Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau

Additional Tags:

2017 MLH All-Star Weekend in Tampa Bay (Game Changers), Depression (referenced), Good Friend Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, maybe slightly too good, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, I don't think the consent is dubious but it's something idk, see notes for clarification, Makeup Sex, Getting Back Together, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Barebacking, marly is not directly involved in the sex but he is in the room for it, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Crying, Aftercare, canon compliant in the sense of the timeline, probably au in terms of this ever actually happening sdhgkjshgf, Dubious Consent, Russian translation linked

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-18 Words: 7,882 Chapters: 1/1

slip knot

Summary

“You want to fix things, Hollander?” Ilya murmurs, riding the first wave of confidence he’s managed to find in weeks. “Maybe you show him what I was missing while you were busy being scared. Why going without it made me into something so terrible.”

When Ilya’s grip slackens, Shane turns inside of it just enough to align their faces. Temple to temple, hot breath between their mouths. Close enough to count the stars again.

“Ilya…” he whispers, clinging. "I—I need you."

“You always have,” Ilya allows himself a small, genuine smile. “Will you prove it, Shane?”

Notes

look. do i think this would happen in any iteration of canon? no. but i couldn’t get it out of my head once i thought about it so here we are.

heads up re the tags !! shane IS offered a chance to say no, but it’s made clear that if he does he goes home alone and doesn't get a clear answer on what would happen between him and ilya. also #myshane is never backing down from a challenge so. that part is canon at least.

lastly, this premise is mostly a pipeline for the smut. I'm not interested in any character studies here or picking sides on who had it harder post tuna melt gate. and also it's been an absolute shit day so if you're going to say anything please be nice to me x

translations:
mилый - sweetheart

UPDATE 07/26: this fic now has a russian translation available over on ficbook, translated by Ame immortelle!

Shane comes to his room in Florida. 

Ilya had seen him earlier. By the pool, at the bar. They’d talked, brief and perfunctory, for once intentional about that on Ilya’s part. And it was a shame too, watching the buzz of Shane’s confidence fizzle the longer Ilya gave him short, one word responses. 

He’s not trying to be mean. He doesn’t think he could be, not in any way Shane doesn’t ask for. But it isn’t about asking each other for things anymore. It’s about survival. 

If Shane had approached him and said hey, want to fuck me in the bathroom before I go upstairs and call my girlfriend? Ilya likely would have said yes. He would have said yes. 

So. Marly. 

He’s not left Ilya alone since a few days after Shane had run out of his house without looking back, when Ilya hadn’t picked up any calls and missed enough practice to warrant a home visit. Sveta was traveling and Ilya had been alone and painstakingly reminded of it and things had been… not good. As much as Ilya would prefer to suffer in silence, he isn’t entirely sure to what extent he’d have wallowed in his own detriment if Cliff hadn’t barged his way in and stayed despite Ilya’s protests. 

There are baby-proof locks Cliff got at the hardware store on the cabinets in the kitchen and one in the bathroom, locked with a code. The fancy-labeled bottles in the chiller had mysteriously dwindled and then disappeared, the keys to Ilya’s sports cars gone from their case. Cliff’s things took over Ilya’s guest bedroom, sharing a wall, mortifyingly, on the nights that Ilya had woken himself up yelling, or worse, choking on tears or bile. Stress always makes the nightmares come back. He’s allowed two cigarettes per day, but even that Ilya hasn’t followed through with. He already quit for Shane—for Hollander, evidently—so all the smoke does is remind him of what he’s lost. 

He’s forced Ilya to eat. To shower. Sat with him on the days where he was nothing but a lead weight of apathy and lethargy and nothingness. Stolen Ilya’s phone each time he tried to look at the articles or photographs. Shut down shit before it even started in the locker room, on the rink. Ilya owes him, even if Cliff insists that he doesn’t. 

And now Hollander is here. At the room he and Marly are sharing for this exact reason. 

Ilya had recognized the knock before anything else. He must’ve done something with his face or his body, because Marly had been up and taking care of it before Ilya could decide what to do with himself. He used to be lit up by that knock, burning for it. He still is, really, except now also his hands are sticky and shaking. Ilya shoves them underneath his thighs so he doesn’t have to look at them and listens to Marly’s raspy voice through the crack in the door, listens to Hollander talk back. 

I’m here for Rozanov, Shane is saying, low and impatient. I need to see him. 

You saw him earlier, Marly tells him. Ilya closes his eyes, knocks his skull back against the headboard. 

He can picture the stubborn set of his mouth, the narrow of his eyes as he draws map-lines through the conversation, how best to navigate from here. 

I’ll just be a minute. 

Cliff’s chuckle echoes into the entryway of the suite. Think you’ve taken up enough of his time already, kid. 

Ilya imagines Shane’s hands curling into fists at his side. The twitch of his left brow when he’s trying to keep his veneer in place. 

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? 

There’s silence for a minute, and Ilya realizes he’s been holding his breath. He waits for the dull thud of retreating footsteps. Hollander is stubborn, yes, but there are certain lines he will not cross without an invitation, an open palm. 

Marly goes stumbling backward and hits the wall opposite the door with a loud bang and a curse. Ilya is not the only one taken by surprise, then. 

Before he can be caught, Hollander stomps his way into the room and around the corner, stopping just beside the dresser when he catches sight of Ilya on the bed. He’d been right—Shane’s fists have balled themselves up, knuckles white at his sides. He’s breathing hard but something in him relaxes a little when he sees Ilya, and Ilya hates the way that makes his throat knot up all over again. 

“Ilya,” he says, breathless and singular. 

Then Cliff’s hand clamps down around his bicep and pulls. 

Hollander is strong and sturdy, but Marly’s still got the bigger build of the two. Shane stumbles for a second before he catches himself. 

“Let go, Marly.” 

With a look in Ilya’s direction that very clearly means are you fucking sure about this?, he reluctantly obeys, backing away to lean against the desk opposite Hollander. With a glare, Shane moves further in front of the dresser, and Ilya, by extension, the three of them forming a triangle in the room. 

Shane glances between them. Partially asks and partially tells Ilya, “You told him?” 

“Yes,” Ilya says honestly, leaving out the finer details. “I needed someone to know, and he would not tell.” 

Over against the desk, Marly rolls out his shoulders and crosses his arms, sitting on the wood and regarding Shane with a blank face. “What do you want, Hollander?” 

“Can we talk?” Shane says to Ilya, eyes darting back to Cliff for a moment. “In private?” 

“No,” Cliff answers. 

Eyes closing briefly, Shane stares straight ahead. “Please, Ilya.” 

“Whatever you want to say, you can say it with him here.” 

“We’ve gotten… close, these last few months,” Cliff adds. It is terribly misleading without lying in the slightest, and the bulge of Hollander’s jaw as he grinds his teeth should not be as satisfying as it is. Ilya does not correct him. 

Shane takes in a long breath. “Rose and I broke up. I don’t—she wasn’t what I—” he shakes his head, looking at the carpet now. “We weren’t compatible.” 

“Compatible,” Ilya echoes dryly. 

“We didn’t fit,” Shane clarifies, flicking his eyes up again. “Not—not like us.” 

Ilya wants him so badly he aches. It’s nothing new, at this point—in his ribs and his shoulders and his hips, like he’s missing a vital organ. Like something he hadn’t realized he needed until it was already gone. 

And Shane is being so brave. Ilya had figured Marly would be a deterrent enough to keep him from trying any harder, and Ilya would have more time before they play each other next to work on his poker face. Plans have always been a Hollander thing, but Ilya had been counting on this one this time. 

Which is, of course, when Shane yanks the rug out from underneath him even further by taking a step forward. 

“I miss you,” he admits quietly.  

Ilya digs his fingers into his leg where he’s still sitting on them on the bed, eyes stuck on the wall instead of Shane’s open, too-honest face.

 “You were the one that left.” 

“I know. And I’m—I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have. I was—I was scared.” 

Cliff scoffs. “Of what? Game tape and a fucking tuna melt?” 

Shane’s jaw shifts again. He keeps his eyes determinedly on Ilya. “That weekend was different between us. You know it was. We don’t do any of those things. We don’t spend the night, we don’t sleep in the same bed, we don’t make food for each other and, before that day, we didn’t say each other’s names. And with you talking all about girls, it was… a lot. I didn’t know what you wanted from me anymore. So, yeah, I was scared.” 

“You could have asked me,” Ilya mutters, picking petulantly at the sheets as he pulls his knees toward his chest.  

“Would you have been honest with me if I had?” Shane asks. “Really honest?” 

No. Of course not. 

But he cannot say that, so. He will steal Marly’s line: “What do you want, Hollander.” 

“To apologize, first,” Shane says. “To tell you that Rose and I aren’t together and haven’t been for a while. To see you face to face and tell you that I—I’m not scared anymore. Not like I was.” 

“Did you ever stop and think maybe he is?” Cliff interjects, pushing off of the desk and taking a step forward. 

Ilya winces. “Marly,” he warns. 

“You’re scared?” Shane asks earnestly, steadfastly ignoring the way Marly angles himself in between them. “Of what?” 

“Kinda difficult to lay all your cards on the table when the person you’re playing with is a flight risk.” 

Eyes lit up now, Shane turns to face Marly. “I had my reasons. This is between me and Ilya, and if he wants to tell me what he’s afraid of, I’d be more than happy to talk to him about it.” 

“Oh, like you talked to him these last few months?” 

Ilya puts his legs over the side of the bed. “Cliff.” 

“You said you and Landry broke up a while ago,” Marly goes on. “Did you even think of calling him after that? Explaining yourself?” 

“I didn’t think he’d pick up,” Shane grits. 

“Could’ve tried.” 

“I wanted to do it in person. Because it matters. He matters. I didn’t want to do it over the phone where I couldn’t see his face when I said it.” 

“Said what? Now that you’ve sampled Hollywood’s best you’ve decided he’s good enough for you again?” 

“Enough.” 

Both of them go quiet at Ilya’s tone, Marly casting a quick, guilty glance over his shoulder and Shane’s eyes going wide and hopeful, looking at him from around Cliff’s makeshift barrier. 

“Ilya,” he says, close to pleading now, “if you want me to go, I’ll go. Whatever you want. But you have to tell me.” 

He pauses to think for a moment, but doesn’t move closer to either of them. The hotel carpet is rough beneath his feet, muscle memory threatening to carry him over into Shane’s space. Ilya crosses his arms over his chest, as if it’ll stop him. 

“I don’t want you to go,” he admits, “but I do not think everything can be like before again.” 

“That’s fine,” Shane rushes to agree. “Whatever you want to give, you have me.” 

“I cannot have you, Hollander.” 

“You can,” he argues. “You do.” 

“I can’t,” Ilya snaps, raising his voice. “It is not only us I have to think about. There is the league. Russia. My father, my brother. It does not matter what I want. I cannot have it.” 

“We can have something,” Shane maintains, less eager but still determined. “I’m not asking for anything outrageous. I can’t come out either. At least not any time soon. But I just—I can’t make myself pretend that I don’t want you anymore.” 

Ilya tears his gaze away, but it’s too late. The words stick, clinging like gauze in his head. He shakes his head. “You don’t want me.” 

“Yes. I do.” 

“Bad enough to keep lying for it?” Ilya presses. Because that is still what they would be doing. Lying. Only not to each other or themselves anymore, which feels impossible enough as it is. “You are a terrible liar.” 

“Bad enough to tell you all of this even though anyone else knowing right now is my worst fucking nightmare,” Shane says, his voice cracking at the last part. Ilya makes himself look up, watch the bob of Shane’s throat and the curl of his mouth as he tries to keep it from trembling. 

The confession sits between them heavy for a minute that seems to stretch, both Marly and Shane waiting on Ilya’s call. He wonders how transparent it is that the only person he does not trust in this room is himself. 

Shane moves out to the side of Marly a little more. “Can I… can I stay here with you? Tonight?” 

“For what?” Cliff asks. 

“None of your fucking business, Marleau,” Shane nearly snarls. 

“No, he’s right,” Ilya decides, surprising them both. He looks at Shane. “What do you want if you stay?” 

The lightest touch of pink fills in the gaps between Shane’s freckles. “We can… talk more.” 

Ilya blinks, waiting, and raises a brow. “And…?” 

“Ilya, come on,” Shane murmurs, shifting on his feet as his face dips another shade in color. “We don’t—we don’t have to do anything else. Just talk. I missed you.” 

Cliff snorts. “You’re right, Roz. He really is a bad liar.” 

“I’m not fucking lying,” Shane bites in his direction. 

“I believe you,” Ilya says. 

It’s beautiful, the way the tension holding Shane’s shoulders up by his ears uncoils at the words. His own crossed arms drop down by his sides, each step that Ilya takes in his direction cutting another string. Ilya moves around to stand directly in front of Shane and Marly backs off a little, but he doesn’t step full away. Electricity paralyzes Ilya for a second as he reaches forward. 

He takes Shane by the neck because it’s familiar, the too-fast flutter of his pulse there at the side like it’s trying to jump out into Ilya’s hand, eager for the taking. The last of him crumbles, swaying forward and dropping hard against Ilya’s chest. 

The fists he’d made earlier bury themselves in the fabric of Ilya’s t-shirt, holding tight to the material, pulling him close. His exhale is wet against Ilya’s collarbone, and Ilya won’t pretend that his own eyes don’t burn when he touches his cheek to soft, dark hair. He closes them for a moment, all five of his senses coming back to life, recalibrating to preferred settings. 

“Fuck,” Shane chokes, buried into his chest. “I missed you.” 

“I believe you, Shane,” he says again, touching a hand to the back of his head, “but you are still not telling the whole truth.” 

Shane straightens slightly in his hold, looking up at him, eyes still glassy. “What?” 

The skin of his cheek is warm when Ilya presses a hand to it, watches the way Shane chases the touch. Ilya thumbs at the bitten, half-bloody terrain of his lower lip. 

“Did you really come here just to talk?” 

“Um,” Shane sniffs, glancing in Cliff’s direction again. Ilya grabs his chin, turns him back. 

“It’s okay. You can say.” 

“I—I didn’t know. I thought—maybe, if things went well…” 

“If they went well…” Ilya prompts. 

Shane looks at his mouth. He’s pink all over now. Near a whisper when he says, “Maybe we could—you know.” 

“Thought you said he had a way with words, man,” Marly drawls. 

“I think we can handle the rest of this on our own, Marleau,” Shane tosses exasperatedly over his shoulder, his grip on Ilya turning possessive. “Roz and I don’t need a spectator anymore.” 

Cliff gives him a small, unaffected smile. “I don’t really care what you’re about to do that requires spectating, Hollywood. I’m not leaving this room until he wants me to. He calls the shots.” 

Shane’s mouth opens, closes. “You can’t seriously think that he’d want you here while we—?” 

“Marly stays.” 

His head snaps toward Ilya again, fingers slack. 

“What?” 

Feeling proprietary, Ilya palms at the shape of his hip through his clothes, presses them together more firmly. 

“You said you needed it bad enough to face your fears,” Ilya reminds him, knuckles grazing warm, bare skin underneath Shane’s shirt. Shane shivers. “And Marly is right. We have gotten closer.” 

He doesn’t say it quite like Cliff had before, but the words still seem to land like a challenge. He feels it when Shane’s grip tightens on him again, fingers splayed over his back. He nearly smiles when he grazes his mouth against familiar collarbone and, as if activated by a button only Ilya can press, his neck extends for more. 

“Up to now, all he has known about you is how broken I was after you left. He has seen me sad, pathetic, sick, all for a man he only knows from seeing him hit pucks on the ice.” Ilya nips at his pulsepoint with his teeth, then sucks and soothes with his tongue, revels in the gasp that echoes hot against his cheek. “It was humiliating. And yet still, he is here. Making sure I will not be hurt again. He did not run.” 

Running a hand up from his wrist to his shoulder, Ilya grabs hold of his jaw and keeps firm, turning Shane’s head to the side so he’ll have no choice but to face Cliff when Ilya says it. He takes the lobe of Shane’s ear into his mouth and tugs until it earns him a bitten off sound that vibrates underneath his palm. 

“You want to fix things, Hollander?” Ilya murmurs, riding the first wave of confidence he’s managed to find in weeks. “Maybe you show him what I was missing while you were busy being scared. Why going without it made me into something so terrible.” 

When Ilya’s grip slackens, Shane turns inside of it just enough to align their faces. Temple to temple, hot breath between their mouths. Close enough to count the stars again. 

“Ilya…” he whispers, clinging. 

Ilya tilts his face, bumps their noses together. “You can say no.” 

Shane’s throat clicks. “What happens if I do?” 

“You go back to your room,” Ilya says, hand dropping from Shane’s cheek. He takes a step back, and Shane sways openly into the space between them before he catches himself on the dresser, flushed and unsteady. Ilya lifts a heavy shoulder. “I will see you on ice in a few weeks. Maybe.” 

Before, Shane had been nothing but hard lines and rigid stubbornness, which Ilya, to be fair, also enjoys. But now, after touching him, he looks suddenly like that same rookie Ilya met in a Toronto hotel room, unsure of anything at all save for Ilya in front of him and the want that thrums between them like a livewire. 

“I—I need you,” he says, just for Ilya, chin dented underneath a wobbling lip. 

“You always have,” Ilya allows himself a small, genuine smile. “Will you prove it, Shane?” 

Ilya would want him just as much if he said no. If he got angry, stormed out, ignored Ilya for another six months, another year, more. 

But the thing about what happened in Boston is that, albeit if he’d done so poorly, it was one of the first times Ilya had given that much of himself away on purpose. Had nearly bitten through his tongue trying to get out the word stay, had slid shaking hands underneath Shane’s sleep-heavy body and let himself be soothed by the weight. We have the world at our fingertips, Ilya had been trying to say, and still I would choose this, even if it’s all we can ever have. Would you do the same? 

He is not stupid. He was never under the impression that he would get to keep Shane. But that’s the way things go, with them; one of them pushes and the other folds, a counterweight, a balance. High risk, higher reward. Ilya had taken the next step. Shane had let him fall. 

He feels now the same buzzing underneath his skin that he’d felt when he’d finally let himself admit it all to Marly on the bathroom floor with his head tucked in between his knees, that visceral, all consuming need for someone to know. Confirmation, maybe, that it hadn’t been all inside of his head. 

Ilya needs to feel in control. The easy shift of power between them, the trust in his own instincts without hesitation has taken a hit and hasn’t managed to recover just yet. Ilya craves it now and he can’t help but chase it—hiding, waiting right behind that look painted across Shane’s face. 

Give me this so that I can give you myself, Ilya thinks suddenly, desperately. It’s always been a trust fall. 

Slowly, Shane’s teeth touch to the battlefield of his lower lip again. He looks at Ilya, hesitating, gaze flicking over to Marly and back. Terms of his own. 

“You—you won’t let—?” 

“He will not touch you,” Ilya swears. “And nothing leaves this room.” 

He glances over to Cliff for confirmation, and he nods. 

“Cross my heart, Cap,” he says. Loyalty that Ilya perhaps doesn’t deserve but will accept nonetheless. He turns back to Shane. 

It takes another minute, the wheels visibly turning inside of his head, but eventually Shane eases in a breath. Nods. 

“Okay,” he whispers, eyes only on Ilya. 

For the first time since that day in Boston, Ilya feels something start in his chest, pull his shoulders back, lift his chin. The ground underneath his feet settles, no longer tilted so sideways. 

“Take off your clothes. Fold them and put them there,” he tells Shane, tilting his head toward the dresser. 

Stepping back to give him room, Ilya points Marly toward the desk chair and takes a seat at the edge of the mattress in front of Shane himself. Cliff retreats obediently, at a distance now but still visible from Ilya’s bed. 

More brazen than he feels, Ilya widens the spread of his knees and fixes his attention on Shane’s curved shoulders and freckled skin as he bends to remove his pants. He’s already taken off and folded his shirt neatly on the dresser behind him, and the pants go beside them, shoes on the floor in front. He’s flushed down to his chest when he turns, dark nipples tight and hard in the chill of the hotel air. Ilya lays a palm over himself and presses with a satisfied breath, enjoying the first time he’s felt remotely aroused in the last few weeks. 

Shane’s fingers hover for a second just outside of the band of his boxers before he tucks his thumbs in and pushes them down his legs. Those are folded the quickest, shoved over with the rest of his clothes, and then he’s completely bare in front of Ilya. 

And Cliff. 

Another bolt of newfound energy makes Ilya’s abdomen tight, makes his jaw ache. He fucking hates the thought of anyone else seeing Shane like this, and he needs it to happen just as badly. But Marly is safe, and familiar. And, maybe most importantly, he’s always keen to let Ilya show off, even when he’s taking things just a little bit too far. 

Shane’s hands are clasped in front of him, uncharacteristically shy despite the way he tries to push his shoulders back, take up more space. He glances up at Ilya through his lashes, waiting. 

“You know what to do.” 

With no further instruction, Shane drops to his knees at Ilya’s feet as if he’s been counting the minutes since the last time he was there. Another piece slots over and clicks into place, Shane’s eyes fluttering closed, Ilya’s hand heavy at the back of his neck. 

Ilya lets him have it for a moment. Lets him set his own pace. The slope of his long, elegant nose turns, shoved into the muscle of Ilya’s inner thigh over his pants. His mouth is set closed the way it does when he’s inhaling, chest filling with air before he lets it out, hot against the fabric. Ilya takes his other hand off of himself. He doesn’t need any more help getting hard. 

Shane ends up there, at the apex of his thighs, face pressed in hard and eager. His hands that’d been rubbing up Ilya’s calves and thighs slide further, fingers grazing the edge of his sweats. He raises his head to look up at Ilya, asking without words. 

“You want?” Ilya says. 

Shane nods. Rasps, “Please.” 

“Go on.” 

He slips his fingers through Shane’s hair while he works Ilya’s pants and boxers over his hips and down to his ankles, careful when he works his feet free and folds those too. Cliff does not make a noise, which is wise. 

Shane presses a kiss to Ilya’s knee, the one that aches sometimes. His fingers curl around Ilya’s bare ankle, coming back to himself just a little, gaze cutting over to the other side of the room again. 

“Eyes on me,” Ilya directs, thumb denting the soft spot in between Shane’s teeth to hold his attention. He strokes the skin there, slips it further, past the threshold of lips to a wet tongue. Presses. “Good. Good boy.” 

The praise lands where Ilya intends for it to. The noise Shane makes is fuel, and Ilya simmers in it. He hooks his thumb behind the row of pretty white teeth and guides Shane forward. 

“You will show him how well this mouth takes my cock,” he says as the widest part of his knuckle disappears into Shane’s mouth, “and after, he will see what other parts of you were made for me. Yes?” 

Shane nods. Ilya pulls his hand away and fills the empty space with his cock instead. 

This, at least, is the same. The slick, heavy glide of him stretching Shane’s pink mouth, the pressure of his writhing tongue, the noise he makes when Ilya has buried himself so deep he cannot possibly go any further. 

Ilya’s head drops back between his shoulder blades with a groan too loud for hotel rooms like these, one palm flat on the bed behind him, the other touching Shane’s hair. He tenses his thighs, grits his teeth and forces his chin down again to keep watch so he doesn’t miss anything. He wants nothing more than to hold Shane still and fuck into his mouth until he’s lax and hazy with a well-earned orgasm, but that isn’t what this is. 

Ilya wants to draw it out, never take advantage of it again, and Shane needs to earn things in order to feel them fully. If Ilya gives in too soon, he won’t be giving him what he needs. He can be patient. He has been patient. 

Shane looks gorgeous on his knees. Always has, since that first time when Ilya couldn’t believe how easy it was to get him there. Single minded focus, pleasure-precision, glowing the same way he does on the ice but softer here, like this, when he’s Ilya’s, when he doesn’t have to be thinking three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. When he doesn’t have to be thinking at all. 

Unabashedly a mess as he slides down the length of Ilya’s cock and back up again, his once-gelled hair hanging over his temple and molded by Ilya’s fingers, his cheeks rosy and swollen from the stretch, hazy pupils swallowing the warm brown of his usually alert eyes. Ilya swipes a thumb over his lashes clumped together with tears, the smattering of freckles lost to his flush, the spit threatening to drip from his chin as he moves. 

He calls Shane pretty, beautiful, his in a mix of English and Russian, then adds, “You know. Me and Marly have shared women before.” 

For the first time tonight, Shane chokes. He has to move up a little, but he doesn’t pull off. Ilya wipes some of the hair off his forehead, scratches over his scalp. 

“It was fun. Wasn’t it, Marly?” he says without looking away. 

“Some of my best memories,” Cliff says from the other side of the room, honest. 

“Mm,” Ilya hums. To Shane, he goes on, “But I still do not think any of them ever made as much of a mess as you.” 

Shane moans, and this time, he does pull off to catch his breath. He sniffs as he bends to mouth at the crease of Ilya’s thigh, his hand coming up to wrap around his cock. 

“So wet for me. Your eyes, your mouth. You are drooling, Hollander,” Ilya tells him, smearing some of it across his jaw. “Just like your cock all over the floor. I have not even touched you yet. You miss me that bad?” 

A keening whine, maybe supposed to have been muffled in Ilya’s skin, bounces off the walls in the room. Shane nods frantically, a divot between his brows as he looks up at Ilya and opens his mouth. Before he can speak, Ilya brings him back to his cock. 

“Shh. Keep showing me, then.” 

If he had been getting reacquainted before, he settles in now. His mouth moves up and down Ilya’s cock slick and smooth from the spit and the sticky smears of Ilya’s excitement, familiar in its rhythm. Ilya doesn’t look over toward the desk. He does not want to see if Marly is hard. It isn’t the point. 

When he gets close, Ilya pulls Shane off of him and drags him up onto the bed. He shoves their mouths together, hard and sloppy, tongue and teeth and I fucking missed you, you asshole until Shane’s lip is bleeding again and they have to part for air and to get Ilya’s shirt up and off his shoulders. It lands somewhere near the pants on the floor, left unfolded in Shane’s pursuit of getting their mouths together again for the first time since Boston. 

Fuck, he feels good in Ilya’s lap—but the weight is still a little too fresh like this, a little too bruised. Ilya grabs him by the hips and pushes him sideways onto his stomach, nudges his knees apart until he can get a hand up in between them. 

His fingers trail up a strong thigh and dip in between his ass. They come back wet, glistening in the lamplight. 

“Fuck, Hollander,” he hisses, bending to bite at his shoulder. “You say we can just talk. Nothing more.” He slides his hand back down, slips one finger and then another into the slick, already stretched opening of his body. “My sweet, slutty little liar.” 

“Ilya,” Shane whines, already pressing back for more. “It wasn’t like—I didn’t mean to assume. I just…” he trails off, eyes rolling when Ilya rubs against his spot. He shivers. 

“Maybe Marly thinks you knew this would happen. You are so confident, Hollander. You know what you want, and I would just let you walk all over me, hm?” 

Crooking his fingers, Ilya leans down again, scatters kisses all across the constellations covering the back of his shoulders. He ends right up behind Shane’s ear. 

“But I know the truth, yes? You did not know. But you hoped.” Ilya pulls out a little, slips in a third of his fingers, presses deep. “You were ready to beg me for it, if I asked.” 

“I would,” Shane gasps, back arching under Ilya’s chest. “I will.” He is different tonight, less mouthy, more honest. But the weight of his submission hits just like it always does, draped over Ilya like the warmest, most precious coat he owns. 

“I know,” Ilya says, petting over the back of his head as he sits up on his knees. “But I am feeling generous. And you made it so easy for me. So easy to give you what you need.” 

“Need it,” Shane nods against the bed, rocking back onto his fingers. “I need it, Ilya, please. M’ready, just—” 

Ilya pulls his hand away, uses the leftover lube on his digits to fist his cock and get it wet. He presses the length of his bare cock along the seam of Shane’s ass and gives a few tentative thrusts that feel like dizzying velvet. 

He realizes why at the same moment Shane does, tensing underneath him. He shoots a hand behind himself, pushing on Ilya’s thigh. 

“Wait, we—condoms—?” 

Fuck. Ilya tries not to sigh as he drapes himself over Shane’s back, kneading at his hip. 

“You really have been a slut?” he asks, touching his hole again. “You let Rose Landry back here? Someone else?” 

“N-no,” Shane refuses. “No, I didn’t. I—I just—we’ve never, without…?” he says, looking at Ilya over his shoulder. 

Ilya glances thoughtfully down between them. “Hm. How bad do you want it?” 

Shane blinks. “What?” 

“My cock, Shane,” he says. “I do not have condoms here, because I was not planning on this.” 

This is why he lets the planning be a Hollander thing. 

“Oh,” Shane exhales. He looks over at Marly, then at the nightstand beside them. “You don’t—you don’t keep any, just for…?” 

Ilya does sigh, this time. “Marly can tell you there has been no one else for me since you.” 

“He could have, if he wanted to,” Cliff pipes in. “But he didn’t.” 

“I haven’t either,” Shane admits, quiet enough for just Ilya. His face reddens again. “Not—I mean, not like this, anyway.” 

Ilya sinks two thick fingers into him again, smears excess lube around his rim. “This is just for me?” 

“Yeah,” Shane breathes. 

“Tell me.” 

“It’s—it’s yours.” 

“Is it? So much you are going to let me fuck you with nothing between us?” Ilya asks. He pushes his cock forward again, taps the sticky head against him. “So much you are going to let me come inside? Make you mine from the inside out?” 

“I—fuck,” Shane hisses, denying it even as he pushes back for more. “W-we—we shouldn’t. We haven’t talked—” 

“You did not feel much like talking last time, I think,” Ilya says plainly. “And I do not feel like it now.” 

Even still, Ilya waits, running his hands up and down the sides of Shane’s ribs, feeling them expand and deflate. If Ilya pictures it, it almost feels like he’s controlling that too. 

Shane pushes up on his elbows, dislodging Ilya from his place, and for a horrible moment Ilya thinks this is it. This is where the line is drawn now. Ilya can get close, yes, but still not too close. 

Instead, he’s pushed onto his back against the pillows, held in place with Shane’s thighs on either side of him as he leans down to smear a kiss against Ilya’s lips. 

“Do it,” he presses into Ilya’s mouth. 

Ilya grabs his face, looks into his eyes as he grinds upward. “Yes?” 

“Yes,” Shane moans, hiding in his neck. “I—I can’t wait anymore. I need it. Need you, Ilya, please—” 

“Need me to what?” 

“F-fuck me,” Shane tries, nearly a question. 

“Mm, close. Not quite.” 

“Um. Come in—inside of me?” 

“Closer.” 

Pushing himself up on one hand, Ilya reaches around Shane with the other and uses the tips of his fingers to line up the head of his cock with Shane’s ass. Shane pushes back, eager for it, and they both groan when the tip nearly pops inside. 

“Oh, fuck,” he curses, face twisted up above Ilya as he begs. “Mark me, Ilya. Fuck me and make me—I want—I want to be yours. Inside, and—everywhere. Just yours. Please.” 

“Good boy,” Ilya purrs. “This, I will do.” 

“Thank you,” he gasps. “Thank you, thank you, fuck—!” 

The tip catches and this time slips inside fully, and Shane trembles on top of him as he takes it, his eyes half-rolled back and his mouth open. Ilya reaches up to yank their faces together and shoves his tongue inside, tastes every noise that passes through Shane’s teeth as he fucks him bare for the first time. 

Everything is hot, wet, intense in a way they haven’t managed to uncover until now. Another thing he’d assumed he wouldn’t get to have, another voice in the back of his head screaming remember this. 

When his shaking eases, Shane braces a hand against Ilya’s shoulder, the other on the headboard, and gives an experimental swivel of his hips that has them both gasping. It shouldn’t be that different but it is, the added context of the last few miserable months, Shane’s confession, Marly, someone, anyone witnessing them like this, making it real. It’s too much. Still, somehow, he needs more. 

Shane looks good on top of him. It’s a thought Ilya has had too many times to count; he’s hypnotizing like this, every inch of his athleticism honed in on feeling good. And, inherently, on showing off. 

His thighs brace at Ilya’s sides, straining invitingly with each rise and fall of his hips. Ilya loves those, loves the way there’s some extra skin there that holds his fingerprints better, that he can feel the imperfect design of tiny stretch marks on his ass when he lays a palm there and squeezes. The dip of his spine, his lithe waist curving like a wave. The way sweat beads at his brow, dripping off the tip of his nose. Like Ilya is worth putting in this kind of effort for. 

He lifts Shane by the hips and hauls him over onto his knees, wastes no time in getting up onto his own to fuck back inside of him again. He peels back one side of Shane’s ass to watch it happen, teases his thumb around the rim and revels in the whine it earns him. Then he tucks both of them into the divots on the back of Shane’s hips and uses it as a tether to pull him back onto him again and again and again. 

It’s good—Shane’s face pressed hard into the mattress, Ilya watching sweat roll up the notches of his spine and pool in between his shoulders at the back of his neck. Usually, it’s how Shane likes to come, because Ilya can get deep enough to press up against all the right spots without Shane even having to lift a finger. 

Tonight, though, it’s not enough. Shane sobs once about a minute in, the wrong kind, and Ilya finds himself already misty-eyed when he pulls out and gets him onto his back. 

“Yeah,” Shane hiccups, bending his legs back for Ilya to kneel between them. “Needed to see you.” 

Ilya doesn’t trust his voice, so he uses his mouth for better things and kisses him again instead. Their lips seldom part as Ilya sinks back inside and rocks them toward the headboard, one hand splayed against it to protect Shane’s head, the other holding himself up on the mattress. 

The world narrows like this, the hotel room, Marly, the obnoxious click of the air conditioning unit and the city noise far away. Ilya presses their foreheads together and there is only salt and spit and the metal from Shane’s lip, the gasped murmur of I missed you, I need you, more in between their mouths and the weightlessness of not knowing which one of them is asking and which one is answering. 

“Ilya,” he begs when Ilya reaches for his cock, shuddering as he spreads the stickiness around with his fist. “Ilya, please, can I—? I’m close.” 

“Marly,” Ilya says. 

Shane whimpers, eyes fluttering open under a furrowed brow. “W-what?” 

“Yeah, Cap?” Cliff answers. 

Without looking away from Shane, Ilya asks, “You think he has earned it? Does he get to come?” 

“I don’t know, Roz,” Marly decides after a moment. “Maybe he should wait for you.” 

Ilya slows his thrusts to a deep, firm lull, pressing in all the way and grinding until Shane whimpers. 

“Can you?” Ilya breathes into his mouth. He flexes the fingers he’s shoved into the slick bend of Shane’s knee. “You will wait for me, Shane?” 

Unblinking despite the tears lining the bottoms of his eyes, Shane nods, transfixed. “Anything.” 

Dropping down onto his elbows, Ilya lets go of his leg and boxes Shane in there, no where to run, nothing to look at but each other. Their noses touch, the space filling quickly with hot, panting breaths. Shane kisses him once with his eyes open, puts his fingers in Ilya’s hair and holds, keeps his legs lax, wide open, murmurs his name over and over like he can’t believe he gets to say it now. 

“Fuck,” Ilya bites suddenly as his stomach tightens, reaching messily down between them to get a hand around Shane too. He kisses across Shane’s cheeks, his chin, his bloody lip, near frantic. “Come, Shane. Now. Come with me.” 

They have both earned it. 

He shudders as he starts to come, the sensation of nothing in between them foreign and overwhelming. He registers Shane’s agreeable oh right beside his ear when he feels it, the kick of his cock against Ilya’s stomach as he follows suit. 

The rest is blurry. Either he falls into Shane’s chest or Shane drags him there, strong arms boxed in around Ilya’s shoulders, hand in his hair keeping him close. Only distantly Ilya knows he curls four fingers flat onto Shane’s tongue to muffle the way he cries, a post-orgasm possessiveness making him suddenly want those noises only for himself. The world feels tilted underneath them again, but it’s a slow, steady rock this time; the calm of soothing waves and a shared ground instead of endless drowning. 

Ilya’s ears are ringing. He peels himself off of Shane’s chest with effort, loosening the hold of his shaky arms but not trying to—never trying to—escape them now. He leans up just enough to touch his mouth to Shane’s face again, over and over, anywhere he can reach. He can’t be sure which of them is crying. Maybe, probably both. 

Wiping Shane’s spit off of his knuckles, Ilya uses the same hand to push his hair back from his face, letting Shane turn into it, hide there. 

The desk chair squeaks underneath shifted weight. 

“Roz, you need—?” 

“Go, Marly,” Ilya rasps, keeping Shane’s face hidden beneath his palm. “This part is not for you.” 

There’s only a split second pause. 

“You’re good?” 

“I will be, yes.” Ilya drags his eyes away only long enough to meet Cliff’s across the room, nodding once. “Thank you. For everything.” 

“Of course, man,” Marly says, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m gonna get another room, but I’ll be around. Text me if you guys need anything, alright?” 

He gathers his things quickly and takes his bag, leaving his room key on the desk. Ilya will have to figure out a better way to thank him later. For now, he has more important things to focus on. 

Shane is still trembling underneath him, grip a little too tight on Ilya’s shoulders. Carefully, Ilya props himself on an elbow and reaches for one set of whitened knuckles, bringing them to his mouth. 

“He is gone, mилый,” Ilya says, loose lipped and for once alright with it. “Just us now. Everything is okay.” 

It takes several tries to catch his breath. Ilya breathes with him until it levels. 

“I—I can stay?” Shane asks. 

“You are staying. You were perfect.” Ilya lowers his hand again to smooth it from hip to shoulder and back down again. He kisses Shane’s neck. “I already know this. Now Marly knows too. Why I lost my mind without you.” 

“I’m sorry,” Shane’s voice wavers. 

“Is okay. All forgiven, yes?” 

Their cheeks rub together on the way to get to their mouths, this kiss longer, slower, sweeter than the others. Absolution, Ilya thinks. His cross rests in the divot between Shane’s collarbones like a key. 

The come up is slow. Ilya takes his time pulling out, watches in rapt fascination as they both remember there had been no condom for clean up this time, and Shane makes a high noise and reaches down to sink two fingers into himself until Ilya comes back with a towel. 

The ensuite fogs with the heat of the shower and they cling to each other underneath the spray despite the overly spacious design. They’ve done it before, had quick and ill-advised second rounds when they were supposed to be getting ready to leave. But they’ve never done this before—never been this quiet, never touched each other purely to clean the messes they’d left behind, to remind themselves that they’re both still here. 

Adrenaline fading and real life on his mind again, Ilya worries. He thinks of how unexpected asking Marly to stay had been as he hands Shane an extra toothbrush, while they climb under the clean sheets he hadn’t used on the other bed. He knows Cliff is alright. This is hardly the first time they’ve shared a bedroom, and he hadn’t seen anything of Ilya’s that he hasn’t already before. 

Except for Shane. 

The city noise fades back in in the quiet, the room still and mostly dark around them. Ilya’s head on one of the pillows, Shane’s on the other. 

“Ilya,” he says across the space between them. “I think I’m gay.” 

Ilya pauses. “Well. It makes sense why things did not work out with your girlfriend, then.” 

Shane gives a tired sniff of a laugh, but his eyes are wide and focused in the dark. 

“That’s not the only reason.” 

He touches their pinkies together underneath the sheet. “No?” 

“No,” Shane echoes. “Even if I’d found someone else, I—it wouldn’t have been you. It wouldn’t have been right.” 

He turns his hand, and Ilya slips his fingers through the gaps until their palms are pressed together. 

“I am sorry I told Marly,” he admits. “I was—not doing so good, after everything. I just… needed someone to know.” 

Shane swipes a thumb over his knuckles. “You don’t have to be sorry for that. I’m glad he was there.” 

The nerves simmer in Ilya’s stomach again. He chews at his lip, searching for Shane’s eyeline again. 

“Tonight was… okay? Too much?” 

“It was a lot. But I think I get it,” Shane says. “We’ve been doing this for nearly a decade, and no one’s ever known. That’s—it’s sort of how I was feeling that day in Boston, I think. Angry that you could be seen that way with girls. Scared that we would never get to have that.” He tightens his grip on Ilya’s hand, brings them up out in the open between them. “I know we can’t have anything more still, yet. But… Marleau knows. That’s not nothing.” 

Ilya will take not nothing. 

“He will not tell anyone.” 

Shane’s shoulder lifts in a sleepy shrug. “If you trust him, I trust you, so.” 

Unable to wait any longer, Ilya reaches for the back of his neck and pulls him across the pillow, licks spearmint off of his teeth until his lips sting and they can’t keep their eyes open anymore. 

“What time is your flight?” 

“Early,” Shane sighs, leaning into him. “You?” 

“Same,” Ilya agrees. “Toronto.” 

“Colombus.” 

He presses into Ilya’s neck, and Ilya turns onto his back to let him closer. It feels nice, the steady weight of his arm across Ilya’s ribs, one of his calves tucked in between Ilya’s. Ilya lays a palm over his forearm, both of them rising and falling with his breath. 

Shane shifts against him. “We’ll… we’ll talk though, right?” 

“We will talk,” Ilya confirms. 

“Good.” One last relieved breath escapes him before Ilya feels the flutter of his lashes close against his chest. “I’ll wake you up before I leave, if that’s okay.” 

“Please, yes.” 

Shane hums, drags a kiss to his sternum. “Goodnight, Ilya.” 

“Goodnight, Shane,” he whispers. 

Shane stays. There are no nightmares tonight.