at some point perhaps we must all title a fic after cailin russo bad things.

not tlg-compliant, but it's showfic anyway. shoutout 2014 vegas ilya's french cuffs for making me go insane about cufflinks & shoutout hockeyfinches for suggesting they shouldn't even be married(!)

Ilya's still on the same glass of vodka from the beginning of the night, making his way around the ballroom. He's said hello to the big donors, shaken hands and laughed on cue and nodded at their wives. He's caught up with Hammersmith (in Seattle now), said congratulations to Hunter (retired, husband on one arm), and traded gossip with the Russians in the Eastern Conference about the Russians in the West. He's crunched through petits fours, delicate little things, and licked the crumbs off his fingers, and he hasn't talked to Shane at all.

Oh, he's looked. Shane has broad shoulders and a trim waist and lovely thighs, all of which his tux is showcasing very nicely. His ass looks spectacular. This afternoon before Shane left to get dressed he said, "Can we try something?" eyes sliding sideways, and then bit his fucking lip.

So: Ilya is being good. He is waiting. He's making small talk with some guy who wants to invest in women's hockey, and he's keeping to the other side of the room from Shane, just like he promised.

Another hour passes before the crowd visibly thins. Marley tips past affectionate-drunk into maudlin-drunk, which is when Ilya wrestles him into a cab. Yuna Hollander finally retires, giving Ilya a little kiss on the cheek, and strips her shoes off as she goes.

Shane detaches himself from his serious conversation and drifts to the bar with a fleeting glance at Ilya and Ilya knows: now.

Ilya waits. He's good at it now. He sets his glass down on a table and his gaze somewhere into the distance and waits for Shane.

Only a moment before a glass of water slides onto the table, and there he is: Shane, the familiar bulk of him, slotting into place by Ilya's elbow.

It's a big ballroom, but the temperature had risen as the night went on. All those bodies. Shane's jacket is on his arm. There's a gleam of sweat at his temple, slicking down little strands of hair, and the bow of his tie is limp, askew.

"Hi," Ilya says. The fondness ballooning in his chest steals the rest of his words. Shane looks purposeful as he sets his elbow onto the table and drinks, wearing his faceoff face. Ilya doesn't know yet whether he's meant to lose.

Then he catches the gleam at Shane's wrist and thinks, fuck.

Shane has, conservatively, a thousand pairs of cufflinks. So many brand deals. Armani. Custom ones from Rolex. A pair from Reebok, surprisingly restrained. Ilya's had occasion to catalogue them over the years while he peeled Shane out of his shirt. Two years ago, in Vegas, the clink of metal between his teeth. Last year, when he'd dropped them on the carpet and then shamelessly ogled Shane's ass while he retrieved them from beneath the couch.

Shane's not wearing any of them now. He raises his hand to tip the last of the water down his throat and Ilya's eyes stay fixed on the square of metal pinned through the cuff. Onyx, Connors had said when they gave him the box, onyx and gold, tasteful. Once a Raider, always a Raider, Roz.

Shane has been planning this, Ilya thinks. Shane had stolen them, and brought them here, waited all night to bait his trap, and here is Ilya, ready to bite. He wants to touch; he wants to be caught.

"Very nice," Ilya says, nodding toward Shane's wrist. His mouth's gone dry. He finishes his vodka.

"Thanks," Shane says, flicking his eyes down. Back up, slow like syrup. "They're my husband's."

Shane looks, briefly, startled, a spreading flush over his cheeks. My husband's, then the jerky bob of his throat. Ilya can pinpoint the moment the blood rushes from his ears to his dick. Fucking Christ. Ilya is going to eat him alive.

"Your husband," Ilya says. "He is here with you?"

Shane's shoulders straighten, sure now that the pass is caught. "No," he says, body only halfway turned toward Ilya. Hesitant, shy, like Ilya hasn't seen him lick his own come off his floors. "He couldn't make it."

"Ah," Ilya says. There's a server passing by with flutes of champagne. Ilya plucks two off the tray and offers one to Shane, smiling. "Nobody to keep you company, then?"

Shane's fingers are cautious when he reaches for the flute. Ilya doesn't let go. Like this they really could be strangers, two boys with desire filling their mouths. Ilya had wanted, then, Shane Hollander's mouth, the tension of those thighs beneath him. He could never have dreamed how much more there was to have.

"He's very busy," Shane says hoarsely. Ilya waits a moment longer before he lets Shane take the champagne. "It's not a problem."

"Hmm," Ilya says, and lifts his own flute to his lips. Watches Shane watch him swallow. "So he is nice to you, this husband?"

Shane licks his lip. "Yes?"

"That is a question."

"I mean, yeah, yes, he's nice."

Ilya leans in closer, until he can smell the remnants of Shane's cologne. "And handsome?"

"Of course."

"As handsome as me?"

"Yes," Shane says, and then visibly decides that's the wrong play. "I mean—"

"No?" Closer, still, until he's nearly kissing Shane's ear. "He's not?"

"He's just—" Shane shakes his head, a fractional brush against Ilya's cheek. "He's nice," he says again.

"Well," Ilya says, and steps back. "It's a shame, then, that you have such a nice husband to take care of you." He runs his gaze down Shane's form, showy, until he reaches the crotch of the pants. Lets his eyes linger on the growing bulge of Shane's dick. "I will think of you, maybe, when I get home."

"You're leaving?"

Ilya blinks, innocent. "What can I do? No one to keep me company." He finishes the champagne off; Shane's flute is still untouched. "Good night, Shane Hollander."

He heads for the coatroom and feels Shane watching him the whole time, a hot prickle at the back of his neck.

Ilya loiters.

His first Christmas in Ottawa, Yuna got him a coat. "Mom, it's not even— Russian Christmas is later," Shane had said, embarrassed, and Yuna had said, "But he's coming from Boston, he needs a good winter coat!"

"Mom, he's from Moscow."

"No, it's good," Ilya had said, examining the tag. "This is Canadian? I will need this for citizenship, I think."

Shane has the same one. It had amused Ilya, thinking of Yuna buying a coat for Shane as he finished growing into his body, and then, a decade later: the same color, the same shape. But on Shane's the smell of him is strong in the wool of the collar, his cologne and his sweat. Ilya pulls it around him and sinks his nose into it, breathing deep.

The door to the coatroom opens. "Oh. Hi."

Shane closes the door behind him. Somewhere between the ballroom and now he's tugged the bow of his tie loose entirely. In the dim light the hollow of his throat is mostly shadow, and still Ilya could map the dip of it blind.

"Heading out?"

Shane comes closer. "It's late." He's looking at Ilya's mouth, nakedly obvious. He trails a hand along the rack, the cufflink still pinned to his wrist. "I was just gonna. Get my coat."

"I see it," Ilya says, lifting up a hanger. "This is it, yes?"

"Yeah," Shane breathes, reaching out for it, and Ilya steps back and shakes his head.

"No, let me." He slides the coat off the hanger and spreads it open. "You stay and I'll put it on you, okay?"

Shane blinks, slow. Touches the point of his tongue to his bottom lip. "Sure. Okay." God, the parted-open curve of his mouth. Maybe he wants to play a virgin tonight—but no, the husband. Unless—

Ilya controls himself. When he opens his eyes Shane has turned around, arms held loose in invitation. Sweetheart, he nearly says, bites it back hard, and goes to slide on one sleeve and then the other. He has to take his time. He's settling the coat onto Shane's shoulders, letting his hands linger, trying to will his mouth into just the right shape.

Lightly, lightly: "Nice coat." He nearly sounds idle. One hand on Shane's back, sliding down and down. "Is this your husband's, too?"

He can tell the exact moment Shane realizes the coat is Ilya's: his body goes entirely still. "He likes giving me things."

"Mm." One final touch, brushing imaginary lint off Shane's shoulder. It takes enormous effort to step back and circle back around to Shane's front. Now he's between Shane and the door, and Shane's eyes are following, hungry. "Not everything, I think."

Shane sways forward, his chin tipped up for a kiss. Ilya's not even sure he's aware he's doing it. "I don't— I don't need anything else?"

"Don't you?" The moment stretches. Ilya savors it like the first deep drag of a cigarette, leaning slowly in. When Shane blinks the shadow sweeps over his freckles, barely visible. Ilya's heart swells. It's so easy to bring up his thumb and swipe it across Shane's cheekbone.

Shane makes a sound. Ilya swallows it whole, tongue between Shane's teeth, prying Shane's jaw open. Long and wet, parting open the flap of the coat so he can put his hands on Shane's hips and bully him backwards. They stagger into another rack, hangers jangling, reorient until Ilya has Shane pinned against a wall.

"I could turn you around and fuck you right here," Ilya murmurs, shoving a knee between Shane's thighs. His hips jerk up. "You need it. You'd let me."

"I don't— fuck—"

"You do," Ilya says, soft and tender in his mouth, "you need it so much." Shane's grinding down hard against Ilya's thigh, panting against his jaw. "So it's too bad, isn't it?"

Hoarsely: "What is?"

Ilya draws the word out. "Your husband."

Shane shudders; his hand comes up between them, clenching and unclenching against Ilya's chest. "My husband," he echoes, "right, we can't," trailing off when Ilya squeezes at his ass. He might have prepped, Ilya thinks, a sharp sudden jolt. Shane with two fingers inside him, slicking himself up, before he put on his briefs and his shirt and Ilya's fucking cufflinks.

He can't check. Ilya bites the inside of his cheek until his lungs restart. "Where do you live," he says. "Big house? Big bed?" He can spread Shane out, those sheets he likes— "Is that where he fucks you?"

Shane presses his forehead into Ilya's shoulder. For a moment he thinks Shane's about to slide to his knees. Stupid of him, really. Shane knows every single one of Ilya's weak points.

"He doesn't," Shane says. "He hasn't."

Shane's apartment is ten minutes away. It might as well be on the moon. Ilya manages, somehow, "I'm at the Sheraton." Or maybe he doesn't. It doesn't matter; Shane already knows.

It's freezing out, snowflakes stinging at exposed skin, but the hotel's right around the corner. Ilya should have been more suspicious when Shane said, "Maybe you should get a room anyway, just in case." Just in case what: someone broke into Shane's lovely locked-up apartment while Ilya was fucking into him in long leisurely strokes, or kissing his way down the notches of Shane's spine; or asked, Roz, where're you staying, and Ilya said, in a fit of insanity, With Shane, Shane Hollander, beautiful backhand and beautiful mouth, little pinched line between his brows and teeth worrying at his bottom lip, boyfriend, darling, my entire goddamn heart, Shane.

Just in case this: Shane stumbling through the glass doors with Ilya's toque jammed on his head, snow whirling in wild behind them, the glittering overhead lights picking out the high flush over Shane's face and Ilya's about to die, maybe, shoulder to shoulder with Shane watching the elevator tick down. Surely no one could blame him if he broke. Shane shoved back against the call button panel, Ilya's teeth dragging along the buried line of Shane's jaw, a full fucking feast of Shane when he's half-wild and all-starving. His fingers twitch. His tongue throbs tender between his teeth. His dick—

The doors open. They fall inside, graceless, a hasty jab at the right floor. Ilya crowds Shane into a corner, slips the buttons of his coat free one by one as the elevator shudders upward. "You don't even know," he says, "he doesn't deserve you, what a fucking waste—"

"Ilya. Ilya." Shane's eyes, uncomprehending. Ilya wrenches himself back into English, his nose at Shane's collar, sucking on the thundering skid of his pulse.

"I'm going to take you apart," he promises, "I'll show you— You could have married me, sweetheart. You could have had this the whole time."

Shane makes a wounded noise. The doors chime again. Ilya swears, stumbles out, hands to himself. He's at the end of the hallway, fishing out the keycard from his wallet, waiting out the interminable moment before the lock beeps, but then he's inside and Shane's tumbling in behind, kicking off his shoes and reaching for Ilya.

Shane. Shane's mouth smeared against Ilya's own, hands greedy at Ilya's waist, the grind of his dick where Ilya is straining against the fly. Ilya drinks him in, the breaths coming hot on the exhale and the fading trace of his cologne, dizzied, drunk. He yanks at the lapels of the coat and Shane lets him, unseating the bulk of it from his shoulders, tugging his hands free—

Ilya catches the coat by the collar before it can fall. His voice sounds like gravel when he says, "Is that how you treat the things your husband gives you?"

"Fuck," Shane says, cracked, "fuck, fuck, fuck—"

Ilya hangs it up. Three Ottawa winters, now. The lining's still warm from Shane's body. He shrugs Shane's coat off his own shoulders and hangs that up, too, a neat matching set. When he turns around Shane's stripped down to his shirt, waiting for Ilya to take his wrists, dreamlike, and unfasten the cuffs. Warm metal cupped in the hollow of his palm; Shane, shuddering, caught. Ilya nearly can't look at him. His ribcage is caving in with a great ravening hunger.

He pockets the cufflinks. There's the bed; here's Shane. Palm to sternum. Shane goes, falling back onto the sheets. "I told you, didn't I?" Ilya's still wearing too many fucking clothes. Jacket and vest, tie coming undone with a jerk, tiny stupid buttons marching down his front. "I knew when I saw you. How much you need it."

There's a damp patch on Shane's briefs, obvious in the lamplight. His eyes are watching Ilya undo his fly. "You knew," Shane agrees, a low rasp of a sound. "I need you."

That's not what Ilya said. His hands stutter halfway down the zip. "Shane."

"I." A fluttering twitch of Shane's mouth. He must know what he's doing to Ilya. "I don't have a condom."

Neither does Ilya; why would he. "Oh?"

"But I thought." Shane Hollander, generational playmaker, cheats at the dot, plays to win. "If you were my husband—you wouldn't."

Ilya doesn't know what noise he makes. He's on the bed pressing Shane down, tongue snagging on the chipped edge of Shane's canine, driving in deeper, deeper. He shoves down Shane's briefs. Perfect cock cradled in Ilya's hand, thighs parting even further, inarticulate sounds wrung out of him in long delirious gasps. Want hooked clean through Ilya's belly. "If you were mine," Ilya bites out, "I'd have you just like this," and Shane says, "Yeah, yeah," rolls his hips up—

Shane did prep. Ilya's fingers skate over the slippery rim of his hole and push in. Yielding, soft. Shane's always been like this. An outstretched hand; an open mouth. Cracked wide for Ilya, asking him to take.

Ilya takes it. Fishing his dick out, tight grip at the base, into the hot clutch of Shane's body trying not to fucking come. Shane's eyes are dark and shocked like it really is the first time all over again. "Made for it," Ilya says, wild, "and you didn't even know. You'll remember now, won't you? You'll remember who gave it to you." Shane's rising up to match the snap of his hips; there's sweat on his upper lip Ilya kisses off clean. "God. If I could keep you."

"You could," Shane says. "You can. I'd let you."

Ilya was never going to last. His orgasm is unspooling from his spine, a liquid burn cresting from his throat down through the soles of his feet. He buries his face in the crook of Shane's shoulder and bites; feels him convulse. Feels him come, dick jerking, hot and sticky into the space between them. How did he get so lucky. How did he get so fucking lucky.

"I love you," Ilya says. It's not the game but it's true. "Shane. Shane."

Shane holds him. Steady hands, steady heart. "Yeah," he says. "I know. You're mine, too."

It's embarrassing how much Ilya likes seeing his come slip out of Shane. There's a trickle on the back of Shane's thigh he licks off, before he wipes away the rest with the towel. Then Shane's front, the plane of his abs flexing under Ilya's hand, his thighs, the softened mass of his dick.

He drops the dirty towel on the floor and flops back onto the pillows. "So. Tell me about your rich husband."

"Oh my god," Shane says, and throws an arm over his eyes. "I don't know why I said that."

"He is so nice to you, and handsome, and he gives you all these gifts." Ilya pretends to think. "Maybe old, though, because his dick doesn't work—"

Shane shoves his fingers into Ilya's mouth. Ilya grins and bites them, until Shane rolls over to sit on him. "You're so," Shane says. Doesn't finish. "Obviously I wouldn't— if I knew you."

"You do know me."

"Shut up, I'm just saying. You're like, it for me, you know? I couldn't marry anyone else."

Obviously. Obviously. Ilya's mouth has gone numb anyway. He says, very carefully, "Are you asking—?"

"I'm." Shane wrinkles his nose. Blows out a breath. "I mean. I think?"

"Shane Hollander," Ilya says, helpless. "This is a terrible proposal."

"I know! I know." Shane frowns, the face he makes when he's reviewing tape. "I guess we should talk about it first, I know this isn't like, the plan—"

"Yes."

"—and you don't have to say if you— What?"

"I will have to win more cups," Ilya says, thoughtful. "See, my husband, he likes expensive gifts—"

"Ilya—"

"—and he will leave me if I don't fuck him just the way he likes, which is hard, and always—"

Shane's laughing. "Oh my god, you fucking asshole—"

"—so it will be tough, you know?" Ilya grins up at Shane's crinkled eyes, the delicate corner of his mouth pulling up. "But I love him, so. It's worth it."

Shane's twining his fingers with Ilya's, holding tight; Shane's kissing him breathless, senseless. Here's the miracle Shane keeps promising, again and again until Ilya believes it: he gets to keep this, Shane, all of him.

why do all my fics end with proposals now. maybe they are super in love & should get married??? (the virginity kink otoh comes free)

IN MY MIND this is asg weekend, where shane & ilya both very publicly paid the fine to do their charity gala & also matched the fine w a donation to the irina foundation, and then the league got some backlash and had to reluctantly rescind the fine. this is why shane and ilya are in montreal in the middle of winter. please do not look further into the timeline here, thank you.