Chapter 1

Shane doesn’t even really think about it when he answers, fucked boneless and honest, not bothering to get up when Rozanov does. It’s their first fuck after the penthouse in Vegas, after Boston’s first game in Montreal for the season, and he’s already gotten kissed, so it’s already settling on him better than it did then, even though he thinks he might have been fucked hard enough that he’s going to be wobbly for the next few hours and probably even sore tomorrow at practice. It’s as annoying as it is extremely hot. “I am looking through your kitchen,” Rozanov calls over his shoulder. Shane doesn’t bother to respond, even though maybe he should. His kitchen is carefully curated to be free of any of his allergens, and the subject of that has never come up with Rozanov before. He should probably be wary of Rozanov accidentally introducing something dangerous into the equation. Then again, it’s probably fairly unlikely that he showed up to a sex appointment smuggling peanuts, so Shane thinks he’s probably fine to take the risk. He’s also so fuck-struck that protesting seems like it might be a little impossible. He’s still floating in a warm, hazy place when he hears the noise of Rozanov returning to the room, but he doesn’t bother opening his eyes until the edge of something cold is pressed to his cheek. He blearily blinks back to awareness enough to register Rozanov standing above him, pressing a glass of water against his face, tapping it gently against his cheek when he doesn’t move to take it immediately. “Here,” he says, with another tap until Shane shuffles up enough to take it, Rozanov’s hand hovering for a second like he’s making sure Shane’s got it before he lets go. “Thanks,” Shane says, and Rozanov grunts an acknowledgement as he turns to start collecting his clothes. “No vodka for a reward this time, sorry,” Rozanov says. “Even your kitchen is boring.” “Ugh,” Shane says, hazy enough to be honest in a way he wasn’t a few months ago. “Reward me with something I actually want.” “No vodka?” Rozanov asks, tsking in disapproval but looking amused. “What then? What does the great Shane Hollander want when he does a good job? What is your vice, Hollander?” “Hmmmm, mangoes,” Shane sighs out wistfully as he sets the now-empty glass on the bedside table and lays back down to stretch before relaxing again, not thinking about the answer, really, just answering the question he’s been posed. It’s not a dangerous allergy for him, but it does mean being itchy and sometimes a little queasy for a couple of days after. Really he knows–and his parents have told him from the time he was a kid each time he got into one–that he should probably avoid them altogether, but with every other restriction he has and with how controlled he is with his life even outside of that, it’s his one little indulgence, a pressure-relief valve of one bad choice to let some steam off at the end of a season, when he carves out time in his cottage when he can make his annual bad choice and enjoy a few days of wild mango madness before he makes himself buckle back into the restraints he usually keeps his life in. He looks up when he hears Rozanov snort, and the look on his face is so fond that Shane’s arm twitches slightly with the urge to hide his face under it. “Mangoes?” Rozanov repeats, tugging his shirt over his head. “Really?” “They’re good,” Shane defends. “Better than vodka,” he adds, pointedly. “Mm, no,” Rozanov says, crossing back over to the bed. “Wrong.” The insult comes with a kiss, though, so Shane doesn’t think to argue until Rozanov is already stepping away. “See you next time,” Rozanov says, and Shane is torn between not even getting the chance to walk him out and the relief of already having a commitment for when they’ll see each other again. “See you,” he calls back. He lays in bed for a long, long time, until the only warmth left in the sheets is his own. I. The only excuse that Shane will be able to offer if he ever has to answer for his bad decisions is that he would like to see anyone still be in their right mind after being Ilya Rozanov’s sole focus for an hour and a half. Really, he thinks he should be congratulated for still being conscious. Without meaning to, he lets out a low, plaintive noise when he feels Rozanov start to pull out, whining through his nose and clenching reflexively at the loss, drawing a hiss but also a kiss to his cheek and then his jaw from Rozanov. “You complain, but you will also be very mad in ten minutes if you are still sticky,” Rozanov says, pressing his nose to his cheek in a move that feels playful. If Shane didn’t know better by now, he might almost call the gesture affectionate. “No,” he says, because arguing with Rozanov is a reaction that doesn’t actually require thought, which is convenient when he thinks his brain might have dribbled out along with the cum after orgasm three of the night. Sometimes he thinks Rozanov might actually kill him with sex one day. He can’t decide if the idea is more alarming or arousing. “Yes,” Rozanov says, clearly teasing, bumping his cheek with his nose one more time before finishing pulling out, a hand at the base of his cock to hold the condom in place until he can pull it off and tie off the end. From repetition, Shane knows what’s coming next, and it does dawn on him to protest. He’s a grown man, and this is casual. He’s not the most experienced person in the world when it comes to casual sex, but he thinks making Rozanov clean him up after he orgasms his fine motor control into dysfunction is probably asking too much of him. This is the time he protests, he decides, eyes still shut and muscles still liquid against the–ugh, damp–bedsheets. Definitely the time he protests. He’s going to take the washcloth from Rozanov and do it himself. For sure going to happen. Definitely. He’s going to open his eyes in ten seconds and do it. For sure. When Rozanov gently slots a hand behind his knee to pull his thigh to the side, Shane doesn’t offer even token muscle tenseness in protest. “Sorry,” Rozanov says quietly when the sensation of warm washcloth against sensitive skin makes him twitch reflexively. He pauses to kiss Shane’s knee as if in apology, and Shane chooses very deliberately to not think about how that feels like a gesture that shouldn’t be happening on this side of tonight’s fucking. Not that it stops him from letting Rozanov finish gently wiping up the lube between his legs. For the sake of his pride, Shane tells himself that it serves him right for making the mess in the first place. He’s a little annoyed that he went for the lube before he went for the cum still across his belly and chest. Even if Shane is always diligent in making sure he’s clean before these hookups, it feels like an incorrect order of operations, using the cloth on his- He makes a low, pained noise when he feels Rozanov’s hot, wet tongue licking up across his stomach, a method of cleaning him up that Shane had not previously considered as an option. With how good it feels, though, he wonders if he should start putting in a request to have it happen more often. “Gross,” he mumbles in protest when Rozanov finishes and immediately lays over him and pulls his head forward to kiss him, even though he knows Shane doesn’t particularly care for the texture of cum in his mouth when he’s not still actively turned on. It doesn’t bother him enough to pull away, though, and he and Rozanov trade kisses for long enough that he’s started to regain sensation in his limbs again when he gently nudges Rozanov back, finally opening his eyes. Stupidly regretful about it, he says what he knows he needs to. “I should go.” “Hm,” Rozanov says, nudging his head to the side and pressing his lips along his jaw until he can make it to his neck, where he opens his mouth to gently suckle at the skin there in a way that makes Shane shiver. He doesn’t bother to remind him not to leave a hickey–they both know better at this point, and so saying it would accomplish nothing but giving Rozanov something to tease him about–and just submits to the goodness of the sensation, even knowing he really does have to go. Even if he doesn’t really want to. “I have to get up early tomorrow,” he insists. “Boring,” Rozanov says against his skin, and the texture on the r when he says it really shouldn’t be as attractive as it is or make Shane want to repeat it so much, just to feel it in his mouth, too. “It’s for a photoshoot.” “Of course,” Rozanov says, and just from the sound of his voice, Shane doesn’t even need to feel the shape of it against his skin to know that he’s smiling. “You need your beauty sleep so you can keep being so pretty.” “Go fuck yourself, Rozanov,” Shane says, but he smiles when he does, finally committing to putting an armbar between them to push Rozanov off of him. Rozanov groans but obeys, flopping back dramatically and starfishing his limbs in all directions. Shane, unimpressed, removes a leg from his person and gets up, taking his clothes into the bathroom to get dressed and make sure his hair doesn’t look too obviously “I just had wild athletic sex” before he has to leave. Mind already whirling with the steps left in the day until he can call it a night, he almost misses the “hey” from Rozanov–still on the bed–until there’s something flying at him. He catches it on reflex from a lifetime of training it into functioning even without conscious thought, but he still gives Rozanov a cutting look before he actually registers what was thrown at him. A…mango? He looks back up to Rozanov, who stretches with an air of deliberate unconcern, linking his fingers behind his head and sitting back, the picture of casual nonchalance. “This is what you want as your reward, yes?” Rozanov asks. “Because you are too boring for things more fun than fruit?” “I-you got me a mango?” Shane asks, still wildly thrown. And oddly…touched? “Is what you want as a reward, yes?” Rozanov asks. “This is what you said before.” Rozanov isn’t in his own city, Shane thinks at once, and he’s pretty sure they don’t allow fruit across the border, which means Rozanov landed here, sought out a grocery store, and bought a mango, just for Shane. It seems like kind of a lot of effort to go through for a joke. And also means that Shane doesn’t really know how to broach the fact that he can’t actually eat this joke. “You have changed your mind?” Rozanov pushes, and something about his posture looks just slightly less relaxed now for no reason Shane can think of. He’s not the one holding a potential ticking timebomb of itchy, after all. “You want something else?” “No,” Shane says, because he doesn’t. This isn’t something that’s supposed to go beyond sex, really, not something that’s supposed to have little gifts at the end. He hadn’t known if they would even be meeting up tonight, not with him having a plumbing repair made in his guest bath that meant someone else temporarily has a key to his house that could let them in at any moment, an unacceptable risk even this late at night when the possibility was almost certainly zero. Rozanov, though, had said his usual roomie was sick–confusing, because Shane knows he usually rooms with Marlowe or Connors, who were both on the ice tonight–and they could just meet here. And apparently went out of his way to buy a mango. Shane doesn’t know how he’s supposed to add those pieces together to equal something that makes sense. “Thanks,” he says, because he can be polite even if he’s confused. “You do not like mango?” Rozanov asks, studying him in a way that honestly makes him want to squirm under the intensity of it. “I love mangoes,” he answers, because a piece of the truth is easier than the whole thing or coming up with a lie. “Thanks.” “You are welcome,” Rozanov says, looking pleased again. “Now get out of my room. I have many hot women coming tonight for very sexy orgy, and you are really pushing my schedule.” It’s a joke (probably), but Shane takes it as his signal to go. “Bye,” he says, waving his mango over his shoulder and then immediately cringing at himself, checking the hallway only briefly before ducking out. “Goodbye, Hollander,” he hears faintly as he shuts the door. * Unable to resist the temptation, he allows himself the tiniest sliver of mango before he makes himself throw the rest of it out that night, chasing it with a benadryl. He still ends up itchy the next day in a way that has more than one person commenting–and Hayden asking if he wants to come over and take an oatmeal bath like his baby tonight, which Shane shoulder checks him lightly for–but somehow…somehow it still almost seems worth it, just for one little taste of something so good. II. It’s not that Shane minds the nights they have slower, gentler sex, really. He still gets off to the memory of their first time fucking more than is probably normal, the details imprinted in his head forever the same way he imagines other people memorize poetry or scripture, committing things to memory until they’re pressed into the foundation, indelibly part of them forever. Maybe it’s a weird way to think about his first time doing anal, but it doesn’t make it any less potent when what he wants is Rozanov and what he’s got is just his own hands. He’s thinking tonight might go into his mental bank as well. He keeps their hottest moments there already as a default, old ones knocked out of the rankings when sexier, kinkier newcomers happen, but he squirrels these times away, too, the moments that are sweet and gentle and intense in a way that doesn’t feel very casual but also feels too good to stop. “There?” Rozanov says, voice soft, when Shane shifts his hips enough to get a better angle. He nods, eyes closed, back bowing into the pleasure of it while still trying to not disrupt the angle he just achieved. “Good?” He doesn’t know what prompts these nights, really, whether there’s a contributing factor or whether Rozanov just gets in a particular mood, but they are good. Rozanov already seems to get off on getting him off in a way that feeds into him getting off in a feedback loop of horny, but on these nights, it’s like Rozanov is trying to savor it. He’d even tucked a pillow against Shane’s right hip–still a little tender when his legs are spread open too long even months after a strain earlier in the season–for support in a way that had been a clue he planned to take his time. And Jesus fuck has he. Rozanov had spread his legs open with a kind of gentle reverence that had made him feel almost shy under the force of it, as if this wasn’t the same man who took his virginity literal years ago, the same man who’s probably seen and touched and licked every centimeter of him at this point. Rozanov had rested his left leg over his shoulder, leaving his right to stay propped up comfortably against the pillow, and made Shane shiver in a way that’s a little embarrassing in the aftermath of it by pressing slow, open mouth kisses from his knee to the place where leg becomes hip, pressing his tongue against the skin to push at the ligaments there in a way that Shane hadn’t realized he found arousing until it was happening to him, leaving him shifting his hips in helpless little swirls, not wanting to disrupt the pleasure but also wanting more, greedy in a way he never usually lets himself be. To say nothing of the requirements of a standard professional athlete’s dietary needs, he’s grown up with potentially-deadly food allergies to think of. He’s no stranger to restriction and control and denial. But something about Ilya Rozanov makes him want to gorge himself. Rozanov had finally had mercy on him and moved that talented mouth of his down down down until he could get his tongue on even more sensitive flesh, laving the flat of it over Shane’s hole before circling back to follow up with flicks of his tongue so perfectly balanced between just right and too light that Shane had ended up getting a hand in his thick curls not even to try and push him down but just for the sake of having something to hold onto, to tether himself to reality when Rozanov was clearly trying so hard to send him into outer space. Rozanov had chuckled–and good God hadn’t the vibration of that been a fun new discovery–before he’d gently disentangled Shane’s fingers from his hair only to link them with his own, leaving their clasped hands resting on Shane’s lower belly, rising and falling with each hitched little breath Shane managed as Rozanov got back to work. (Another mystery: the hand holding. He knows by now that Rozanov enjoys a little tugging of his hair, but it’s another element of these nights, the way he tends to hold Shane’s hands instead. It’s not that Shane minds, really, not when he used to always reach for Rozanov’s hands in the early days as a touchpoint when novel threatened to turn into overwhelming, but he doesn’t understand the difference in preference, doesn’t know if there’s something he should be reading in how Rozanov behaves to know when he wants Shane to grip his hand and when he doesn’t.) (Also complicating this is that this wondering tends to only happen in the brief snatches of sanity he gets while it’s happening, which isn’t exactly the best time for solving mysteries, frankly.) Shane hadn’t been sure if he’d been ready to plead with him or threaten him after Rozanov edged him twice before even getting a single finger in him, and the decision hadn’t gotten any easier when he’d worked up to three only to crook them and press intoxicating, near- overwhelming pressure right against his prostate, pleasure so intense that it was riding the edge of pain in a way that had made Shane want to snap his legs shut at the same time it had made him want to spread them even wider, like Rozanov just needed a clearer signal that Shane was desperate for the pleasure Rozanov kept teasing him with. It’s another quirk of these nights, how Rozanov sets aside his usual delight in seeing how many times he can make Shane cum before their time together is up and instead focuses on just making him desperate, like he wants to keep Shane needy and strung-out as long as he can. Shane would offer a protest of being toyed with like this. But it’s not as if he can say he doesn’t enjoy it. He’d clenched around the head of Rozanov’s cock hard enough when it was finally inside of him that Rozanov had hissed out a curse and dropped his head forward before nuzzling and whispering and coaxing until Shane had calmed down enough to let him work the rest of it in. Even after that achievement, Rozanov had been sweet-mean again, holding still like he just wanted to savor being inside of Shane as he kissed him, slow and filthy, tongue sliding alongside his own enough to make where that tongue had been just previously entirely unconcerning. They’d then cycled from missionary into doggy and now into Shane riding him with much more enthusiasm than Rozanov was putting into the effort when he was the one on top, and Shane is feeling more than a little insane from how long he’s been teased with and then denied his orgasm. He likes being good, likes taking what Rozanov gives him, but he still has his limits, and Rozanov has stomped all over them tonight. If his goal was to tease, then he succeeded with flying colors, but Shane has his own goals. Such as, right now, riding Ilya Rozanov until he finally gets what he’s wanted all night. “Fuck, Hollander,” Rozanov says, hands on his hips gripping tight but not restraining, just giving him a little extra lift when he rises on his knees and a little extra force when he drops his hips once again. He doesn’t actually know if he looks sexy like this or if he just looks a little desperate. From the heat in Rozanov’s eyes as he watches him, he’s not sure it matters. He makes a sound that’s echoed with a groan from Rozanov, and it makes him smile a little as he tilts his head back and closes his eyes, taking hold of Rozanov’s thighs for support when the angle turns from good to “oh, I’m about to cum” between one stroke and the next. It makes him feel a little crazy, really, when he thinks about the fact that there’s a part of Rozanov inside of him when they do this, pushing him apart to make space, and the reality of it is only more intense like this, with Rozanov spread out under him, steady and still while Shane drives him in and out. He whines through his nose, unable to help it, the thick, hard cock inside of him hitting just how he needs each time, the speed giving him the constant stimulation he needs to have his climax so close he can feel his breath start to catch in his throat whe- He feels Rozanov’s hands start to lift him up, doubtlessly to put him in a fourth position when he still hasn’t cum tonight. Really, what the fuck else is he supposed to do but take hold of his wrists and slam them down to either side of his head to make him stay down instead of stopping this when Shane has finally almost made it over the finish line. Rational thought, though, catches up quickly behind the impulse, and he and Rozanov blink at each other for a moment, apparently equally surprised. And then he feels the slightest little shift of Rozanov’s hips, like he can’t help but give him the tiniest little thrust in response. “What, Hollander?” Rozanov says, sounding a little breathless, pupils blown wide. “I can’t move?” It could sound like a hint, like a request for Shane to let go and get off of him. They’ve played around the edges of things like this before, but only in reverse, Shane playing coy and teasing until Rozanov wrestles him down on the bed. Shane always puts up an actual fight at first, to make it exciting, to feel like he’s made Rozanov work for it, but he always picks his moment to give up, taking a strange kind of pleasure in the choice to lose at this, to submit to the vulnerability of being pinned down by Ilya Rozanov, playing at helpless prey while knowing all it would take is one shove or one “Stop” to bring it all to a halt. Sometimes he thinks the knowledge of his own power is as intoxicating as the sex on those nights. He’s never held Rozanov down before, never actually used his real strength on him when they’re this deep into sex before. He should have asked, maybe, should have established if Rozanov was okay with it. But Rozanov doesn’t look particularly bothered by the lack of courtesy. “Okay?” He still asks, and it’s almost funny, stealing Rozanov’s catchphrase from him when he’s also stealing one of his moves. “Better when you start moving again,” Rozanov says, hips twitching again like a hint. Shane starts to pull back, to let him go now that he knows Rozanov has gotten the memo to stay in place and let Shane cum already, but Rozanov’s arms twitch when he starts to, and he pauses. Testingly, he presses down again, pushing his wrists into the mattress enough that they sink in slightly. Rozanov draws in a breath deep enough that the motion moves Shane along with it. Huh, he thinks. And then he starts moving his hips again. * The way they usually do on nights like this, they lay together for longer than they should afterwards, eyes closed, just breathing together. They’ve both caught their breath by this point, but neither mentions it. It’s an unspoken agreement between them, these little moments, safe under a veneer of plausible deniability so long as neither of them speaks up. Shane doesn’t even make a noise when Rozanov shifts out from under him, rolling over and stretching, enjoying the pleasant soreness that’s starting to set in. When something cold and firm presses against his cheek, he frowns, turning his head to find a smiling Rozanov standing over him. And pressing a mango against his face. He all but slaps it away reflexively–hoping the contact wasn’t enough to give him a rash right on his face–and Rozanov blinks, surprised, before he recovers, tossing the mango into the air and catching it before he climbs over Shane like an asshole to flop back on the bed. “I think you earned this tonight,” he says, clearly teasing. Shane sees something occur to him. “You put in hard work. You must be tired. Should I feed it to you?” Shane would be a liar if he said there was nothing appealing about the idea, the concept of sweet, juicy mango in his mouth, pushed there by thick, warm fingers. He could mash the mango with his tongue if it was ripe enough, turn it all into something nice to suck on, swallow the juice while working his tongue along the whorl of Rozanov’s fingerprints, trace the lines of his fingers, curve his tongue along the bend of his joints until every millimeter has been discovered and baptized. He could suck them until the sweetness was gone and then pull away, let Rozanov put another slice on his tongue and press the juice free again before sliding down to his knees to take his cock in his mouth. He could find out what his two favorite vices taste like together. Rozanov’s eyebrows quirking up, though, clearly reading Shane’s interest, pops the fantasy, imagining that expression going alarmed and then disgusted when Shane starts breaking out in hives. There’s nothing to take the horny out of a fantasy like knowing there’ll be a rash at the end, after all. “I have to go,” he says, and he pretends he doesn’t see the little flicker of disappointment in Rozanov’s eyes before he shuffles it away, clearly coming to his senses. After all, they aren’t anything that would make a goodbye disappointing. * In a moment of total impulse the next night, he cuts open the mango even knowing that he shouldn’t, canceling on seeing a movie with JJ and Hayden for the sake of not having to explain being itchy and potentially vaguely nauseous because of poor decisions the night before, a bad idea made even worse when he’s doing it during the season instead of waiting for his usual time to indulge. He eats the mango and tries not to wonder if it would taste even better put on his tongue by someone else’s fingers. III. In the aftermath of fighting Scott Hunter, Shane has no shortage of texts and emails and interview requests asking what happened. Of all of them, though, there’s one person in particular that he doesn’t want to talk to right now. Naturally, it’s the one motherfucker who is the most insistent. first you start fighting senior citizens and now you ignore me?? you are doing opposite day?? Fuck off. is this what you said to hunter, also? now i don’t feel special. Shane rolls his eyes, wishing that he didn’t feel the little trickle of relief that he does at talking to Rozanov, even if over text, the ability to watch himself a little less closely, to have an audience he can trust enough to be a little more honest. the two most boring people in the world become interesting, and i don’t get to know why? this isn’t very fair. I thought you liked good sportsmanship. Nothing happened. Fuck off. now you are lying, too? did you hit your head in the game? is this brain damage? Shane rolls his eyes and groans when he sees the bubbles letting him know that Lily is still typing. Not letting himself think about it too long before he does it, he taps on the contact and then hits call, trying not to wonder why he’s even bothering. Trying not to wonder why he thinks it might fix anything. “Is this a call for help?” Rozanov asks, and the fact that he answered on the first ring is the only reason that Shane doesn’t come to his senses and hang up immediately. “You have taken brain damage?” “Shut up,” Shane says, flopping backwards on his bed and ignoring the way his phone buzzes against his face with yet another text message coming in, pulling the screen away enough to see that it’s JJ inviting him out. He ignores it and presses the phone back to his ear. “Nothing happened, okay? Stop making it into a thing.” “You don’t fight on the ice,” Rozanov says, and Shane scowls. “I can fight.” “Use your ears and listen,” Rozanov says, but he doesn’t sound annoyed. “I said you don’t fight. I did not say you can’t fight.” The clarification stupidly makes Shane feel a little appeased. “So what did Hunter do?” “You care?” Shane asks, not even knowing what he wants the answer to be. He’s not even sure they should be doing this, really. It’s not either of their jobs to check on the other after a shitty day. It’s also, he reflects, a little unfair that Rozanov thinks he gets to do it when he often gets short with Shane when he tries it. “I am interested in what can make you angry enough to drop gloves on the ice and start throwing punches,” Rozanov says. “All of this time and I don’t get to play, but Hunter gets to have fun?” “It wasn’t fun,” Shane snaps. There’s a pause, and when his voice comes back, it’s gentle in a way Shane usually only hears in bed. “He said something to you?” “It-” Shane hesitates. Really, logically, he should tell Rozanov what Hunter said, let Rozanov know that it seems like Hunter suspects them at the very least. Rozanov has always seemed less worried than him about this whole thing, but it’s not like he doesn’t also stand to lose a lot if Hunter gets angry and decides to let things spill. He wouldn’t have thought he would do something like that before, but he also hadn’t thought Hunter would get so angry after such a mild chirp. It had been the reason he’d done it, after all. They’ve known each other for years now, even played on the same team in All Stars more than once, and he’d thought Hunter would chirp back, maybe, volley it back and forth with the understanding that it was just for fun. Rozanov has always understood it, after all, even if others don’t understand it about him in return. Shane’s always had to watch himself in a way other people don’t, but he’d thought Hunter was a safe enough target to have fun with. Apparently, though, he’d decided to bring a fucking nuke to a pool noodle fight. “Has he said something to you?” Shane asks, wondering suddenly if Rozanov has heard things, too, if he’s kept them to himself instead of giving him a heads up to be wary. He’s annoyed at the idea, suddenly. “Not really,” Rozanov says. “He has been on the ice since ice was invented and still he can’t chirp for shit. Very disappointing.” Despite himself, Shane’s lips quirk up in a small smile. “Probably born before humor was invented, too,” he offers, and his smile widens when he hears Rozanov laugh. “Is this what you said to him on the ice?” Rozanov asks, still sounding amused even though it takes some of the levity out of Shane. “I know lip readers caught other very impolite things,” Shane winces, knowing already from how many @s he’s gotten on Twitter about it, “but it had to be good if it made him put his walker down to square up.” “He started it,” Shane says, knowing he sounds childish, knowing that rarely gets to be an excuse for him, knowing that his standards are different, have always been different. He doesn’t get to- “Yes, I guessed that part already,” Rozanov says, and Shane blinks, surprised. “What?” “Is why I am curious,” Rozanov says. “Good boy Shane Hollander who keeps his head no matter what suddenly drops gloves? Hunter must have really had something to say to you.” Shane feels strangely warm at the idea that Rozanov is so ready to believe that he was justified, that Rozanov just assumed he had his reasons and that they were good ones. It does, unfortunately, make the truth feel a little bit awkward. “Do you think he heard us at All Stars?” Shane asks. “What?” Rozanov asks, sounding genuinely thrown. “When? We weren’t even near him last time. His old man ears wouldn’t hear us even we fucked right next to him on the ice,” the idea of this sparks to life an interest that Shane immediately shoves back down, “there is no way he heard us on the opposite side of a hotel.” A pause, and when he speaks, Shane can fucking hear his smirk. “You certainly tried to help him out, though. Really, Hollander, for such a quiet person, you are so lo-” “Shut the fuck up,” Shane says, feeling his face going hot. He could point out that Rozanov likes him loud–regularly pulls Shane’s face free from his arm or pillow if he tries to muffle himself, in fact–but he knows that would only be gasoline on the fire. “I mean the year you were next to him.” “What would he have heard, Hollander?” Rozanov asks. “We sucked each other off in the shower so the water would drown out the noise. This was your idea. Do you not remember?” “I think he knows,” Shane snaps, annoyed into honesty. There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Rozanov?” “Knows what?” Rozanov asks. “What did he say? Exactly?” Shane feels his face get a little hotter, but at this point, he might as well. “He said I’m starting to sound like you.” “This is all?” Rozanov asks, sounding insultingly relieved about something that had Shane ready to punch Scott Hunter on television only a few hours earlier. “Hollander, fuck, I thought you were going to say we are being blackmailed now.” His amusement is deeply obnoxious when Shane can still feel the way his stomach dropped on the ice, his whole world shattering in an instant at the idea that someone knows about him and Rozanov, that someone’s heard them or seen them or- “This is all?” Rozanov asks, like he can’t believe it. “Why the fuck would he say I sound like you?” Shane demands, resentful of Rozanov being so calm about this when he so isn’t. “That’s pretty fucking specific, Rozanov.” “Yes,” Rozanov allows, “but we are also the most famous rivalry in the league. If he is trying to get under your skin, of course he says you sound like me. He is so old and has taken so many head injuries that he doesn’t know this is a compliment, actually.” “Fuck off,” Shane says, entirely on reflex, even as he considers whether he buys the logic of it or not. Could it be down to that? Just Hunter poking at something he thought would be annoying? “Do people tell you you sound like me?” He asks, curious now. “No, of course not,” Rozanov scoffs in a way that’s more than a little insulting, honestly. “I do not bore people by talking about weather and stock market and-” “You are such an asshole,” Shane says, but he does feel a little better now with the benefit of a new perspective. It does make sense in a way, now that someone else has said it. If he and Rozanov famously hate each other, then it’s not a stretch to think it would be an insult to be told that they sound alike. It was still a suckerpunch in response to a poke, but if he just caught Hunter on a bad day, tired on a roadie, disappointed at a loss… For the first time since the words were tossed across the ice at him, Shane feels his stomach unclench. “You really think that’s all he meant?” He asks. “I mean, I do not know how dinosaur brains work,” Rozanov says, “but yes, is my guess. If he wanted to blackmail you about it, I think there are more profitable ways to do it than making you fight him on the ice and ruin both of your good boy reputations. Is possible he is just terrible at blackmail, but I do not think so.” “I mean even if he just suspected, it doesn’t really help that I fought him about it,” Shane says, feeling stupid now. “You famously hate me like I hate you,” Rozanov says, and if Shane didn’t know better, he’d almost think Rozanov sounded a little regretful about that, probably because Shane’s brain has been drained by panic and isn’t thinking clearly. “Now he just thinks that’s really true.” “I don’t hate you,” Shane says absently, tumbling the logic around in his head once more just to make sure it still fits. “Yes, I know this,” Rozanov says. “You are very in love with my cock. Really I am just third wheeling-” “Shut up,” Shane complains, but he’s smiling now, feeling almost giddy from relief that his world isn’t about to crumble around him, that Hunter just took a blind swing that happened to hit. “So you don’t want to hear about how my cock misses you, too?” Rozanov asks innocently. Shane’s stomach tenses for reasons much different than it did earlier. “...no,” he says, not even bothering to commit to sounding convincing. “Oh,” Rozanov says, clearly picking up on the yes under the no, the way it’s one of the things Shane can’t say, one of the things he just has to trust Rozanov to hear anyway. “So you don’t want to hear how-” Shane sighs, rolling his eyes. But also slipping a hand under the waistband of his jeans. * “Fuck, fuck,” Shane pants, ignoring the burning in his wrist at the speed and force he’s keeping with his dildo in favor of the way he can feel the muscles in his stomach going tight in anticipation of his climax. He remembers to breathe only with conscious effort, and his inhale comes as a gasp. “Da, good,” comes Rozanov’s voice, almost a purr. “Come for me, yes? Such a good boy, putting dinosaurs in their place. Good boys get rewards. Come on, Hollander, let me hear you.” A reflexive part of him wants to tell Rozanov to go fuck himself and hang up the call. The rest of him, though, immediately hurtles over the edge and into the sticky-sweet pleasure of orgasm, the splatter of his release against his stomach barely registering as he manages a few last jerky thrusts of his dildo before he stops, pressing it deep inside and holding it there with the palm of his hand against the base until the last few shivers have gone through him. From the sound of Rozanov’s breathing, he gathers he must have cum, too, but he’s too busy catching his own breath to feel much about it until he hears his voice come over the phone, half-muffled with the way the speaker ended up tucked under his pillow when Shane arched up, nudging it under by accident. “I said let me hear you,” Rozanov says, dry but still a little breathless in a way that takes any credibility in the complaint away immediately, “you are terrible at following instructions, Hollander.” “Go- go fuck yourself,” Shane pants. “Hm,” Rozanov says, and Shane knows exactly what smirk goes with that tone, “just did, thank you.” “You’re the worst,” Shane complains, even as he smiles, relaxed in the way he only gets after Rozanov. Even if only over the phone. I wish you were here, he thinks, suddenly, stupidly, irrationally, feeling a wordless kind of want for the comfort of familiar, warm skin against his own, for fingers in his hair and a solid shoulder beneath his cheek. Thank God he has enough control over himself not to actually say it. “You feel better now?” Rozanov asks. “Or should I keep Twitter up to see whose grandfather you are fighting next?” “Fuck you,” Shane says with a laugh. “Yeah, I feel better now.” A brief moment of hesitation. “Thanks.” “Hm, you are welcome,” Rozanov says thoughtfully. “Is my community service for the day, so you do not start turning old people homes into boxing rings. This would be a very bad look for hockey. You would ruin it for everyone.” “Like I’m the one with the reputation,” Shane scoffs. “Yes, exactly,” Rozanov says with an amount of seriousness that says this is absolutely a joke. “Leave fighting on the ice to the professionals, Hollander. You are not good at it. You can’t even pick a good target.” “Hey,” Shane protests, “I got a punch in.” “Yes, very good,” Rozanov says dryly. “In years and years of hockey career you have gotten in one punch. I am sure you will be able to impress many girls with this.” The mention of girls–and the reminder that Rozanov has plenty of them to impress–takes some of the lightness out of the conversation for reasons Shane can’t afford to think about. “Thanks,” Shane says again. “I have to go now, okay?” He doesn’t wait for a response before he hits end call. * Shane laughs after frowning at a knock on the door about an hour later and answering it to find a grocery delivery waiting for him. A grocery delivery consisting of a single mango. He snaps a picture of it–really, it looks fucking ridiculous in a way that’s unfortunately also objectively hilarious, one mango in a giant paper bag–and sends it to Rozanov. This is so fucking wasteful. I’m telling Greenpeace. nooooo. they’re my biggest sponsor 😢 wait, you are not planning to recycle? I am telling greenpeace on YOU. no mangoes for wasteful boys very bad behavior You are so fucking annoying. wasteful AND you are ungrateful??? I am telling rolex they have a very bad role model for their spokesperson. say goodbye to your pretty watches. Shane shakes his head, smiling stupidly at his phone over something so fucking ridiculous. He also feels strangely sad, for some reason, that everyone takes Rozanov being an asshole at face value, that his reputation has grown until he thinks sometimes that the actual man it belongs to has gotten lost in the shape of it. He’s a dick, yes, but he’s not a bad person. Shane feels equally privileged and a little sad that it sometimes seems like he’s the only one who actually knows that. Thank you for my mango. you are welcome. don’t spend it all in one place. Shane laughs. Really, he knows he should just throw it out completely. That’s the smart thing to do, just like cutting things off with Rozanov before this gets any messier–before anyone else notices any bleed between them–is the smart thing to do. * The mango is delicious. IV. “You are going to earn your mango tonight, Hollander, or no? I am beginning to wonder if you deserve it or not.” As chirping at the center line goes, it’s milder than most–especially for Rozanov–but it also obnoxiously makes his ears feel hot as he tries to will himself to calm down about it. Thankfully his helmet will cover them up enough that no one else will notice. But he knows from Rozanov’s grin that he has. Asshole. “Remind me who’s up by one?” Shane asks, still looking only at the ice ahead of him. “For now,” Rozanov says, sounding deliberately unconcerned, settling more into position as they get ready. “Is more exciting this way, yes? These people are here for a good show, Hollander. You will disappoint them?” Something very stupid and uncharacteristic pops into his head then, and it’s only Rozanov being the one to bring their sex life onto the ice in the first place that actually pushes him over into saying it. “I always put on a good show. Should I give you one tonight?” His gaze flickers up just enough to see an almost comical look of surprise on Rozanov’s face, and he feels a warm smugness in his chest at surprising him- -and an even warmer smugness at that surprise costing Rozanov the face-off. Shane skates away and scores yet another goal for Montreal feeling almost high on the power. * Shane wonders if he should feel annoyed or pleased that Rozanov now feels comfortable enough in his house that he feels free to start digging around without asking for permission. Deciding doesn’t get easier when what Rozanov stands up holding is the locked box Shane keeps his sex toys in, usually safely hidden under his bed. “Open,” Rozanov orders, like Shane is a dog to be commanded. (And if that tone, direct and confident, does indeed make him want to roll over and show his belly and obey, that’s something that Rozanov never needs to know.) “Ask nicely,” he challenges, in the mood for something that’ll make Rozanov work a little harder tonight. From the way Rozanov’s eyes flash, he knows he’s picked up on the game. “Open it or I make you pay for it later,” Rozanov corrects, voice low in a way that makes Shane’s stomach go a little flutter-y with want. Still, good things only come for those who put in the work for them. “Big talk for the guy who doesn’t know the combination,” Shane says with feigned casualness, leaning back against the wall in a statement that he won’t be moved unless he chooses to. (...or unless Rozanov gets physical enough to move him himself.) (Either way works for him.) “You got the present I sent you?” Rozanov asks, smug and insufferable. Shane knows exactly what “present” he’s talking about: an obnoxiously glittery (and pink) dildo, just a shade smaller than Rozanov. He’s already taken it on its maiden voyage, obviously, but that’s not something Rozanov needs to know. (God help him if he gives the motherfucker any encouragement to start sending sex toys to his house as a habit.) “What present?” Shane says, as if he can’t even begin to imagine what Rozanov is talking about. “I think you know,” Rozanov says, and Shane clenches his shoulders against the way it makes him want to shiver, that low tone directed at him along with a hunger so obvious that it’s kind of surprising Rozanov hasn’t done something crazy like bite him about it. “Hm,” Shane says with a shrug. “I don’t know. I get a lot of ‘presents.’” He grins. “That’s what happens when you’re successful, you know, all kinds of PR. Not that you would know that, obvi-” The comment gets him Rozanov crossing the room to crowd him against the wall, mouth finding his like magnets drawing together. He feels Rozanov’s hand move up his side, his chest, until it’s over his throat, not tight, not squeezing, but there, the promise that he could do something if he wanted to, hold Shane by the throat and decide if he gets to breathe or not. It should be frightening, maybe, the little threat of violence behind it, but he knows by now that Rozanov’s daring ends where Shane’s actual discomfort begins. He could say “let go” right now, and Rozanov would be across the room in an instant, like a cat springing away after being startled. It’s heady, the game of pretend they’re playing, acting like Rozanov could choke him out right now if he wanted to for sassing him but knowing that he holds the final say on it, that this entire scenario is only happening because Rozanov hands him the reins while pretending they’re still only in his hands. Shane gets a little lightheaded in a way that has nothing to do with breathing and everything to do with blood rushing very quickly downwards. “I gave you a present,” Rozanov says, pressing his hand down just enough that Shane feels it as a constant reminder against his throat. “I want to watch you use it. This is good manners, yes? Showing how grateful you are when someone gives you a present?” The idea of it–of fucking himself with a dildo almost as big as Rozanov while Rozanov watches and wants–doesn’t help with the “blood vacating his brain” problem. It’s not something they’ve actually done before, not beyond Rozanov listening to him doing it on a call for phone sex or sometimes even watching Shane deep throat one while Rozanov fucks him. The novelty of the idea is thrilling in a way that makes him feel a little crazy. He can’t say he really minds. “What?” Shane challenges, trying to will his voice to remain steady. “Can’t do the job yourself?” “You are the one who said you would put on a show tonight,” Rozanov says. “You are breaking your promises now?” “Doesn’t the winner usually get to pick what we do?” Shane says, because he needs to stall long enough to decide if he’s actually bold enough to act on the way the idea has gone right to his dick. “Ah,” Rozanov says, feigning a disappointed face, “but I am so sad because my team lost to another one that is so terrible. You don’t want to cheer me up? Shouldn’t hockey’s golden boy care about people’s feelings? Or do you just collect sportsmanship awards for show?” Shane willfully ignores the back to back insults in favor of something more important: a brand new idea that makes him feel almost cross-eyed with how horny it makes him in an instant. “I don’t know if I can take it,” he says, leaning into how turned on he is to avoid the way the shame inside of him is trying to poke its head up and say hello at something he knows is probably embarrassing to want as much as he does right now. “It’s so big. It might be too big for me.” Please pick up on the game, he wills to Rozanov, because if he doesn’t catch onto what Shane is asking for, then this has the potential to be very embarrassing if he has to either decide to jump ship or try to explain his own half-formed vision for this scenario. It’s something he’s only started doing recently, taking the lead on suggesting things, on asking for things he’s thought about plenty but never brought up before, and it’s a little scary every single time, offering a hand with his palm open with what he wants and just having to trust that Rozanov will take it and not slap it away, that Rozanov will understand what he wants in the first place when Shane still can’t always put it into words. He needn’t have worried, though. If there’s someone who can read unspoken dirty thoughts, it’s Ilya fucking Rozanov. “Aw,” Rozanov says, a near coo, as he takes hold of Shane’s chin, his tone saying he’s understood perfectly, thank God. “You are scared?” “It’s so big,” Shane says. A devilish little thought pops into his head and even at the risk of derailing the scene he’s only at the start of putting together, he has to say it. “I’ve never taken anything that big before.” It’s a taunt, and he sees from the brief little flash of a smirk before he puts his game face back on that Rozanov caught it. Shane can’t wait to see how he pays for it later. “I’ll teach you,” Rozanov says. “You can do it.” Rozanov’s hand releases his chin and sneaks down to his ass, squeezing with a possessiveness that makes him feel a little dizzy. It’s also possible that’s down to the everything else about the situation, though. Kind of hard to tell at present. Rozanov leans in, and Shane shivers when his teeth close over his earlobe, tugging gently before he lets go, lips staying close by to whisper in his ear. “I want to see you take it,” he says, low and hungry. “What if-what if it’s too big for me?” Shane says, trying very hard to keep his vision clear for this little game but also losing focus rapidly with Rozanov’s breath in his ear. “Then,” Rozanov says, the hand on his throat squeezing just slightly, “maybe I still make you take it anyway.” Rozanov does end up being the one to open the combination lock. Mostly because Shane’s a little busy vibrating out of his bones with anticipation. * Shane knew words once upon a time, he’s pretty sure. That seems like something a person knows, and he’s a person. Well, he thinks he’s a person. Right now he might just be a puddle of sensation. “See?” Rozanov all but purrs in his ear. “I knew you could take it. This greedy little hole just needed some encouragement. Such a quick learner.” That Shane is taking it at all is primarily down to Rozanov’s hand on top of his, thrusting the toy with devastatingly good force into him, over and over and over. His breath catches in his throat, overwhelmed and overloaded, nerves shot, brain a white fuzz on a pendulum of good, too much, good, too much, back and forth and back and forth until it’s all just one giant soup of too much it’s so good don’t stop. A particularly good-hurt motion over his prostate makes his hips jerk automatically away from the sensation, overwhelmed. When a heavy hand lands low over his stomach, pinning him in place, he goes still, the dildo still a heavy threat of more mind-wiping pleasure inside of him. “Too much?” Rozanov asks, low enough that Shane knows it’s supposed to fly under the fantasy without popping it. He doesn’t have words to respond, but he does thrust his hips slightly in what he knows Rozanov can read as an answer. Sure enough, the toy starts up its inescapable siege against his sanity again immediately, and this time, Rozanov pushes Shane’s hand away from holding it with him, picking it up by the wrist and resting it over his stomach instead of letting it flop to the mattress. Shane is touched by the gesture briefly, a little measure of sweetness. And then he finds out it was only to let Rozanov work without interference. He whines and he pushes up against the forearm that lands over his hips mostly just to revel in the way it keeps him pinned and helpless to escape every brutal, perfect thrust, and he holds onto whatever he can find that seems likely to be able to anchor him against the way he thinks Rozanov might actually kill him with sex tonight. Not once does he even think about telling him to stop. Not once does he want to. * “Too big for you,” Rozanov pants into his ear in the aftermath, pressing a kiss to it while he’s there, heavy and sweaty and slick above Shane, who is currently pinned to the mattress on his belly beneath his weight, one leg still crooked up to stretch him even wider, Rozanov’s hand only now relaxing the force he’d been applying to keep it there. “Such a liar.” “Hm,” Shane says, a non-answer, as he finally lets go of the fistful of pillow he had managed to grab, fingers tingling with the force he’d been putting into the grip after he lets go. “You were into it.” “Yes,” Rozanov says, kissing his ear again and this time trailing to his jaw, his cheekbone, his temple, pulling back enough just to nudge Shane’s head to the side so he doesn’t smother himself in the sheets. “Good performance. Was fun. Like taking your virginity all over again.” “Fuck off,” Shane says contently, clenching slightly just for the sensation of feeling Rozanov still inside of him, softening now but still hard enough to be something to stretch around. It gets him a hiss and then a playful nip to his shoulder, and he grins, feeling lazy and content, especially when Rozanov slips an arm beneath him, holding him in something almost like a hug. “Hm, no,” Rozanov growls into his ear, but teasing now, following it with a kiss to his cheek. “Not too rough? You are okay?” Shane feels his face heat. It’s a fair question with the way he deliberately teased Rozanov into using the dildo on him before he was quite stretched out enough to take it easily, but the ridiculous amount of lube Rozanov had pumped over everything had kept the glide smooth, and the near-painful stretch–measured but insistent, Rozanov resting his hand over Shane’s for the illusion of it but letting Shane decide how fast it went in, Rozanov even slipping his thumb around the edge of Shane’s hand to slow him a little when he’d gotten just a little too eager at first–had been nothing but so sinfully good that it had almost made him cum before he meant to. “I’m good,” he answers, both because it’s true and because he knows Rozanov won’t settle until he hears it. “I’ll be sore tomorrow, but that’s fine.” Tomorrow’s a gym training today, and he can be a little sore for that. “Hm, good,” Rozanov says. Despite himself, he makes a small noise of complaint when Rozanov pulls out, the emptiness always unpleasant after the satisfaction of being so full. Rozanov shushes him, brushing his lips along his jaw. And also offering him a couple of fingers as a substitute. “You can go again,” Rozanov says, and it doesn’t sound like a question. Shane shakes his head, pretty sure that trying to go for another orgasm tonight might really and truly kill him. Not that the knowledge stops him from pressing his hips back, pushing the fingers in deeper. * Shane might be dead. Probably not. But maybe. He’s not really sure he has it in him to care. He’s curled up under the covers now, shifted over to the side of the bed that miraculously didn’t fall prey to tonight. He knows if he rolls at all in his sleep that he’s in for an unpleasant surprise–a consequence of not thinking to put a towel down before starting to provoke Rozanov into something filthy and rough–but he’s not sure he has it in him to care about that. He barely has it in him to care about the fact that he’s pretty sure Rozanov half-held him just to help him drink some water before settling him back down in the safe cocoon of his sheets. He stirs at something touching his forehead, but he doesn’t have it in him to open his eyes, too tired and comfortable and content. “I have to go,” Rozanov says, voice low, soft. “Stay,” Shane says, not fully sure if he’s said it out loud or kept it in his head. It would make his current warm fuzz even better, he thinks, curling up against Rozanov in bed together, getting to relax against him and not watch the clock. It’s a stupid thing to want, and he knows it. But that doesn’t stop him from wanting it. He blinks his eyes open when he doesn’t hear movement, and he finds Rozanov looking down at him, something on his face that he can’t read. “I have to go,” Rozanov says again, and Shane could almost swear it sounds like an apology. Rozanov’s mouth quirks slightly on one side, a little half-smile that’s one of Shane’s favorites. It’s only the fact that his muscles are currently made of cement that keeps him from doing something stupid like reaching out to touch it with his fingertips, the same impulse he feels sometimes when he looks at paintings at galas held in art museums, the urge to confirm with his own fingers, to feel something so he knows it’s real. This, him and Rozanov and their stolen little stretches of time together, isn’t real, but that doesn’t make the urge any less potent. “You definitely earned your mango,” Rozanov says, sounding amused, and Shane snorts, closing his eyes again. “Good job.” “Get out of my house already, weirdo,” Shane says fondly. With one last kiss, Rozanov obeys. Even when Shane kind of wishes he wouldn’t. * His reward mango is sitting on his counter the next morning, next to a post-it note with, I think you are maybe dead, but if not, enjoy. -Lily next to it. He sends a picture of him giving the note a middle finger and gets a you live! text in response. He stares at the mango for a long time, tempted between want and common sense. He has a game in two days, a stretch of days with practice or at least group sessions in the center’s gym, and a sponsorship ad, all without any days off in between. It’ll be a week and a half at least before he can carve out enough time to suffer for the mango if he eats it, and by then it’ll probably be bad anyway, rotten because it didn’t fit into his life even though he wanted it to. The thought hits closer to things he doesn’t let himself think about than he would like it to. He puts on a hoodie and stores the mango in the front pocket, taking it with him on his– slightly stilted thanks to the night before–run and disposing of it in a public trashcan far, far away from his house. He pretends he doesn’t feel the loss of its weight all the way home. V. Shane doesn’t think too far ahead after accepting Rozanov’s invitation to stay the night. It feels strangely nice, really, but also just strange, enough that he thinks trying to think beyond anything right in front of him is going to push the novelty of the day over into “oh, this is freaking me the fuck out” territory. Which would be a shame when it turns out that waking up to Rozanov curled against his back after a nap is really, really nice. “I’m hungry,” Rozanov says, voice borderline-whiny in a way Shane can’t help but smile at, wondering what the world would think about Ilya Rozanov saying he’s hungry like a little kid. And feeling more pleased than he should at being the only one who gets to hear it. “For what?” He teases, partially as a joke and partially not. They’ve never had this before, a stretch of time that’s better measured in hours than minutes, and he’s not opposed to exploring the benefits of such a luxury in a way that might make lunch a little late. “For food, pervert,” Rozanov burrs in his ear with a reprimanding squeeze of his pec before pulling away, ignoring Shane’s hey of protest and slapping a pair of sweatpants down. Shane pauses, just briefly. This is new, too, wearing each other’s clothes, especially when he can see his own right in front of him. They’ve accidentally traded before, once a few months ago when Rozanov wore a black hoodie over to his house and happened to set it down close enough to one of Shane’s that he’d taken the wrong one when he left. Even Shane hadn’t noticed, not until the next morning when he slipped the fabric over his head to go to practice and smelled a cologne that was familiar but certainly not his, vetiver and citrus and cedar instead of the cologne Shane’s worn since he did his first ad for it. He’d pressed his nose into the fabric for an embarrassing amount of time, picking up cigarette smoke, too, but faint enough that he’d been able to ignore it. He’d worn it to practice that day and the day after that and the day after that, until the last little traces of Rozanov had faded. He’d been ready with an excuse if Rozanov asked about it, but he hadn’t. Shane doesn’t know what that means, if Rozanov figured that one black hoodie was as good as another and not worth the trouble of arranging trading them back, or if he just hadn’t noticed, if the scent of him in the fabric hadn’t made Rozanov pause at all, if Shane’s smell isn’t remarkable enough for him to even pick up on it. He’d felt strangely disappointed by the thought. He still isn’t really sure why. “You want a shirt?” Rozanov asks, clearly already done after just pulling his pair of sweats back on. “Yeah,” Shane says, catching it when Rozanov tosses it to him underhand from the drawer he pulls it out of. “Thanks.” Shane pulls it on and picks up the faintest smell of Rozanov in the fabric when it goes over his face, an accent to the detergent, barely there but enough for him to pick up on it. Shane likes that he smells like Rozanov now, even a little. He isn’t really sure why. He doesn’t let himself wonder for very long. * “You…want to make me a tuna melt?” He asks, thrown. It’s not something he would expect Ilya Rozanov to default to as an option for a snack between rounds of sex. He’s not sure what a sexy pre- and post-sex snack would be, but he’s not sure his first instinct would be fish. Still, it seems like it’s probably a pretty safe bet as far as not having any of his allergies in it goes. After all, if Rozanov does something psychopathic like put peanuts in his tuna salad, Shane’s probably going to be serial killed before the anaphylaxis gets him. He can’t help but smile slightly when he sees a mango on the top shelf of the fridge even as he internally winces, wondering if this is going to be when his luck runs out. It would be just his luck that the first time he’s already agreed to spend the night would be when he now has to decide to either be rude and not take the mango or fess up that there is accidentally a years- long secret between them and oh yeah also the reason I’m so attentively watching you make this food is that you potentially could kill me with it but don’t worry this is all so super casual and chill- “Okay?” His attention focuses back on Rozanov, who glances up at him after spreading tuna salad on the slices of bread he pulled from the pack. Shane wonders if he should go ahead and confess to his allergies, let Rozanov know he should probably be a little extra careful in handling whichever pieces are going to be his. The tuna salad looks fine for him, and the pickles and bread and chips Rozanov pulled out also look okay, but if Shane is going to stay overnight, there’s no way this is going to be their only meal, not when they both have the appetite of a grown professional athlete, to say nothing of the fact that the mango is probably planned as a little post-sex dessert if he had to take a guess. When he was a kid, he wouldn’t even have hesitated. His mom and dad had drilled it into him to always tell adults about his allergies if he was eating at their house, and when in doubt, say no thank you. People had been varying amounts of accommodating about it. A couple of moms had made sure to even buy a snack specifically for him for the next time he came over, but he’d also heard at least one mom pull his aside when she came to get him and ask her to “just send something along with him next time, if it’s really that serious.” He hadn’t ever gone to that house again. His mom had made excuses, but he’d known it was because of him, because he couldn’t fit with the other kids when they got to go over and play video games and eat snacks out of a bowl without having to think about if it was safe at all. The full disclosure had kept him safe, yeah, but it had also kept him at home whenever the other kids decided to go to that house to play. “You like tuna melts?” Rozanov asks, and if Shane didn’t know better, he’d say Rozanov looks almost worried about it. “I do,” he says. An idea occurs to him then, a way to neatly sidestep something that would add another element to a day that’s already a little weird in its newness. “Just wondering how many chemicals are in this bread.” He reaches forward to grab the bag. Rozanov huffs a laugh that almost sounds relieved, putting cheese slices on top of the tuna. “What? You are too good for American bread?” He asks, obviously a joke, as he turns away to put the tuna melts into the oven. “You listened to the news lately?” Shane asks, scanning the ingredients and letting out a breath of relief when it all looks fine. “You’ll be lucky if this hasn’t already been recalled.” He sets the bread back down and looks to the chips from the corner of his eye, wondering if he can find a way to look at- “Better check this, too, then, Mr. Food Safety Officer,” Rozanov says, obviously teasing him as he tosses him the bag of chips. Thrilled by getting exactly what he needed under the guise of a joke, he makes a show of reading over the label like he’s checking every last letter on it, and Rozanov shakes his head but smiles as he turns to put things back in the fridge. Shane confirms that the chips are safe for him and tosses them lightly back onto the counter. Maybe this can work out after all. Maybe this could even start to be their new normal, sometimes. It still feels strange, now, but it’s also new right now. Maybe he’ll feel better when he settles into it more. Maybe it could even be comfortable, one day, hanging out and wearing each other’s clothes and eating together. He’ll figure out the mango later. +1 In the safety of his cottage, where he’s always been able to set down his worries with the knowledge that none of his allergens has ever even crossed the threshold, it doesn’t seem like one of the most pressing issues they need to address with each other, not when it’s so much nicer to soak in this lazy little bubble of together and take their time talking out the more important things. Which is why it takes him a hot second to realize that the protein bar in Ilya’s hand that he’s eating while making them coffee isn’t one of his. And that the smell of peanut butter isn’t in his imagination. “Where’d you get that?” He asks, genuinely thrown. “What?” Ilya asks, glancing up. “The protein bar,” Shane clarifies, trying to think back and figure out if he missed a grocery delivery or something. And then worrying about what else Ilya might have brought into the cottage if he decided to do some shopping. Shane suddenly wonders if the “by the way, there’s food that can kill me” conversation maybe should have been a priority after all. “You want some?” Ilya asks before smiling playfully and starting to round the counter, the bar extended. Shane retreats. “What are you doing?” Ilya asks, seeming amused until he registers that Shane isn’t playing a game with him. “Shane? What’s wrong?” “Um,” he starts, trying to find an entrypoint into this conversation that has now become incredibly relevant. “Did you buy that?” “You think I stole it?” Ilya asks, tilting his head slightly. He smiles, but he looks confused, too. “No,” Shane says, shaking his head. “Did you buy, like, a pack of them?” “No?” Ilya asks, still looking like he’s a little worried that Shane has lost his mind. “I bought it at the airport. I forgot about it until this morning.” Well…at least he doesn’t have to worry about his home being invaded by peanuts. “What?” Ilya asks, still obviously trying to keep things light but obviously very confused right now. “I have missed a rule somewhere? This is not pre-approved for Hollander Standards?” “I mean,” Shane says, “it’s not a rule, but I am really allergic.” Ilya blinks. “What.” * After the peanut butter bar has been disposed of despite Shane’s insistence that Ilya should just go ahead and finish it at this point–and even taken all the way to the outside garbage, which is a gesture of overprotectiveness that’s equally annoying and endearing–Shane faces the reckoning of his apparent failure to appropriately rank what exactly needed to be prioritized during this vacation. Which is made very plain by Ilya telling him as much while brushing his teeth. “-fucking kill you, Shane, what the fuck?” Ilya asks, words muffled by the toothbrush in his mouth as he pokes his head out of the bathroom before retreating. “I mean I didn’t know you were going to smuggle peanut butter in with you,” he calls, feeling mulish. Yeah, he didn’t tell him ahead of time, but it’s not like he brought the contraband in with no warning. The look Ilya gives him when he pokes his head back out says he doesn’t appreciate the solidness of Shane’s logic. * “-coconuts, even?” Ilya asks, taking up space on the counter while Shane makes lunch because explaining felt easier when he had the excuse to not have to make eye contact. “You are lucky you have never ended up on a pillow after Svetlana has stayed over. She has coconut oil in her hair things, I am pretty sure.” Shane, not particularly in the mood to think about Svetlana and her hair products–and it does dawn on him because he feels a little petty about it that he could just suggest that maybe she doesn’t stay over at Ilya’s house anymore before dismissing it because that’s unfair and also a little crazy–just shrugs, finishing slicing up a tomato and setting it on the plate he’s already got sandwich components on. “Why would you not tell me this?” Ilya demands, not for the first time. “Shane, this is fucking dangerous, and I didn’t-” “I know it’s dangerous, Ilya,” he says, more of a snap in his voice than he means for there to be, annoyed that this has to be A Thing, annoyed that he’s in trouble now about it, annoyed that his stupid allergies are taking up time in this limited window of togetherness at all. “I’m the one who has them. I know how fucking dangerous they are.” “And yet you never told me about them,” Ilya says, and there’s a question in it that Shane only shrugs in response to. The non-response gets him Ilya hopping lightly off of the counter and coming up behind him, to wrap his arms around his chest and nuzzle at his neck. When Ilya presses himself to his back, Shane leans into it, closing his eyes briefly to savor the warm solidness of his Ilya behind him. Of his boyfriend behind him. “I could have hurt you, Shane,” he says, and Shane can hear the weight of it in his voice, how much it bothers him, “and I didn’t know. I don’t like that.” He has a brief flicker of regret about his request for honesty when it’s now just making him feel guilty. He leans back a bit, trusting more of his weight to Ilya, who takes it easily. “It didn’t come up,” he says. “I don’t tell people if I don't have to, and with us…” He shrugs slightly, careful not to dislodge Ilya wrapped around him. “I didn’t have to, and then we were here, and it just seemed like there were more important things to talk about.” “Hm,” Ilya says, kissing the hinge of his jaw, “well, in the future, I would like for the schedule to include knowing things that can kill you, if you think you can manage this.” “I’ll have to move some things around-” Shane says, twitching when it gets him Ilya’s fingers digging into his side where he’s ticklish. They’re quiet for a moment, Ilya not releasing him but also not hindering him, and Shane is starting to get to the end of chopping when Ilya speaks again. “You did not think you had to tell me,” he says. “Why? It would have been dangerous, yes, if I had eaten something bad and then kissed you? You would have needed help, and I wouldn’t have known.” “I mean, it’s pretty obvious,” Shane says, a weak attempt at a joke. “The not being able to breathe thing is kind of a big clue.” The way Ilya’s hold on him goes just a little tighter says he doesn’t find it very funny. Shane takes a breath and then lets it out. “It’s a lot,” Shane tells the bell peppers in front of him. “And it’s always going to be a lot.” He can only hope that Ilya hears the words under the words. I’m always going to be a lot. It’s going to be something I always have to think about. Please don’t think it’s a lot. Please don’t think it’s too much. Please don’t think I’m too much. “Sorry I didn’t want to give you a full medical history,” he says, because teasing is easier than wondering, than worrying, than thinking about being the kid banished to sit by himself at the allergy free table in the cafeteria because it was too much hassle to let him stay around everyone else. “You want my doctor notes, too? I can pull up my med portal if you want to do some reading.” “No need,” Ilya says, and the teasing in his tone lets Shane drop some of the tension he hadn’t noticed gathering in his shoulders. “I can perform my own examination. You will like playing nurse, I think. I will be very thorough.” “Gross,” Shane says, elbowing him. (...but also filing the idea away to think about later.) “You’re my boyfriend,” Ilya says, and Shane grins, unable to help it, wondering if the word will ever make him stop feeling stupid-happy and hoping that it doesn’t, “these are important things to know.” “We made it this far,” Shane points out, and Ilya squeezes his waist gently. “Yes, being very stupid and irresponsible,” another squeeze to his waist, “and you were being extra stupid and irresponsible.” The play-growl of the words is pressed into his skin, Ilya nuzzling at him with teasing aggression, making him scrunch to the side to try and fend him off. Ilya desists after pressing a kiss to his shoulder, resting his chin on the spot afterwards. “We are a team now, yes? Teams need to know how to look out for each other.” “Well, teammate,” Shane says, turning back enough to look at him, “you want to learn how to use an epipen?” “A what?” “Spring loaded needle you might have to stab me with if a peanut tries to take me out.” It’s probably a little mean of him to be amused by the way the idea makes Ilya look a little pale. * “Does this hurt you?” Ilya asks, after Shane has shown him where he keeps his epipens in the cottage and also pulls out the Auvi-Qs he takes on the road with him, the latter his preference but the former more easily accessible since he doesn’t have to cross the border to get them. Ilya is looking at the epipen in his hand like he’s still trying to decide if it’s a weapon or not. “A little,” he says honestly, and he sees Ilya’s expression go a little tighter. “But honestly, I probably won’t really notice. If it’s bad enough for me to need one, I’ve got bigger worries.” He hesitates over how detailed he should get when Ilya already looks upset, but if he does end up needing Ilya to do it for some reason, he needs him to not hesitate because he doesn’t want to hurt him. “When I have a reaction, my throat starts swelling up, and I can’t breathe. It’s…” He searches for a way to phrase it that will make things better and not significantly worse. “Really fucking scary. That,” he nods at the epipen, “makes it better within a few seconds. Trust me, I’ll feel way better afterwards. Don’t be scared of using it on me if you have to.” “I do not like the idea of hurting you,” Ilya says honestly before something seems to dawn on him. “Have you needed it before? After being with me?” “No,” Shane says, a little amused to see how clearly relieved Ilya is by the answer. “We never met up around mealtimes, and I wouldn’t have kissed you if you had peanut butter breath anyway.” “Yes,” Ilya says dryly, “because the fact that I am only learning now that I could have killed you many times over the years fills me with confidence about your judgement, Hollander.” Something dawns on him as something to share that might please Ilya to hear, stupid as it is and as much as he can only hope he won’t be insufferable about it later. “I didn’t get as lucky with Rose,” he offers, and Ilya looks up at him. “She tried out a new lip oil thing three weeks after we started dating that had almond oil in it. Two guesses how that ended up going for me.” “Hm,” Ilya says, indeed looking like he feels better in a way that Shane barely restrains the urge to roll his eyes at. “Was a sign to stop dating her, probably. You should have listened, Hollander. Your allergies were trying to tell you.” “Yeah, okay,” Shane says dryly. He stands up and pushes the epipen in Ilya’s hand aside enough to climb on his lap, knees fitting comfortably to either side of his hips. He rests his arms lightly on his shoulders, clasping his hands behind his neck. He feels the plastic tube of his epipen against his hip when Ilya rests his hands on either side. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” he says softly. “But now you know.” “Now I know,” Ilya repeats. “Anything else I should know so I don’t kill you by accident and then get stranded in the Canadian wilderness with a dead body?” Shane shrugs. “I mean, there’s some stuff that isn’t dangerous but will make me itchy,” he says, because he did agree to honesty. “But we also haven’t had lunch yet. Maybe we resume allergy talk after we eat?” “Hm,” Ilya says, warm and affectionate. “So demanding.” Shane climbs off of him after a kiss, collecting his epipens to put back in their place and sending Ilya to put his Auvi-Qs back in his travel bag in the bedroom to make sure he’ll know where they’ll be just in case. * They don’t end up talking more about allergies after lunch, as it turns out, not with more important things popping up like the need to put on swim trunks and take turns dunking each other in the lake and then playfighting each other onto the patio sofa until Ilya is on top of him for a long session of making out and grinding against each other until their busy afternoon requires another dunk in the lake for rinsing their trunks out. Shane digs out a couple of floating loungers from the little chest on his dock and they race to see who can blow theirs up first, the competition fierce and also full of cheating as they try to knock each other into the lake. Ilya technically gets his blown up first, but Shane snatches it from him and flings it into the water before he manages to close the tube up, requiring him to jump in after it to fish it back out before it deflates and sinks, which is its own form of victory. Shane takes his retributory dunking with grace–meaning he grabs Ilya by the hair and brings him down with him but then releases him with no further violence–and then they both climb onto the loungers, secured to the dock by a rope. After a few minutes, Ilya reaches out for him, and Shane takes his hand in his own, their clasped hands dangling in the cool water between them as they float. Shane, eyes closed, thinks of a nature documentary he watched years ago with his dad, about how otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t float away from each other. Eyes closed, he smiles, enjoying playing otters. * Two nights later, his mom and dad are over for dinner. They’d planned on steaks, but the brand of seasoning he’s bought for years decided to betray him suddenly and gained a brand new “May contain traces of tree nuts” label that Ilya, with his newfound intensity about reading all food labels, was the one to find, something that Shane is pretty sure has won his parents over completely at this point. By then, the steaks had already been seasoned, and despite Shane’s protests that he could find something else, his dad had offered to drive to the grocery store to buy him a new one, cosigned by his mom, who stayed behind to, as she playfully put it, “supervise.” What she’s currently “supervising” is him and Ilya sharing the loveseat on the patio and a beer while she has a glass of wine, but she seems content, so he doesn’t comment. They share a bowl of chips and dip–Shane rolling his eyes but also strangely pleased about Ilya insisting on reading the labels on both first before solemnly declaring them “Safe for Shanes”–and talk about nothing much in particular until his mom looks down at her phone when she gets a text. “Apparently the watermelons look really good, so your dad is getting one,” she says, typing back a response before glancing up. “Anything else you need him to get?” “No,” Shane says. “I think we’re good.” And what a thrill, still, to be a “we,” to answer as part of a unit. He wonders if it’ll ever stop feeling so good. He hopes it doesn’t. “Oh, wait,” Ilya says, resting his fingertips lightly on Shane’s knee as he remembers something, “you should ask him to buy you some mangoes.” Shane freezes when he feels his mom’s attention snap to him sharply, feeling like a very slow mouse in front of a very fast cat. “Mangoes?” His mom says, her tone dangerously light. “Yes,” Ilya says warmly, clearly pleased with himself at getting to offer up this tidbit of how well he knows Shane. Shane desperately begs him in his mind to shut the fuck up. “He loves mangoes. He eats them all the time.” There’s a note to Ilya’s voice meant just for him to pick up on, a little tease about the normal circumstances he eats these mangoes under. “Shane!” The note in his mom’s voice is not nearly as playful. Or as subtle. He sinks down more in the cushion as he sees Ilya realize there’s something he’s missing here and wishes desperately that he’d gone with his dad to get the stupid fucking steak. * “-your son eating mangoes all season,” his mom tells his dad as soon as he’s back. Because apparently Shane is surrounded by fucking rats. “Only sometimes, Jesus,” Shane complains. “Shane,” his dad chides, gentler than his mom but somehow even more impactful because of it. “You know better.” “Yes, Shane,” Ilya adds in, very obviously not pleased with him, either, probably in no small part due to the fact that he was accidentally Shane’s bad decision dealer for literal years. “You know better. Apparently.” Shane tenderizes his new steak with maybe a little more force than the task requires out of frustration. It only makes him feel marginally better. * He’s at least mostly back in Ilya’s good graces by the time they go to bed that night, primarily due to a good dinner followed by a board game that Ilya had actually seemed really into, undaunted by fierce competition from Shane and his mom as all three of them battled for possession of the longest railroad card. The game had ended in a tie between him and his mom, and his dad had playfully suggested arm wrestling for it, his mom immediately tapping Ilya in as her champion. Evenly matched as they are, the deciding factor had been his own mother betraying him and contributing to shoving his arm down by putting her whole weight into the effort with Ilya. She and Ilya had won. Not that it matters. (Which Shane had been reminded of enough times to make sure it sunk in how much it matters.) “So I did make you sick,” Ilya observes when they’ve both finished brushing their teeth and climbed into bed. Shane barely resists the urge to wince as he reaches to turn the bedside lamp off. “I mean, technically-” Shane starts, but the look on Ilya’s face says he’s not especially interested in playing technicalities with him. “A little bit, sometimes,” he says, “but only when I actually ate it, so really it’s my fault, not yours.” “But you still let me give you something that makes you sick,” Ilya insists, even as they both settle down on their sides to face each other. “Over and over and over for years, Shane. What the fuck?” “It…” Shane sighs, trying to even figure out how to put it in words in his own head, finally having to admit to something he’s carefully not let himself think about for those same years. “It was nice,” he admits, “having something that was ours, you know? Our thing.” “‘Our thing’?” Ilya repeats, clearly doubtful. Shane looks away from his eyes, picking at a piece of lint on the sheets between them. “It’s like…I knew you weren’t doing it with anyone else,” he says, feeling stupid and needy even as he says it, the very reason he didn’t want to think about this for so long. “It’s a really specific thing, so I knew you weren’t doing it with anyone else. It was just my thing, you know? Something only I got.” It sounds even worse out loud, playing around with potentially getting sick just because getting the mango in the first place meant tangible evidence of something between them that meant Shane wasn’t just a warm body on the roster. Even when he knew better than to want that, he’d liked it, deep down, this little ritual between them, this little piece of tangible evidence that Rozanov was fucking him, Shane Hollander, not just any anonymous hockey player he could have ended up in a locker room with. He looks up at the pressure of gentle fingers pushing at his chin until he obeys. Ilya’s face is warm, sweet in a way Shane is only just now getting accustomed to seeing outside of the context of a half-lit bed. “You have never been just anyone else to me,” he says. “Since the beginning, probably.” Shane smiles, feeling a little shy under the confession, pleased enough to move across the space between them and curl up close, the way they sleep every single night now. Ilya accepts him easily, wrapping him up in his arms and kissing the top of his head before settling in turn. “But,” Ilya says, “no more, yes? No more sex mangoes.” Shane is quiet for what is probably just a moment too long, wondering if he should go ahead and differentiate between sex mangoes and End of Season Celebratory Bad Choice Mangoes. He has the sneaking suspicion Ilya isn’t going to be too pleased by the distinction. “Shane?” Ilya prompts, sounding a little less indulgent now. “No more mangoes, yes?” “No more sex mangoes,” he agrees, which is something he can promise. It’s not a good idea during the season, after all, so it’s not a bad idea to have the temptation off the table now. …his annual Mango Time on the other hand… “Shane,” Ilya presses. “No more mangoes. Bad for you. No more.” “No more mangoes all summer,” Shane answers. “Shane,” Ilya says, very clearly picking up on what is and isn’t being promised in the statement. Shane fakes a snore and only grins when it gets him a disciplinary pillow to the face.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary Boyfriend, Fiance, Husband: A Love Story Told In Three Mango Times

Chapter Notes

HI HELLO AM BACK AGAIN if you follow me on tumblr, you already read a chunk of this, but this story set me up PERFECTLY to finally have a place on ao3 to publish this, so i tweaked it and also added about 1.4k of delightful bad choices original ask that prompted this Shane is very much looking forward to spending time at the cottage with Ilya this summer, an entire, unbelievable month together before Ilya has to leave and finish the process of moving his life up to Ottawa. Shane’s always taken satisfaction in the process of opening his cottage up each summer, but there’s an extra thrill to it this year, knowing that he’s getting everything set up for another person to share it with him. He’d even foregone hiring the service his parents usually use in order to do it himself, feeling a strange kind of pride about it, being able to create this space for him and Ilya to live in. It’s probably ridiculous, but he’d even facetimed Ilya when it was all done to take him around the space and show him how ready it all was. Ilya had teased him, of course, but he’d also complimented him. (And also then done phonesex with him, but that’s a side detail.) He’s happy Ilya’s so obviously looking forward to spending time here again, and not even just because long distance has meant that even stolen weekends to spend time together didn’t happen nearly as frequently as they both wanted them to. It feels like a victory, somehow, creating a place that Ilya wants to return to, a place where they can be lazy and happy and safe together. There’s just one little hiccup in their mutual anticipation for summer: Mango Time. Specifically how much Ilya is determined to be annoying about it even though Shane carefully arranged this year’s event to fit in with Ilya coming to join him, a consideration that Ilya does not seem particularly appreciative of. “-ving yourself a fucking allergic reaction on purpose, Shane,” he says now, as Shane makes a a face at his empty kitchen in the cottage. (...and at the pile of mangoes on the counter in that kitchen, all carefully arranged by order of expected ripeness to ensure he’ll have the best mangoes every single day without having to sort through them, minimizing how much contact he’ll have to have with them even while wearing gloves for protection, a caution that no one else in his life seems to appreciate.) “It’s barely a reaction,” he points out, kind of wishing this conversation would hurry up so he could go ahead and get started on his mangoes. He’d purchased them firm enough to soften while he opened the cottage up and gotten the immediate yard around it cleared out and filled it with enough groceries that they’d only need fresh produce for the rest of summer. “So I’m a little itchy. It’s fine.” “It is not fine,” Ilya insists. “Allergies can get worse with repeated exposure, Shane. I know you know this.” “Then I have my mangoes with a side of epipen,” Shane teases. “Not funny,” Ilya says flatly, in a way that tells Shane his boyfriend’s memory of watching him have to use his Auvi-Q on himself after an accidental exposure kiss a few months ago is still fresh. Ilya had insisted on going to the hospital with him and waiting until he was cleared to leave, and Shane knows he’s beaten himself up over it since, ridiculously guilty when there’s no way he could have expected a cafe to randomly start using almond flour in the streusel topping of their muffins, especially without updating their allergen warnings about it. It had taken three days–Shane electing to spend his med leave in Boston since he wasn’t going to be able to be on the ice anyway–before he could get Ilya to kiss him on the mouth again, and even with that victory, he knows Ilya hasn’t forgotten it. But that also doesn’t mean Shane is about to stop having his annual bad choice celebration. “I’m careful all fucking year,” Shane says, knowing it’s not a great excuse but also knowing it’s the only one he has to offer. “This is my one thing, you know? When I get to just do something because I want to do it.” “Even though it’s bad for you?” Ilya asks dryly. “You want to get into smoking statistics or…?” Shane drawls, getting a middle finger briefly filling up the screen from Ilya. “I already planned it. You get here next Thursday, so I need to stop eating them by Tuesday, so that gives me ten days of Mango Time.” “You are doing Mango Math now?” Ilya asks, seeming amused against his will by the idea. “Should I feel flattered I am important enough to give up mangoes for?” “I mean, not very sexy to be itchy and covered in hives,” Shane admits. He’s gotten more comfortable with Ilya knowing about his allergies over the year they’ve been together, but he has been relieved that none of the more “gross” aspects have been a factor yet. Dumb as he knows it probably is, he doesn’t like it, the idea of Ilya looking at him and seeing something he doesn’t like. “Hm,” Ilya hums consideringly. “You would still be sexy, I think. I have faith in you.” “Charmer,” Shane says with a smile, not being able to help the quick glance he gives his mangoes. As glad as he is to talk with Ilya always, it’s only been a day since he last spoke to him. It’s been a year since he’s had his last mango. “Shane, are you ignoring me so you can stare at the fucking mangoes?” Ilya demands. “No,” Shane lies at once, but the look Ilya gives him says it’s about as convincing as his active attempts at lying ever are. “Fine,” Ilya sighs. “Hang up on me and go make love to your Mango Mistress.” “I mean it’s not just one,” Shane points out, just to be annoying. “I’m about to have a mango orgy.” “Oh, but I am not allowed to suggest we have threesomes?” Ilya demands. “You can have your fruit harem, but we can’t even agree on letting Idris Elba into our bed if the opportunity happens?” “Hey,” Shane protests. “I agreed to Han Solo. You were the one who said no on that one.” “Yes,” Ilya says dryly, “I am not agreeing to a threesome with a person who does not exist. Clearly I am the problem here.” Ilya sighs and rolls his eyes. “Okay, I will let you go make your bad choices now.” “I mean, I don’t need your permission,” Shane says, just as dryly. “But thanks anyway.” “Just don’t die over the fucking mangoes, okay?” Ilya asks, and beneath the humor, Shane can hear the actual worry. “If it starts to feel like a new reaction, or-” “Ilya,” Shane says gently. “I know my allergies.” He doesn’t expand further on what’s sometimes been a point of contention between them, Ilya’s desire to keep him safe and Shane’s resistance to being managed. It’s something they’re still working on, and Shane can’t hold it against him too much when he knows it’s out of love. He just also can’t have it threatening the sanctity of Mango Time. “Just text me later so I know you are not dead from being stupid, yes?” Ilya asks, and Shane nods. “I will. I love you.” “Are you saying that to me or to the fucking mangoes you’re looking at instead of me again?” Shane grins. * Ilya needing to finish up end of season things in Ottawa as captain–a process Shane no longer has to participate in, which is why Ilya had gently suggested he not stick around for them– means that Shane is opening up his cottage for the year alone again. The routine is a nice touchpoint of normalcy when it feels like everything else is crumbling around him is something, at least, but it doesn’t carry quite the sense of relief it usually does for him, not when he knows this is probably the last predictable thing he’s going to get to have for a while. Having his entire life implode around him has meant a variety of changes and plans and contingencies and conversations and contracts and discussions, his old life taken away and a new one shoved at him. Even though he knows objectively–and has been told by well- meaning people who love him and thus keep saying it to him even when he wishes they wouldn’t–that there’s the chance for better things ahead, that doesn’t change the fact that gaining those things means losing the ones he already had, the life that was comfortable and predictable and familiar. Tying up his life in Montreal and getting ready to start a new one in Ottawa has been one novelty after another, and even if he knows it might feel okay one day, it doesn’t always feel okay right now. It has also meant reducing this year’s Mango Time to only one week to fit within all of his other obligations. Naturally, because apparently it’s the theme of the entire fucking year, it also has to go badly. He had allotted himself three mangoes for the first day, but he’d ended up going through six in his increasing desperation to just find one fucking good one in the entire pile he’d purchased at the grocery store. He hadn’t succeeded. By the time Ilya calls, Shane’s mood has plummeted sharply in a way he knows shouldn’t be hitting him so hard. And yet. “Hello, Mango Maniac,” Ilya says with fond resignation as soon as the call connects. “How badly-what’s wrong?” His levity drops in an instant. “Shane, what happened? What's wrong?” Shane wonders if it's worse to answer and tell him the humiliating truth or just hang up. Knowing the latter would likely have Ilya on his doorstep within an hour, though, team obligations be damned, he answers, voice absurdly tight for such a stupid thing. “My mangoes all sucked.” Ilya blinks. “I tried, like, six,” Shane says, feeling stupid and weak and ridiculous. (And itchy.) “And they were…not good?” Ilya says carefully, obviously a little thrown by what’s happening, which Shane can’t blame him for. He knows it’s beyond ridiculous, being upset because the mangoes were all stringy or bitter or astringent, but- “It's not fair,” he says, scrubbing his arm over his eyes, hating himself and mangoes and allergies all together in a blend of hurt and humiliation at being so hurt over something so fucking stupid. “I already feel like shit, and it’s just going to get worse, and it was for nothing.” As soon as he says it, he's aware it's not just something that applies to this year's shitty inaugural session of Mango Time. But at this stage of things, being upset about mangoes is easier than being upset about Montreal. “I can't have fucking anything,” he says, scrubbing his arm over his eyes, knowing he sounds petulant and stupid but unable to help it, knocked down in this last little cosmic fuck you, offering him all of the price and none of the pleasure of his singular fucking vice. He eats clean. He trains hard. He follows the rules. He does everything right. And he can’t even have the one fucking thing he lets himself indulge in knowing it’s not good for him. It’s just not fucking fair. “Everyone else gets to eat whatever the fuck they want all the fucking time, and I have to read every goddamn label and menu and ask every waitress and check every ingredient and be so goddamn careful all the goddamn time and never slip up because I could fucking die and-” He cuts himself off, looking away, like that’ll mean that Ilya doesn’t notice that he’s being a fucking basket case right now. “And I can’t even have a good mango,” he finishes miserably, voice small. “I’m sorry you had bad mangoes, malysh,” Ilya says, and the sincere sympathy in his voice just makes him feel even worse. Shane tucks himself down a little firmer on the couch under the throw blanket he’s under, primarily as a guard against him itching the way he wants to. A price he’s paying for something he didn’t even fucking enjoy. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it’s stupid to-” “Is stupid to eat something you are allergic to, yes,” Ilya interrupts. “But is okay to be upset, Shane. You do not have to apologize for this.” “Okay, Galina,” Shane scoffs, but Ilya doesn’t take offense. “Hey,” Ilya protests, faux-offended. “She is very smart person, and I listen to very smart people.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Just like other people could listen to smart people like, oh, I don’t know, their fucking allergist-” Shane makes a face, but he does feel a little better, just having Ilya in front of him, even if only on a screen. If he can’t have good mangoes, at least he can have a good fiance. * By the end of their first year on the Centaurs together, his and Ilya’s sex life has gotten sparse enough that when Shane is playfully told to close his eyes and hold out his hand after collapsing on the couch after coming home from end of season PT for his bad shoulder, he's expecting to feel the weight of his husband’s cock or a new dildo in his palm. It wouldn't be unwelcome, honestly. He’s already been making a list of everything he’d like to catch up on that he’s thought about but not had the energy to explore in the bedroom. Instead, though, what lands in his hand is…tupperware? He opens his eyes before he's told to. “What’s this?” He asks, tilting the container up and then frowning when he realizes what’s in it, even more confused. “You're enabling my mango habit with pre-sliced mangoes?” He asks, suspicious, frankly, at this gesture from the president of the Jesus Fuck Shane Stop Eating The Fucking Mangoes Club. “What happened to no more sex mangoes ever?” “I am enabling you with the best mangoes,” Ilya corrects, dropping down next to him and looking distinctly pleased with himself. “You still should just stop eating the fucking mangoes,” a look, “but if you are going to keep making bad choices, it should at least be worth it. So: the best mangoes.” “The best mangoes, huh? Promise?” Shane asks, both touched and amused at the grandness of the declaration. “What, did you hire a mango witch?” “Would have been easier,” Ilya says wryly. “Then I could have not eaten so fucking many. I don't know why you-” “You were eating them?” Shane asks, thrown, as he pops the top on the container, mouth watering immediately at the sweet, juicy, floral scent that wafts up to him, feeling hunger so intense it feels almost like arousal. “Yes,” Ilya says. “For the first day of the world's most stupid annual event-” Shane kicks him. “-here are the best mangoes Ottawa has to offer. I bought five from five stores, and these are the winners of all 25 in celebration of the first day of Shane's Stupid Mango Time Cel-” “You bought 25 mangoes?” Shane asks, incredulous. “You-wait, you also ate 25 mangoes?” “After peeling them–which was the worst part, why do you have to love such a stupid fruit, huh?–I ate a piece from every single one, and these are the best. The others-” He doesn't get to finish the sentence. Not when Shane carefully puts the bowl of mangoes down on the coffee table, straddles his husband, and pulls him into a kiss so filthy it couldn't be aired on television were someone filming them. When he pulls back, it’s only far enough to rest their foreheads together. If his eyes are a little wet, Ilya doesn’t mention it, instead thumbing affectionately at the apple of his cheek. “You got me the best mangoes?” Shane asks, voice a little rough. “I would still prefer if you would just have healthy bad habits like normal people, like maybe getting addicted to cocaine-” Shane snorts. “-but this is what you like, and I know you wait all year for it.” He brushes Shane's hair back, stroking over his cheek before resting his hand along his jaw. “And last year was bad. So this year I am making it good. So you can have a good Mango Time.” “Ya tebya lyublyu,” Shane says, kissing him again, once, twice, three times. “I love you, too,” Ilya says affectionately, ruining a bit of the sweetness of the moment with an appreciative squeeze of Shane’s ass before he nudges him off. “Now eat your stupid choices so both of us suffering can be worth it. Commence Shane Hollander’s Very Stupid And Bad Mango Time.” Shane graciously ignores the slander of his holiday and climbs off of his husband to sit on the couch again. He reclaims the bowl and picks out the smallest piece of mango he can find from the beautiful morsels on offer, moaning without meaning to when he chews. Jesus fuck. It is a fucking excellent mango. Ilya's look of pleased amusement at his reaction fades slightly into hunger of his own when Shane slides off the couch to his knees and reaches for Ilya's belt buckle, swallowing his bite of perfect mango and licking his lips as he lowers his husband's fly. After all, sweet always tastes better with a little salty to go with it. (And if he pauses mid-blowjob for another bite of mango, well.) (Ilya already signed the marriage certificate and can’t follow through on his threats to leave him.) (Sucker.)

End Notes

i am truly just out here these days doing whatever the fuck i want, huh (also how did feelings get in the sex mango smut fic, the hell??) Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!