2013.

It’s a cold February morning in Montreal. Every sound on the rink is amplified. One of his teammates cough on the other side of the bench and it sounds like he’s holding a microphone the way the sound bounces around and fills the air, all the way up to the tall ceilings. No extra padding from bodies and clothes beyond those who are strictly necessary to be present. Not a place to whisper. Not a place to tell secrets.

Shane is cradling his helmet between his hands. He always feels very on display in this light. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Pushes him to want to perform. He doesn’t want to forget that he’s fundamentally under surveillance when he plays. The brightness of the ice cascading back onto his face from below. There are no dark corners.

He has been staring at his coach’s pen cap for the last twenty minutes. Half consciously, half unconsciously. Quietly freaking out. Failing to listen to a single word being said. Which he actively knows is bad even as he’s doing it. He’s distracted. The pen is tucked against the grain of the clipboard, under his hand. The clipboard against his chest. So every time coach moves the pen cap glints again. And again. And again.

He’ll ask Hayden to brief him quickly in the locker room after and Hayden will probably quirk an eyebrow, unfortunately knowing Shane a little too well, and therefore knowing this as uncharacteristic of him. So maybe he better just leave it. “You okay, buddy?” He doesn’t know if he could stand to lie. He doesn’t even know what the lie would sound like. Or the truth.

He has this problem. Things catch his eye. He had to take the air freshener off the rearview mirror in his car. The little silver bead drove him fucking crazy to the point he thought it was becoming a traffic hazard. He has to divert his eye when he steps into the lobby of the rink because of that one time the sun shone through the window and hit the glass of the vending machine in a way that made him squint and lose his breath. Light catching the plastic yellow wrapper of some snack bar he can’t even watch Hayden eat anymore.

The tight hot heat inside him feels so wrong in this environment. He’s been turned on on the ice before. He’s been hard on the ice before. But this is different.

He’s not even fucking here.

Sometimes it feels like these two things are in fact devastatingly irreversibly intertwined. That even if he quit this stupid thing his body would still know. He would still feel it in the push of his thighs and in the cold air on his face and the tightening of his laces. That every highlight of his career will forever remain linked to that heaving torso, the constellation of moles across the pale wide expanse of a rippling back. The curving slant of his hockey stick taking the languished shape of the quirking corner of a dirty mouth.

The pen cap is shining, glinting. And it is like this sight reverberates through Shane’s body. In one way, he feels it's the only sight he’s ever seen. The gentle, or rough, swing of the pendulum and the steady winking light of the thing. Golden. Gold.

The pen looks expensive, heavy. Maybe an anniversary gift. Or a gift from the league.

He becomes suddenly aware of how he’s been subconsciously keeping his breathing even. And when he becomes aware of his breathing he, ironically, struggles even more to keep it even. When he glances down he can see how his knuckles are whitening in the grip he has on his helmet. This sight is also all too familiar. If he closed his eyes he could picture the hard plastic turning into tumbling ashy curls.

“You okay, buddy?” If there is one word Hayden Pike could never be described as it would be unpredictable.

Shane tears his gaze away from his thankfully concealed crotch, feeling how his cheeks are flushed hot and glowing in the pale, cool air of the rink. The blood from his face rushing down through his neck in a cold shiver as he meets Hayden’s eye.

He’s looking at him half-amused at first but when they make eye contact any bemusement falls fully away to concern. Shane can only imagine; his pupils blown and eyes glassy. Face flushed like he’s fresh out the shower or the rare four beers in.

Shane shakes his head, once quick.

“I’m fine.”

Hayden doesn’t look convinced, but Shane turns away regardless, resting his tired eyes on the glint of the pen cap. If he squints and lets his vision blur he can almost even feel it. The hand around his jaw. The lips pressed to his neck. The heat of staccato breathing. The all consuming pressure. The thing he’s fucking dying for.

When practice is over, he waits for the locker room to empty out, watches as Hayden gives him one last worried look before heading home to his wife and kids. He busies himself with mindlessly scrolling his phone while his teammates leave one by one, trying not to click into the message chat and say something stupid. What would he even say? What would he say?

I thought about you today.

How’s your day been?

I thought about you a lot today.

He would know what to say. What to say, so casually and confidently, to get under Shane’s skin. But he doesn’t even have to. He’s already fucking there.

Shane jerks off on the locker room showers, forehead pressed to the white tiles, and goes home feeling raw and rinsed and dirty. Dirty, not in a good way. Not the way he feels with him.

2016.

He’s on the television. The big one that acts as the centrepoint of JJ’s bachelor pad. Boston won. 3 goals against New York’s 1. Two of which were scored by him. Shane really needs to get a grip on himself.

“Is he allergic to wearing a shirt?” JJ jibes in French and it makes Shane’s breath hitch, because JJ didn’t say it to the room, he said it specifically to Shane. So that Shane could understand it. He cracks a half smile he hopes looks something like a natural chuckle in response, unable to tear his eyes from the screen to meet JJ’s face.

Shane moved seats twenty minutes ago, using getting a glass of water as an excuse. The sun was hitting the tv creating a sheen from where he was previously sat. He had hoped somebody would’ve taken his seat when he returned, in the musical chairs of players moving around in the room but no one had. He had awkwardly approached from the other end, cradling his water glass in one hand, going to perch on the sofa arm before JJ moved towards the centre and Shane could inhabit the safety of the corner seat. No sheen. No glare. Just him. Unencumbered.

His hair is wet with sweat, curls licking across the shiny forehead and down his nape. His eyes are flicking around at the sight behind the camera, a couple reporters probably wearing button up shirts under their pullovers and polished shoes. Shuffling around in the crowded, humid atmosphere of the room. Winning in the air. Shane wonders distantly where he’s going after. Who he’ll see or meet or talk to.

“JJ, come on, not fair,” Hayden whines.

“What?”

“English, please.”

“Oh,” JJ laughs and repeats his sentiment in English, raising a light laugh out of Hayden and a few of the other players sporadically gathered around the tv.

And Shane is struck by the terrible truth he lives inside – no one knows. No one knows this man makes Shane moan, and whine, and plead, and beg. No one knows Shane knows the taste of his sweat, that sweat, trickling down towards his bared clavicle right now. Miles away from where Shane is sat right now. The press of his mouth. The heady feeling that fills him when those hands are placed on his waist and his hips and his thighs. The way he lets that voice command him, undress him, make him come completely undone.

There is a last name hatched into a square towards the bottom of the screen. No one knows.

No one knows what we do. No one knows how he makes me feel.

On the screen, he says something that makes the reporters laugh and his eyes meet the direct line of the camera. For just a moment. Mouth lazily open, crooked smile. Those incisors have sunk into my inner thigh. My earlobe.

And although Shane knows that all he’s looking at from his side is the glassy eye of a dark camera lens he still has an overbearing sense that this look is for him. He wants to grab the remote and play back the second, the seconds before. Hear his voice again. The joke he made, that Shane missed, too busy getting lost in the pure vision. Memories pouring through his body like he’s made of tire tracks. Like there’s nothing else to be done.

Someone, he doesn’t really see who, reaches for the remote and turns the tv off in a quick move. Because why would they keep watching? The game is over. Why would anyone in this room be desperate to keep watching the last few seconds of a standard post game interview with the Boston captain?

As the screen fizzes fully black Shane swears he can still see the shape of the pendant, brandished into the dark plasma, like a watermark. Taunting him. He wants to put it between his teeth. He thinks distantly that he might lick the screen if he was alone in the room. Kneel by the console, and open his mouth. He knows JJ’s flat screen wouldn’t have the fuzzy electric feel of a tv from his childhood but he can still feel the phantom sensation on his tongue. He hopes it would feel heavy and real and charged with electricity.

Instead, he goes and stands in the guest bathroom. Wipes at his teary eyes in the mirror, then clutches the edge of the sink between his hands, not looking up, until he’s no longer hard.

2016.

He’s trying really hard. He’s having fun. Rose is beautiful, and everyone is beautiful. The club they are in is beautiful. The flashing neon lights are beautiful. The way the lights fill the liquid in his glass is beautiful. Swallowing up the yellow and pink like it’s hungry. He’s allowed himself to drink to excess. Everything is great. It feels nice to be touched, to be wanted, and he lets himself be – wanted. It feels nice. It feels better the more he drinks. He’s having a great time.

He just wishes Rose hadn’t worn those earrings.

When he steps outside alone for some air he catches the tail end scent of someone’s lit cigarette walking by, and he is completely bowled over by it. Has to dig his short fingernails into his palms so he doesn’t blindly follow the smoke into the night.

2017.

“I used to think about you all the time,” Shane whispers, tracing gently around where the golden chain rests on his chest. The delicate interweaving of the jump rings moving slightly around his touch, like magic. It’s dark in the bedroom. Silent around Shane’s words.

“I know,” he responds, like he's agreeing. Like he's actually saying, 'Me too.' Shane feels the response more than he hears it, his head cradled in the dip between his upper arm and chest. He feels perfectly slotted in here, like a playing card nestled in its pack. A gun in a leather holster.

“No, like,” Shane barely breaths it, lets it tumble out like it’s a long held secret, “all the time.” He’s glad he can’t see his face, he doesn’t know if he could confess this while being held in eyesight.

There is a sound like anguish from the other man.

And then, finally, he’s everywhere. Here. Present. Not just a memory. Or an old text message. Or a vision on a screen. Not a joke. Or a hidden desire. Or a wet dream.

Shane lets himself be jostled around on the bed as he moves in the dark. Suddenly he’s being loomed over, and there are warm, solid lips being pressed to his face and neck and chest and hairline. He wraps his arms around the strong neck, curves one hand over a straining shoulder and sinks the other into the soft curls. Feels the way the tendons holding up his head are tensed.

When he presses inside of Shane, Shane groans low in his throat, like a wounded animal, and lets his head fall back onto the pillow where it’s still sweat-soaked from earlier. They hadn’t even made it out of the bed in the first place.

“Say my name.”

“Rozanov…” Shane smiles fondly, endeared and in love and gone to the rest of the world beyond these bed sheets. And prone to teasing when the right one is there to bat the ball back.

“No,” he shakes his head, smiling gently “No…”

“Ilya,” Shane breathes, knowing his face is open and wanting. His eyes wet and his lip quivering with his deep, deep ache.

Ilya smiles and nods, making a pleased humming sound. Even in the dark of night, it is like his whole being is illuminated in Shane's vision. Glowing. Gold.

“Ilya,” he says again.

“Ilya, Ilya, Ilya…”

if anyone cares: i became obsessed with three things 1) shane seeing things catching light and being reminded of ilyas cross necklace 2) a fic from shanes pov that consists only of moments where shane and ilya are not physically together 3) a fic where ilya isnt mentioned by name (until the end)

all three things that show the insane fucking grip ilya has on this mans psyche. anyway this is result! thank you for reading!

( some fun facts: writing this made me realise 1) shane never touches ilyas necklace in the show :') 2) rose wears a silver dress during the club scene, in contrast to ilya who is gold :( )

i am on tumblr as aslongasitsblack x