Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Roger Crowell

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Vampire, Human/Vampire Relationship, Vampire Hunters, Vampire Ilya Rozanov, Vampire Hunter Shane Hollander, Vampire Hunter/Vampire Relationship, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, really leaning on the catholic vibe to these vampire hunters, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Rivals to Lovers, Secret Relationship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Bad Parent Grigori Rozanov, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Smut, Vampire Sex, Blood and Violence, Protective Shane Hollander, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Irina Rozanova Haunts the Narrative, Violence, Burns, Torture, Miscommunication, Kidnapping, Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, Long-Suffering Hayden Pike, Rescue Missions, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Angst and Fluff and Smut

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of heated rivalry fics

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-21 Completed: 2026-03-30 Words: 29,563 Chapters: 6/6

things that go bump in the night

Summary

“I’m Shane. Hollander. Vampire hunter,” The introduction would be madness anywhere else. But Shane had ducked out to catch his breath, exhausted from the constant stream of networking and chatter with other vampire hunters. He was a newly minted hunter and beamed with pride to tell anyone about it. He was certain this stranger wouldn’t be scandalised but when he held out his hand, they just stared at it.

“Ilya Rozanov,” he introduced himself, then flashed Shane a wicked smile, “vampire.”

Shane hunts feral vampires. Ilya is a vampire, but Shane's not interested in hunting him - no, he wants something far more dangerous. When the lines of their rivalry start to blur, they find themselves entangled in an age old conflict that will have far-reaching consequences.

Notes

vampire au vampire au vampire au
couldn't resist this plot bunny woudn't let me go
. this is what happens when you rewatch buffy
please don't mind that i am fucking about with vampire lore. they can turn into bats, they need permission to enter (young dracula pop up vampire hunter tent changed my life) they go feral. religious artefacts mess with them so vampire hunters are culturally catholic because i said so. yay <3 please enjoy!

Chapter 1: 2017

Chapter Summary

A routine hunt for Shane is interrupted by a familiar vampire.

Shane Hollander is a fighter, not a lover. 

Pavement underfoot. He runs, pumping his legs harder and faster, fingers reaching out but only catching smoke. They're so close, close enough that he can feel the chill in the air, the way the undone project their frigid body temperature onto everything around them. Not too far ahead is the sound of a vampire gone feral - gasping, spluttering, keening, moaning. Any light sapped from their eyes as they ran towards a target and sank their fangs into flesh. Not stopping until whatever poor soul they find is nothing but a lifeless husk.

In his mind he sees images of drained bodies. How grey they look under the morning sky when someone stumbles onto their remains. Their faces contorted in fear. Limbs paralysed where they died - pushing and shoving and flinching, fighting with their last breaths. He runs faster and imagines the viscous blood pouring from two open puncture wounds at their jugular. How it sprays with each dwindling heartbeat. Less than five minutes to save them, fewer if the feral got the carotid as well. Brain death from lack of oxygen sets in quickly. They don’t get a chance to fight back because the vampire is already drinking deep, draining them dry.

Faster. Hayden beside him, keeping pace, rifling in his bag for the stake. Shane has his at the ready. He’s always quick to the draw. You can’t risk any surprises with these things. Not if you want to see daylight. 

It doesn’t help that in the dark the greying skin of a feral blends into the night. They move like shadows and without trained hunter eyesight or the keen eyes of a bloodsucker, you’d never see them. Just feel a breeze rush past you and the hairs on your neck stand up, like something formidable has passed through you. If you were lucky they kept moving. If your pulse was particularly strong, or your blood rich in iron, you wouldn’t get a chance to find out. 

Shane was born for this. Trained for it since he was old enough to hold a stake and fire a crossbow bolt at a crude rendering of a feral: a stuffed sack of straw with fangs drawn on in marker. He was a hunter because his mom and dad were hunters, and it ran in his blood. He could see supernatural creatures and that sight was a weapon he could turn against them. 

Even closer, dashing between alleys and under the streetlamps. He’s thankful it was so late, and that they’d tracked the feral to the old meatpacking district. The warehouses and shops had shut their doors and any humans still out were safely tucked away in cars or riding the bus. The devastation a feral could wreak on a city was incomprehensible. They darted between victims without taking a moment to breathe, just grabbing at flesh and tearing their claws through crowds of bystanders. Shane had only seen it a few times, but the smell of each one stuck with him: the coppery tang of blood on the air and the fruity rot of decay setting in. 

Hayden shouted something, a codeword Shane knew intimately. They diverged and kept a wide berth but narrowed back in on the feral up ahead. Shane could see it now, the throbbing grey skin and the viscous black blood pumping through its veins. It was still wearing human clothes but its limbs had started to contort into the chiropteran form that ferals took if they didn’t find blood quickly. At least that meant there weren’t any bodies to discover. Yet. 

From the corner of his eye he saw Hayden dodge past a car and vault over a bench. He moved with similar grace to Shane, but always lagged a little behind. Not his fault of course: Shane had always been unique in hunting circles. Gifted, certainly, but single minded in his focus in a way few others were. He trained harder, he studied longer, he racked up kills quicker than anyone else in his class. When they graduated and were let loose on the supernatural world, it was Shane’s name that vampires came to whisper fearfully.

We only kill feral vampires, Shane thought to himself. A motto drilled into him for years and the lynchpin on which human-vampire relations rested. Hunters only killed feral vampires, those who couldn’t control themselves anymore or controlled themselves a little too much. Who couldn’t sate the desire for blood and started to change into something more sinister. Too much blood induced bloodlust, too little sent them into starvation mode. Either was enough to transform a vampire into a feral. A killing machine with a mission to find sanguineous satisfaction at all costs. In return, vampires kept to themselves. They fed on consenting humans, or kept their less-than-legal feedings controlled and quiet. They manufactured synthetic blood, which wouldn’t fill the hole entirely but could be almost enough, almost satiating. And they didn’t intervene when hunters had a job to do. 

Shane had met many vampires in his life. He’d killed some, struck up an uneasy truce with others, and worked side by side with a select few. Montreal had a small vampiric community that toed the line. How much of that was willing and how much was due to Theriault’s efficient reign of terror few could say. But it worked and Montreal had so few vampire-related deaths that they could afford to lend hunters out to the parts of the world afflicted with less cooperative covens.

Places like Boston, where Shane and Hayden had spent the past week tracking down a feral vampire who’d left a drained human in broad daylight. Poor PR for the city at best, the start of a national crisis at worst. Crowell could only control the narrative so far before civilians started to ask uncomfortable questions with unsettling answers. 

They corral the feral into an alley. Sharp, efficient, military precision. Hayden advances with his crossbow and flanks Shane who holds the stake aloft. This close he can smell the rot that sets in when a feral turns, how it mangles their insides and turns them into a sludge only satisfied with fresh blood. It opens its maw to reveal rows of sharp teeth, a hundred tiny fangs dripping with saliva. Anyone else would flinch away at the putrid smell from its mouth but Shane is not anyone else: he tenses his shoulder and advances closer, watching the feral for sudden movements.

He’s about to plunge the stake into the feral’s heart when a hand reaches out and rips its head off, casting it to the ground. It crumbles to dust before he can glimpse the new attacker.

“Shit!” Hayden cries out and it seems to echo off the walls of the alley. It feels smaller now, claustrophobic, crowded with two warm bodies and two very, very cold ones.

In front of them is a vampire Shane has seen before. Tall and broad, he matches Shane in build and muscle but beats him in fashion, dressed in a tailored black suit with a plunging shirt. Shane’s eyes are drawn to his chest where a golden crucifix rests on his skin, a short chain keeping it in place. His mop of blonde curls is artfully bedraggled, like he was dragged through a bush but still had time to stop at the barbers. It fills Shane with an inexplicable rage to know he’s coated in sweat and dirt and wearing the standard issue hunter’s uniform that does nothing for him. 

And from his top row of teeth protrude two gleaming white fangs. The dim streetlights catch them and make them shine even brighter, so he can’t look away, however badly he wants to. The vampire smirks and licks his lips. Shane recoils as his pink tongue drags across his plump bottom lip. 

Not for the first time, Shane finds himself wishing they didn’t only hunt feral vampires. 

“Fuck you, Rozanov, that guy was feral! He attacked a woman in Cambridge, we tracked him all the way here!” Rozanov shrugs blithely. He has a look in his eyes that says this is so, so not his problem, and Shane wants nothing more than to slam his knuckles into that sharp jawline and send him sprawling in the alley. He is in control, he is calm, he is collected, so instead he flips him off and turns back to Hayden to drag him out of the alley. 

“Fuck this. Let’s get out of here. Clearly Dracula has it handled,” Hayden has a face like thunder but he nods in agreement and starts to storm out of the alley and back onto the main street. Shane wonders if his rumpled clothes and bulging bag of stakes and garlic make his career obvious. Then a group of inebriated frat brothers dressed in togas shove past the mouth of the alleyway without sparing him a glance, and he figures they’ll be okay. 

He’s nearly out of the alley when Rozanov materialises behind him, melting out of the darkness in silence. Fuck, he hates when he does that. He tells him so. 

Rozanov just snorts and presses closer. If Hayden turns back now he won’t hesitate to run him through with a stake or fire a crossbow bolt through his skull. The thought sends dread through Shane and he steps aside to make sure there’s enough space between him and the vampire. Plausible deniability. 

“What?” He hisses, clenching his jaw. Rozanov’s smirk looks extra punchable today, his crooked smile exposing his descended fangs. A chill runs down Shane’s smile as he imagines how easily those sharp canines could pierce flesh and drain life. Rozanov must notice his shiver because he shoots him a complicated look, equal parts concern and ridicule. He rests a hand on Shane’s arm and Shane leans into the touch, even as he tries to resist the pull. 

“I wanted to say thanks for the catch. It’s so boring having to track these guys down when they’re off the grid. You make it much more fun,” Shane huffs and starts to stalk away, desperate to be rid of Rozanov’s cold presence and his accent that seems lighter than the last time they met. His ‘r’s still rolled and his voice was still deep and husky with the Russian lilt Shane recognised easily in others now. 

“Oh, screw you. You couldn’t catch him on your own, so you got us to do your dirty work then swooped in to take the win. It’s embarrassing," Rozanov tilted his head to the side. 

“You should not be embarrassed. Could happen to anyone.”

“I meant for you, asshole! You are unbelievable,” Shane goes to storm off but Ilya’s hand is still wrapped around his bicep - not tight enough to hurt, but the grip is strong enough to stop in his tracks. 

Ilya looks at Hayden’s retreating figure, then leans in. This close Shane can feel his foggy breath ghosting over his skin. His lips find Shane’s ear and whisper in a low, resonant voice that makes Shane’s toes curl.

“See you around, Shane Hollander Vampire Hunter.” And nimble fingers slip a scrap of paper into his back pocket, lingering as they do so. 

Shane jerks his arm out of the vampire’s grip. Grabs the stake he dropped in surprise earlier and goes to follow Hayden out of the alley, out of the darkness, away from shithead vampires who have no respect for the rules or the admin that goes into a hunt. 

“What was that about?” Hayden asks when they fall into step beside each other. 

“Nothing. Just Rozanov being a dick. You want a drink?” A sidelong glance from Hayden makes Shane panic. He sounded nothing like himself. Shane didn’t drink after a hunt, successful or not. He went home to review the situation and map out potential improvements. Hayden looked confused, then contemplative, before he shook his head. Probably assuming the bungled hunt had thrown Shane for a loop. He wasn’t wrong. 

“Sorry man. Jackie awaits, and I am but a humble man at her mercy.” Shane laughs and nods, making a whipping sound out of the corner of his mouth. Hayden just gives a proud grin and puffs his chest out. 

“Damn right. You wouldn’t know, Hollander, but when you fall in love you don’t mind being whipped.”

“Whatever. I’m happy for you, you massive sap. See you tomorrow to get the hell out of here?” He nods and they part ways, Hayden back to the hotel where Jackie is surely back by now. Shane looks back over his shoulder, almost expecting to see Ilya waiting for him in the shadows. Watching, tracking, hunting. But the alley is empty. Shane pulls out his phone and puts in the directions, cursing when he sees the walking time and reaching a hand out to wave down a cab. He must look a state, but a taxi pulls up nonetheless, surely accustomed to frazzled and roughed up passengers in this part of town. 

“Where to?” He asks, bored. 

Shane picks up the scrap of paper and reads out the address printed on it in chicken scratch handwriting. They speed off into the night. 

_____

He arrives at a tall apartment complex in the centre of Boston. It towers above him and he gets vertigo when he tilts his head back to take in its height. He moves to the door and inputs the code on the scrap of paper, struggling to decipher a 3 and 5 but taking a guess. It buzzes and opens, and he walks with confidence he doesn’t have past the doorman who shoots a confused glance at the sweaty mess of a man covered in dirt tracking mud and blood onto the doormat. Wiping his feet as best he can he shoots an apologetic look to a man who clearly isn’t paid enough for this. 

The elevator is familiar and smells like it always does when he comes here: lemon disinfectant and old wood. It’s an antique, with metal doors you have to manually shut and Shane is sure that one day it will trip and fall and he will be crushed to smithereens at the bottom of the shaft. He makes it to the top floor as safely as ever and hopes it wasn’t his last stroke of luck. 

He reaches the door and holds up a hand to knock. Before he can hit the wood it is wrenched open and he stumbles forwards, bumping his head against a strong chest.

“Hollander,” Ilya Rozanov is standing in front of him wearing his stupid well-fitting suit and giving a stupid look with pursed lips like he’s trying not to laugh. Shane shrugs his shoulders, “Can I come in?”

Ilya laughs, “You know Hollander, you don’t have to ask permission to enter,” but he steps aside to let Shane pass. Shane rolls his eyes but crosses the threshold. 

“I was being polite, asshole. You should try it.”

Ilya’s face cracks into a grin and he moves further into the penthouse. Every time Shane visits he’s shocked by the grandeur: high ceilings, floor length windows, long thick curtains, plush upholstered furniture. The marble counters are unmarred by clutter and clearly unused. There’s a bar cart laden with vodkas, whiskies and what looks like an oversized bottle of creme de menthe which makes Shane wrinkle his nose. 

Ilya leans against the counter and drags his gaze over Shane’s body. Stares at the top of his head and his face, runs his eyes over the broad set of his shoulders and the muscles of his chest. How his arms strain the standard issue uniform shirt. The curve of his hips and his ass, down to his legs, strong from the chase. Shane can’t wait any longer and he charges, dropping his bag and grabbing Ilya’s face to draw their lips together in a searing kiss.

Ilya grabs his hips and spins them round to press Shane into the counter and he groans into Ilya’s mouth. He can’t help it - his fangs descend but he doesn’t bite, doesn’t press down, just lets them rest on Shane’s bottom lip, daring him to twitch and let him sink his teeth into the rosy flesh. Shane just whines and tugs on Ilya’s hair until he reaches a hand down to grab a handful of Shane’s ass. 

“Asshole, stealing my kill today,” Shane gasps out between frantic kisses. If Ilya didn’t have the fangs to prove it he’d think Shane was the bloodsucker, the way he attaches to Ilya and attacks every bit of skin he can find. Ilya would never complain, just pulls out a stylish turtleneck to cover the red and purple marks that will dot his skin the next day. All the better to avoid Sveta and Sasha’s prying eyes.

“You were too slow, Hollander, don’t be bitter. Be better,” Shane nips at Ilya’s neck to pull a whine from his lips then sinks to his knees and scrabbles at Ilya’s belt buckle. It’s heavy and metallic and far weightier than Shane expects but he’s a dab hand at getting to the prize and tugs Ilya free with ease. He takes him in his mouth and Ilya sags at the warmth and the wetness. This is heaven: he is the first vampire to have his soul ascend because there is no way Shane is a creature of this world with a mouth like that. His vision goes white as Shane drags his tongue up the underside of Ilya’s cock and dips it into the hot slit at the tip, looking up at him through his eyelashes and smirking before swallowing him again.

It’s not long before Ilya is spilling hot down Shane’s throat and Shane is pulling off with a pop, wiping a hand over his mouth and smiling placidly at Ilya. Like he didn’t just suck his soul out through his dick. Ilya shakes his head to clear it and yanks Shane up into a bruising kiss that’s more clashing teeth than lips but Shane doesn’t seem to mind, good boy that he is. He lets Ilya tug him to the bedroom and throw him down onto the bed, shedding his practical cargo trousers and falling back onto the mattress. He pouts and points at the crumpled fabric on the floor.

“Careful! I only have two pairs and if they get creased-” Ilya cuts him off with a kiss that takes his breath away. 

“Hollander, I do not care about your pants right now,” the eyeroll from Shane is caustic but Ilya can’t bring himself to care, just crowds closer to Shane and brackets his hips with his legs so he’s kept firmly in place. 

This is his favourite place, Ilya thinks. Not back in Moscow, not Svetlana’s decadently outfitted apartment in Boston, not soaring through a midnight sky above a city he calls home - right here, with Shane Hollander under him, panting, moaning, rolling his eyes but tugging him down to kiss him hard. Ilya has lived a long life, and he knows it’s all been leading to this, to taking Shane apart with his fingers and fucking him into the mattress. 

Later they lie next to each other and Ilya dares to rest a hand on Shane’s chest. They don’t do that, don’t exchange touches outside of fucking, but Ilya allows himself this one indiscretion. Shane doesn’t seem to mind, and in his fuck drunk state he burrows closer to rest his head on Ilya’s arm. They don’t say anything but Ilya takes the moment as a small win. 

“I forgive you for the feral,” murmurs Shane. Ilya snorts. 

“I did not apologise for that.”

“I know. I forgive you anyway. Because that was really good and I recognise your pathological need to one up me as a cry for help,” Ilya’s laugh rings out through the bedroom as he shoves a smirking Shane’s shoulder.

“You make it so easy, Hollander. And beating you is so much fun-” Shane silences him with a kiss. He’s moved to hover above him, bracing himself with his hands on either side of Ilya’s shoulders. Ilya deliberately doesn’t look at the bulging muscles of his biceps because he is known to make poor decisions when he does. Shane palms at Ilya’s cock and he’s immediately filled with burning desire all over again.

“Looks like I’ve got you beat,” he whispers between trailing kisses over Ilya’s jaw. He finishes up where he started with a searing kiss pressed to Ilya’s mouth, nipping at his lip before ducking away and leaving Ilya dazed and hazy, his cock throbbing angrily. 

Shane pulls on his uniform and Ilya takes his time roving his eyes over his figure, clad in a tight t-shirt and cargo pants that do terrible, terrible things to the vampire. Hopping as he pulls on his boots he stumbles but rights himself and Ilya can’t tamp down on his grin. Shane flushes and grabs his bag; he keeps everything folded so neatly inside that he never has to repack it. It makes Ilya feel like he’s been shoved off a cliff to watch Shane dress. He imagines what it would be like to do this every day. To see him fresh from the shower and with his eyes crusted by sleep and padding barefoot through Ilya’s apartment to make coffee. 

He shuts that down immediately: it is a dangerous path to follow. It opens doors he’s not sure he can look behind so he slams them and runs inside where it’s safe. Where he and Hollander spend half their time trying to kill each other and the other half wrapped around each other. Hollander can sneak out after they fuck and they can both go back to their lives and pretend their relationship is professional at best and violent at worst. 

Shane’s hovering by the door and fiddling with the straps on his backpack. It’s so endearing Ilya wants to be sick. He props himself up on his elbows and nods at Hollander who stands like a soldier at all times. The only exception is when Ilya is drawing moans from his chest with his fingers and taking Shane apart to ruin his composure. 

“Bye, Rozanov. Stay out of the sun,” He gives a stilted little wave and turns to go. Ilya watches him and it takes every ounce of superhuman resistance built through centuries not to grab his arm and yank him back and barricade the door so he can’t leave. 

“Goodbye Hollander. Keep the faith,” Shane snorts and gives him a fond little smile and then he’s gone. 

Sighing, Ilya flops back onto the bed. He needs a drink. 

_ 

Outside the apartment Shane braces himself for the cold. He’s overheated and expects the cool night air to be soothing but it just leaves him shivering and off kilter. Whenever he feels a chill nowadays, he thinks of Ilya. The press of cold undead skin against him. How Ilya’s hands are always freezing but it doesn’t make him flinch like it used to. Now he keens into the touch and seeks out those frigid touches and lets them shut off his brain and short circuit his whole body. 

He tugs his jacket tighter and pulls out his phone to check the distance to his hotel. He’s not sharing with Hayden this time, thank God - Hayden’s brought his wife Jackie on a hunt, doubling it as a couples getaway. As much as he wants to judge, he’s not that much of a hypocrite. He takes assignments on the East coast as frequently as he can without raising suspicion. Hopefully his excuses about the milder temperature and his desire to contribute to their positive relationship with hunters in the US will stave off any prying eyes that might doubt his intentions 

It’s not too long a walk, only 45 minutes. Light work for a hunter; he sets off at a rapid pace and lets his rising heart rate warm him up. He thinks about the journey home tomorrow, how glad he is that he brought his sensible Jeep because it’ll be icy in the morning. How nice it’ll be to see his parents again. Wonders how he’ll spin the interrupted kill - an unwanted assist? Teamwork? Interspecies collaboration for the good of human-vampire relations? He snorts, because if there’s one thing he’s a veritable expert on, it is human-vampire relations. Not in the way Crowell would like, he’s certain, but there can’t be many other hunters doing as much as him for inter-community cohesion. 

Smug, he picks up the pace until he’s covered half the distance.  By the time he scans the card to his hotel room he’s warm again. Draping his jacket over the back of the desk chair he flop back onto the bed and stares listlessly at the light fitting. A fan makes lazy circles above him and the popcorn ceiling looks a concerning shade of beige. It’s a far cry from the grandeur of Ilya’s apartment. Huge windows and wood panelling, polished oak floors and marble countertops. Ilya’s bed is nothing like the creaking single he’s supine on. He thinks of the plush pillows and soft sheets against his skin and sits bolt upright when he feels himself getting hard all over again. Not just over the interior design choices, but the way Ilya is woven into the fabric of the apartment. How would it feel to come home to him in the evening and cook in his ostentatious kitchen (he’s a vampire, why does he need a proving drawer?) and curl up next to him with a book and share his towels. A pit opens in Shane’s stomach as he looks around his dingy motel where damp climbs up the walls and fantasises about comfortable domesticity with the creature he’s been raised to hunt. Padding to the bathroom he runs the tap and splashes cold water on his face. He needs to snap back to reality. This thing with Rozanov is fun, but that’s all it can be. Meet up, antagonise each other, sneak off to fuck, go home separately. There’s no future where the two of them can have a real relationship, and fantasising about it is only damning him even more.

Sitting on the bed he pulls out his logbook to write his notes. When he gets back to Montreal he’ll type up and submit a full report, clinically efficient and dry. Rozanov read one over his shoulder once and laughed every time he used the phrase “Boston Coven leader arrived at scene uninvited”. It pissed Shane off but he didn’t want to complain in case the vampire moved his chin from where it rested on his shoulder, a steady presence as he trailed his hands over Shane’s skin to bait him back into bed. 

He packs his bag for tomorrow so he can leave efficiently. Tucks his notebook away and pulls out the small iron crucifix all hunters are given when they go out on missions. A last line of defence if things get really desperate - small enough to fit in your pocket but deadly enough to burn a vampire’s skin. The ferrous cross is carved intricately and Shane squeezes it in his fist until it leaves an imprint in his palm. 

When he flicks off the bedside lamp and burrows into the sheets, he firmly tells himself to grow up and stop thinking of a future with Ilya Rozanov. But as he drifts off, he imagines hands in his hair and a cold steady presence next to him and Russian words he didn’t understand sticking to his skin like honey.

Chapter 2: 2015

Chapter Summary

Shane and Ilya first cross paths, starting a dangerous liaison that will have far-reaching consequences.

Chapter Notes

another one thank you !

It started with a handshake. 

Not entirely true. If you asked Shane, it started with a stranger smoking, leaning against a wall, his head resting right next to the ‘no smoking’ sign. In the frigid winter cold the stranger’s breath curled and fogged in front of him, and when he exhaled the smoke cast tendrils of vapour into the air. 

“You’re not really supposed to smoke here,” Shane said. The stranger looked unimpressed and didn’t stub out his cigarette. He raised his chin in acknowledgement and took another deep drag. 

“Okay,” he replied. 

“I’m Shane. Hollander. Vampire hunter,” The introduction would be madness anywhere else. But Shane had ducked out to catch his breath, exhausted from the constant stream of networking and chatter at his first ever Vampire Hunting Conference. He was a newly minted Hunter and beamed with pride to tell anyone about it. He was certain this stranger wouldn’t be scandalised. He held out his hand and they just stared at it.

“Ilya Rozanov,” he introduced himself, then flashed Shane a wicked smile, “vampire.” 

Shane would have jumped back if his well-honed reflexes hadn’t kicked in. Ilya Rozanov’s smile was crooked and gleaming and framed by two sharp white fangs resting on his bottom lip. 

“Surprised? They let us come to these things too, now.” Shane shook his head frantically, then as calmly as he could manage in the hope that he could look less shaken. It was not working and he knew it. 

“No, no not at all. It’s great that you guys have a representative here, it’s so important. Ferals are a threat to all of us,” His brain was lagging behind his mouth and he wasn't sure where he was going but he knew he’d dug too deep a hole to stop now. So he kept going even as his brain put on hazard lights and his gut curdled with the knowledge that he was fucking this up even more, and an undertone of want that he had no time or interest in addressing. 

“Yes, they let each coven send one envoy. To share in the negotiations. How lucky,” His words dripped with sarcasm, thick with contempt. 

“And you’re the envoy? From where?” 

“Boston,” Rozanov dragged his eyes over Shane, noting the well-shined shoes, the tailored suit, the thick scarf around his neck. He grinned wolfishly, “Are you wearing that to keep the vampires away? I promise, we don’t bite.” 

Shane flushed a delightful pink that made his freckles stand out from his skin. Ilya wanted to map them like constellations, to chart their locations and come up with a legend for each shape he finds.

“No! It’s fucking freezing, that’s why I’m wearing it. And it’s daylight - how are you outside?” Ilya rolled his eyes and gestured to the shadow cast by the overhang outside the conference centre. It was just wide enough to shelter him from the sun. Shane nodded. 

“Okay. Sorry for-I wasn’t thinking, when I-yeah. I’m not normally this-”

“Flustered? Is okay, Shane Hollander Vampire Hunter. You are not normally in the presence of a very sexy Russian vampire. Would fluster anyone, I think.” Shane rolled his eyes but couldn’t tamp down on his laugh before it escaped. 

“Whatever, man. I’ll see you in there,” he turned to leave and felt Ilya’s eyes boring into his back, tracking his movements, watching him until he disappeared back into the venue. Ilya dropped his head back against the wall and didn’t flinch at the bite of the brick. This was the bright new vanguard of vampire hunting? They were all fucked. 

He ashed his cigarette and lit another for good measure. Maybe that would stave off the shake in his hands we knew had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with Shane Hollander.

Later he re-entered the gala, half his attention on the stilted small talk and the other half scanning the room for a glimpse of Shane Hollander. He let Svetlana lead him to the bar and was grateful he’d managed to wrangle a plus one invitation for her. Not that he needed to worry - if the event was interesting enough Sveta would find her way onto the guest list.

He gripped a glass of whiskey and took large sips to feel the woody taste coat his tongue. Vampires didn’t need to eat, so the platter of hors douveres sat untouched, hunters occasionally picking up a nibble to pop it in their mouths. Never before had vampires been present at one of these conferences. A new frontier for interspecies relations - Ilya had scoffed when he read the embossed invitation and tossed it aside where Sveta easily caught it.

“You should go. It would be good to show your face at one of these things. Especially since-” she paused. Ilya watched her as she worried her lip between her teeth. The unspoken since sat heavy between them. 

“You can say it,” he shrugged, “since he died. It’s not a secret,” Sveta purses her lips but nods. They’ve spent a century not walking on eggshells around each other. He’s no interest in starting now. 

“I’m sorry. No one’s seen you since it happened and people are worried. Did you ever hear back? About what happened?” Shaking his head he reached up to feel the crucifix that sat cool and heavy on his throat. Grounding him.

“No. And I don’t want to know. It is a long time since I’ve had a father, and longer since he’s had a son. But I will go,” Svetlana smiled in the way that lit up her whole face. He has seen how terrifying she can be, but in that moment she looked more human than anyone he’d ever known.

“And I'll come with you. I’ve always wanted to visit…” She checked the invitation again, “Regina?” Ilya scoffed and dodged the wadded up paper she threw at him. 

So there they were, in Saskatchewan, a place so boring Ilya was certain a feral vampire would bring some much-needed excitement to the place. Really they were doing a service to the fine people of Regina. He kept that to himself but wondered if it would elicit another rich laugh from Shane Hollander. 

He’d heard on the grapevine that Crowell had a new protege. A young hunter with exceptional potential, they said, and an aim that always strikes true. He hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t a firm handshake and a winning smile.

Svetlana took his arm and dragged him away from the bar. There were other vampires here, important ones, with high statuses and  interesting stories who she wanted him to meet. Going through the motions of small talk and introductions he let his eyes glaze over and drift around the room, cataloguing faces and moving on quickly when none of them were his target. He couldn’t explain why, but he was fascinated by Shane Hollander, and it was futile to pretend otherwise. 

Much later, as the night wore on, Ilya spotted the person he’d been hunting all evening. Shane stood with two older hunters, a man and a woman, clearly his parents if the resemblance was anything to go by. He was tense, soldier’s posture rigid, hands resting in his pockets. Next to him his mother squeezed his shoulder affectionately and he gave her a tight smile. He was looking around the room. Eyes roaming, searching for something, so subtly that if Ilya hadn’t been levelling him with a stare he never would have noticed. Shane clearly kept his emotions under tight control. When his eyes met Ilya’s he looked away like he’d been burned. 

They danced around each other all evening. Sometimes Ilya would catch Shane’s eyes resting on him across the room. But when he looked over the hunter would be staring in the opposite direction or caught in a conversation or nibbling at a mini quiche. Anything to avoid eye contact. 

Hours must have passed. When he asked Svetlana how long they had to stay for, she rolled her eyes and asked why he was glaring daggers at a hunter on a night intended for forging peaceful alliances. Even Commissioner Crowell was in attendance. He stayed firmly on the side of the ballroom occupied by hunters but occasionally nodded at a passing vampire. Alliances indeed, Ilya thought. That man is desperate to stake us all. 

He watched Shane have a stilted conversation with the Commissioner who threw an arm around his shoulders and puffed out his chest with pride. Clearly Shane Hollander was the talk of the town. Considering that town was in Saskatchewan Ilya resisted feeling too impressed. 

“Hollander looks like he’s going to combust,” murmured a familiar voice from Ilya’s side. He jumped a little, only to see Sasha had materialised out of thin air. 

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Ilya replied. Sasha smirked. 

“Sveta called me. Said you might need backup on your re-debut into society,” he gave him a wry smile and gestured to the empty glass in his hand, “You want another? Looks like you need it.” Ilya flipped him off but didn’t decline, and Sasha looked back over his shoulder as he strode towards the bar, a winning smile on his face. 

Normally Ilya would take the bait. Would follow Sasha to the bar and buy him expensive whisky and speak in Russian again, something he could only do with Svetlana. They had known each other for years - centuries, a long time even in vampiric circles. It was familiar and safe and usually so appealing. But his eyes kept drifting to Shane Hollander and his flushed face and bashful smile and the way he kept his hands balled into his pockets and dug his feet into the ground as though given the choice he’d be fleeing. 

He was often thankful for his enhanced senses. When he needed to sneak around, or pick out one voice in a cacophonous crowd, or spot a friend or foe in a busy room. He was extra thankful for them today as he honed in on the microexpressions on Shane Hollander’s face; the crease between his eyebrows, the vacant look in his eyes, the minute tremor in his fingers. This was a man on the edge - but of what? 

Ilya kept his gaze fixed on Shane until he saw him move for the door. He walked with a determined stride, every bit the hunter, stalking out of the ballroom while maintaining a faint friendly smile. Sasha had ordered his whisky and was beckoning him over, but Ilya’s feet began to move before his mind caught up. He gestured to Sasha to wait and pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, grateful for the habit and the excuse it provided.

*

Shane Hollander walked quickly to the bathroom. He needed to leave, to be anywhere else. Away from expectant eyes and proud parents and the imposing figure of Roger Crowell. He was intimately familiar with the Commissioner’s face: it hung in every classroom at the headquarters where he had trained. When they sharpened stakes and polished crucifixes and bottled holy water, he oversaw them, eyes fixed on their movements like he was searching for a mistake. 

It was an honour to be invited, he reminded himself. He was so lucky, and his parents were so proud, and he was here because he worked hard and was good at his job and if he repeated that enough times he was certain his hands would stop shaking. When he finally made it to the bathroom he rested his trembling fingers on the counter and breathed deeply. 

The door opened and closed quickly. A presence behind him but he looked at himself in the mirror; the only reflection was his own. He spun on his heel and came face to face with Ilya Rozanov. 

“Jesus,” He pressed a hand to his chest, “You scared me. You shouldn’t sneak up on a hunter. I could have staked you.”

Ilya gave him a cocky smirk but kept a respectable distance. “I don’t think you would. You only kill ferals, remember? Or did you not listen to the speech?” 

It wasn’t lost on Shane that Crowell’s speech was more like a sermon, his words reverberating around the hall and inspiring silent devotion in the hunters and rolled eyes in the vampires. As usual Shane had sat to attention, rapt. He hadn’t missed that the vampires had not been invited to give a keynote. No time had been the excuse, but Crowell’s interminable delivery begged to differ. As always, he ended with a call and response of keep the faith. Only half the crowd gave the correct reply. 

“Still - reflexes. What are you doing here?” Ilya shrugged and smirked. 

“I needed the bathroom. Is that allowed?” 

“Don’t let me stop you. I just needed a minute,” Ilya cocked his head. 

“You’re the man of the hour. Surely you should be holding court out there?” Shane scoffed. 

“It’s a bit much. All the praise, all the talking. I don’t know what they want me to say. I train, I log my hunts, I put in the hours. They’re the ones who make me into some kind of saviour. I just want to do my job.”

Ilya had moved closer. Even without a reflection he would recognise the presence of a vampire. His training was thorough but this was something else entirely. 

“Too many compliments. Sounds exhausting.” Shane rolled his eyes and huffed. 

“Why are you here? You clearly don’t get it. Are you just trying to piss me off?” 

“It must be a lot. I don’t come to these things often. Too many eyes, too much attention. Never from the right people.”

Ilya was so close that Shane could feel the cold emanating from his skin. He wanted to stretch out a hand and feel that freezing flesh under his and let it numb his whole body. Maybe then he could finally stop fucking thinking. Ilya moved closer. His lips were parted, wet, fangs descended. For a moment Shane thought he was going to bite him. Drain him dry and leave him a lifeless husk for Crowell to find in the bathroom. He couldn’t figure out why he didn’t draw back. 

Instead Ilya’s lips hovered by his ear. His accent sounded stronger up close. 

“Where are you staying?” 

“What?” Shane cursed his voice for trembling but Ilya didn’t seem to mind. 

“What’s your room number?” Ilya gave him a look of concern, “Please tell me you’re not sharing with your parents.”

Flustered Shane shook his head, “No! Why do you want to know?”

Ilya gave another wicked little smirk. He kept his head bent so Shane felt the vibrating air against his ear when he replied. 

“Maybe I will come by. Say hello. Network,” Snorting Shane glanced at the mirror. He was alone, his whole body tensed like he was about to fight, but there was no visible attacker. 

“Maybe?”

“Maybe. Depends on if you’re good. And if you ask me nicely,” Shane scoffed and drew back. 

“Oh, fuck you. I’ve heard enough about what you get up to, Rozanov, and I’m not- I’m not interested.” Even as he said it he could hear how unconvincing the words were. Get it together, Hollander. He was the best hunter of his generation and one murmur from Ilya Rozanov had turned him into a stuttering mess. 

“So you don’t want me to come?” Shane gulped and prayed Rozanov couldn’t hear it. Judging by the smile and the way his eyes dropped to Shane’s throat, he was not so lucky. “That’s a pity. Oh well,” and he turned to leave. 

He was almost at the door. Fuck, Shane was going to do something incredibly stupid. 

“1410.” 

Ilya turned slowly. From this angle Shane could see the sharp line of his jaw and the way he filled the tailored suit and it sent a hot rush over his skin. God, he wanted to be close to that cold body again and feel it wash over him. He was so flushed that he imagined if Ilya touched him he’d start emitting steam. 

“Interesting. Maybe I’ll see you later. Be good, Hollander. Keep the faith,” he winked and he was gone. 

Shane stood frozen for a moment. Took a breath, then another, then one more for good measure. He turned around to lean against the counter and felt his arms trembling. Why had he told him? What game was he playing?

Maybe he deserved something dangerous. He was always so good, so well-trained, so efficient. Whether he was burning incense or carving a stake or training with the crossbow until his callouses got callouses, he grafted harder than anyone else here. Maybe he deserved to do something bad. 

He spent the rest of the night in a haze. Half present, half absent, doing anything to avoid Ilya’s gaze. When his mother asked if he felt okay, noting the flush on his face, he told her he’d had a long day and was turning in early to be ready to train tomorrow. She gave him a look so full of pride that Shane’s stomach turned in on itself. He made his excuses, said his goodbyes, and returned to his room. Sitting in the armchair rigid as a board he wondered if he had made a really, really stupid decision. 

It didn’t matter, because an hour later (Shane counted the minutes on the hotel’s radio alarm clock by his bed) there was a knock on the door. He jumped to his feet and took two strides to reach the door, wrenching it open.

In front of him was Ilya Rozanov. His tie had come undone and the top button of his shirt was open. He was holding a bottle of whiskey by the neck and his perfectly tailored trousers were taunting Shane in their neatness - his fidgeting had put creases in his own pair. Through the open shirt collar Shane saw a beautiful golden crucifix resting on the hollow of his throat. He was overcome with the urge to lick and suck at the pale skin and shook his head to clear his thoughts. 

“Hi,” Shane said. He must sound so stupid. Ilya didn’t seem to care, just shot him a smile and inclined his head. Shane furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you just gonna stand there all night?”

Ilya gave a withering sigh and gestured to his fangs, which Shane was pointedly not looking at. 

“You have to give me permission to enter. Aren’t you the expert in all this?” Shane shook his head and wrung his hands together. 

“Shit, sorry. Come in, uh, you’re welcome. To enter. You can enter,” he hoped it came across as endearing rather than incompetent. Based on Ilya’s smirk, the former had won out. 

He closed the door behind him and stood raking his gaze over Shane. He wanted to curl away from Ilya’s eyes but he stood firm. 

“So. What do you want?” Ilya licked his lips and his pink tongue lingered on his elongated canines. He replied like the answer was obvious. 

“You.” 

Shane took a step back involuntarily. 

“I’ve never done this. With a guy. Or a-” He winced, “a vampire. I don’t know what to do.” He gave a panicked laugh and even to his own ears it sounded manic. 

Ilya raised his hands like he was placating a spooked horse. Shane would normally object to being treated like an idiot, but he felt so entirely out of his depth that it was reassuring rather than patronising. 

“Relax, Hollander. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. If you want me to go, I’ll go.” Shane shook his head frantically then stopped the movement, aware of his almost comical desperation. 

“I don’t. I don’t want you to go,” Ilya nodded and moved closer. Placing the whisky bottle on the ground he raised a hand to Shane’s face and Shane melted into the hold, nuzzling his cheek against Ilya’s cool palm. 

“Then we will start slow. Like this,” Agonisingly slowly Ilya leaned in. Shane was going to go insane with want. He was losing his mind. Sparks were flying under his skin and he was on fire and feverish and he was going to die in this room with Ilya Rozanov looking at him with such intense desire he didn’t know what to do when-

Their lips connected. Ilya let him set the pace and they slipped into a rhythm as Shane recovered from his shock. He dropped a hand to Ilya’s waist to pull him closer. Ilya went willingly and with a groan he backed Shane into the wall with one hand shielding the back of his skull from the impact. 

It wasn’t his first kiss. He’d kissed girls at parties while he pretended to be drunk. He’d kissed his first girlfriend in the dark of her room, hands fumbling at clothes in an awkward teenage lust-fuelled grapple. But he’d never been kissed like this, like he was made of fire and Ilya was frostbitten, like he wanted to climb into his mouth and never separate, like he was something to be cherished. Ilya went slowly, nipping at his lip, licking the seam, before gently pressing his tongue into Shane’s mouth. All the while he kept one cold hand on Shane’s cheek to anchor him in place. To keep him grounded. 

Shane let out a moan and Ilya pulled back to rest their foreheads together. 

“Okay?” He whispered and all Shane could think to do was kiss him again and draw him in even closer. Reaching up a hand he tangled it in Ilya’s curls and tugged. The answering whine made him smirk against Iya’s lips.

Later Ilya would tug him to the bed and help pull off his shirt. He would smile so wide when Shane folded his clothes and laid them on the chair that Shane wanted to take a Marie Kondo organisation class just to keep that grin on Ilya’s face. He spread Shane’s legs and dropped his mouth to his cock to lick, to suck, to take him into the heat of his mouth and coach him through the best blowjob of his life until he came hot and fast down Ilya’s throat. 

Lying on his side he felt Ilya’s cold fingers at his hole and let him spread him open and reveal his hot churning core. When Ilya pushed in, ever so gently, Shane moaned and muffled his face in Ilya’s arm only for the vampire to lift his head up and murmur that he wanted to hear Shane, which made Shane moan even louder, much to Ilya’s delight. When he came, he collapsed boneless against Ilya's chest and felt him withdraw to pump his cock and spill over his fist. 

Later they lay tangled in the sheets, Shane pressed against Ilya’s side and breathing heavily. They didn’t speak. Just let the silence wash over them and in the dark Shane’s hand found Ilya’s and squeezed tightly. He closed his eyes and felt a kiss pressed to his head and as he drifted off he wondered if something was a sin, wouldn’t you know it in your gut, and wouldn’t it feel wrong?

When he woke up it was dark outside and he was alone. For a moment he wondered if he’d dreamt it, if years of very specific and tortuous dreams had driven him to hallucinations. But he looked down to see a hickey seared into this chest and his clothes folded on the chair and the complimentary hotel notebook open on his bedside with a message scrawled into it in virtually illegible handwriting. 

Thank you Hollander. I had fun. Text me when you’re in Boston - I’ll find you. Keep the faith.

And a phone number below it. Eyes still cloudy with sleep he ripped out the page and stuffed it into the pocket of his bag and fell back to sleep, lying on top of the duvet to keep the chill on his skin as long as he could.

Chapter 3: 2019

Chapter Summary

Time passes. Shane and Ilya grow closer, then further apart, before an encounter in Boston shifts their relationship.

Chapter Notes

warnings for some shane whump at the end. i will not hurt my boy too badly!
hope you enjoy! vampire timeline shenanigans are occurring. a likely thing for them to do

They switch from fighting to fucking with a velocty that could cause whiplash. 

Ilya’s about to pull the feral off the terrified woman in front of him when Shane fires a crossbow bolt with perfect aim into its neck. Once he’s helped the woman up and sent her back to her friends, he turns and winks at Ilya. 

“Too slow, Rozanov. Try harder, you’ll get them next time.” 

Ilya could ring his neck. He settles for leaving a collar of hickeys there and smacking Shane on the ass as soon as he walks through the door. Shane just smirks and launches himself at Ilya to grab his face and bring their lips together. 

Sometimes Ilya gets there first. Often Shane is already there, waiting, grinning as he steals the win out from under Ilya. The days where he can get one over on Shane make him heady with delight.

Shane sharpening a stake in his hotel room. A knock on the door and there’s Ilya, grinning, waiting to be invited in. Shane welcomes him rapidly then yanks his arm to pull him inside. He hisses, “Hayden is next door, what the fuck are you doing?” Ilya just smiles and tugs Shane towards him to watch his resolve melt away.

When Ilya hovers over him and gives him that look of pure unfiltered want, Shane finds his eyes drifting down to the crucifix at Ilya’s throat. The skin around it is flushed like the blush that rises to Shane’s cheeks under Ilya’s gaze. He’s made the unflappable Ilya Rozanov blush and it sends a jolt of pleasure to his cock. Heat roils in Shane's belly to think of the immortal vampire in front of him flushing. Knowing he could cause a blood rush to Ilya’s chest (could all vampires blush? Shane made a note to ask Hayden in some non-suspicious way) filled him with longing to touch him. So he did. He ran his fingers over the cold skin and hissed when they pressed closer. He was throbbing with want and heat, on fire, and Ilya was so cold and moving against him and pulling him in.

Under his ministrations Shane falls apart. He’s usually so composed, so rigid. It drives Ilya mad with want that he can undo all that tightly wound intensity and turn Shane into a writhing mess. The same hands that steadily aim the crossbow bolt at a feral’s neck scratch ribbons down Ilya’s back and tug his hair and fist the sheets in the throes of pleasure.

2015 becomes 2016. Months turn to years, hookups go from rare treats to regular meetings. Sometimes they go months without seeing each other and can only text under their aliases - Lily and Jane. 

Shane’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he moves so quickly to grab it that Hayden and JJ shoot him questioning looks. He gives them a sheepish smile. “My mom. She wants to know if I’m coming home on Sunday.”

He’s not sure they’re convinced but he sneaks off to check his phone anyway because he’s an addict and this craving can only be satiated by hearing from Ilya.

Lily: will i see you in Boston next week?

Lily: i will make you feel good

Lily: forget about stupid ferals and hunting and reply to me im bored

His face breaks into a smile and his thumbs are flying across the keys immediately. 

Jane: We’ll see. I have very important hunting business to attend to. Can’t always fit you in

The reply comes through in seconds.

Lily: mean :( here i am trying to make you feel good and you are kicking me while i am down. 

Lily: are you wearing your glasses?

Jane: Yeah, I had a meeting. Why?

Lily: picture please. Need to see glasses to heal me. Pleaseeeee

They don’t usually share pictures. Too much of a risk; if it leaks, if someone finds it, if his phone gets stolen, everything is over. So Shane commits every picture of Ilya to memory. Visions of curly hair and a crooked nose are burnt into his retinas so he can delete the evidence but maintain the memory. 

He snaps a photo of himself in his stupid reading glasses and sends it with instructions to delete immediately. Ilya replies with a saluting emoji. Shane wonders if he should worry about how he can’t say no to Ilya: how he doesn't want to, not really. 

They don’t usually call either. But one night Shane wakes to his phone ringing and Lily flashing on the screen and in his half asleep fugue state he answers.

“What’s going on?”

No reply, but Shane can hear shaky breaths down the line. A rattling sound that twinges his chest. “Rozanov?” The little wounded noise that comes over the phone breaks the silence. 

“Sorry,” whispers the vampire from the other end. Shane shakes his head then remembers Ilya can’t see him. 

“S’okay. Where are you? Are you outside?” It sounds like he’s in a wind tunnel or at the top of a skyscraper.

“Moscow.” Shane blanches. 

“What? Why?” For a moment he thinks Ilya has hung up the phone but he waits and holds his breath. 

“I had to come home. Someone-my father’s house burned down. I had to come and salvage what was left.”

“Jesus, that’s awful. Are you okay?” Ilya gives a broken little chuckle.

“Not really. I hated that place, but it was my home. I always thought I would come back to get the things I left behind.”

“Like what?”

“Pictures, mostly. I don’t have any of my mother. Maybe some books. It’s stupid, all I wanted before I left was for that place to burn to the fuckign ground. I should be grateful.” Shane thinks of his own childhood home: warm and welcoming with plush cushions and photos on every wall like a shrine to the Hollander line. 

“You don’t have to be. It doesn’t really sound like home.”

Ilya sighs, “It wasn’t. But it was mine. When my mother died, and I left, I figured it would just stay there.”

Wondering out loud Shane lets his mouth speak before his brain catches up. “What about your dad?”

“Dead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Ilya has mentioned his mother affectionately before but never his father. The scoff he lets out might explain why. 

“Don’t be.”

“Okay. And there’s no one else? Back home?” 

“No. I have Svetlana in Boston. There’s no one else I miss in Russia.” Shane has seen pictures of Svetlana, a beautiful redhead with huge doe eyes and a radiant smile. He thinks in another life they could have been friends. In a world where she could know about Shane without everything crumbling around them. 

“I meant family.”

“So did I,” Ilya replies. Shane gulps. He’s said the wrong thing, put his foot right in it like he always does. There’s a reason he liked working with his hands and not his words. 

Ilya speaks again, “But I had a brother. A long time ago,” Resisting the urge to ask how long that really is, Shane just holds the silence and stays a steady presence. 

“I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do. Do you want to stay on the phone?” Ilya murmurs his assent and they stay like that, just breathing down the line, until Ilya sounds solid and Shane’s eyes are blurry with sleep. 

“Night, Hollander.”

“Night, Rozanov. See you soon?”

No answer. Probably drifted off himself. 

Shane wonders if everyone falls asleep with their situationship on the phone. He decides he doesn’t want to know the answer. 

After Ilya calls him they don’t speak for a long time. Shane texts but each unanswered message leaves him feeling vulnerable, flayed, spread open and tossed aside. Maybe for Ilya it’s such a small fraction of a long life that he barely notices the distance between them.  

They’ve been ignoring each other for two months. His results are still perfect; the raw data on his hunts shows he’s somehow become more efficient. But his parents and Hayden and even JJ can sense something is amiss. And Crowell keeps pushing, sending him further afield, giving him harder missions that he’d usually relish but that now keep him away from Boston. 

The Commissioner gets a look in his eye when he smiles at Shane. Like he can see right through him and is taking an X-ray image of his insides to inspect them for anything awry. Shane takes it standing up but he feels vulnerable and wrenched open. He prays less and he’s sure Crowell knows it. Can smell the sin on his skin. Brushing the thought off he opens his texts and fires off a message to Ilya. He’ll be in Massachusetts next week and anticipation is bubbling under his skin. 

He’s sure Crowell can see the invisible marks Ilya has left behind. Before he leaves Boston he checks for visible hickies: Ilya keeps his promise to only nip at the skin that can be easily hidden by clothes. Still, Crowell’s piercing stare haunts him as he imagines the layers of his clothes peeling back to reveal the evidence of his wrongdoings. 

*

When he touches down in Boston he keeps his focus on the hunt. He’s not there to fuck a vampire - he’s there to kill one. There is a feral vampire running around and he has no qualms sinking a stake into its heart and dusting the ashes off his hand. Hayden gives him an approving grin. 

“Legendary. That was fucking awesome, dude. Want to grab a drink?” Shane shakes his head and turns to leave.

“I’m beat. I’ll get some sleep and see you tomorrow?” Hayden doesn’t move. His face is scrunched up and concerned and he looks like he’s trying to bore holes in Shane’s head and scoop out his inner thoughts. After a moment of hesitation he lays a hand on Shane’s arm. 

“Are you okay? You’ve been distracted lately. You’re always on your phone, I barely see you anymore. Is something going on?”

Shane shakes his head frantically, “No! I’m fine. I’m tired. Things are crazy at work and Crowell wants me to do all these extra hunts and I have feral dust all over me so I need a shower.” Hayden raises his hands placatingly. Shane feels a little guilty for biting his head off but the risk of Hayden knowing the truth is far too great. 

“You can tell me if something’s going on. We’re friends, aren’t we?” 

“Nothing’s going on, Hayden. I’m just busy,” Sharply he shuts it down and his gut twists to see Hayden’s face fall. 

“Fine. I believe you,” he definitely doesn’t, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Hayden turns on his heel to leave and doesn’t look back. 

Shane’s heart is pounding as he walks to Ilya’s apartment. Looking over his shoulder he frantically tries to calm the paranoia coursing through his veins. No one’s following him, Hayden is at the motel, it’s just him and the city but he can’t calm down. When he raps his knuckles on Ilya’s door and it opens for him he nearly falls over the threshold. 

“Hollander, you look wrecked,” just what he wanted to hear. After radio silence for weeks. He rolls his eyes and stalks towards Ilya. Grabs his face and presses him into the wall of the apartment, sinking to his knees and scrabbling at the belt. He needs to stop thinking, and the best way to do that is drawing pleasured moans from Ilya. He needs a hand in his hair and to be pushed further onto Ilya’s cock until all he can think about is the weight on his tongue and the scent of Ilya in his nose. He needs to prove to himself that Ilya is here and hasn’t gotten bored and chucked him.

Later they’re wrapped up in each other, Shane’s head cushioned on Ilya’s chest as he strokes his hair. Shane is fucked out and satisfied and one look at Ilya tells him the feeling is mutual. Shane closes his eyes and takes in the feeling of being held. He allows himself five minutes and resents his unfailing internal clock for keeping the score so well. At four minutes fifty five seconds he goes to sit up but finds Ilya’s arm holding him in place. Letting out a little whine he presses a kiss to Ilya’s pec and tries again. It’s so warm in Ilya’s bed but there’s a weight like a stone pressing against his chest and he needs to be anywhere else.

“I should go. Hayden probably thinks I’ve been murdered.” Ilya gives a shrug and tilts his head like he’s pondering something. 

“You could stay. It’s dark, don’t want you walking alone at night,” The protest is comical and he knows it even before Shane snorts. Shane is 200 pounds of pure rippling muscle and has a crossbow in his bag. Still, Ilya tries, “You could stay the night.”

Shane shakes his head. Ilya hears his pulse pick up and curses himself for pushing too hard. But was it too hard? Four years of fucking and Shane had never stayed the night. Wasn’t that strange? Didn’t he feel the smarting loss that ran through Ilya every time they parted ways?

There are dark circles under Shane’s eyes that Ilya hadn’t noticed before. He reaches a hand to Shane’s cheek to brush a thumb over the skin and Shane flinches away. Horrified, Ilya drops his hand. Moves back. Turns the space between them into an impassable cavern. 

“Sorry,” they say simultaneously. An awkward laugh but Shane is getting up from the bed and pulling his trousers on and Ilya can’t even be distracted by the perfect curve of his ass because Shane has the heart rate of someone being hunted for sport and Ilya thinks he might be the predator. 

“What’s wrong? Shane?” Definitely the wrong thing to say. Shane’s head whips up to look at Ilya with a speed that has him wincing at the crack. His eyes are blown wide with panic and he backs up. 

“I have to go. Rozanov, don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“Harder than what? You’re not making sense. Is this hard for you?” Shane huffs and keeps packing his clothes into his neat backpack. 

“Yeah, it’s hard. Everyone is watching me and Crowell won’t let up and I can’t just start staying the night! People would figure it out. I’m already risking everything to be here. And you don’t call me for weeks even when I’m putting my whole fucking life on the line!” Ilya flinches. He manages to keep enough of a lock on his emotions, Shane too wrapped up in his panic to notice.

“Hollander. We are careful. No one knows what we’re doing. You don’t have to stay, but don’t run away,” Shane’s shaking his head. He looks pale and peaky; he fumbles putting his shoes on. It would be endearing if he didn’t look like he was facing a firing squad. 

“Don’t talk to me about running away. You told me all that stuff about your family and then you just shut down. Did it mean anything?” 

Ilya holds his palm up and out like Shane’s a flighty colt about to run away. He definitely is but he resents the hand nonetheless. 

“I have to go. I can’t do this right now” And he’s gone. Ilya clenches his fists and stalks over to the mirror that he can’t see himself in. When his fist connects with the glass it splinters into a spiderweb of cracks and the stinging across his knuckles grounds him.

* 

Shane is halfway to the hotel when he realises he’s not breathing.

Panic floods his limbs. He can’t just flaunt his relationships and risk everything and he can’t just take what he wants. Ducking into an alley he draws his knees to his chest and huffs out breaths the way he read you should in an online article about panic attacks. 

He’s not having a panic attack. He just can’t breathe and the air is pressing so hard on his skin and he’s covered in sweat in a non-panic attack-way. This is what happens when you indulge and do something stupid. It catches you eventually. 

Stumbling to his feet he gropes for the wall and rests his forehead against the brick. It presses against his skin and grounds him to the present moment. He is in a dingy alleyway that stinks of piss. He can hear the telltale scrabbling sound of a rat digging through the trash behind him. A drip of something very cold lands on his forehead. He is breathing through a panic attack in a murder alley and Ilya Rozanov wanted him to stay the night. 

Not for the first time he wonders what it would be like if he wasn't a hunter. If he was just a regular guy with a normal job who couldn’t see supernatural creatures and whose parents didn’t pass him down a hunting dynasty. What if Crowell had never taken an interest in him, had never seen untapped potential in the clumsy arc of his stake through the air?

He never would have met Ilya. Maybe that would have been better. He entertains the thought for a moment and shakes his head, scratching his forehead on the brick. He wouldn't trade Rozanov for anything. Even if this was all they could have: sharing a bed for a few hours, fucking in the dark, texting with fake names. At least it was his. 

Hayden is doing a very poor job of pretending to sleep when Shane gets back, but Shane is grateful. He toes off his shoes and slips under the stretched sheets. Plugging in his phone he glances at the screen to see no messages which doesn’t bother him even as he slams it onto the bedside table and shoves his head into the pillow. He falls into an uneasy and disrupted sleep and when his alarm wakes him it’s a relief to leave the dream-limbo and do something practical. 

Sharing a breakfast with Hayden that morning, Shane avoids his eyes. Hayden knows something is wrong but what can he say? Shane is closed off, Shane shuts down, Shane doesn’t tell him things about his life. Instead he drinks his coffee and stares at his food and pushes it around the plate before he pushes back from the table and goes back to the room. 

They drift through the day in an awkward silence. Notebooks and maps are piled up on the desk; they still trace the ferals using old analog methods and the scratch on pencil on paper soothes his busy mind. Hayden taps his pen against his chin and stares into space. 

“Here. Look at how they’re moving,” Shane links two points on the map, “They’re converging one one spot. We need to track them before they get there.” Hayden gives a stilted nod. 

“Okay. So split up, corner them and take them out?” 

“Well it sounds less impressive when you say it like that. But yes.”

It isn’t normally like this with Hayden. Banter flows between them as easy as breathing; years of training together leaving them tuned onto the same wavelength. Now they might as well be speaking different languages. 

Sighing, Shane stands and grabs his back. It’s dusk and the sky has shifted from orange to a deep blue-black. The lights of the city flicker and blur and he slides his glasses onto his nose then rethinks it and puts them down. 

“Hayden…” His friend gives him a look marred with concern and Shane wants to tell him everything. Spill his guts and finally let someone else into this secret he’s built his whole life around. Nothing comes out when he opens his mouth and Hayden’s deflated look is too much to bare. 

“Forget it Shane. When you figure out what’s going on with you, we can talk. Let’s just get the job done.” 

They leave in silence but Hayden squeezes his shoulder before parting ways. A peace offering that Shane clings to as he walks out into the darkness of the city. 

Blood pumps in his ears. He’s giving chase and he’s closing in. He could reach out and grab the feral but they’re out in the open. Too exposed, too many witnesses. A narrow alley or a dead end provides the perfect cover and Shane corrals the feral towards the first one he sees. 

It’s so easy. Like it always has been. This is what he’s good at, where he can control every move, tracking like a bloodhound and killing like one too. Careening into the alley he grips the stake and slams the feral into the wall. Relishes in the groan it lets out. Reaches up, ready to swing it down and hit his mark when-

A hand around wrist. The fingers are strong but freezing and for a moment he wonders if it’s Ilya. When they spin him round and slam his head into the wall he realises that’s not the case. 

It’s another feral, taller this time, with the same grey skin and black eyes bulging from its skull. Shane recoils from the rancid breath. The feral come closer. Its claws rake along Shane’s arm and he hisses. 

There’s only two of them. He can take out two ferals. He’s beaten double, triple those numbers in the past. But this feral doesn’t have the mindless look of rage on its face. 

Those bulging black eyes bore into his. Calculating. It’s thinking, and Shane has never fought a feral that can think. When two more slam into his right side and knock him down he shouts in pain, getting louder when a boot kicks his side and he drops his stake. 

Scramble to his feet. Duck away and get to the end of the alley where cold brick presses into his back: solid and protected. He fumbles for the crossbow and loads a bolt, hands steady. 

He lets loose the arrow with a yell when a feral rushes him, claws extended. It’s scrabbling at his skin, trying to tear through clothes. The thick material is useless against the dagger-like nails at the tips of its fingers. 

He moves quickly and dispatches the attacker. Slams its head into the wall and stamps down for good measure to watch it crumble. If you can’t get the heart, destroy the brain, he recalls from training. 

But there are more ferals now, more than he’s ever seen. Swarming him, reaching forwards. They come in waves - far from the frenetic energy of their usual attacks, there is a strategy here. They’re stronger too as their fists collide with his limbs and a clawed hand rakes down his cheek to slice it open. The copper scent of blood in the air makes the swarm like sharks. 

He’s going to die, he realises, trampled and torn to pieces by feral vampires that don’t behave like any feral he’s fought before. Ferals can be lethargic from glutting themselves on blood, or weak from starvation, but they don’t work together. They aren’t strategic: their danger comes in the raw strength as they rend their victims apart and drink them dry. 

A feral leans in and its rotting tongue lolls to Shane’s wound, ready to lick. One taste of his blood and it’s over, so he kicks and scrabbles and pulls out a crossbow bolt to use as a dagger in desperation. He tears through the neck of one assailant but the rest are still there, swarming. Scratching. Tearing. 

He’s going to die in an alleyway and the only thing he thinks is that he should have just stayed the night with Ilya Rozanov. 

*

Something is wrong. Ilya can feel it on the air. Has felt it since Shane walked out. Has felt it even longer than that, when he cried down the phone and spilled the dark festering pool inside him to the one person he never wanted it to touch. 

Shane had texted him and he’d watched the messages come in and thrown his phone across the room. The way they made his head spin. The cold spike of panic when Hollander got too close. He was a man at war with himself. The two sides - one trying to pull Shane in, one to push him back - couldn’t settle. So he pushed and pulled and finally Shane got sick of it and left. And who could blame him?

Ilya doesn’t mind that he can’t see the sun anymore. Darkness is a cloak that hides him from prying eyes. He can wander the city unbothered and switch off his higher thoughts to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. He’s walked the length of Boston more times than he can count, sometimes barely making it home before the sun creeps over the horizon. Svetlana would shake her head when he appeared at her door but always let him in, never left him out in the warmth. 

Maybe he’ll go to her. Not for sex; they haven’t slept together for years. But for the easy comfort of her company and a chance to slip into his native tongue. To hear her laugh and to be grateful for how she lets him have his secrets. Sometimes his chest could burst from holding everything about Shane inside and all he wants is to tell her before he ruptures and spills onto her polished floors. 

He doesn’t. He walks, and walks, and when he looks up he’s stood by an alleyway in downtown Boston and he knows that he has followed one person’s scent. He could turn around. Doesn’t have to follow Shane’s breathing. Shane had left, and maybe it was his fault but that didn’t mean he had to track him across a city. 

Then he hears the struggle and his legs move without hesitation.

Throwing himself into the fray he doesn’t look around or pause. Just starts ripping through grey flesh. His hands smart with the acidic feral blood but he doesn’t care-just tears and pulls and pummels until the ferals are ash on the ground and sticky black residue and Shane is sprawled at his feet like a supplicant. He looks up at him with dazed eyes that roll back into his head. 

Ilya drops to his knees and hears the squelch of rancid liquid seeping through his jeans. Uncaring he cups Shane’s cheek and pulls back his eyelids to be greeted with white, pupiless voids. 

“Hollander, wake up. We need to go,” he taps at Shane’s cheek until he seems to regain some consciousness. The tension in his stomach eases a little but not much, not while they’re exposed and covered in filth and Shane is clinging to consciousness with a stubbornness Ilya can’t help but find endearing.

“Shane. Can you hear me?” Shane gives a groan and cradles his arm to his chest. For once Ilya doesn’t bother checking if anyone can see them. Just pulls Shane to his feet, winds an arm around his waist and supports his weight as they stumble onto the street and away from the carnage in their wake. 

“You are safe. I have you. You are safe,” He repeats all the way back, as they cross the threshold of his apartment and he pulls Shane to the bed and starts to pull off his shoes. Shane is floppy and uncoordinated but he tries his best to help until Ilya rests a hand on his calf to still his movements. 

“Il-ya,” he gives a weak call of his name and Ilya shakes his head, running to the bathroom for towels and water. He can fix this, he can fix Shane, he just needs to get this putrid blood off him and assess the damage-

Shane’s eyes are wide and they meet Ilya’s, just as he turns to the side and vomits on the floor. When he passes out again, Ilya breathes a sigh of relief and sets to work. 

Chapter 4: 2019, again

Chapter Summary

Shane wakes up in Ilya's apartment, forced to confront his reasons for leaving.

Chapter Notes

we're so back. this chapter started it all and was the one i was most excited to write. please enjoy our boys being freaks. shane is inventing new forms of emotional repression and ilya is inventing new ways to punish himself. very excited about this one! please forgive my fuckery with timelines, i've had too much fun inserting scenes into my weird little canon. also today i had to google would a vampire show up in a daguerreotype before i realised it doesn't matter and i can do what i like ! canon is mine to bash into a shape i enjoy

When Shane wakes, it’s to a throbbing wrist and a screaming head. 

He’s confused for a moment because he definitely died in an alleyway yesterday, but now he’s tucked into a king sized bed with plush pillows and eye-wateringly high thread count sheets. The room is familiar: Shane did not think Ilya Rozanov’s apartment would be recreated in the afterlife but he wouldn’t mind spending eternity here. 

“Hollander. You’re awake?” Oh. If he’s dead, why is Ilya here? He’s stood at the entrance, leant against the doorjamb watching Shane. Under the scrutiny he looks down and pretends to be fascinated by the sheets. They’re soft but plain white and it’s not convincing. 

“Am I dead?” Ilya makes a confused noise and approaches the bed. Not enough to touch but enough that Shane can see the scratches on his hands. 

“No, Hollander, you are not dead.” Nodding Shane draws his eyes up to meet Ilya’s. He looks wrecked, like he’s been up all night. The air smells of coffee and a strong waft of pine disinfectant. 

“I think I threw up on your floor,” Ilya nods and shame burns hot in Shane’s gut, “Shit. Sorry.”

A shake of his head doesn’t make Shane feel any better. 

Ilya gulps and moves closer. Shane could reach out and touch him. “I found you in an alley. I thought the ferals had got you,” 

“Why didn’t you call?”

“What? Hollander, I thought you were dead. Now is not the time-”

“But why didn’t you?” Rolling his eyes Ilya flops onto bed next to him with a knee tucked beneath him. His hands are trembling like he’s trying to resist reaching out to Shane. 

“Why didn’t you stay?”

“You’re ignoring the question.” His heart is in his throat and the room is starting to spin again. If he throws up he’ll never look Ilya in the eyes again. 

“We don’t call. That’s not-why did you leave?” With a huff Shane raises his eyes to meet Ilya’s. Blue and sad with dark circles smeared underneath. 

“You called me. When you were in Russia. You told me about your family. Then you stopped replying,” Now it’s out in the open. Maybe Ilya regretted sharing something so personal with his hookup and was trying to pull back. To reestablish the rules that governed their not-relationship to keep them safe and distant and always wanting a little bit more. 

“And you called me Shane. When you saw me again,” Ilya’s face is screwed up with confusion. 

“Is that not your name?” 

“What are we?” He interrupts. Ilya blanches and just sits there blinking, his face a mask of confusion. 

“We’re friends?” Shane gives a bitter scoff that leaves the vampire recoiling.

“Friends? We’re not friends, Rozanov.”

“What do you want me to say? You hunt me. I fuck you. What else is there?”

Now it’s Shane’s turn to recoil. He lets the silence settle over the room and stares at Ilya who is kneeling on the bed next to him, face red and mouth set in a thin line. 

“I hunt ferals. I’d never - I’d never hurt you,” Ilya relaxes from frustration to resignation. His shoulders slouch and he sighs, leaning back on his elbows. 

“And that’s not strange to you? What’s the difference between me and one of those things?” An indignant noise halfway between a splutter and a scoff escapes from Shane’s mouth. 

“I know you! You’re not feral, you don’t kill people at random, you’re not dangerous like they are,” Rolling his eyes Ilya opens his mouth to show the sharp white fangs resting on his bottom lip. 

“That’s not what Crowell says, is it? You kill ferals but all vampires are a threat. We’re all condemned. So no Hollander, I didn’t call you, because we cannot ever be more than this. Why don’t you get that?” 

“Because I do want more! I like you, Rozanov,” He reaches out to grab Ilya’s wrist, to keep him from running away. 

“You don’t like me, Hollander,”

“I do. I like you a bit too much,” Ilya tries to turn his head away but Shane doesn’t let him. Moving a hand to his chin he holds it firm and brings their foreheads together. They’re in Ilya’s bed, in Ilya's apartment, and six hours ago Shane was curled in an alley about to meet his maker, but it’s clear that Ilya is the vulnerable one here. His blue eyes are wet and wide and his lower lip is trembling against his fangs. Shane throws one leg over Ilya’s and slides onto his lap where he fits as perfectly as he always has. Wrapping an arm around Ilya’s back he tangles the other in his curls and pulls him in to rest against his chest. Ilya is stiff but under Shane’s hands he melts into the hold and winds his arms around Shane’s waist and squeezes. 

“I’m dangerous. You could get hurt,” He mumbles against Shane’s neck who just laughs and holds him tighter. 

“I’m dangerous. I get hurt all the time. And,” with Ilya’s curls in his fingers he tugs his head back so their eyes meet, “I like you anyway.” 

With that Ilya hardens and comes back to himself. Deftly flipping Shane over and slamming him against the pillow he kisses down his throat, scraping the skin with his teeth and nipping, sucking, trailing pecks down to the collar of Shane’s shirt. He realises it isn’t one of his - this is Ilya’s, soft from washing and soothing on his skin. The discovery makes him moan and Ilya grins. 

“I want you so bad. I wanted you when you first told me off for smoking,” An open-mouthed kiss against Shane’s collarbone, “and when you killed a feral in front of me,” one to the plane of his abs, “and when I called you,” fingers at the waistband of his boxers, dangerously close to his cock, “and when I called you Shane.” 

It’s enough to make him wheeze. Shane bucks his hips up and their cocks brush against each other and send a shockwave through Shane’s body so he keens and seeks further contact. Ilya is only too happy to oblige and runs his hands over Shane’s waist to flip him over so he’s pressed against his back and scrabbling to remove his underwear and finding purchase against his hole and taking him to pieces to finally, finally have him wholly and completely. 

Later Shane is curled at Ilya’s side. His hand rested on Ilya’s chest, next to his crucifix.

“Was your mom, you know,” Shane gestures to himself and Ilya quirks an eyebrow. 

“Canadian? God, no,” With a scoff Shane shoves Ilya’s bare shoulder. 

“Fuck you, I meant-was she human?” A stiff nod. Shane sits in silence and waits for Ilya to speak. To say something to break the tension that settled over them again. 

“Yes. She was human.” His hand moves to rest on the crucifix. At first it looks like a light touch; then Shane sees the stiff tendons of his fingers and realises he’s pressing on it, grounding himself with the bite of metal. 

“Oh. But your dad, he was… not,” Another scoff from Ilya, just as fond. 

“Oh my god, Hollander. I’ve watched you stake a vampire through the chest in front of me. I won’t get offended at the word,” Shane splutters awkwardly but moves in closer until his side is flush against Ilya’s. He hopes the vampire’s sensitive hearing can’t pick up on the anxious thrum of his heart as Ilya tangles their fingers together. 

“He was a vampire. And my brother, he was human too. My mother never wanted to be turned. I don’t know if she even wanted to be married to my father,” Shane tightens his grip on Ilya’s hand, “but she was. And she was a good mother.” 

He’s on the defence; Shane has struck a nerve. But Ilya keeps clinging to his hand, even as he avoids eye contact. 

“I’m sure she was. Did she give you that?” He points at the crucifix.

“Not exactly. I got it when she died. My father and Alexei didn’t want it, so I kept it. To have a piece of her.”

“How old were you?” God, you’ve really fucked it now, Hollander. What kind of a question is that for your undead hookup? Ilya tenses but still doesn't pull away. In fact, he moves closer, resting his weight against Shane and turning his head so it rests in the crook of Shane’s neck. Maybe he’s drawn to the rhythmic pulsing of blood in Shane’s jugular. Maybe it’s the vampire equivalent of whale sounds or that white noise Hayden uses to put the girls to sleep. Either way, Shane will take it. 

“12. It was a long time ago,” Sometimes Shane forgets that despite his youthful visage Ilya is not actually his age. He’s decades older, preserved in time, fossilised just for Shane to find years later. 

“That’s so young. I’m sorry,” he presses his lips to Ilya’s curls. 

“It’s okay. She was-it was difficult for her. And my father, he was so hard on her, and so cruel, and she never wanted to be turned, but he-” Ilya’s breathing speeds up and his words slur.

Shane tugs him in closer and Ilya goes willingly. Shane’s arm aches from the fight but he tamps down on any whines of  discomfort and grips Ilya tightly.

He doesn’t know what makes him do it. One moment he’s stroking a hand over Ilya's back and the next he’s on his lap wrapping him in a crushing hug again. Ilya melts into him and Shane just holds him together. They sit like that for what feels like hours but can only be minutes. When they lean back, Shane presses his lips to Ilya’s head and rests a hand on his chest. 

His fingers brush the edge of the crucifix. He’s never touched it before. It always seemed too raw, too personal. But they’ve shared so much tonight and Ilya looks so wrecked that Shane wants to cover every inch of his skin until they merge into one. And when his hand strokes the gold pendant the last thing he expects is Ilya to curse as it moves and reveals a blistering wound burned into his chest. 

“Jesus!” Shane shouts and jumps back. The chain falls back into place. It rests on Ilya’s collarbone and now Shane knows it is scorching his skin and he is definitely going to be sick again. 

Ilya’s eyes are closed. Shane breathes heavily and stands rigid, ready for a fight. But there aren’t any ferals here, just the Eastern Orthodox Cross scorching the skin of Ilya’s chest as a permanent reminder of his loss.

“Ilya, take it off! It’s burning you, fuck-”

“No.” Shane’s head snaps up in disbelief. All his first aid training compels him to rip off the chain and slather Ilya’s chest in cold cloths but the vampire is sitting rigid on the bed.

“But it’s gold! I thought silver was dangerous to vampires, why is it doing that?”

“It’s not the metal, Hollander. It’s God,” God. Shane thinks of the wooden crucifix they have at the entrance of the headquarters and the scent of incense in the air and the crown of thorns that their effigy of Jesus wears and how vampires flinch away when you make the sign of the cross and bile pools in his mouth. 

Why hadn’t he connected the crucifix he fights under to the one hanging from Ilya’s neck? How had he mistaken the burnt skin for a flush of lust, thought the charred flesh was a sign of wanting and not of despair? It has three beams and a slanted bottom line but it’s still a crucifix, still holy, still harming him. There’s a reason he leaves his holy water in his hotel room and takes off his own crucifix before he spends the night with the vampire. Ilya’s cross was so intricate and beautiful that Shane never associated it with violence. He just assumed it couldn’t hurt him because it belonged to his mother. Maybe that’s exactly why it could. 

He reaches a hand towards Ilya but the vampire shakes his head. He flinches from Shane’s hand. Shane’s stupid clumsy hand that has killed creatures like Ilya and disturbed the final memory of his mother. Wrenching his hand back he holds his palms out like he’s approaching a deer. Like Ilya will bolt if he moves too fast. 

“Fuck, Ilya. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Ilya lifts his head and makes hesitant eye contact. His eyes are bloodshot and their usual blue is tinged with a dark hue. He looks, Shane realises with trepidation, like a vampire on the verge of going feral. Like prey. 

“I keep it for her,” his voice is wracked and weak, “so I don’t forget. What I did to her, how I lost her. My brother blamed me too. When I left, he told me he would never forgive me for what I had done.”

“But you didn’t do anything, Ilya. Your dad-he hurt her and she-” Ilya holds up a hand to cut him off. 

“I trapped her there. She was tethered to that man because of me. And when he turned her he said it was so she could be with us forever, even when she didn’t want it.”

Shane blinks. He must look stupid, incredibly stupid, but there is nothing he can say in the wake of that confession. He lets Ilya go on, sure that if he interrupts the man he will never get to hear how this awful story ends. 

“So he turned her anyway. And she was so miserable, Shane, she was so scared. She hated it and she hated him and I’m sure she must have hated me sometimes too. For being like him,” Shane shakes his head and moves a fraction closer. Just enough to test the water and see if Ilya will let him in. He’s still tense but he doesn’t back away, so Shane moves in further, until he’s only a breath away. Until he can feel the cold emanating from Ilya and bask in how it settles his skin. 

“That’s not true. You were a kid, it wasn’t your fault,” Ilya scoffed but it didn’t sound cruel. Just miserable, resigned. 

“I ruined her life. He killed her, but I doomed her. And I’ll doom you too, if you stick around. Your whole life, your whole career, it’ll be fucked. All because of me,” Shane wants to shake his head and protest but he’s frozen in place, glued to the floor by his feet and the weight of Ilya’s grief, “Those ferals would have killed you today. They would have drained you dry and left your body for me to find. And I would have had to pretend I didn’t give a shit. I couldn’t even come to your funeral. I can’t go into the church.”

“Ilya…” he reaches out. Gently, not trying to spook him but to comfort him. A soft hand lands on Ilya’s arm and doesn’t squeeze or tug. Just rests there, waiting, anchoring him to the moment. 

They face off for three seconds, although Shane is sure he’s aged a decade.

Then Ilya collapses into his arms and pulls him close. 

His movements are jerky and Shane realises he’s crying. Not just a gentle weep but full-bodied, agonised sobs that shake his whole being and leave him exhausted. They sit wrapped in each other, Ilya’s head pressed into his neck as he worms closer, like he’s trying to burrow into Shane’s skin. Not for the first time he wishes he could shield Ilya from all the horrid things that had happened to him, intervene before the damage was done. 

Instead he tightens his hold and runs a hand over his back, tracing patterns and circles and words into the skin. A featherlight touch meant to soothe. It seems to work because Ilya’s breathing eventually slows to a ragged but steady pace. He keeps his face tucked into Shane’s neck so he doesn’t have to look up and make eye contact. Moving his hand to the back of Ilya’s head Shane winds his fingers into the blonde curls and scratches his scalp. Usually it would draw a purr from Ilya’s chest but he makes no sound: just melts further into Shane, moving fully into his lap, drawing him closer with his legs. 

They sit for hours. It can’t be hours because the sun doesn’t come up, but Shane doesn’t care, knows he would wait out weeks holding Ilya like this until he could breathe again. 

“She burned,” Ilya murmurs and Shane can’t make out the words at first. So he lets Ilya go on and doesn’t stop his ministrations with his hair. 

“She walked out in the morning and burned in the sun. She just crumbled away into nothing. This was the only thing left,” he runs an unsteady hand over the cross on his neck. Now, in the silence of their hotel room, Shane thought he could hear the quiet sizzle of burning flesh and he tensed every muscle and tendon in his body to not flinch away. 

“I couldn’t even go to her. I wanted to but father held me back. He said I’d die, like I was fucking stupid. I knew what it would do and I wanted it to happen,” Ilya’s breath is steady now. He’s cried himself out and now all that remains is a husk of a man who thinks he will ruin Shane’s life. 

Hooking a finger under Ilya’s chin Shane drags him into his eyeline and forces him to look. He moves a hand to cup Ilya’s cheek and sweeps his thumb over the mole on his face and the irritated tear tracks around it. 

“You won’t doom me. I won’t let you. I can’t just walk away from this, do you get that? I want to be here. I want to be here with you, Ilya” Ilya looks sceptical so Shane moves in and presses their lips together. Not their usually burning passion, but a softer kiss, as Shane runs his tongue over the seam of Ilya’s lips and tries to convey enough affection to fix all of this. Shane shifts underneath him until he’s lying back and Ilya can rest on his chest and cover his body with his own, bracing his legs on either side of Shane’s hips. 

It’s so wrong to take him to bed but it feels so right to take him apart. To throw him on the bed and fuck him until he forgets his own name, to tease him relentlessly until Ilya is sure he’s going to end up on the wrong end of a stake. It was easy to pretend it could be more, when he could keep Shane in the dark about the rot at the core of his being. How he fucks up everything he touches and condemns anyone he cares for. He can’t rip Shane from his perfect world and ruin his life. He won’t. 

They pull back and Ilya rests their foreheads together. He doesn’t look at Shane, can’t look at him, keeps his eyes closed but breathes in Shane’s scent and feels the warmth of his skin. He's mumbling something into Shane's skin, words he's sure he's heard before, in the night and on the phone, but never understood. Never dared translate. All he can pick out is his own name, whispered reverently. “Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane.”

Shane shifts and turns to face Ilya and rests his head on his chest, curling into his side and breathing in the scent of him - sweat damp hair, fancy bodywash, a hint of cigarette smoke. He’s never normally so good at picking out individual scents on people, but he makes an exception for Ilya who he’s spent years of his life studying and cataloguing. There is nothing that Shane doesn’t attack with a relentless determination and focus: Ilya is no exception. 

Carefully he moves a hand to Ilya’s crucifix. He stiffens but relaxes, his mind whirring as he reminds himself that this is not a threat. Shane’s fingers look just as good wrapped around a stake as they do tangled in his own, and Ilya can’t tear his eyes away as they move his cross aside to expose the raw skin underneath. 

He hisses. His eyes go wide and he looks instantly peaky, despite being accustomed to far gorier wounds in the line of duty. But this is Ilya, and that is a burnt, blistered scar in the shape of a crucifix branded into his skin. The edges peel and curl, flesh charred black, but the centre is raw and weeping. It must be agony, Shane thinks, and he wonders not for the first time how Ilya grew accustomed to such pain. If a younger version of him spent every day wincing at the burning sensation above his heart. When it became a throbbing but distant pain that he barely noticed. When he resigned himself to always feeling the sting of scorched flesh. 

Wordlessly he presses a hand to the skin around the burn. Ilya lets him. He doesn’t even flinch, just watches wide eyed as Shane leans in to press a featherlight kiss to the ruined skin. He keeps a hand wrapped around the crucifix, preventing it from making contact with unmarred flesh, and keeps his lips against the mark until he feels a sob run through Ilya’s body. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and reaches a hand behind Ilya's neck to fiddle with the clasp. “I have you,” as he tugs it away and places it on the bedside table, far from the tender skin it would shred through. “You’re safe,” as he pulls his bag up from the floor where Ilya had discarded it and digs around to reveal a mini first aid kit. Ilya laughs wetly and presses a fond kiss to the sharp angle of Shane’s jaw. Shane pointedly ignores him, pulling out gauze and antiseptic cream and a burn dressing he thinks will fit. 

“Shane,” Ilya’s voice is hoarse from crying but soft and tender as Shane looks up from his bag. 

“Of course you carry a first aid kit,” Ilya says. Shane levels him with a withering look. 

“It came in handy, didn’t it? First rule of hunting. Always be prepared,” Ilya laughs again. 

“I thought that was the boy scouts.”

“We have a lot in common. But we said it first.” Ilya’s smile is painfully tender and even as he flinches at the sting of Shane’s antiseptic cream he can’t wipe that grin off his face. Watching Shane methodically run through the protocol of wound care turns him on in a way he can’t explain and won’t unpack. The thoroughness, how he checks in on Ilya with a glance every time he touches a new part of the wound, how he sticks the dressing into place with a firm but gentle press, how his fingers must be magic the way they suck all the pain out of Ilya’s chest and cast it aside. 

“You would be a good doctor,” Ilya mumbles, exhausted. Shane just smiles and presses his lips to the dressing, “do you do that for all your patients?” 

“Only the ones who’ve been very good,” Ilya launches up to nuzzle at Shane’s neck. Shane decides to give him a pass for stressing out the wound because the feeling of Ilya mouthing at his throat is sending blood rushing straight to his cock.  

“I’m always good for you, solnyshko.” He ignores the incredulous noise from Shane’s throat and tugs him to his side to finally, finally sleep. It has been an agonisingly long day, and Ilya was more than ready to forget it had ever happened.

But first - he leans over to the bedside table and pulls open the drawer. He pulls out a thin piece of metal, polished and shiny despite its age, and holds it out to Shane. Shane takes it in shaky fingers and brings it close to his eyeline, remembering he doesn’t have his glasses.

“It’s a daguerreotype,” Ilya explains. Shane nods and keeps looking as the faded image becomes clearer.

It's a family photograph, and by the dated clothes and familiar head of curly blonde hair Shane knows that these are the Rozanovs. At the back is a stern, bald man in military dress. He’s severe and frowning and even if Ilya hadn’t just told him exactly what the man was like, Shane could hazard a guess from his terrifying demeanour. 

Next to him is a willowy blonde woman resting her hands on the shoulders of two boys. She looks down at them fondly and Shane’s eyes are drawn to the open neck of her gown where a familiar crucifix rests at the base of her throat. “Irina,” Ilya says, “my mother.”

The two boys could be twins, but Shane knows Ilya with such singular familiarity that he could recognise him at any age. That’s him on the left, with a cheeky grin he’s clearly trying to clamp down on, leaning into his mother’s hold with one eye squinting at the camera. The other boy looks more stern, more like his father, but he has Ilya’s nose and jaw and his fists are balled up with tension. 

It’s nothing like the family photos that line the walls of Shane's childhood home. Those are warm and full of laughter, taken on beaches and at lakes and in diners with moustaches from milkshakes on their faces. This feels more artificial, like a propaganda article distributed in an unhappy home. 

“She looks just like you,” is all Shane can think to say. Ilya smiles and tucks the image away again. 

“My brother and I took after her. My father was not pleased that only one of us was like him.”

Shane wasn’t clear on how vampirism was passed down. As he constructed a punnett square in his mind he felt Ilya’s hand on his cheek pulling him into a kiss and let the high school biology slip from his thoughts. 

“What happened to your brother?” He asks as they separate. Ilya sighs and Shane is about to recant his question when he speaks. 

“When I left, we fought terribly. We never spoke again. I told him he shouldn’t stay there with our father but he was always more loyal than me. I never heard from him, but Svetlana sent me the clipping when they found his body,” Is there any part of Ilya’s life that isn’t marred by tragedy? Maybe this part - the two of them in bed, in each other’s arms, safe and sheltered from the supernatural war raging under cover of night. Shane would do anything to keep it that way. 

“Come to my cottage this summer.” Shane sounds nervous but asks anyway.

“You have a cottage?” Shane nods, eyes wide, lip between his teeth. 

“It’s private. No one comes there, it would just be us. We could be completely alone, together. I want that with you.”

Ilya feels himself melting. How could he say no to an offer like that?

“Okay,” he murmurs in response, “I would like that. Very much.” 

Shane makes a pleased noise and curls up next to Ilya to fall asleep, content. For once, he stays the night. 

As they drift off, Shane places a hand over the wound, now freshly dressed and disinfected. He holds it there all night, unmoving, a sentry keeping watch over the vampire beside him. For the first time in a long while, he thinks he might have a purpose outside of killing. 

*

They make plans to meet at the cottage in winter. Shane usually spends his summers there but the shorter daylight hours will mean Ilya isn’t confined to the four walls. Anticipation heightens his senses and he finds himself grinning like an idiot more often than not. If anyone suspects something they keep it to themselves. 

Everything runs according to plan. Shane stocks the cottage with everything they’ll need. He sends Ilya the location and a comprehensive packing list which he knows the vampire will ignore. But it makes him feel good to plan, so he does, making itineraries and drafting ideas on how to maximise the hours of darkness. He plans to become semi-nocturnal for the two weeks they’ll spend there. 

The only thing left is to submit his request for leave to Crowell. Every absence from duty has to be approved by the Commissioner. Shane sends up a prayer that his years of never taking time off will make this absence seem well-deserved rather than suspicious. 

He raps his knuckles on Crowell’s door and enters. The room is imposing - high ceiling, gleaming oak desk, giant crucifix affixed to the wall so it looks like it protrudes from Crowell’s head. He beckons Shane to sit down and gives him a smile that sets Shane’s teeth on edge. 

“Shane Hollander. What can I do for you?” His lips move into a smile but his eyes don’t change. Just keep boring into Shane’s head like he can pick through the layers of defense and pluck out the seed of his betrayal.

“I’d like to request a leave of absence. Two weeks in November. Pike can cover my hunts, and it’s quieter around this time.” Crowell levels him with a curious stare. 

“Shane Hollander taking time off? Have I entered a different timeline?” Shane gives a stiff laugh and Crowell’s gaze shifts to something more calculating. 

“Of course, take your holiday. Will you be at the cottage?” A chill runs through his body. The room is warm from the burning censer suspended in the middle of the office, but his blood feels like ice. How does Crowell know his plans before he’s even fully formed them in his own mind?

“Maybe. Just wanted to spend some time with the family. It’s been so busy,” he hesitates, “and I love the work, but it’d be nice to see my parents for a while.” Crowell nods, understanding. 

“David and Yuna. You’re just as promising as they were. Consider your leave approved, Shane. Enjoy,” He turns to leave, to get this conversation over before he lets something slip and ruins everything. Just as his fingers grasp the doorknob-

“And Shane?” He turns to face Crowell who has stood from behind his desk. Even in his late sixties he cuts an imposing figure.

“Yes?”

“Be careful. There have been sightings of ferals nearby, far more than usual this time of year. And I heard about your encounter with them in Boston. They’re getting smarter, it seems.” Shane winces and rubs at his arm where the bruised skin is still healing. He’s treading a dangerous path and he knows it. 

“Will do, sir. Thank you. Have a good night,” And he leaves, the feeling of Crowell’s stare on his back long after the door slams shut behind him. 

The unsettled feeling doesn’t fade until he’s in the Jeep and driving to the cottage. He crosses out of the city at a leisurely pace and when he’s left the suburbs behind and the scenery blends into trees he finally, finally takes a breath. 

He arrives early to prepare, unpacking supplies and turning down the beds and wiping down the clean surfaces. He wipes them again and is about to go in for a third when he checks the clock and realises Ilya should be arriving any minute. It’s dark out but the warm lamplight casts a glow over the wood-pannelled interior. Why is he so scared? They’ve fucked in Ilya’s apartment a hundred times. But the thought of Ilya Rozanov crossing the threshold into Shane’s space makes his gut twist and his body thrum with anxiety. Beneath it is anticipation, burning hot under his skin. Because this is Ilya, not just Rozanov, in his cottage, in his bed, in his life. Embedded in his world the same way he’s been burrowing under his skin for years now. 

He forces himself to stop bouncing his leg before he wears a hole through the carpet. Rozanov-Ilya will come. He checks the clock and finds it hasn’t changed in the ten seconds since he last looked. Maybe he got held up. Maybe his flight was delayed, or the sun was out too late and he couldn’t travel. Maybe his plane has crashed - he shakes his head quickly to get that thought out of the running. Ilya is fine, and he’s coming, and he will not be happy if he arrives to Shane dead from a stress-induced heart attack. 

He sits on the couch until the sun comes up. Maybe he sleeps, maybe he doesn’t, but either way when his phone buzzes on the couch, nine hours after Ilya was meant to arrive, he lunges for it with the reflexes of someone running on more than thirty minutes of rest.

It’s a text from a familiar number. He types in his password and gets it right on the third attempt but when he reads the message his phone hits the ground with a crack.

Lily: It was fun while it lasted, Hollander. But this has gone too far. I can’t come. Don’t call. 

His head pounds. Heart racing, up in his throat, he’s sure he can taste blood from where his teeth clamped down on his tongue. He’s not coming. He’s done with it all. Scrabbling around for his lost phone Shane ignores all instructions and slams the call button. It rings for a moment then goes straight to voicemail and Ilya’s message rings out. 

“Hi. This is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’d gone too far, he’d pushed. He ran away and cam crawling back and Ilya’s sick of it and he’s not fucking coming. 

Head between the knees. Breathe in, breathe out, take in oxygen, breathe out carbon dioxide. He goes back to basics. He knows how to breathe, he’s done it his whole life. He breathed for years before he met Ilya Rozanov. His lungs aren’t getting the memo.

Dazzling headlights glimmer through the window. He scrambles to his feet and runs to the door, because this is Ilya, he’s driven, his flight was cancelled or he missed it and he’s driven all the way here which is why he’s late, and Shane is going to kill him right after he’s kissed him thoroughly. 

The car door opens and Hayden Pike steps out, with a face like thunder and a manila file in his hand. As he walks to the door he takes in the tear tracks on Shane’s face and the smashed phone screen in his hand and all he can say is, “When were you going to tell me about the vampire?”

Chapter 5: 2019, once more

Chapter Summary

Confessions are due. A plan is hatched.

Chapter Notes

warnings for torture, sibling abuse, depictions of violence. not fun for either of them im afraid.

okay this is the chapter i was most hyped to write! it was so fun writing evil Crowell. please enjoy! this is quite whumpy but i had so much fun writing it. also vampires can't cross running water in this au. i love to pick the stupidest vampire tropes and use them here.

hayden may be a bit ooc but i really wanted to explore their friendship. yes he's pissed but ultimately that is his ride or die.

pls let me know what you think!

Shane had begun his mental countdown as soon as he collapsed on the bed next to Ilya.

Five minutes. As always, he gave himself five minutes to lie close to the vampire and indulge in the fantasy of staying longer. He ran his hand down the plane of Ilya’s stomach and felt the chill that always lingered on his skin. 

Four minutes. Ilya must know the routine by now. Maybe he savoured the time as much as Shane did. Maybe he felt the same tug of loss when Shane pulled on his jacket to slip out into the night. 

Shane scoffed internally. Ilya Rozanov didn’t want him to stay; he liked to fuck Shane, and Shane liked to be fucked by him. It couldn’t be anything more than that. So he stuck to his rigid internal timekeeping and enjoyed another minute of pressing against Ilya. The scratches he’d left on the pale canvas of Ilya’s skin stood out, red and inflamed. Shane fretted less each time as Ilya reassured him that he didn’t mind being left savaged by Shane’s nails. In exchange, Ilya nipped and sucked and scattered hickeys and bruises across Shane’s things and shoulders and chest where shirts and trousers would keep them covered. 

“Hollander,” Shane looked up at Ilya from under his eyelashes. Rested his gaze on the sharp line of Ilya’s jaw and the long expanse of his neck.

“Rozanov,” he replied. 

“You are thinking too loudly. It is driving me mad.”

“Sorry?” Ilya snorted and tugged Shane’s ear to draw out a yelp. 

“Don’t need to be sorry. I will distract you,” Suddenly Ilya is on top of him and kissing down his throat with quick pecks, tantalising, wanting. Ilya grabbed a handful of Shane’s pecs and groaned as he pushed him into the mattress. Shane ran a hand up Ilya’s back to tangle his fingers in his hair and pull him flush against his chest. 

He would reset the clock. They could have a few more minutes. What was an extra round between rivals?

Later, nestled against Ilya, Shane wondered if he should move to extricate himself from his hold. But Ilya’s arm was a comforting weight on his waist and despite the cold of his skin Shane felt his eyes drifting closed. 

“I should go,” He said, making no move to get up. Ilya grunted and held him closer. They didn’t do this - fall asleep together, stay tangled in the sheets long after they’d both climaxed. It was too close to something far more dangerous. “I have to hunt tomorrow. Can’t be late,”

“Do you ever think about anything other than hunting?” Shane knew it wasn’t really a question but he could never resist Ilya’s bait. 

“Obviously. Sometimes I think about you,” he was just tired and fucked-out enough that his inhibitions were low enough to let the comment slip past. Ilya gave a delighted chuckle. 

“Only sometimes? I’m offended,” Shane jabbed at him with his elbow.

“You’re only interesting sometimes.” He felt Ilya’s lips on the back of his neck, pressing a kiss and then just resting against his skin.

“I will never recover from this. You are a cruel man. Do you really only think about me and hunting?” Shrugging Shane moved to sit up and lean against the headboard. Ilya pouted but let him go, instead resting his head on Shane’s thigh and staring up at him. It took him a moment to remember what they were talking about with Ilya’s eyes fixed on him like that. 

“I hate to break it to you, but there’s not much else going on in my life. Like you say, I’m boring,” he yelped when Ilya pinched the sensitive flesh of his inner thigh. 

“You’re not boring,” a withering look from Shane made him change his approach, “You are a bit boring. But only because you don’t let yourself do anything fun.”

“I have fun here,” Shane felt his cheeks flush, “with you.”

The groan from Ilya rumbled against Shane’s leg. He rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep the fond smile off his lips. 

“What would you do if you weren’t a hunter?” The question hung in the air but Shane didn’t answer. Just stared at Ilya, mouth open, mind racing. 

What would he do? If he could choose, if there was no pressure, if he didn’t have a hundred eyes on him at all times. No one had ever, ever asked him what he wanted to do. 

“Hollander. Don’t tell me the thought of doing something fun has broken your brain.”

“Fuck you, I’m thinking,” He looked away from Ilya - at the wardrobe then the chandelier (with a layer of dust) then the chair in the corner where SHane’s clothes were neatly folded. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it,” Ilya gave him a questioning glance. 

“I don’t think that is true. What would you have picked? If you weren’t,” he gestures to the bag by the bed that contains a stake and a bible and a pocket knife for good measure, “this.”

“I think I would have liked to play hockey.” 

“Hockey? God, you are so Canadian,” Shane laughed and turned away petulantly. 

“You asked!” Ilya shook his head and sat up so their eyes were level. 

“I’m sorry. You would be a very sexy hockey player,” scoffing Shane shoved his shoulder. 

“I know. You could be my rival. We could have an illicit affair in the locker room. Very hot,” Ilya was laughing now, muffling it in Shane’s shoulder but betrayed by his shaking. 

“Even in your wildest dreams, we are having secret sex. You are very surprising.” Shane preened under Ilya’s praise. He liked being surprising. Everything in his life was so planned, so controlled, so regimented, because if it wasn’t people got hurt. Here, he could be surprising, and no one died. 

“What about you? If you weren’t a vampire. What would you do?” Ilya shrugged and fell silent. 

“I’ve never thought about it,” Shane wanted to tease and pry, to give as good as he got. But something in Ilya’s words said he shouldn’t push. That behind this particular door was an answer he didn’t want to hear. 

“It doesn’t matter. I’m a hunter, because my parents were, because I’m good at it. So I’ll do it until a feral rips my head off or I fuck with the wrong vampire and die in the line of duty.”

“Jesus, Hollander. Your pillow talk is terrible. That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Ilya moved a hand to his cheek and pulled him in, guiding their lips together. Shane wondered if Hayden would really care if he returned a little later. It didn’t seem so important, as Ilya’s tongue ran over his lips and cold fingers teased the waistband of his boxers. He could press snooze on his internal alarm system and indulge, just once more. He could do something fun. 

He’s sitting at the kitchen island opposite Hayden. His best friend hasn’t looked him in the eyes since he sat down. Shane’s face is itching, flushed from crying and burning from rubbing at his eyes. 

“Do you want a drink?” Hayden shakes his head then reconsiders. 

“Fuck it. Yeah, I need one to have this conversation.” 

Shane pours straight vodka into glasses and slides one across to Hayden who slams it back then looks expectantly at Shane.

“Shane. What the hell is going on?” The folder sits on the table between them. It’s a hand grenade with the pin pulled and if either of them moves it’s all over.

“How did you know?”

“So you’re not even going to deny it?” Shane rolls his eyes. 

“Would you believe me if I did?” Hayden stays silent but his face betrays him. “How did you know?”

 “This was in my locker when I went to get my bag,” He slides the folder across and watches as Shane’s trembling fingers open it and pull out the contents. 

He’s not sure what he expects. Maybe a note, revealing everything. Maybe a report of all the times he’s snuck off to meet Ilya in a hotel or his apartment or (once) an alleyway. Maybe a letter from the vampire confessing their relationship and demanding payment, or cooperation, or safe haven for him and Svetlana-

He stops that train of thought. Ilya may not want him, but he wasn’t cruel. He wouldn’t string Shane along for the better part of a decade only to trade him for salvation.

Pulling out the papers he lets the anxious sweat that’s been building wash over him. Spread out on the table, the photographs are damning.

There is one of him and Ilya meeting at the conference. They look so young, although Ilya hasn’t aged a day. Shane in the photo is holding out a hand and Ilya is assessing it with a piercing gaze. 

The next one is worse. Clearly not two professionals networking: this is Ilya cupping the back of Shane’s head to draw him into a searing kiss. Shane’s knees are buckling and he’s clinging to Ilya like a life raft as he tangles a hand in his hair. If the blood hadn’t rushed to his heart he’s sure he would be flushed crimson. 

There are others, each more intimate than the last. Ilya lifting him up to perch on the counter at his apartment. Ilya knocking at the door to his hotel and Shane inviting him in, the camera capturing the pure want in his eyes. Shane resting on Ilya’s chest. Shane talking and Ilya listening with his eyes fixed on Shane like he’s the most important thing in the room.

There are so many of them. They catalogue a secret relationship that neither Shane nor Ilya had preserved outside of pseudonymic texts and the constant stream of love bites they wound up taking home. Shane can’t tear his eyes away from the photographic evidence of the years he had spent in love with Ilya Rozanov. 

Fuck, he thinks. 

“Fuck,” he says out loud. Hayden scoffs. 

“No shit. What the fuck, Shane? What were you thinking? He’s - it’s Rozanov!” Shane finally lets Hayden meet his eyes. Where he thought there would be rage, there is only confusion, mixed with despair. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I wasn’t thinking at first. It was a one time thing,” Hayden shoots him an incredulous look. Surrounded by years worth of photos even Shane can admit it sounds ridiculous. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It’s Shane’s turn for incredulity. 

“Tell you what? Hi Hayden, I’m gay, I’m sleeping with a vampire, and it’s Ilya Rozanov, who we both hate, although obviously I’m experiencing some conflicting feelings on that front right now.”

Hayden looks back at the photos. Shane wants to hide them, keep them private, just for him and Ilya - but there is no him and Ilya, not anymore. His eyes water when he remembers the text.

“You could have told me,” he doesn’t sound angry anymore. Just resigned, the rage drained out of him. Shane supposes it’s no fun to pick a fight with someone as despondent as he feels right now. 

“Who took these?” He asks, because whoever took them knows too, and if they knew to give them to Hyaden, he’s already fucked. Someone in the organisation, someone dedicated to the same cause, had snuck them in amongst Hayden’s things in the hopes that - what? He’d tell the world? He’d out the pair? He’d run Shane through with a stake himself?

“I don’t know. I didn’t stop to look around. I had to talk to you. You could have told me. I wouldn’t have- you’re my best friend.” Shane looked, really looked at Hayden Pike. They had known each other for so long, were so in tune in the field, it was hard to fathom that he’d managed to keep such an earth-shattering secret from him. 

“I didn’t know how. And I didn’t want you to hate me.” Hayden pushes back from the table and moves so he’s stood in front of Shane’s slumped frame. He reaches out and grips Shane’s shoulders with a strength he reserves for wrangling toddlers and eliminating ferals. 

“I don’t hate you, Shane. I could never hate you,” Hayden shakes his head and Shane swears he sees tears in his eyes, “I’m scared for you. I don’t know who else knows, or what’s happening. But I don’t hate you. I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me,” Shane has cried enough tonight, but his body doesn’t seem to care. Somehow there are more sobs left in him, and he crumbles into Hayden. Wrapping his arms around his shoulders he lets his best friend support his frame and run a hand across his back. 

They might be there for hours. The sun is only just coming up, so time hasn’t slowed to a halt, despite how Shane feels. When he has cried himself out, he pulls back from Hayden and gives him a wry smile. 

“It doesn’t matter now. It’s over,” Hayden tilts his head, confused, “He called it off. He’s done.”

“What are you talking about?” Shane supposes he has nothing left to lose. 

“I invited him here. We had it all planned out. He was late, and I checked my phone, and-” He can’t say it aloud, can’t make it real. Instead he unlocks his phone and slides it to Hayden to read the message for himself. 

Hayden whistles and shakes his head. 

“What a fucking asshole. I don’t know what this is,” He gestures to the photos, “But I’m sorry.” 

Shane almost manages a smile. His lip starts to quiver again so he gathers his strength and moves to the kitchen for another drink. When he returns carrying two beers and a bottle opener, Hayden is looking between the photos and the phone with a furrowed brow. 

“You can stop looking. I’m fucked, and it’s only a matter of time before Crowell knows.” If Hayden is surprised by his apathy, he doesn’t show it. Shane can’t feel the rising panic that should come with this discovery; where he would usually be filled with anxiety, his limbs are heavy and sluggish and his vision feels foggy. 

Shane takes a swig from his drink. Lets himself pretend just for a moment that this is all a hideous misunderstanding, or worse, a conspiracy. He could drive himself mad like this. Trying to rationalise a world where Ilya doesn’t want him anymore. Would it not be easier to just accept it? He has always known it would end. 

There’s something there, just under the surface. A nagging feeling of wrongness. Not just because Ilya had left, but because it was so callous. So unlike the vampire Shane has come to know.

Hayden stands, eventually, “I need to get home, Jackie’s gonna be freaking out - are you going to be okay?” Shane nods, not meaning it, and Hayden gives a sad smile, recognising the stupidity of the question. 

“I’ll be okay. I have two weeks off, so I’ve got time to-figure it all out.”

Shane watches Hayden pull out of the driveway and gives him a wave. The panic is starting to fade, leaving a dull throb in his limbs that leaves him overwhelmed and exhausted. All the fight or flight is gone, and he locks the door before trudging to the bed and burrowing into the blankets to finally sleep. 

He dreams of cold skin and white fangs and the feeling of a tender hand on his face. When he wakes up he’s too hot, and his eyes are so raw he struggles to pry them open. 

Coffee. He needs coffee, to wake up his brain and snap him into action. Then he can figure out what to do next. If someone told Hayden about this, then they must be part of the Cause. A fellow hunter? A disgruntled vampire? Neither sounds right, but he can’t quite put his finger on why. There’s something just out of reach; tantalisingly close but at a distance. 

Going through the motions he pours milk into a mug and adds the coffee grounds with a teaspoon.A glutton for punishment he sinks down at the table and opens the folder again. 

In the cold light of day the photos are even more damning. In every one he and Ilya are just too close to deny their involvement. A brush of hands, a grip on the waist, a head resting on a chest. That’s to say nothing of the images of intimacy: Shane in the throes of passion, Ilya’s cock in his mouth, eyes closed against the world, committing his usual focus to the task at hand. Ilya inside him. Sharing a kiss. Ilya pressing him against the wall, the window, the counter. Shane like a feral animal clawing and biting at a grinning vampire. 

He looks away when he feels the sobs crawling up his throat. Years of finding their way to each other snuffed out in one night. And now he’s thrown everything away: his job, his salvation, his parents. Oh God, his parents - if Hayden knows, do they? Whoever slipped the photos into his best friend’s locker surely wouldn’t stop there. 

The worst part was the opacity. There was no note. No threatening blackmail. The sender wanted to make a point. To let Shane know that they knew, that he was being watched. That he wasn’t as subtle as he thought. He couldn’t plan his way out of this. 

Unlocking his phone he hovers over Ilya’s contact again. Guided by some external force of longing he presses the call button and waits. It rings, and rings, and rings, before going to voicemail. Shane wonders how many times he could repeat that to hear Ilya’s voice again. Shamelessly he calls again. And again. 

He’s on his tenth ring when the line connects. Shock makes him drop the phone and he scrambles to pick it up and hold it to his ear. Nothing on the other end. Silence, then a crackle of poor reception. The trill of dripping water hitting stone.

“Ilya?” He whispers, choking on the name. But no one speaks. Maybe a breath? Until-

“How did he get that?” A familiar voice, one he’s heard many times. In lectures, and classes, and giving speeches at conferences. Always the same imposing tone, but this time it is clouded with uncontrolled rage. 

He hears what must be the phone hitting the group. Then knuckles hitting flesh, and a familiar groan he’s only ever heard in the bedsheets. Now that sound is wracked with pain, not pleasure. 

He can’t help it. “Ilya!” He shouts down the line, but the sound of a struggle drowns out his voice. 

The call cuts off. He sits, shaking. Buries his head in his hands and breathes the way he knows he’s supposed to. His gasps for air are unsteady and he digs his fingers into his scalp until it hurts enough to focus his mind. 

Without thinking he calls Hayden. 

“I’m about to do something stupid.”

“What?” Hayden’s voice is scratchy like he just woke up. A cursory glance at the clock reveals it is seven in the morning on his day off, so that’s likely.

“Ilya. He’s- they have him. I need to go,” Hyaden makes a surprised noise. 

“Who? Go where? Shane, you need to tell me what the fuck is going on,” But Shane is already standing up and grabbing his bag. Pulling stakes from the drawer and slipping his hunting knife into his pocket. Hayden shouts down the phone and he pulls it to his ear.

“Crowell has Ilya. He picked up the phone, I heard him,” He still hears him, the sound of bone on bone and the crack of a head knocked to the side with a punch. It makes his stomach swoop and he shakes his head to clear away the sound. It doesn’t work. 

“I’m coming with you,” Hayden declares. 

“No! This could be really dangerous. You have Jackie and the girls. You can’t be involved in this.” Hayden scoffs down the phone, unimpressed. 

“I’m getting in the car. Don’t go anywhere,” Shane wants to argue, to push back, but he can hear a female voice telling Hayden to be careful and ushering him to the car. 

“Sit tight until I get there. You need to figure out what we’re going to do. I’m not sending you out alone,” A rush of gratitude for Hayden Pike fills him. He hangs up with a promise not to do anything stupid without Hayden, then opens his laptop and starts to plan. 

When Hayden arrives it’s to Shane surrounded by papers, books, scribbled notes and mugs of coffee. He looks frantic, eyes wide and hands trembling as he pulls out a map and beckons Hayden closer. 

“I think I know where they are,” he says. Hayden breathes a sigh of relief. 

“Thank fuck. Where?” Shane jabs at a spot on the map next to a mug-shaped ring. Sheepishly he dabs at the coffee stain and starts to explain. 

“I’ve looked through all the files I have. Memos, proposals, anything I could find on the servers,” Hayden snorts and sits down. 

“You’re such a nerd. How did you end up with Ilya Rozanov?” Shane blushes and pointedly ignores the question. 

“There’s an outpost they used to use in the sixties. It’s not in use anymore - too remote, if it got attacked there’s no way anyone would reach you in time. But Crowell said he wanted to get it up and running again. There’s a memo here,” He pushes a print out to Hayden who brings it close to his face to read the small text. 

“Why did he send this to you?” Shane shrugs. 

“He didn’t. This one went to my parents. But they showed me, and when I called Ilya, I could hear running water. Thought it might be a stream. That made me think of this place,” He points to a ribbon of blue on the map around the pin. 

“That’s the only way they keep him there. He can’t cross running water. If they brought him there…” Shane doesn’t finish his sentence. Hayden swallows. Nods his head. Gets to his feet and picks up his bag. 

“Right. Let’s go,” At Shane’s incredulous look he rolls his eyes and grabs his keys. 

“You can’t be serious. You hate Rozanov,”

“Yeah. But I love you. You never let me do stupid things alone, and I’m not gonna start now. So get in the car before I change my mind.”

*

They get to the outpost in darkness. 

Crossing the river is the easy part - there’s a crumbling bridge a mile away from the compound that they pass over with ease. Shane’s heart hurts at the thought of Ilya dragged over the flowing current as every atom in his body screamed in protest.

The building is imposing despite the cracked windows and piles of rubble around it. A wooden door bolted shut bars their entry. Shane flashes his torch across the entrance. Moss has colonised the brick to give it a sickly aura. Flanking him Hayden moves to a window studded with spears of broken glass. Pulling out his own flashlight he looks around and smashes it through to clear a space.

“Jesus!” Shane hisses, but Hayden is already moving to climb inside. He beckons to Shane who follows, dropping onto the other side and rolling to his feet. 

Inside is somehow worse. It was inhabited once, but not for years - there are piles of blankets on the ground and the ash of dead fires in the hearth. Most worryingly, a streak of red blood seeps into the layer of bracken on the floor. Following it with his eyes Shane sees a trapdoor in the corner pulled shut. He shares a glance with Hayden. Could it be this easy? 

“I’ll keep watch. Move fast, get him, and get out,” Hayden whispers. Shane nods and puts a hand on his best friend’s shoulder.

“Thank you. Seriously, thank you.” Hayden shrugs but holds him just as firmly. When he unlatches the grate to descend the last thing he looks at is Hayden’s face - scared, but faithful. 

It’s so dark on the stairs down to the basement that he braces his hand on the wall and still nearly trips. Righting himself he takes tentative steps and slows his breathing the way he was taught. In, out, silently. He is a predator, hunting, tracking. This he knows how to do. 

At the end of the corridor is a room lit by a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. It makes him scrunch his eyes up and press further into the wall. Under the low ceiling he has to stoop down. 

Damp air hits him and already it’s hard to breathe. The weight of the stone fortress seems to crush the space and suck out the oxygen so every intake of breath is cold and wet. He’s so distracted trying not to make noise that he doesn’t notice the smashed phone until his foot sends it flying across the room. 

The sound is deafening. It clatters against the stone wall. Echoes in the enclosed space and Shane runs, darting to the centre of the room. The element of surprise is gone and he rounds the corner and comes face to face with Roger Crowell and a familiar-yet-unfamiliar man, a despondent figure between them. 

His eyes land on Ilya first. He can’t see his face but the slump of his body and the sag of his head tell Shane all he needs to know. 

There’s been a struggle, if the bruise on his jaw and the cuts on Crowell’s knuckles are anything to go by. He’s chained to the wall with thick iron cuffs encircling his wrists. Engraved into each is a crucifix crudely carved to deliver maximum agony to the vampire they restrain. Underneath the metal Ilya’s wrists are chafed and charred. Among the sour smell of the damp basement prison he can make out acrid burning and he grips his stake with all his might to keep from screaming and throwing himself down in front of Ilya. 

No one speaks. Crowell just lets him look. Takes in the sight of his protege gazing wide eyed at their prisoner and how his eyes are bright with tears. He doesn’t look angry, or stoic like the photographs they print and distribute to all the centres in North America. He doesn’t even look disappointed. Just has his mouth set in a bored line as though this is wasting his time. 

Shane’s attention is drawn to the other figure. He’s older, much older than the daguerreotype he recognises him from. If it wasn’t for his nose, which looks like a before photo of Ilya’s crooked one, and his eyes, Shane wouldn’t know who it was. But what really gives it away is the pure unadulterated rage burning in his expression as he grabs Ilya’s hair and pulls. 

The movement raises Ilya’s head and Shane is going to be sick, he’s going to lose his stomach, because Ilya is gaunt and starving and his face is marred with bruises but worse than all of that is the look of complete resignation in his eyes. He’s given up, the nasty little voice in Shane’s head points out unhelpfully. But they’re not wrong, because this is the face of Ilya Rozanov utterly destroyed. 

The hand in his hair tugs his face further upwards and strains his neck. He doesn’t wince, not even as Alexei Rozanov makes a fist and swings it against his brother’s cheek so a violent crack echoes through the cavern. Shane starts to lunge forward but Crowell moves a sharp silver instrument closer to Ilya’s pale throat and Shane stops in his tracks. No sudden movements, don’t make it obvious. It’s like he’s hunting a feral and he knows how to hunt one of them so he falls back on the training that is second nature to him now. Crowell gives him an approving nod that twists his gut with shame. 

“Good boy. We don’t want Mr Rozanov here to get hurt,” Shane could laugh, because the bruises and blood smeared across Ilya’s face makes that look like a pretty foregone conclusion, but he’s frozen in place. All he can offer is a stiff shake of his head.

“That’s what I thought. Alexei, let him go. I think you’ve made your point.”

Alexei Rozanov gives a nasty grin and drops Ilya’s hair so his head falls forwards and hits his chest. Shane tries to make eye contact as his face drops but he can’t tear his eyes from the stark white fangs resting on Alexei’s bottom lip. 

“You’re a vampire,” Alexei rolls his eyes. 

“Obviously. I did not think you would be so slow, Hollander. Ilyusha made you sound much smarter. But my brother always thought with his cock rather than his head.”

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, Shane wants to scream but the sharpened tip of that silver barb is so close to Ilya that any movement of his could make it slip. 

“What are you doing? He’s not - we kill ferals! Not-”

“Not what? Not the vampires you’re fucking?”

They know. Shane’s vision flashes white and his heart pounds against his ribs because they know. He’s been so careful, kept everything close to his chest, hidden Ilya away like a dirty little secret and none of it even mattered because they know. 

He wonders if he should try and deny it. But the way he stormed into the prison leaves little uncertainty behind his motivations. He should try and school his features into the impassive calm he was always praised for but there’s no point now they’ve watched him gasp out Ilya’s name and charge in on a suicide mission to save him. The damage is done. 

“Did you ever wonder how a vampire goes feral?” Crowell asks. Shane shoots him a look of confusion. 

“We learn in training. Not enough blood to keep them going, or too much blood at once. Like getting drunk but there’s no sobering up,” He repeats it verbatim from his textbook, just like he did on every exam and in every practical assessment. Like a good little soldier. 

Crowell grins and the break in his composure rattles Shane. 

“All true. But there are other ways. You can give them blood from a vampire. It won’t satisfy the itch. It courses through their veins but they can’t digest it. It’s like acid, it burns them up. They can’t get relief so they drink more but it doesn’t work. It makes a new kind of feral. Stronger, tactical. Trainable. And you know what happens next,” He sees that the flash of silver in Crowell’s hand is a syringe but he can’t think, can’t bring the pieces together, can’t separate the blinding panic from his rational hunter’s brain to figure out what to do. 

Vampires don’t drink from each other. He thought maybe it was just a formality, or politeness, or solidarity between vampires who didn't see each other as blood bags. Why had he never asked? Did he not want to know? Or was it something worse - did he not even care?

“You’ve seen them. In Boston. They were the first attempt. Not perfect, but it gave us hope. They weren’t meant to kill you. I thought you’d be strong enough to take them out. That you’d see the potential,” He looks so disappointed that for a moment shame twists in Shane’s gut. 

The barrel is full of red liquid and the plunger is pulled all the way back. And on Alexei’s arm where his shirtsleeves are rolled up is a small piece of gauze with a dot of crimson in the centre.

“What the fuck?” Shane can’t help but hiss, “You’ll kill him!” The corner of Crowell’s mouth quirks up and he shakes his head. 

“I won’t kill him, Shane. You will.”

Ilya groans from his prone position and Shane snaps his eyes away from Crowell to look at the vampire as he tries to raise his head, to rattle the chains, to do anything. To get them out of here. They’ve been in so many twisted situations and always scraped their way out but Shane’s not sure there’s an exit here. This is the end of the line. 

“I’d never,” Shane says, but Crowell just smiles.

“You would. It’s what you were trained to do. And you’d do it to save him. Or would you let him go feral? Would you let him tear through the city and drain everyone in his wake? Would you still love him, even when he’s completely lost and all he can do is kill?”

Ilya is shaking his head and mumbling something Shane can’t make out. He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the answer is yes. If Ilya’s skin took on that grey pallor, if his veins pulsed black and his fangs descended and he hovered above Shane ready to tear out his throat, Shane would do what he must. Not for Crowell; for Ilya. To free him. To save him. 

Crowell must be able to sense Shane’s answer because he sighs and shakes his head. His disappointment stings the last ingrained shred of respect Shane feels for the man whose image he was moulded in.

“I thought so. He’s ruined you, hasn’t he? You were going to be great. You were going to change everything. And you threw it all away to let him bend you over and fuck you. How you’ve fallen.”

Ilya’s shaking is growing more frantic and the adrenaline coursing through him gives him just enough energy to raise his eyes to Shane’s. They’re hazy and clouded with exhaustion but they look exactly like they did the last time Shane saw him, and the first time they kissed, and the last time he confessed his feelings, and the first time they met. They look like love. He’s mouthing something but his lips are so dry and cracked he can barely move them, barely make a sound. But Shane would know it anywhere. 

Ya tebya lyublu. Ya tebya lyublu. Ya tebya-

Alexei cuts him off with a hand around his throat. Shane moves forward instinctively but Crowell shakes his head and guilt courses through him as he hesitates. As he obeys. Does what he’s told like a good little soldier, falling in line.  

“There’s still a hunter in you. We could bring it out. We could fix this. There’s still time.”

Shane can’t stop looking at Alexei’s stubby fingers pressing against Ilya’s trachea. He can’t pull his eyes away from the pale flesh that leads to his chest where his crucifix sits. They’ve ripped off the gauze and the chain has already charred the freshly healed skin. Alexei catches him looking and tightens his grip. 

“That was my mother’s,” Shane nods, because he knows that, he knows who Alexei is and what happened to them but Ilya had told him his brother was dead, and now he’s standing there like an apparition Shane can’t blink away. 

“He said you were dead,” Ilya’s eyes grow larger and Shane can’t tell if it’s from the pressure on his windpipe or the shock of his brother’s return. Alexei scoffs. 

“I let him think so. He was born like this, like our father, but I was like my mother. I was hers,” Shane wants to scream and pummell Alexei but whatever move he makes will end up dooming them both. 

“She wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want you to hurt him,” Shane says, desperately. 

Alexei laughs but it’s bitter and cold, “She didn’t want him to be a vampire. She couldn’t stand it and she left me behind. And then so did he, he fucked off to America as soon as he got the chance and I stayed, to look after that man,” he’s furious and spit flies from his lips and lands on Ilya’s bruised cheek. 

“You’re his brother!”

“I am nothing to him. I looked after our father, I stayed in Moscow, I did everything right. But I was getting older and I could not care for him forever. And our father did not like to lose his things. So he made sure I would always be there,” Alexei yanks the collar of his shirt aside and any control Shane had over his stomach is lost as bile burns in his throat. 

At the juncture of his neck are two puncture marks. They don’t look like the other turning marks Shane has seen on vampires. These are inflamed and swollen and rather than the neat pinpricks most bites leave. They’re jagged. Like they tore through skin. Like there was a struggle. Like he tried to get away. 

“Jesus Christ,” Shane whispers and Alexei’s hand goes slack on Ilya’s throat. He takes ragged gasps and tries to fill his lungs while Alexei glares at Shane. 

Crowell’s stare is still firmly fixed on Shane. He’s sizing him up like a mark; he trained Shane and he knows his strengths and his weaknesses. Shane was made in his image and it will doom him. 

“Please,” Shane implores. Desperate. Wet. Pathetic, the soldier in his mind supplies. “Please let him go. I’ll come back, I’ll hunt better, I’ll do anything. But don’t hurt him.”

If it was possible, Crowell’s face grows more contemptuous. He sighs.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re distracted. Your heart isn’t in it anymore, Shane. You’re a liability. As long as he’s alive your loyalties are split.” Shane shakes his head frantically. 

“That’s not true! I’ve never let Il- let this affect the cause.” Please, please, let this plan work. Let him confess on his knees and let Ilya be saved. He will say anything to get them out of here, away from brothers with mangled bite marks and Commissioners with a grudge and that syringe of hot red blood. 

“But you have, Shane. You have been trained to kill vampires,” Shane notices he doesn’t bother delineating ferals anymore, “but you won’t kill him. He’s infected you, and we have to purge the source, or you’ll be damned. We’ll all be damned.” Shane shakes his head frantically but Crowell’s mind is made up.

“I hunt ferals,” He hisses, “We hunt with vampires! You changed the Cause, you started to work with them!” Crowell gives him a withering look, like he’s a child who just can’t grasp the moral of the fable. 

“We work with whoever gets us closer to liberation. I thought you were better than this, Shane. I thought you could figure it out. We work with vampires until we don’t need them anymore and then we will do our duty and purge them, because that is the Plan. But you can’t do that, can you? Not with him here.” 

Shane’s world crumbles. 

He remembers reciting the rosary when he woke up and before he went to bed. He remembers the reassuring presence of the Cross in every room he entered. He remembers the lectures and the teachings and the day he graduated from learning about the purity of humanity, to finding out his true mission - ridding the world of ferals to make it safer for everyone. He had assumed this included the good Vampires, the Ilyas, the Svetlanas, the ones who didn’t hunt humans, who lived quietly and peacefully. He draws back from the memories as if he’s been burnt. It was always leading to this. Leading to the end.

“You might not be as clever as I thought, but Mr Rozanov certainly is. I think he figured this out a long time ago. I think he’s always known what you would become. And the best way to protect himself and his kind was to have you close by. To have you in his bed until you couldn’t bring yourself to stake him through the heart.” Shane shakes his head but he’s not looking at Crowell. He’s burning Ilya with his gaze but Ilya isn’t saying anything or looking at him and for once Shane’s not sure if he’s unconscious or just doesn’t want to show his face. 

“Fuck you. You don’t know him. He wouldn’t - he’d never - fuck you!” A chuckle from Crowell.

“Listen to yourself. I know him better than you ever could. I know his kind, I know their nature. I know that under the surface there is a rot and it has reached you and you won’t let me save you. Can’t you see? He’s always there, always just behind you. He’s tracking you like a hunter. So he can lure you in. I know he finds your marks before you do. I bet he’s even rescued you from a feral. He tells you lots of pretty things but he wouldn’t hesitate to sink his teeth into your neck because that’s what they do, Shane. He made his choice. Make yours.”

It's enough to make him doubt, even just for a moment. Ilya, arriving at every hunt in time to steal it from under him. Ilya everywhere, just at the right moment, drawing Shane out of his shell and into the world. Ilya, the vampire, and Ilya the man. Ilya, once the rival, now something much more dangerous. He can’t remember a time when Ilya wasn’t part of his life, lurking on the periphery or burning hot and bright in the centre. It would have been so easy to pick him out of the crowd at the conference and make him a mark. Too awkward, too broad, too repressed, ripe for the taking. Token protests, but he’d followed Ilya willingly. Ilya who won’t meet his eyes now. Shane trembles. 

He turns to look at Crowell. To really look at him and see the man whose portrait is in each room of the training centre where Shane learned to fire crossbows and recite Benedictions and drive stakes into the hearts of vampires. This is the man who taught him everything he knows. He was created in his image. When he meets his maker he has a horrible feeling the face that casts him into damnation will be Roger Crowell.

The stake is heavy in his hand. He is Shane Hollander, vampire hunter, and his aim always strikes true.

He plunges it down to the point of no return. 

Chapter 6: forever

Chapter Summary

A choice is made.

Chapter Notes

Shane has never killed a human before.

He's killed enough vampires to know what they look like when they die. Frozen in place for a moment before they crumble away into dust. The cracks and fissures that spread over their skin in an instant and the look of shock and rage on their faces when they realise it's over. In his training they told him that final look was rage and the realisation that the divine order had won out. Now Shane wonders if it was anger or grief. Or fear, putrid and cloying, the same as any creature would feel at the moment of its death.

Humans don't crumble.

When he plunges the stake into Crowell's chest he makes that same shocked face. They aren’t so different, humans and vampires. Both just want to live. But instead of disintegrating into dust he reaches a hand to the wound and pulls it back to look at the blood coating his fingers. Like he can't believe it's his. 

He drops to his knees as Shane rips the stake free. Blood spurts over him and he smells the metallic scent of it seeping into his clothes. Vampires don't have a chance to bleed either.

Cromwell scrabbles at this throat as blood spills past his lips. Gasping and gurgling out a final breath. He can't quite take one and his eyes water and he falls back and stares vacantly at the ceiling. 

Behind him Alexei’s footsteps retreat in fear. Fucking coward, his mind supplies, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the man bleeding out below him.

Shane leans over him. In the distance the stomp of boots and the sound of a struggle. He hopes beyond hope that it's Hayden but can't be sure.

“It's him,” Shane says and his voice sounds strong in the silence, “I choose him. I'll always choose him.” 

He watches Crowell scramble for purchase one last time as the blood saturates his shirt and finally, finally he takes one last twitching breath and stills.

Shane stands over him until he stops moving. Until he feels his hand cramping around the stake he's gripping for dear life. A splinter has sliced open his palm and blood drips down his fingers to make a hot pool on the floor. 

Behind him a broken groan. He spins on his heel and covers the ground to where Ilya is slumped against the wall with his arms chained above his head. The muscles in his shoulders are shaking with the exertion but his head is up and staring at Shane. Like he's the best thing he's ever seen.

Shane drops to his knees and grabs Ilya's face between his hands. He looks him over for life threatening injuries but finds none, just the Crucifix scar and the bruises blooming on his cheeks and the purple finger marks carved into his throat.

“Fuck, Ilya, fuck, we have to go,” But he makes no move to get up and instead draws their mouths together in a searing, burning kiss. It's fire, it's damnation, it's everything he never thought he'd have again. He pushes his tongue into Ilya's mouth and groans, hands still supporting his head as he sags.

When they break apart it's not from desire but a need to breathe. Shane drops his forehead to Ilya’s and doesn't flinch when they collide, just drinks in every inch of Ilya's sallow face.

“I love you,” he whispers and Ilya groans and nuzzles into Shane's palm. He presses kisses against it and Shane drops pecks over every inch of unmarred skin he can find. If it's free of bruises and cuts he meets it with his lips.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he says with so much conviction Ilya has no choice but to believe him. It's a Benediction. He sounds like he's praying a rosary, counting each bead with a declaration of affection. Ilya soaks it in and lets it settle over his body

Ilya meets his eyes, finally, and he looks wrecked. The circles under his eyes are carved deep, smudges of violent purple.

“Shane,” he rasps, “Shane, you killed him. You came,” Shane nods.

“Of course I fucking came. I love you. I’ll always come for you,” Ilya sobs and it wracks his whole body making him tug on the chains and they rattle violently in the cold cell. 

“That message- I didn’t send it, Shane. I wanted to come to the cottage,” His voice is thin and raspy but Shane nods frantically to try and make him understand.

“I know, I figured it out. I knew it wasn’t you. I didn’t believe it for a second,” Ilya’s sigh of relief hits like a stake to the chest. The thought of him chained up like a dog here, beaten and battered, all while thinking Shane had believed that stupid fucking text. 

“He lied. All those things he said were lies, please, believe me, I wouldn’t-” Shane cuts him off with another kiss and his lips rest on Ilya’s as he tries to share his breath. To fill his lungs with something of Ilya’s so they can’t be separated. 

“I love you, I believe you, Ilya, I know,” Shane is shaking but he holds firm, needing Ilya to hear this and understand that he has never meant anything with such sincerity before. He’s never meant a prayer so strongly, none of his psalm recitations have held so much conviction.

“I love you. You love me,” Ilya murmurs and Shane’s heart shatters again. 

“I do. I love you, and we have to go now, I don’t know how much time we have,” Shane starts scrabbling at the cuffs. They’re cast iron; thick and heavy and cutting into Ilya’s wrists. Ilya is too out of it to notice. 

“This is the best day of my life,” he says. Shane laughs.

“That literally cannot be true. Hayden’s upstairs and he should be dealing with your brother but I’ve got to get these fucking cuffs off,” Ilya blanches. 

“Hayden Pike is here?” 

“Yeah. I told him about us. He’s fine with it! Mostly,” Shane interjects when Ilya looks panicked, “but I couldn’t come here alone. So Hayden’s back up.” 

“I take it back. This is now the worst day of my life,” Shane snorts and goes to flick Ilya’s cheek but can’t find a spot that isn’t mottled with bruising. He switches to wiggling his pocket knife in the chains frantically until - pop. The left cuff comes undone and he flings it onto the floor. A clatter rings out and he’s sure anyone lurking upstairs would hear it but he doesn’t care, just has to move, get Ilya out, be as far from here as possible. 

Ilya cradles his wrist to his chest and shoots Shane a grateful smile. When his right hand comes loose he wastes no time in grabbing Shane’s arms and pulling him in, wrapping him in an embrace that tells Shane everything he needed him to hear. 

“I love you,” he pants into Shane’s neck. He feels the steady rhythm of Shane’s pulse thrumming against his mouth and pushes away the urge to bite down. Not to drink from him but to mark him as owned and tie their lives together. He focuses on steadying his shaking limbs, trembling from the sudden return of circulation. 

Shane takes a moment to bask in the feeling of Ilya gripping him so tightly it should hurt. Then he draws back and pointedly ignores Ilya’s pout to throw his shaky arm over his shoulder and start to haul him to the door. 

They make it up the stairs unsteadily. The stone flags aren’t wide enough for two grown men but the thought of letting Ilya go makes Shane’s stomach churn and his blood run cold so he soldiers on and pulls Ilya up towards freedom. 

“Jesus, Hollander, can you hurry up? I don’t get paid hourly-” Hayden stops short when he sees Shane stagger into the hallway supporting Ilya Rozanov who looks like he’s been hit by a truck. It’s a far cry from the imposing figure Ilya usually cuts when they see each other and he can’t help but wince. 

“What happened to him?” Shane shakes his head. Not the time, not the place. Shane needs to be as far away from here as possible before he can start unpicking what’s just happened. He looks past Hayden to where a pile of ash encircles a lone crossbow bolt, and takes a wrathful pleasure in knowing Alexei Rozanov has been dispatched by Hayden’s steady trigger finger.

Ilya is silent as they walk past his brother. Shane tugs him closer and turns his head to rest in Shane’s neck, where he can’t see the corpse of the last member of his family. Hayden leads the way and looks every bit the soldier he is as he peeks round corners and beckons them forward. 

The outpost is deserted. Crowell kept a skeleton crew to make sure it stayed a dirty secret. Regardless, Shane doesn’t relax until Hayden is pulling the car away and he and Ilya are bundled into the backseat, Ilya’s head lolling onto his shoulder, limbs slack.

He doesn’t notice he’s shaking until Hayden flashes him a concerned look in the rearview mirror. Shaking his head to reassure his friend he focuses on breathing, in and out, slow and controlled, anchored to the vampire beside him and gripping his hand like he’ll be ripped away if Shane relaxes. 

Ilya has drifted off the sleep but his face is scrunched up in discomfort. It must be the healing bruises on his face and the strain to his shoulders and the crushing weight of betrayal. When he startles awake as Hayden hits a speedbump, Shane is there, a hand in his hair and one on his cheek, whispering nonsense to him until he settles again and finally the muscles of his face unclench and he can breathe. 

They get back to the cottage faster than they have any right to. Hayden is used to driving a minivan of precious cargo and relishes the opportunity to tear round bends and run stop signs. When they pull into the drive Shane takes a moment to breathe. A sigh of relief before Hayden wrenches open the door and starts to drag Ilya inside. 

Reaching the door Hayden goes to tug Ilya over the threshold; before he can move Shane is whispering in his ear.

“You’re welcome here. Always,” Ilya gives a faint smile at the warm breath on his ear. 

They drag him to the bedroom and Shane lowers him onto the mattress. Dirt and blood soak into the sheets. As Hayden scrabbles around for a first aid kit Shane takes a moment to run his fingers over Ilya’s cheek. The vampire’s eyes are closed but he breathes evenly and the corners of his lips quirk into a smile. That makes him wince and Shane draws his hand back. 

Finally flinging a pack of gauze at Shane, Hayden digs through the cupboards to pull out antiseptic, ibuprofen, anything he can find that looks healing. Shane takes to his task with a singular focus and removes Ilya’s shredded shirt. It’s soaked heavy with blood and he casts it to the floor with plans to burn it later. 

“This will hurt. I’m sorry,” Ilya winces when the alcohol pads touch the cuts on his chest and his face. After each swipe Shane drops a kiss to the skin, then cleans it again because the human mouth is a breeding ground for bacteria. By the time he’s finished, Ilya is mostly blood-free and covered in plasters, bandages, and patches of gauze. But he looks marginally less like he could kick the bucket at any moment which is enough for Shane. 

He tries to push himself up on his elbows but the effort makes him tremble and he flops back, frustrated. He’s always pale but the sallow colour of his cheeks looks sickly. His lips, usually pink, are tinged with purple and his eyes are bloodshot.

“Have you fed?” Shane murmurs, to which Ilya gives a shake of his head. Moving too much makes his skull throb so he aborts the movement quickly. Shane grimaces at Hayden who stands watch in the kitchen looking entirely out of his depth. 

“He needs blood,” Shane says. Hayden’s eyes widen but he keeps a hold on his well-trained revulsion.

“Right. And so do you. Have some of that?”

Even from his position on the couch Ilya manages to make a noise of disdain.

“Shane, your friend is so stupid. Please, no more,” His voice is weak but scornful. 

“Stop talking. You’re supposed to be injured. Hayden saved your life today, show a little gratitude,” Hayden’s smug grin is almost enough to raise Ilya from his sickbed. 

“You saved my life. Pike was also there,” Hayden huffs and bares his teeth. Ilya is smirking, his successful baiting of Hayden making him smile even with his bruised and battered face.

Hayden throws his hands up and leaves the room, ostensibly to call Jackie and update her that he is, in fact, alive, but Shane is pretty sure he’ll be in the guest room kicking the skirting boards. He drops a hand to Shane’ shoulder as he leaves. 

“Good luck with him.”

Shane doesn’t need luck. He needs blood, and fast. Ilya is starving, his face hollow, the sharp angles of his cheekbones more gaunt than striking. Propping him up with cushions he manoeuvres Ilya to a sitting position but he’s too weak to hold himself up and slumps against Shane. 

“When did you last feed?” Ilya is covered in a light sheen of sweat. In the lamplight he looks like a painting that hasn’t fully dried. 

“Before they took me. A week ago, maybe? They made me send the message after a few days,” His wrecked expression grows more somber, “I didn’t want to send it. I wanted to come to the cottage,” Shane nods and cups Ilya’s face in his hand to draw their foreheads together. He wants to breathe in the same air and worm himself under Ilya’s skin so they don’t have to separate for even a moment. 

“I know, baby. You need to feed,” Shane is tugging his shirt off and throwing it to the floor. Ilya opens an eye at the sound of the fabric hitting the ground. Before he can speak Shane is tugging Ilya forwards so his head rests in the crook of his neck. 

“What are you doing?” Shane rolls his eyes. 

“Feed from me. You need blood. I have blood. Makes sense,” Ilya shakes his head as hard as he can without sending black spots careening through his field of vision.

“No! I could hurt you. I don’t-that’s not-no, Shane,” A groan of frustration from Shane as he holds Ilya’s head in place, right where his collarbone flares out. The thump thump thump of blood through his jugular is almost too much for Ilya to bear.

“I want you to. Please, Ilya. I trust you,” One more wet-eyed look from Ilya and Shane nods frantically. To have the cure and not be allowed to administer it is torture. Ilya still looks conflicted so Shane draws their lips together and tries to convey the depth of his want through his touch. He hopes it says I love you, I want this, let me help you. It must be tinged with enough desperation to make Ilya relent, because the next thing Shane feels is the stabbing pain of two sharp fangs descending into his throat. 

I’m going to die, he thinks, but it isn’t from pain. Ilya’s lips against his neck. Ilya’s hot breath on his skin. Ilya’s fangs breaking through flesh to sink into his vein. He has dissected ferals’ skulls under supervision, seen the anatomy of a fang and how it narrows to a sharp point primed to slice through tissue. He’s seen drained husks of humans lying in alleys, pale and lifeless. None of that matters as Ilya retracts his fangs to suck, to pull, to drink from him. He feels it in every part of his body, the aching tug of life being shared. The thrumming of Ilya in his veins. Unholy communion. 

It doesn’t hurt like he thought. There’s the throb of the puncture wounds and the pressure of Ilya’s mouth, but all that is overshadowed by the boneless feeling of bliss as Ilya drinks his fill. He could stay like this forever. He would let Ilya drain him dry. He can think all of this because he knows Ilya will stop long before he is in any danger.

When he pulls away Shane gasps. Immediately Ilya is holding his chin and looking into his eyes, assessing for damage. Checking that he hasn’t gone too far and pulled Shane off the edge with him. His tongue darts out to lick at the puncture wounds, and the sting stops immediately. Shane gives him a dopey smile that he intends to look much less pathetic. But his pupils are blown and his limbs are lead and all he can do is lean against Ilya and try to breathe. 

Ilya’s skin has already regained some colour. He looks brighter, more alive, ironic as it is. Shane just smiles fondly and drops his gaze to Ilya’s mouth, stained red with his own blood. Ilya licks his lips and shoots him a wicked little smirk. 

“S’okay?” Shane mumbles.

“Fuck, Hollander,” is all he can eke out before he drops his head to Shane’s chest to mouth at the warm unbroken skin. He keeps his fangs extended, no desire to draw more blood from this man, just to lick and suck and kiss every inch of his body and then do it all again because he really can’t get his fill no matter how hard he tries.

“Fuck, I love you so much,” Shane is kissing his head, and he lifts his face to meet his lips because this is what he was made to do, no matter if it damns them both. 

Exhaustion hits Shane with the force of a freight train. The sleepless nights, the fight, the break in, the rescue. Everything falls on him at once and he sinks into the sheets with Ilya next to him. Safe in his bed, back at the cottage, under a duvet and almost dead to the world, he hears Ilya say the words. Not in frantic passion, not in fear, but softly, like he’s not sure Shane will want to hear them. Shane wants to hear them every day until he dies, then every day after that.

“I love you,” he whispers, because he has said it so many times tonight but it still feels precious. It’s not a finite resource he will squander: Shane can say it over and over and it never loses meaning. Just gets better every time. 

Ilya opens an arm and Shane nuzzles into his side. Cautious to avoid the wounds he opens one eye to find a spot to settle but Ilya just tugs him closer and slings an arm over his waist. Presses his lips to Shane’s hair and returns to his previous chant. Ya tebya lyublyu. Ya tebya lyublyu. Ya tebya lyublyu. 

When the sun comes up, Shane will decide what to do. He will plan, which is what he does best. He will weigh up the pros and cons and assess the situation with a keen hunter’s eye and choose where he wants to go, what he wants to do, who he wants to be. His hand clenches around empty air but he’s sure he can feel the stake still held aloft, gripped in his fist as he makes a choice that will change everything. 

For now, he sleeps, tangled together with Ilya, and for the first time in years, he thinks there could be a different future out there for him. For them. The two pin prick marks on his throat smart but he just curls closer to the one thing he will always choose. Ilya grips him tighter. Shane Hollander breathes easy and for once, he lets himself have something good.

Chapter End Notes

AND THERE WE HAVE IT FOLKS! i have had so much fun writing this. i would love to continue it at some point because wow there are repercussions to be repercussed. i hope you enjoyed!! pls tell me if you did it will make using my work laptop to write vampire fic so worth it sorry IT team thank you for your discretion