriend laughed at him, arms wrapped around him.

“Okay, I think we go back to part where you were not making fun of me now.” Ilya grumbles.

Shane snorts. “Now you know how I feel.”

Ilya raises his head so Shane can see his expression. “Yes, that did occur to me around second time you were fingering me, I think was actually when you had your tongue in my asshole that I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I am just like Shane Hollander now-’”

“Oh my god, shut up, asshole.” Shane shoves at him with a laugh, trying to knock Ilya off him.

Ilya doesn't let him, latching on tighter as he protests, “But I have question, Shane! Is ass part of macrobiotic diet? Cause you ate mine like new favorite food so I assume-”

Shane squawks, sounding remarkably like an outraged bird, and Ilya can't keep a straight face anymore, breaking into laughter that Shane is only able to resist for a moment before it infects him as well, leaving them both giggling into each other's skin.

Outside this cottage, there was a whole world with rules and expectations for them both. But in here, there was just Ilya and Shane, listening to the loons and holding each other in sunlit sheets, laughing as they did so.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Chapter End Notes

- I had to sneak in the original title of this fic, so this bonus chapter's title is my nod to Madonna, and also Connor Storrie's short shorts.

Rambling for the real ones

- One of my notes was “Shane soft launches baby then he hard launches it.”
- And here we see the very beginnings of Shane's crying kink and the monster he would become :’)
- I love how many of you didn't realize I wrote chirpverse as well. Yes, the same rat brought you Ilya bottoming for a bet and Ilya bottoming for the bit.
- For anyone reading chirpverse(my post-marriage first time bottom Ilya fic) after this, I hope you all get serious whiplash going from this Ilya to an Ilya who literally boasts abt crying while bottoming.
- Yall have said you like my rambling so here's some very rambling thoughts on writing this. Like I/Dream Tierney said in chapter 1, all of their communication and connection is through sex, so I was really trying in this fic to express that. There's a way you can read all the sex scenes in this chapter as a series of conversations (Starting with Ilya lying, and Shane realizing that/ forcing him to be honest). Most of the communication in this fic is nonverbal, with eventually the nonverbal honesty/vulnerability turning into verbal communication and honesty in the end. Another thing I was trying to do with this fic was give Ilya many of Shane's moments (and vice versa), with direct parallels where I could. He gets the first time in the Montreal sex condo, he gets the tuna meltdown (with an 'all the things she said' reference no one has mentioned to me yet), he even directly gets Shane's line in the cottage sex scene ('please fuck me'). It was my way of extending the "anything you can do, I can do better" mentality.
- Thank you to every single one of you who in the comments told me, “No, it IS that deep”, or who just said very very nice things to me <3 I put a lot of thought into this fic, enjoyed writing it way more than I thought I would, and several times was uncertain if anyone was going to take it as seriously as I was taking it. But the response has been way beyond what I could have imagined. Thank you everyone, the serotonin your comments gave me helped push me over the finish line of getting my degree.
- Also people saying they enjoy my long afternotes has made me so happy. Thank you, guys. I enjoy writing them so much and it's really fun sharing my silly notes and thought process. As well as the songs I listen to a dozen times while scheming!<3

Speaking of, song inspirations~

- Ankles by Lucy Dacus (again)- I think the influence of this song on this fic is very clear.
- make you mine by Madison Beer- I was actually stalling out on the smut scene for awhile, then I listened to this like 9 times and was like, “ok I got it.” This is a top Shane song to me. (So maybe I also had a smut idea around this song for top Shane/bottom Ilya, but not sure if I will write it right away. I just wrote six sex scenes back to back, I think I need a break from typing the word ‘hole’.)
-Like a Prayer by Madonna- Shane said, "I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there"
- 5am by Leith Ross- this song is very vibey, and for me the vibes fit the subspace mindset / post-accepting everything for Ilya.
- No Choir by Florence and the Machine- this one is for the very ending <3
-Finally, an honorable mention to Love, Love, Love by the Mountain Goats- "some moments last forever, but some flare out with love, love, love"

- I know I've mentioned chirpverse quite a bit, and many of you lovely readers are enjoyers of that part of the big rat cinematic universe, but I will take this opportunity to shout out my statistically least loved child, my flower language series! Did you enjoy Ilya's complicated relationship with masculinity? Do you want to see it get even MORE complicated? Do you like the ending of this? Go read the fic that I have the biggest softspot for of all my children, prettyboy anthem! To the 4 people in my comments who have read both of those fics and were cheering during the second half of this fic, you get the veteran's discount in my bar.
- Absolutely zero promises on this but I have a habit of continuing to write for fics I really loved. So I guess subscribe and maybe something will happen?? Technically that is what this chapter is. Again, no promises!
- Finally, to everyone who has commented something along the lines of “I don't normally like bottom Ilya but you made me like it.” Thank you, every comment like this makes me more powerful. I am going to start putting this sign on my bottom Ilya fics.