Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Anya Rozanov-Hollander, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Honeymoon, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, Idiots in Love, Established Relationship, Smut, Sex Toys, mild exhibitionism, Ilya Rozanov's T-Shirt Collection, Ilya Rozanov's Slutty Little Shorts, Justice for Shane Hollander, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, everyone talks about their feelings, bickering as a love language, Post-Canon, Post-Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Canon Compliant, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2022-05-19 Completed: 2026-08-31 Words: 33,312 Chapters: 9/9

Effortlessly Spectacular

Summary

“Were you thinking of also bringing clothes?” Shane asked, glancing into Ilya’s suitcase.

“Do you think we will need them?”

“I’m just saying you might want the option of going outside,” Shane said, dropping a kiss on Ilya’s shoulder and wandering into the closet.

Ilya was obviously going to pack clothing, he just had priorities. Like making sure their whole sex toy collection would fit into his suitcase, not to mention two of the biggest bottles of lube he’d been able to find.

“Take the batteries out of anything that vibrates,” Shane called. Ilya rolled his eyes. What was he, an amateur? “Do you think I should bring two pairs of walking shoes or is one enough?”

“How many walking tours are we going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know? What have you been doing for the past month?”

“Research! But I didn’t book anything yet in case we decide we want to just sit by the pool for ten days instead.”

 

Or: Shane and Ilya Go Honeymooning. Set after The Long Game.

Notes

I've never been to Spain or watched a single hockey game, so, approach this with that in mind.

December 2025 update: I added the TV show tag because I've got free will and there's no one to stop me, but this is very much all book series canon.

Update: PinkLetterDay made a cover for this! Please enjoy:

Chapter 1: They are much more open-minded in Europe

Chapter Notes

August 2021 - Ottawa

“Were you thinking of also bringing clothes?” Shane asked, glancing into Ilya’s suitcase.

“Do you think we will need them?”

“I’m just saying you might want the option of going outside,” Shane said, dropping a kiss on Ilya’s shoulder and wandering into the closet.

Ilya was obviously going to pack clothing, he just had priorities. Like making sure their whole sex toy collection would fit into his suitcase, not to mention two of the biggest bottles of lube he’d been able to find.

“Take the batteries out of anything that vibrates,” Shane called. Ilya rolled his eyes. What was he, an amateur? “Do you think I should bring two pairs of walking shoes or is one enough?”

“How many walking tours are we going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know? What have you been doing for the past month?”

“Research! But I didn’t book anything yet in case we decide we want to just sit by the pool for ten days instead.”

“Or stay in the room.”

Shane emerged from the closet carrying a pile of clothes.

“I’m making it a rule that we have to leave the room at least once a day,” he said, dropping the pile neatly into a packing cube inside his suitcase. Of course Shane had perfectly-arranged packing cubes, each for a different category of clothing, and of course he was mostly done packing already. Ilya was still staring at the pile of sex toys in his suitcase.

“Is our honeymoon, Hollander,” he said. “Leaving the room is not the point.”

Shane just grinned and, unless Ilya was imagining things, blushed a little.

“Of course it’s the point,” he said. “If we wanted to stay in bed all day we could do that here. We’re going on a honeymoon so I can drink sangria and eat tapas with my husband.”

And oh, that word still got Ilya. It had been five weeks already but every time he heard it—every time Shane introduced him as his husband—he knew he had a giant, goofy grin on his face. Like he probably did now. Like Shane definitely did, freckles all scrunched as he walked around the bed to give Ilya a quick kiss.

“Pack clothes,” he said, and walked out of the bedroom.

“They are much more open-minded in Europe,” Ilya called, heading into the closet himself.

“I’m not,” Shane shouted back. Ilya could hear the sounds of him going through one of the moving boxes still in the upstairs hallway, left there amongst the chaos of moving in and getting married and Shane selling his place in Montreal and having hockey camps and… everything. It felt oddly old-fashioned that they’d barely lived together before they got married, but then again, he knew nothing about them really made sense. Not from the outside, anyway.

A few minutes later, Shane came back in with an armful of guidebooks and tossed something at Ilya, who caught it.

“Packing cubes,” he said. “At least for the sex toys, so you don’t find a cock ring in your pocket at dinner or something.”

There was an idea, except Shane would never go for something like that. Right? Even on vacation where no one knew who they were?

Ilya decided to come back to this thought later.

“Mmm. And that would be bad?”

“Whatever you’re thinking, quit it.”

“I am thinking nothing!”

“And don’t lie to me, either,” Shane said, but he was grinning.

Ilya packed in silence while Shane flipped through guidebooks, tossing a few into his suitcase and rejecting the rest.

They could’ve just paid someone else to arrange everything for their ten-day honeymoon, and if it had been up to Ilya, he probably would have. But Shane had wanted to plan their honeymoon themselves, and Ilya had to admit he had a point. He’d been ready for Shane to be stressed out about every last detail, but instead it had been… fun.

Ilya had taken over finding a hotel in Barcelona and a beach house in Ibiza, and he’d thrown himself into it. Made a curated list to go over with Shane, and they’d debated the merits of an in-suite hot tub versus a fireplace versus a private patio while sitting on their—their!—couch, Ilya’s head in Shane’s lap. He’d found an overnight cruise from Barcelona to Ibiza instead of another flight, and Shane had loved the idea.

Plus, he’d been too busy planning a vacation to be stressed about, well, everything else.

“Hey, did you find the adapters?” Shane called.

“Yes,” Ilya called back.

“Did you print the confirmation email from the beach house?”

“Yes!”

“How about the—"

“Hollander! Did you not see the checklist?”

“Did you?”

“Yes! I have been checking things off and everything!”

Ilya would never admit it to Shane, but his dumb checklist had been useful and had already saved Ilya from having to buy emergency socks when they got to Barcelona.

There was a long pause, then Shane came walking back into the bedroom carrying swim trunks and flip flops, then looked at Ilya’s phone over his shoulder.

“See? Checked off,” Ilya said, pointing.

“Oh,” said Shane with obvious surprise.

“You did not think I could use a checklist?”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Ilya huffed, but it was cut short by Shane grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him down for a kiss.

“Is this because I used your list?” Ilya said, the words half-garbled by Shane’s mouth.

“Maybe,” Shane said, and kept kissing him.

------

Shane knew exactly what Ilya was going to say before he said it.

“So,” he started. The two of them were standing in the aisle of first class, waiting for someone else to load her carryon into the overhead compartment. “Have you ever joined the Mile High Club?”

Predictable.

“Only like five or six times,” he said. “Why?”

Ilya frowned.

“That is when you—”

“If you explain the Mile High Club to me I swear to God I’ll stuff you in an overhead bin,” Shane said. The sixty-something couple in front of them turned and gave Shane a look so he offered them a polite smile while Ilya snickered behind him.

“I would like to see you try,” he said, while Shane pretended he was invisible.

“Then keep being a dick on this airplane,” he said, and fuck, that got another look.

“You might fit in one,” Ilya went on, thoughtfully looking into the compartment. “Since you are pocket-sized.”

“We’re about to be on an airplane together for eight hours and this is how you kick things off?”

“You are stuck with me for much longer than that,” Ilya said, and gave Shane a kiss on the cheek.

Shane could feel people staring. They were flying out of Montreal, a decision Shane had deeply regretted for the past three hours, and he was pretty certain that not only did everyone else in the first-class cabin know who they were, they were angry about having to share an airplane.

So yes, he had to force himself not to move away or yell at Ilya for the public display, but he didn’t. Because this was his honeymoon and all these people could go fuck themselves if they didn’t like it.

“Don’t remind me,” Shane muttered. “You want the window or the aisle?”

Later, when they were taxiing down the runway, Shane laced his fingers through Ilya’s. Ilya looked away from the window with a small, secret smile, and it gave Shane the nerve to kiss the back of his hand.

And that got a real smile, one of the sweet, unguarded ones that felt like stepping into sunlight.

“You good?” Shane asked, because planes, and because Ilya had his other hand on the crucifix under his shirt.

“Fine,” Ilya said, the lights of the Montreal airport passing by through the window. The cabin was dark for takeoff, but Shane could still the tightness in Ilya’s jaw, the unblinking way he watched the window like he was personally responsible for the plane not crashing.

“Hey,” Shane said, and squeezed his hand, rubbing his thumb over Ilya’s knuckles. “I’m here.”

That got Ilya to take a deep breath and turn toward Shane, resting their foreheads together.

“I know, sweetheart,” he murmured as the plane lifted into the sky.

------

Rose: okay I know Shane hates these BUT this one was super cute, can I please send it

Shane just sighed and bumped against Ilya, who was frowning at signs in the Barcelona airport and looking tired.

“We want the baggage claim, yes? Is that your parents?

“It’s Rose, and yeah.”

Ilya dug his phone out of his pocket, read Rose’s text, and grinned.

Ilya: yes

Shane just shot him a look.

“If Rose says it is super cute, it is super cute,” Ilya said.

“She says that about every weird picture someone posts of us.”

“No, she says that about every picture she sends to you. She sends the bad ones only to me, because I have a sense of humor.”

“I have a sense of humor,” Shane grumbled, because he totally did. Just not about his relationship—his marriage!—being tabloid fodder.

Ilya just snickered and kissed the top of his head, and then Rose sent the picture: it was clearly zoomed in from a weird angle, but Shane was asleep against Ilya’s shoulder and Ilya was asleep against Shane’s head. It was disgustingly cute. It also made Shane’s skin crawl, so he scowled as he saved it to his phone.

“Why do you hate these?” Ilya teased. “Is adorable.”

“It’s not adorable that someone took a picture of us on an airplane while we were asleep and then put it on the internet! How did it even get posted so fast?”

Ilya: Shane is mad. I think is cute

Rose: You’re right, it IS cute

Shane: It’s weird!

Rose: It’s also weird

Shane: Are you just agreeing with both of us?

Rose: Well, you’re both right. It’s cute and weird

Rose: Can I just point out that I’m only sending you the cute pic and not the Twitter thread speculating about your impending divorce because of the epic meltdown you two had last week over where you’d parked

“What the fuck,” Shane muttered, but Ilya just snorted.

“That one was good. According to body language experts you regret choosing me over Rose.”

“I don’t even remember getting into a fight about that,” Shane said, not at all nervous that people were talking about whether they’d get divorced.

“We didn’t. Was stupid and I did not tell you because it was stupid and makes you all anxious.”

Shane didn’t love being Hockey Famous, but he was more or less used to it.

He hated, hated, hated being Actually Famous. Rose had assured him it would die down before much longer, and he couldn’t wait.

“How does she even know about all this?” Shane asked as he read a sign and pointed at an escalator. “Does she have google alerts set up or something?”

“Probably.”

Shane: Are you stalking us?

Rose: Technically, no

Rose: But I might have some alerts

Shane: WHY

Ilya snickered as they got on the escalator.

Rose: Because being the third corner in an epic love triangle that’s been THE gossip news all summer is the greatest dramatic role of my life?

Shane: It’s not, stop it

Ilya: Still cannot believe Shane was at the center of this triangle

Rose: But that’s why it’s so good! NO ONE SUSPECTED

Rose: Ilya, if you send me some mean texts I’ll leak them and we can make some more headlines about how we’re in a DESPERATE BATTLE for Shane’s heart

“I’ll kill you both, I swear to God,” Shane muttered.

“What mean texts should I send?”

“None?”

Ilya started typing, and Shane gave up, wrapping an arm around the other man’s waist and leaning in, still on the world’s longest escalator.

After a moment, Ilya paused typing and glanced over.

“Homewrecker?” Shane suggested, and Ilya grinned.

Ilya: Stop texting my husband on our honeymoon, you homewrecker

Rose: Nice

Ilya: Shane came up with homewrecker

Rose: Shane! How could you?

“Oh, my God,” Shane said as they got off the escalator, but he was smiling.

“Will be over soon,” Ilya said as they looked around for more signs. “A few more weeks, maybe? Sooner if Taylor Swift starts dating someone famous.”

The Barcelona airport was modern, all steel and glass walls, the morning sunlight streaming in. Since Shane’s brain was pretty sure it was still night time, it was very disconcerting.

“Who?” Shane asked.

“Are you ser—” Ilya started, but then caught the grin on Shane’s face and just sighed. “For that I should leak the mean texts. I’ll tell Rose to call me a man-stealing hussy.”

“Hussy?”

For a split second, Ilya actually looked uncertain.

“Means like, sexy person who sleeps around, yes? Steals men?”

Shane was laughing too hard to respond.

* * *

Ilya wasn’t concerned about his visa. He was perfectly capable of following instructions and gathering paperwork, not to mention that both Shane and Yuna had double-checked that he had everything in order.

But being stuck in a very slow line in an airport sucked, and it also gave his tired, jet-lagged brain plenty of free time to come up with dire scenarios that all ended with him being shipped back to Russia. It didn’t help that Shane had breezed through the passport line for people from reasonable countries and disappeared with a wave, leaving Ilya in a fluorescent-lit hallway behind a woman who seemed to have a small goat in a dog carrier.

He was still contemplating the mystery animal when his phone buzzed.

Shane: I got you coffee and a croissant thing

Shane: It’s not a croissant but it’s like a croissant, but Spanish

Rose: Did you get me one?

Shane: Oops

Rose: Still the group text, dude

Rose: Why are you even texting?

Ilya: I am stuck in the line for people from dumb countries

He looked around for a moment, then pretended to be texting while he took a picture of the animal in front of him.

Ilya: Do you think this is a goat?

Rose: Does it smell like a goat?

Ilya: I don’t know, how do goats smell?

Rose: Goaty

Rose: How do you not know what goats smell like?

Ilya: Why do you know that?

Shane: I should just leak these texts, no one would ever speculate again

Rose: I’m just saying, there’s a distinctive odor

Ilya’s line moved. The animal in front of him made an inconclusive noise.

Shane: How many people are in front of you?

Ilya: I don’t know, like six?

Shane: Hurry UP

Ilya: Excited to get to the hotel?

Rose: STILL THE GROUP TEXT YOU GUYS

Shane: I’m excited to be literally anywhere besides the airport

When he finally got to the desk, the border agent glanced at Ilya, asked him where he was going, gave his papers a cursory look, and stamped his stupid passport. It felt pretty anti-climactic.

Shane was sprawled on a chair in the waiting area.

“Finally,” he said, holding out a coffee. Ilya rolled his eyes and took it.

“Is not my fault marrying for citizenship still takes forever.”

“You can go back to Canada if you’re gonna be like that,” Shane said, but he was smiling as he stood.

“And miss out on all your walking tours?”

“That’s what you’re looking forward to?” Shane asked.

Right there, in the middle of a busy airport, he stepped into Ilya’s space and put his hands on the other man’s waist. Every inch of Ilya’s skin hummed with the thrill.

“I heard they were very good walking tours,” he said, and kissed his husband.

Chapter End Notes

Yes, Ottawa has an international airport, but it's relatively small and doesn't have direct flights to Barcelona. I figured they'd make the drive instead of dealing with a layover (half of which are in Montreal, anyway).

Chapter 2: Here, in the middle of everything

Chapter Summary

“I got you something,” Shane said, a tiny, secret smile on his face, his cheeks flushed. He was breathing a little harder than usual.

Ilya suddenly felt very, very focused.

“What?”

Shane didn’t respond, just reached into his pocket, pulled out a white plastic object with rounded edges, and handed it to Ilya.

“Wedding present,” he said.

Ilya frowned and turned it over in his hand. It was a couple inches long and completely blank except for a slider on one side, so he gave it an experimental flick—

Shane’s breath caught. It was the slightest noise, especially in the loud bar, but Ilya’s head snapped up, eyes wide. He nudged the slider and watched Shane’s throat work as he swallowed, the careful, controlled way he breathed. The flush on his cheeks deepening even in the low light.

Jesus fucking Christ.

August 2021 — Barcelona

“Of course we have to visit La Sagrada Familia,” Shane said. “We’re like half a mile away, it’s a ten-minute walk. ”

“Is a church?”

“It’s supposed to be cool,” said Shane, flicking through the map on the iPad he was balancing against his knee. He only had one hand because he and Ilya were half-reclining in a messy pile of sheets, blankets, pillows, and limbs, and his other arm was somewhere under Ilya. No one was wearing clothes. “Apparently it’s been under construction since 1882?”

“What is taking so long?”

“I don’t know! It’s complicated, I guess?”

Ilya tapped a picture on the map and it expanded. They both looked at it for a moment. It did look more complicated to Shane than most churches did, but a hundred-something years was a pretty long time.

“We should do at least one tourist thing that we can tell people about when they ask how our honeymoon was,” he finally pointed out. “Also, it does look cool.”

“I would even do two tourist things,” Ilya said. “Three if day drinking wine in charming cafes counts as a tourist thing.”

“Sure, why not?”

Ilya pulled back and narrowed his eyes. “Who are you and what have you done with Shane Hollander?”

“I know how to go on vacation! It’s, like, noon and we haven’t even gotten out of bed!”

“Only because I have not let you.”

“I’m here of my own free will, thanks,” Shane said, and then jumped when the iPad chimed with an incoming call.

“I should answer, yes?” Ilya teased, hovering one finger over the green answer button.

“No!” Shane yelped, and grabbed his wrist. “Jesus, that’s FaceTime, do you want to—oh fuck you,” he finished as Ilya laughed.

“Is our honeymoon, what do they expect?”

“For us to only answer if we’re clothed, probably,” Shane said, and shoved Ilya’s arm away as the iPad kept chiming. “I’ll call them back—"

They must have shifted or something, because before Shane could decline the call, the iPad toppled forward into Ilya’s lap, and the chiming stopped.

Both men froze. Shane held his breath, staring at the face-down iPad.

“Shane?” said Yuna Hollander’s voice.

Shane moved faster than he had in his life, scrambling away from the sound of his mom’s voice as he pulled the sheets with him. Ilya practically dove off the other side of the bed, landing on the floor in a heap. He looked more terrified than Shane had ever seen him.

“Maybe it’s a bad connection,” said David Hollander from the face-down iPad in the middle of the bed. “I don’t think the video’s working.”

“It says the call went through,” Yuna said. “Shane? Can you hear us?”

Shane’s heart was pounding. The sheets wrapped around his waist were not enough. On the other side of the bed, Ilya’s eyes were comically wide.

He had absolutely no idea what to do, though throwing the iPad off the balcony seemed like an okay option.

“Hi,” he said for some reason. Ilya got to his feet, made a what the fuck are you doing face, and grabbed a pillow to hold in front of himself. “Um. Hey, how are you guys?”

“Same as usual,” his dad said. “It finally rained last night, which is good because we sure needed it. How’s Barcelona?”

“It’s great,” Shane said. Barcelona was probably great. He hadn’t seen much besides the inside of their ridiculous honeymoon suite for the past twenty-four hours, and mostly the bed where his parents were currently talking to them from an iPad.

The iPad which definitely had a camera on the back as well as on the front, and in the chaos Shane had no fucking clue which camera was on right now. His parents hadn’t melted from embarrassment, so probably the front one, but still.

“Give us the highlights!” said Yuna. “Did you go to the Picasso museum yet? My friend Barb went and she said it was really well done.”

“Yuna,” said Shane’s dad. “They’ve been there for twenty-four hours, they’re probably still jet lagged.”

Ilya made a noise, and Shane looked up to see him with one hand over his mouth, desperately trying not to laugh.

“Quit it,” he muttered, pressing his lips together so he didn’t laugh himself.

Ilya did not quit it. Ilya started fucking giggling, so Shane threw a pillow at him.

“Yeah,” he said, ignoring his stupid husband, who was now practically in hysterics. "It was a flight? Definitely still jet lagged.”

“You know Erica, who used to run the accounting department with Jared? She was a flight attendant when she was younger, and she always said that to get over jet lag…”

Still clutching the sheets around himself so tightly that his knuckles were white, Shane carefully climbed onto the bed and knee-walked toward the iPad as Ilya made a weird choking noise.

“Shut up,” whispered Shane, biting the inside of his lip so he wouldn’t laugh. When he was arm’s length from the iPad, where his mom was still detailing her former coworker’s cure for jet lag, he gingerly grabbed the other end of the sheet and pulled it over the iPad, like he was tucking it in.

Ilya fucking lost it.

“What the fuck,” he whispered to Shane, gasping for breath. “How did this happen when we are in another country?”

“I don’t know,” Shane whispered back, about to lose it himself. “Where the fuck are our clothes?”

“Anyway, it might be too late for that to work but it’s something to think about for when you get back,” his mom said. “Oh, hey, someone wants to say hi!”

There was an excited yip from the iPad, and Ilya’s face lit up even more.

“Anya!” he said, reaching for the bed.

“No!” Shane hissed, and threw another pillow.

“I think she misses you already,” said Shane’s mom, blissfully oblivious.

“I will point the camera at my face!” whispered Ilya, like that was a reasonable thing to say.

Shane whipped another pillow at him, found a throw pillow on the floor, and threw that one too. Ilya caught the first but the second got him full in the face, and he yelped.

Put some fucking clothes on! Shane mouthed, pointing at the suitcases on the floor for emphasis. Ilya grinned and shrugged. Shane grabbed another pillow.

His dad cleared his throat into the awkward silence.

“We can call you back later, if that’s better for you guys,” he said.

Shane rolled his eyes. Now they offered?

“No!” said Ilya, of course. “Anya! Are you being good for David and Yuna?”

Shane threw the pillow he was already holding and headed for their suitcases.

“She’s an angel,” said Shane’s mom. “We might not give her back.”

“Yuna!” Ilya said, putting one hand over his heart. “How could you say this?”

The t-shirt Shane threw hit him in the head, but he managed to catch the underwear and the shorts.

“You’re gone so much,” his mom teased.

“Is no excuse for dognapping!”

“We’ll see.”

Finally dressed, Shane hastily shoved all the pillows back onto the bed, waited for Ilya to be decent, and settled against the headboard before picking up the iPad.

“Oh, there you are,” his mom said. “I thought you’d turned the video off.”

If only, Shane thought as Ilya climbed onto the bed next to him, draping an arm over his shoulders.

“Hello,” he said cheerfully, as Shane wished they’d thought to sit on the couch. “Anya! Are they treating you well?”

“We met some ducks on our walk this morning,” Shane’s dad volunteered, scratching behind her ears. “It was pretty exciting.”

“Ducks are very exciting,” Ilya agreed.

“How was your flight?” Shane’s mom asked. They talked for a few more minutes, though to be honest, Ilya did most of the talking. Shane just watched the easy, happy way Ilya chatted with his parents, how he practically sparkled at their affection.

I gave him that, Shane thought, and it made his skin seem too tight for everything he felt.

Later, when they hung up the call, Shane switched the iPad all the way off and tossed it to the other end of the bed. Then he reached up and kissed Ilya on the temple.

“I think maybe next time they will text first,” he said, and Shane snorted. “Or maybe next time you will be cool about it.”

“When have I ever been cool about anything?” Shane asked dryly. Ilya laughed.

“You could always give it a try.”

“You could always not answer my parents’ FaceTime call with your dick.”

“Was not my dick.” Ilya paused. “I think.”

Shane chose not to contemplate that.

“What time is it?” he asked. Their ridiculous suite had floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall of the bedroom with a spectacular view of Barcelona, but the curtains were still shut.

“Lunchtime?” Ilya guessed.

“There’s a paella place with good reviews a couple blocks away.”

“Sounds perfect,” Ilya said, and kissed the top of Shane’s head.

* * *

Ilya put his elbows on the bar, watched the room, and waited for Shane to get back. It was  the following evening, close to midnight and the overpriced, swanky wine bar was getting louder and hotter with every passing minute, Spanish swirling around him like a dry breeze.

He fucking loved Barcelona. Yes, he’d had a couple glasses of an expensive red wine whose name he couldn’t pronounce, and no, he was not fully sober, but Barcelona was beautiful, all narrow twisting streets and plazas and fountains and church spires peeking over a building that some famous painter had died in three hundred years ago but that now housed University students. It felt familiar, even though he’d never been before.

“You okay?” Shane asked when he returned, his hip brushing Ilya’s.

“Fine. Why?”

They had to lean together to hear each other, and Ilya could smell Shane’s fancy shampoo, clean and oceanic. Shane shrugged.

“You look a little fuzzy.”

Ilya blinked and lifted his hand, elbow still on the bar. Shane stepped in and Ilya brushed his thumb over the nape of Shane’s neck, moving the stray hairs that had fallen from his bun while Shane put an arm around Ilya, stroking his fingertips along his spine.

“Fuzzy?”

“I don’t know,” Shane laughed. “Sure. Like sort of here but not.”

“I was just thinking that this is nice,” Ilya said, now twisting the strands around one finger. “Being here. Doing normal things. Has not gotten old yet.”

“We are on our honeymoon,” Shane pointed out.

“You think drinking in fancy bars in Spain will get old?”

Shane grinned. “Not that part, no. Grocery shopping maybe.”

“Probably,” Ilya teased. “Is already boring watching you read every single ingredient in protein powder.”

“No one is making you come with me.”

“Well, you will not buy me Oreos.”

“I told you, they were sold out—”

“Sure.”

Shane gave Ilya a long, level look as Ilya kept messing with his hair, more strands falling over the back of his neck, and then… oh, that was Shane’s hand under his shirt, warm and a little rough. Skin on skin. Here, in the middle of everything.

For a moment, Ilya let his eyes slide closed, and he just felt.

“Should we get out of here?” he murmured, leaning in so his lips brushed Shane’s ear.

“I got you something,” Shane said, a tiny, secret smile on his face, his cheeks flushed. He was breathing a little harder than usual.

Ilya suddenly felt very, very focused.

“What?”

Shane didn’t respond, just reached into his pocket, pulled out a white plastic object with rounded edges, and handed it to Ilya.

“Wedding present,” he said.

Ilya frowned and turned it over in his hand. It was a couple inches long and completely blank except for a slider on one side, so he gave it an experimental flick—

Shane’s breath caught. It was the slightest noise, especially in the loud bar, but Ilya’s head snapped up, eyes wide. He nudged the slider and watched Shane’s throat work as he swallowed, the careful, controlled way he breathed. The flush on his cheeks deepening even in the low light.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“What is it?” he asked, voice coming out low and rough and barely audible.

“Plug,” Shane murmured, the corners of his mouth curving up.

Ilya didn’t think, just moved. He pulled Shane to him and took his mouth in a filthy, desperate kiss, pushing a hand into his hair and holding on. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew they were still very much in public—he could feel people staring—but Shane was digging his fingers into Ilya’s spine and groaning quietly into Ilya’s mouth like he couldn’t help it, and Ilya did not give one single fuck who saw.

God, did he want Ilya to make him come in front of all these people? Was that the game, to see if he could do it without everyone noticing? That was a thought: Shane here, in the middle of a crowd, the drunk, lost, glazed look he got when he came. Here, where other people could see it.

Ilya nudged the slider off, suddenly uncertain. Shane gasped.

“Fuck,” he whispered, resting their foreheads together. He had one hand tangled in Ilya’s hair, the other still under Ilya’s shirt, against his back.

“Too much?” Ilya murmured, thumb still on the controls.

“No,” Shane said, so Ilya flicked it on again and Shane sucked a breath through clenched teeth.

“Not enough?”

“It’s plenty,” Shane said, teeth still gritted. Ilya nudged the slider a little higher. Shane’s fingers tightened in his hair. Ilya was pretty sure he could feel every individual air molecule around them, the way the pattern swirled with every breath Shane took.

“This is what you wanted, yes?” Ilya asked, not sure what he wanted the answer to be. He tugged Shane’s hair and moved his mouth to Shane’s ear, bit his earlobe. The woman on the barstool behind Shane was glaring at him, so he winked.

“Yes,” Shane gasped. Ilya pushed the slider again, and Shane swore. “Stop trying to fucking kill me before we can even leave.”

The relief was instant, refreshing, and Ilya ignored it because what did it matter if someone else saw Shane? They were married. Shane was his. Jealousy was stupid.

“Do you think you can make it back?” Ilya purred, pulling back to see Shane’s face.

He was flushed and bright-eyed, his hair half out of its bun, strands falling across his face as he smiled.

“Of course,” he said, that determined look on his face. “The hotel’s five blocks away. Why wouldn’t I?”

* * *

Ilya gave him the first block without turning the plug on at all, because he was a nice husband and because Shane’s hand in his seemed a little shaky. He turned it on the lowest setting as they turned down a narrow, cobblestone-paved back street and Shane hissed.

“You still going to make it, Hollander?”

“Yes.”

Ilya turned it up.

“Are you sure?”

“God, fuck you,” Shane said, like it hadn’t been his idea in the first place, and Ilya grinned.

“I could turn it down if it is too much,” he offered. “All you have to do is ask.”

He didn’t, of course, and got through three more blocks with Ilya turning it up by increments. By the time they could see the hotel his breathing was ragged and Ilya could see droplets of sweat sliding down his neck, his whole body tight.

Ilya wasn’t faring any better. Every time Shane swore, his dick got a little harder until he felt like it might explode without even being touched.

“Wait,” Shane said, about to cross the street to their hotel. There was a restaurant and bar on the bottom floor, people walking in and out. “Just… give me a minute.”

They were in a quiet, narrow side street, and Shane leaned against a wall. Head back, eyes glazed. He’d pulled his hair down at some point and it swooped around his face, strands sticking to his neck.

Ilya stepped in, pushed his hair back, and licked him from the hollow of his throat to the hinge of his jaw.

“That wasn’t,” Shane gritted out. “An invitation.”

“Then you should not be so inviting.”

“Quit torturing me. I’m trying not to come in public.”

“But it is so fun,” Ilya teased, stepping closer. One hand on Shane’s hip. “And I think you will not come. You are always so good for me.”

“Yeah?” Shane whispered, eyes big as the moon.

“Yes,” Ilya said, punctuating it with a kiss on Shane’s neck. “So. Good.”

He moved his hand higher, slid one thumb under Shane’s shirt and stroked his hip.

“Better now?” he asked.

“No, I’m not fucking better now, you asshole,” Shane hissed. Ilya dragged one thumb along his still-clothed dick, root to tip, then grinned at the string of profanity Shane unleashed. As if Ilya wouldn’t come in two strokes himself right now.

“All right,” Ilya said, leaned in, and gave him a sweet kiss. “Come on.”

He turned the vibrator off, and Shane exhaled.

“Ilya—"

“You think I am really going to let a bunch of strangers see you come?” Ilya said, too quickly, then stopped himself.

“I thought you wanted to show me off,” Shane teased, suddenly grinning.

“Yes,” Ilya huffed, and looked away for a moment. “But not—everything.”

It wasn’t jealousy. It just felt… bad, to think of anyone else, seeing Shane in that moment.

“Some things, then,” Shane said, and his hand was on Ilya’s face. Thumb whisper-light along Ilya’s lower lip.

“I want everyone to know you are mine,” Ilya said. “And I want some things to be only mine.”

He caught Shane’s hand and pressed his thumb to his lips, giving it a quick kiss.

“Now can we please go the fuck back to our room?” he said, and Shane laughed.

The second they entered the lobby of their hotel, Ilya thought everyone had to know. He felt like Shane was magnetic north and his whole body was a compass, and it blew his mind that anyone could see them—Shane flushed, glassy-eyed; Ilya unable to look anywhere else—and not be able to read the past ten minutes like a book.

When they reached the elevators, Ilya untangled his hand from Shane’s and put it on his back. Under his shirt, without caring who saw, and Shane did the same.

Then he watched as Ilya slid his other hand into his pocket, and Ilya could hear him holding his breath.

“That was perfect,” he breathed into Shane’s ear. “No one suspects a thing. Almost there.”

Shane glanced up at Ilya, then ran his teeth along his lower lip, his palm pressing into Ilya’s back.

Ilya’s cock jolted just as the elevator dinged. He practically dragged his husband into the car, jammed his finger on the door close button, had him up against the side of the elevator before they slid fully closed. Turned the vibrator on as far as it would go.

“Fuck,” Shane said, and it was half-shout, half-sob. “Fuck. Fuck. Ilya.”

He had his legs around the other man’s waist, head back against the elevator wall.

“Is not a long ride,” Ilya said, voice low and soothing, as he stroked a hand along Shane’s side. “Seven floors, yes? I think you can do it.”

“I’m never giving you that goddamn remote again.”

“No?”

The elevator slowed for their floor. Ilya wrapped his hands around Shane’s thighs and ground their cocks together, just to hear Shane’s whimper.

It was so fucking good, and God, he was so fucking close, but he turned the vibrator off again so Shane could, like, walk.

Somehow, they got to the room and got the door open. Every light was blazing and Ilya flipped them off as Shane grabbed handfuls of his shirt, practically trying to climb him. Ilya let himself be dragged to the bedroom, turning the lights off and the vibrator back on as far as it would go.

The dark made Shane look paler than usual, and the dim light leaking through the curtains picked out his freckles. His eyes were dark as black holes, had the same gravitational pull. Ilya had barely touched his own dick but he didn’t know how much more of this he could take. He never had much control around Shane, least of all when they played these games.

When they got to the window, Ilya shoved the curtains aside, kissed Shane one more time, and spun him around to face it.

“Oh,” Shane whispered, and there was Barcelona. Ilya ran a hand up his back, stepping in until Shane was braced against the floor-to-ceiling window, their bodies flush. “Fuck.”

“Look,” he murmured. “All anyone out there would have to do is glance up, and here you are. Showing yourself off to the world like you were born to it.”

Shane took a shaky breath. The muscles in his back and shoulders bunched, forearms braced against the window. Ilya wanted to bite him.

“They’d be jealous,” Shane said, low and rough.

“Of me?”

“Of me,” he said, and now Ilya did bite the side of his neck, ground his cock against Shane so hard he could feel the plug, vibrations rattling through him. “I’m the one up here with you.”

Shane reached over his head, threaded fingers into Ilya’s hair.

“I’m the one who’s got you all to myself,” he said, and the simple, true confidence of it fucking did something to Ilya.

“Yes,” he said, his left hand over Shane’s. He pushed his fingers through his husband’s, knuckles against the cool glass. Their wedding bands touched. “All yours. Anything you want. Always.”

Fuck, he’d switched to Russian. An accident but good thing he had because he felt fucking feral right now. Practically fucking Shane against a window except for all the clothing in the way. No thoughts, just crazed, possessive lust that he couldn’t stop speaking aloud.

“Show everyone,” he said. “Let every single person in this whole city know who you belong to.”

Braced against the window, Shane whimpered Ilya’s name. Ilya heard himself make a noise that was barely human, slid his hand around to cup Shane’s erection through denim.

“Mine,” he said. Fuck, he was close. Half out of his mind. “All of this. All of you. From the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Every last inch.”

“Fuck. Ilya.” Shane was gasping, the hard muscles of his back trembling with the strain as he arched into Ilya, vibrations threatening to undo them both. “God.”

Ilya spat into his hand and shoved it into Shane’s jeans. He came on the third stroke, bucking his hips and swearing, forehead against the window. Ilya followed moments later, face buried in Shane’s hair as he said his name. Completely undone and not even undressed. Like he was a teenager.

“Love you,” he said, into Shane’s hair. He was vaguely aware of Shane’s hand in his pocket, turning the vibrator off and he pulled his hand out of Shane’s jeans, wiped it on his own wrecked pants.

That was the soft thunk of a butt plug hitting the floor as Shane turned around, framed by city lights and the night sky. Ilya wondered when he’d stop being stunned by the sight.

“Every last inch,” Shane said, in English. He tugged Ilya’s shirt and pulled him in for a long, slow kiss, one hand around the back of his neck. Possessive and sweet. Ilya had the strange sensation of his heart being held outside his body in gentle, careful hands, and he was surprised that he didn’t mind it.

“Is yours,” Ilya answered, and they kept kissing against the window.

Chapter 3: We cannot both be the fun sexy boy toy

Shane propped his feet on the the opposite chair, sipped his latte, and gazed out over Barcelona. He tried to appreciate the moment for what it was: sitting on the rooftop patio of the honeymoon suite in a super-chic, upscale hotel, soaking in the sun through 50 SPF sunscreen, drinking coffee and eating the last few bites of a pastry whose name he couldn’t pronounce no matter how many times he’d tried to get it right.

He was not reflecting on how he and Ilya could have been taking vacations together for years, or thinking about how they had yet to encounter even one Canadian tourist with an iPhone, or letting it bother him that they’d gotten married before he knew that Ilya fidgeted on airplanes or was, like, fundamentally opposed to unpacking his suitcase even if he was going to be staying somewhere for a whole week and unpacking just made sense. Obviously.

But it didn’t matter that he didn’t know those things—all those little, intimate details that made up a person, a relationship, a life together—before because he was learning them now, and he was going to learn the hell out of them.

Also, he’d learned that Ilya had taken to the Spanish attitude toward timeliness like a duck to water.

“Get a fucking move on, Rozanov!” he shouted through the open door. He was ready. He’d been ready for fifteen minutes. “And wear pants!”

“You think I am going to walk around the city with no pants?” Ilya shouted back.

“You keep threatening to.”

“Because you get all annoyed and cute.”

Shane snorted, stood, and went back inside to lean in the bathroom doorway. Ilya was scowling into the mirror, messing with his hair.

“I meant don’t wear shorts,” he clarified, and Ilya gave him a sideways look, gesturing at the jeans he was very clearly wearing. Shane checked him out because he could.

“Yes. Churches,” he said. “Where it is fine to have art of people being tortured to death, but no knees.”

“Take it up with the Vatican,” Shane said. “If you ever leave this bathroom, anyway.”

He knew that Ilya’s relationship with religion… existed. Or had, maybe, before his mom had died. Basically, once when Shane’s mom had been prying-but-not-prying one year at Christmas, he’d mentioned that Easter had always been the bigger celebration in his family and then changed the subject.

But before Shane could start asking so what do you think about Jesus, anyway, Ilya sighed and turned away from the mirror, and Shane finally saw his shirt.

And burst out laughing.

“Do I get one?” he asked, and Ilya grinned his crooked fucking grin and looked so pleased with himself.

It was bright purple, tight, and said TROPHY HUSBAND across the front in hot pink retro-script font.

“No,” he said, and gave Shane a quick kiss. “Is not how it works. You are familiar with the concept, yes? We cannot both be the fun sexy boy toy.”

“Oh, so I have to be the boring, serious one again?” Shane teased, hooking a finger through Ilya’s belt loop.

“Of course,” Ilya grinned, and now he had one forearm on the doorframe over Shane’s head, and seriously, they had to go right now if they didn’t want to miss the walking tour. “That is, like, our whole vibe.”

“I’m plenty of fun.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, and kissed Shane again.

“I am.”

“I was agreeing!”

“Were you?”

Ilya’s grin was answer enough, so Shane rolled his eyes and shoved him in the chest. Jesus, the words on Ilya’s shirt were glittery.

“Where did you even find this?”

“The internet. Has everything.”

“Maybe it also has a watch so we can be on time for something, once.”

Ilya huffed.

“You are the one blocking the doorway,” he said, which Shane wasn’t.

“Are you ready?” Shane asked, releasing Ilya’s belt loop.

“Yes! Come show me off on your walking tour!”

In lieu of a response, Shane settled for grabbing Ilya’s ass as he walked away.

* * *

Because Shane was fun, the tour he’d selected billed itself as Barcelona’s Only Churrotecture Tour: half an architecture tour, half a sampling of the best churro stands in the city. Right now they were standing in front of some church that dated from the 800s, the tour guide going on about the arches, as Ilya took a bite out of a churro and then held it out to Shane.

Could Shane have held it in his own hand to take a bite? Yes. But did he wrap his hand around Ilya’s wrist to bring the churro to his mouth instead? Also yes. That got him a slightly annoyed look from Ilya, and besides, he didn’t get sugar all over his fingers. Win-win.

As the tour guide—a vivacious man named Pedro, who both loved Barcelona and knew a whole lot of facts—went on about arches, their new friend Evelyn turned around, raised one eyebrow, and crooked a conspiratorial finger.

Shane and Ilya both leaned in, because Evelyn—seventy-three, from Boca Raton, Florida, and on vacation with her two best friends—was fun.

“Did you know,” she started. “That the rose at the top of the arch represents the clitoris?”

Shane felt himself go red as he looked at the arch over the doors to the church, where sure enough, there was a small stone flower in the middle.

“It does?” he said dumbly.

“Evelyn!” the woman standing next to her admonished.

“What?” Evelyn said, all faux-innocence.

“Not everything in The Da Vinci Code is true,” the second woman (Pearl?) said. “You can’t just flit around Europe giving people inaccurate information!”

“Or saying clitoris in a church,” the third woman piped up, and now someone else from the tour was turning to glare at them and no one was thinking about arches.

“We’re not in the church, are we,” Evelyn said in a tone of voice that suggested they’d had similar arguments before. “We’re outside the church.”

“It’s sacred ground,” the woman—Claudia, Shane thought—hissed, and now all three of them were whisper-arguing with each other about what body parts you could name while within sight of a church and whether anything in The Da Vinci Code was true. Shane was still stuck on so that doorway has a clit, and no one was listening to poor Pedro any more.

And then, of course, Ilya was leaning in and Shane could just tell from the way he tightened his fingers around Shane’s that he was about to be annoying.

“The clitoris,” Ilya started, because of course he did. “Is—”

“I swear to fuck I will leave Barcelona on the next plane.”

“What? I was helping!”

For that, Shane stole the rest of his churro, ate it, and spent much longer than necessary sucking the sugar off his fingers while Ilya pretended he wasn’t watching.

* * *

Naturally, Evelyn, Pearl, and Claudia had fallen in love with Ilya and his ridiculous t-shirt the moment he introduced himself. They loved his accent. They loved that he was on his honeymoon. They loved it when he insisted on taking selfies of him obnoxiously kissing Shane on the cheek in front of tourist attractions.

To his surprise, Shane also liked that last thing. He hadn’t thought he would. He’d thought the years of secrecy weren’t so bad, all that time of physical contact only behind closed doors, of pretending he didn’t know which side of the bed Ilya slept on or how he liked to be kissed. Not when it meant someday with Ilya, but the truth was that he just hadn’t known.

He hadn’t known it could be like this: in the warm glow of sunlight and Ilya’s affection, the day bright as anything. He hadn’t known that kissing Ilya back in the middle of a crowd would make Ilya’s cheeks go pink, make him so pleased he was embarrassed about it. All those things he hadn’t found out, and for what? So Shane could torture them both for years of sneaking around before he threw the rest of his life into chaos anyway?

But then there was another churro stand, and Ilya saying something to Claudia that made her laugh, and Evelyn asking Shane what their plans were after Barcelona, and it was pointless to think too much about the past. Not when they’d stopped in front of some fountain, and Ilya had his phone out again, and this time Shane stood on his tiptoes and kissed his husband obnoxiously on the cheek and everything in the whole world felt perfect.

* * *

“If you’re about to tell me that those rounded spires are penises, I already know,” Pearl said to Evelyn. “Everyone knows. That’s a textbook phallus.”

“Textbook,” Evelyn agreed, and the five of them all looked up at the towering bulk of La Sagrada Familia, towers soaring over Barcelona.

“That’s a lot of dicks for a church,” Shane heard himself say. The second it was out of his mouth he felt himself blush because, shit, he’d just said dicks to three people he’d only just met, but—they laughed, and then Shane laughed. Ilya squeezed his hand where their fingers were laced together because that was something they did now: hold hands, all the time, everywhere.

“The Catholic Church is historically dick-heavy,” Evelyn agreed.

“In so many ways,” said Pearl.

Claudia sighed and looked up at the cloudless sky. “Sorry about the two of them,” she said, presumably to God. “I tried.”

“Did you?” asked Evelyn.

“You think you’re not on my prayer list?” Claudia said. They were in the line to get into La Sagrada Familia, which really had more of a tourist attraction vibe than a church vibe, but what did Shane know? Europe was weird. “Every night I’m on my knees, trying negotiate you away from the gates of Hell.”

“There’s your first mistake,” said Pearl. “It’s been a while since Sunday School but are you supposed to be negotiating with God?”

“We all have our own relationships with the Lord,” Claudia said primly. Pearl just snorted, and Evelyn rolled her eyes. The three of them started bickering again and Shane glanced over at Ilya, who hadn’t so much as smirked at every night I’m on my knees.

He wasn’t, like, dead, was he?

“Hey,” Shane said, nudging him in the side. “You okay?”

Ilya blinked, then looked over at him. Shane felt like he was coming back from somewhere far away.

“Fine,” he said, casually. Too casually, maybe. “Is a pretty building.”

The line in front of them moved, and Shane poked Ilya in the side.

“Keep up, Rozanov,” he said, and Ilya grumbled about it.

* * *

And then, when they finally got inside, the interior of the church was all vast space and bright white walls and brilliant stained glass windows throwing rainbow light across the space. It felt like being inside the ribcage of some ancient behemoth, held tight and protected by something that had once been alive. That maybe still was.

Ilya didn’t know why he was relieved, just like he didn’t know why he’d suddenly been so apprehensive earlier, but he was. He’d been expecting something more familiar, maybe; a somber cavern filled with with echoes and ghosts, but there were no echoes or ghosts in this place.

This was a hundred awed murmurs bouncing off the sky-high ceilings. This was liquid light flowing over every surface. This was Shane’s eyes turned up, sunlight splashed in every color across his face.

This was being held, safe; it was the strange sensation of being adored; it was Shane’s fingers tightening in his, thumb rubbing over Ilya’s knuckle; Shane looking into Ilya’s eyes and saying it’s beautiful in here and Ilya saying, yes.

* * *

On the way back to the hotel, Ilya stopped in front of another church. Barcelona was lousy with churches, and this one didn’t look like anything special: huddled between two other buildings, heavy wooden doors topped by a round stained-glass window that had seen cleaner days. But Ilya stood on the sidewalk and looked at it like it was a portal to another universe.

“You want to go in?” Shane finally asked, and got a half-smile in return.

It was quiet, inside. Cool and dark. The air heavy in its stillness, and it smelled… ceremonial, somehow. Nothing at all like the light and color of Sagrada Familia. Shane had only been inside a church a handful of times in his life—a few times with friends, as a kid, a buddy’s confirmation; two bar mitzvahs, though those had been synagogues, a few teammates’ weddings—but this didn’t feel like anywhere he’d been before.

It felt old. Felt reverent. Felt like he was being watched by the painted statues and the stained glass windows. Ilya’s hand slipped out of his as they walked in, and Ilya gave him a small shrug.

“I will just be a minute,” he said, and looked for a moment like he was going to kiss Shane, but then didn’t. He offered another small smile and walked toward one side of the church, hand trailing along the wooden back of the pews.

Shane gave him space. That was another new thing: he’d never had to know when to give Ilya space before, really, because they’d had so much of it already. It stressed him out, sometimes, the push and pull of figuring their relationship out all over again; the subtle back-of-the-mind worry that he’d wind up breaking something he didn’t know how to fix. That somehow, all these years in, they’d discover that the secrecy and sneaking around had been the glue that held them together and without that, they were nothing.

These were not helpful thoughts on his honeymoon. Shane pushed them away, shoved his hands in his pockets, and gazed up at the plaster sculpture of a man in brown robes whose eyes were pointed heavenward in an expression that was either bored or holy.

* * *

Ilya dropped a couple Euros into the tin collection box, lit the candle off another that was already burning, and then stared at it. Only three on the tiered offering table were lit, probably because it was early afternoon on, he thought, a Tuesday, and he watched them flicker, trying to arrange his thoughts into… something. He didn’t pray. He probably didn’t even remember the words any more, after all these years, and besides: they were the wrong words for this place.

After a while he looked up from the candles to the statue above them: Mary in blue, the plaster chipped in places, eyes downcast, hands out. Not quite right but familiar enough. He didn’t need to know the words; if he started speaking, they’d come out. He didn’t.

Instead he crossed the patterned tile floor, sat in a wooden pew, rested his forearms on the back of the one in front of him. He could sense Shane on the other side of the nave, reading plaques or whatever, and he just—stared, at the heavy muscle on his wide shoulders, the tilt of his neck, the dark strands of hair falling out of the elastic. Like he could feel Ilya look, Shane turned and looked back, so Ilya smiled.

“Hey,” Shane said when he sat. Their thighs almost touched.

“Hey,” Ilya answered. He wondered if he could explain why he’d wanted to come in there. Why he’d spent the past twenty minutes lighting a candle for something he wasn’t entirely sure he believed in. Were there words?

“She called me Ilyushka,” he said.

“Ilyushka?” Shane said, his smile audible through his careful pronunciation.

“Is a nickname for children,” Ilya went on, eyes forward. “I asked her to stop when I was eight or nine because I thought I was too big for it.”

Shane’s hand slid into his and held tight.

“It had been years,” he said. “but she called me that the day…”

Ilya didn’t finish the sentence. Shane knew. A strand of his hair drifted against Ilya’s bicep as he dropped a soft kiss on his shoulder.

“Hollander,” Ilya said, finally looking over. “We are in church.”

“So excommunicate me,” Shane said, and Ilya snorted, leaned back in the pew, ran a hand through his hair.

“Canadian churches are all wrong,” he said. “American ones too.”

“What about this one?”

Ilya considered the question for a moment.

“Is not quite right, but closer,” he finally said. “For being Catholic.”

“It’s older.”

“Yes.”

“Everything here is so old,” Shane said. “I thought Montreal and Boston had historical stuff, but—wow.”

“I didn’t think it would feel so strange,” Ilya admitted, after a moment. “It is nothing at all like—Moscow, but…”

He trailed off, biting the inside of his cheek. Words were being all weird today.

“But you’re homesick anyway?” Shane said, and Ilya huffed.

“Moscow is where I am from, not home,” he said. “Canada is home. You know that.”

There was a long silence where Ilya could feel Shane looking at him, and he didn’t look back. He hadn’t expected their churro-themed walking tour to end this way; hadn’t expected the day to hit him quite like this.

Finally he felt Shane’s fingers brushing a curl away from his face, and that got him to turn his head.

“A little,” he admitted.

“I wish we could go.”

“We are on our honeymoon in Spain and you want to go to Moscow?”

“Not now, idiot,” Shane said, and Ilya grinned. “Sometime. I want to see where you’re from. You never say much about it.”

Ilya shrugged, looking back at the front of the church.

“Is not really important,” he said, the words barely out before Shane’s elbow dug into his side. “Ow. What the fuck?”

“You promised is what the fuck.”

Ilya sighed and rolled his eyes and pretended that his heart didn’t give a little flip at Shane’s determination.

“Fine. Is probably important but I don’t think about it all that much because there is no real point,” he said. “We cannot go, there is no one I speak with there, and so—”

He waved a hand vaguely through the air, the statement as true as he could get it.

“And Barcelona feels closer to Moscow than anywhere else I have been in years, and it’s making me feel all—weird,” he made himself admit. Because he had promised.

Shane unwound their hands and put his arms around Ilya, pressing their faces together.

“La lyublyu tebya,” he said, and Ilya said it back with a kiss.

* * *

It was true that Ilya didn’t speak to anyone in Russia. He hadn’t spoken to his brother Andrei since the day in Moscow he’d signed over his condo and left. He probably shouldn’t have given him the condo—Andrei seemed to take it as a sign that Ilya wanted to keep giving him things—but Ilya had wanted so badly to make a clean break that he’d done it anyway.

But Andrei had kept calling, even when Ilya didn’t answer. At first he’d called every couple of months, leaving voicemails asking for money: for an investment, to fix the plumbing in the condo Ilya had given him, for a new car after he totaled his old one. Ilya kept the voicemails for a reason he couldn’t identify, but he had never called back.

For a year and a half they’d gotten steadily angrier. With the time difference, Ilya would wake up to a recording of Andrei, shouting at him in Russian. He’d drink coffee alone and listen to his brother remind him who had taken care of their father while Ilya had been partying in the United States, who had taken care of Ilya after their mother’s accident, who had taken him to all those hockey practices. The answers were Polina, no one, and usually the bus, but that wasn’t how Andrei had told it.

He’d finally told Shane after the press conference. They’d been in different cities—different countries—and the diatribe had gone on for nearly ten minutes. Andrei had had to call back twice, and he’d done it, just to scream that Ilya was a worthless embarrassment who’d never done anything but bring shame to his family. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did, and Shane had talked him through it. Held him the next time they saw each other. Tried to guess Ilya’s stupid Russian pet names until they’d both laughed.

Then, the calls had dropped off. Once every three months, then six, until even Andrei realized that Ilya was never going to pick the phone up again. When Ilya got the voicemail a few days after the wedding, he hadn’t heard his brother’s voice in nearly two years.

It felt like he always woke up early after Andrei called, even though his phone was off. Like he knew. Ilya kissed Shane’s forehead and left him asleep in their bedroom and went downstairs alone to make coffee and get it over with.

He knew he didn’t have to listen. He did anyway.

When he hit play, there was one horrible, gut-wrenching moment when his father’s voice came out of the phone speaker and filled the kitchen, already bellowing. Ilya nearly dropped the coffee pot: he was sixteen again, thirteen, eight, still trying to please someone he couldn’t.

But it was Andrei, of course: Andrei sounding just like their father with the same inflection, the same tone, the same phrases, even, and Ilya listened and measured coffee and stood there while it brewed. It was the same as always, now with homophobia added to the mix: he was an embarrassment, a shameful, disgusting, effeminate laughingstock. Fine. Sure. Ilya hated it, but he wasn’t surprised, just waited for coffee. He stood there, staring at the phone on the counter. He wished he had the strength to turn it off or at least block Andrei’s number, but he felt frozen in place instead. The same old voice whispered: but he’s your brother.

And then he heard Shane’s name. Andrei fucking said Shane’s name and kept going, pouring out vitriol and suddenly Ilya couldn’t move fast enough. He grabbed his phone, hands shaking. Couldn’t even get the password punched in properly and Andrei was still fucking talking, wouldn’t shut the fuck up about Shane until finally Ilya threw his phone against the wall.

It worked.

It was loud as hell in the quiet morning but at least Andrei stopped. Ilya just stared at his broken phone for a moment, breathing hard, his heart beating wildly.

“I hope you die in pain and burn in hell,” he snarled in Russian.

“Wish for worse,” Shane’s voice said from the doorway.

He looked angrier than Ilya had ever seen him, jaw set, eyes flashing. Like he was angry enough to pull down lightning from the sky, or punch a hole in a stone wall, or get on the next plane to Moscow and burn the city to the ground.

Ilya’s anger drained like a floodgate had opened.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not even sure which language he was speaking,  and then Shane was walking toward him, practically crackling with every step. “I thought you were still asl—"

Shane wrapped him in an embrace so tight it left Ilya breathless.

“Don’t,” he said into his ear, voice sharp with determination. “Don’t you dare apologize.”

Somehow, he squeezed tighter. Ilya felt himself relax, let Shane pull him down until his head was on his shoulder, Shane’s hand drifting through his hair. His fingers were gentle, even if his whole body was tense.

“You understood?” Ilya asked, after a minute.

“Most of it. I could guess the rest.”

Ilya inhaled a shaky breath and kept his eyes shut against the truth that Shane had learned Russian—well enough to understand a voicemail diatribe—and his reward had been listening to Ilya’s asshole brother insult him.

“I wish you had not heard what he said about you,” Ilya said, turning his face into Shane’s neck. It was warm and smelled a little like his shampoo.

“Ilya,” Shane said, and the way he said it got Ilya to pull back, look Shane in the face. His voice was quiet, dangerous, shimmering with anger. “I don’t care what he said about me. I care what he said about you.”

“Oh,” Ilya said, and his eyes slid away from Shane’s face, and he shrugged. “That was not…”

He shook his head, English briefly escaping him in the too-early, pre-coffee, post-rage morning.

“That was just Andrei,” he said, like it didn’t matter, which it didn’t.

Except somehow, it did, because Shane’s eyes got that dangerous look in them again and his jaw clenched, his throat working as he took Ilya’s chin in his hand.

“He’s wrong about you,” Shane said, the edge to his voice even sharper this time. “Every single fucking thing he just said is wrong. You’re—wonderful, and warm, and sweet, and strong, and I’m so fucking proud to be married to you.”

Ilya didn’t have words. He let Shane lead him from the kitchen and put him on the couch, come back a few minutes later with coffee. When Shane sat and tugged him down, he went, the steady thump of Shane’s heart and gentle fingers threading through his hair lulling him into… something.

They’d stayed like that for hours. Later, they’d talked, still curled together, moving from Ilya’s family to Shane’s shitshow with the Voyageurs to the ways they’d hurt each other, sometimes, that they’d never shared. When they’d finished Ilya felt hollow, scraped out, and like he couldn’t possibly muster up one more sentence about his feelings if his life depended on it so they watched The Transporter and ate popcorn, and Shane fell asleep on him halfway through.

* * *

“Excuse me,” said a loud voice with a heavy accent, and Shane jerked away from Ilya in surprise. Behind him was a stern-looking man in all black, with a—fuck, it was a priest.

“Sorry,” Ilya said, which he wasn’t, really, but it seemed like the thing to say.

The man just pointed at the door and said something in rapid Spanish. Shane was bright red as they walked down the center aisle, chewing on his lip, but he grabbed Ilya’s hand and held on. By the time they were outside, Ilya was laughing, Shane’s face all scrunched.

“Did you just get us kicked out of a church?” Ilya teased.

“Shut up.”

“You did!”

“We got us kicked out of a church.”

“You made out with me in front of Jesus!”

Now Shane was laughing too, still bright red as he glanced over his shoulder. At the church. That he had definitely just gotten them kicked out of.

“You kissed me first,” he said.

“You were being all handsy,” Ilya said, and Shane’s eyebrows went up.

“You think that was handsy?” he said, and now he was smirking, and he shot Ilya a look he knew very well.

“Hm. Was it not?” Ilya said, all fake innocence. “Maybe I need a demonstration.”

“Maybe I could give you one.”

“I think that would be acceptable,” Ilya said, and now they were trying not to laugh, walking a little faster, hand-in-hand, back to the hotel, the old city around them, the afternoon light turning golden.

“Just acceptable?” teased Shane.

“Fine,” said Ilya, rolling his eyes and grinning all at once. “I think it would be great.”

“Damn right,” said Shane, and kissed him on the cheek.

Chapter 4: Saying sorry to the furniture

This was, quite possibly, one of the best ideas Shane had had for their honeymoon, along with the churros and getting a suite in Barcelona with a private hot tub on the roof. That had been fun.

But taking an overnight cruise to Ibiza was in Shane’s top five best honeymoon ideas, for sure, because instead of standing in a security line, dealing with luggage, and getting on a plane, Ilya was sipping a cocktail in the lounge on the top deck, watching the other tourists wandering around the boat.

“Does it have a pool?” Shane asked, his feet up on the low table in front of them.

Ilya sighed. “Of course it has a pool, Hollander,” he said patiently. “You think I would rent us a honeymoon villa in Ibiza that did not have a pool?”

“We booked late! Maybe there weren’t any left.”

“You need to give me more credit.”

Shane huffed. “What else does it have?”

So far, Shane had been remarkably chill about letting Ilya do his fair share of the honeymoon planning, which included the beach house in Ibiza.

“Well, you would not let me rent the house with the sex swing,” he said.

Shane just sipped his drink—which was red-purple and had some sort of fancy twig sticking out of it—and gave Ilya a long, level look.

“What? I am sure they sanitize it,” he said, and Shane wrinkled his nose exactly on cue. “Besides, we could try it out, see if we should get one.”

“I know when you’re messing with me,” Shane said. “You also don’t want to use a rented sex swing.”

“Yes, but you are very fun to mess with, moy kolibri.”

Shane’s face scrunched for a moment. “Notebook?”

“Hummingbird.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“It also has a hot tub outside and a jacuzzi inside,” Ilya said. “And one of the rooms has one of those fancy floating fireplaces you are always oohing and ahhing about.”

Shane grinned. “I mentioned that once.”

“You see? I listen,” Ilya said, and slung his arm along the back of the couch they were on. Shane’s hair, pulled back in a bun, tickled the inside of his elbow.

He wondered, sometimes, if this would ever sink in. That they were here, in public, acting like a couple. That he could stop collecting scraps of information about Shane and hoarding them away, things he pieced together like a collage, pasted together and ugly but all he had. Some habits were harder to break than others.

“Is on a cliff above the beach and there are stairs that go down to the water,” he went on. “The bedroom has a skylight right over the bed so you can see the stars at night.”

“Sounds amazing,” Shane said, and Ilya lost what he was going to say because Shane’s knuckles hit his palm where it was slung over Shane’s shoulders. They moved back and forth,  deliberate and slow, and Shane stared into the distance like he was concentrating on something.

“Is very private,” Ilya said, and now Shane grinned.

“I can’t imagine why you’re telling me that.”

“Because you appreciate the outdoors, and I like to help you appreciate the outdoors.”

Shane blushed and took a long drink of his cocktail, but he didn’t, like, back down even though they were in public and talking about sex.

“It’s refreshing,” Shane said, the backs of his fingers still sliding along Ilya’s palm, so casual it ached. Ilya wanted to stroke his hair and kiss him on his cheek and also push him down onto the couch. The fuck was in these drinks?

Before he could figure it out, the whole deck gave a brief shudder, a gentle lurch, and the docks started going past. The breeze picked up. The sun was low in the sky, the light was golden, and they were going to wake up in Ibiza.

“Does the Mediterranean have dolphins?” Shane asked, and Ilya didn’t know, so he made up an answer that Shane didn’t believe anyway.

------

Shane had definitely felt worse. He’d felt worse lots of times, physically at least; he’d broken bones and torn ligaments and once gotten a massive bruise on his chest approximately the size and shape of Australia. So, no, this was not the worst he’d felt by a long shot, and that knowledge did not help him at all to lift his forehead from the tiny sink counter in their cabin’s bathroom.

He wondered how long he’d been in there. Not that long, probably, when he went to find Ilya again he could just say that he’d been exploring the ship and gotten sidetracked or—

But that was the key in the lock, the door opening, and because even the Deluxe VIP Suite was the size of a postage stamp, that was Ilya in the doorway to the bathroom, looking all alarmed and concerned.

“I’m fine,” Shane said, and had to swallow down another wave of nausea because he’d moved his head too fast.

“Is that why you are hiding in the bathroom looking miserable, because you are fine?” Ilya said, but he said it the same way he said sweetheart, came over to kneel on the bathroom floor. Shane hoped they cleaned thoroughly between voyages.

“I just need a minute,” Shane lied.

“Was it the drinks?” Ilya asked, a hand on his back. “Was there something in them? Did you have more than two when I was not looking?”

Shane breathed deep, because that helped, his forehead back on the cool tile or plastic or whatever of the counter. “No,” he said. “I don’t know. They were drinks. I think I just need to get used to… the boat.”

Ilya went very quiet for a long moment, his hand rubbing circles on Shane’s back. Shane sighed.

“Go ahead.”

“Sweetheart,” Ilya started, and it was gentler than Shane probably deserved. “Did you book us an overnight cruise even though you get seasick?”

Shane didn’t answer, just made a mildly anguished noise into the countertop.

------

While Ilya was gone, he made himself move to the bed. He wasn’t going to throw up, at least, just stay nauseous either until the ship got to Ibiza or he threw himself into the Mediterranean.

Seasick. Motherfucker. Since when had he gotten seasick? He spent half his life on airplanes, it felt like, he’d been on plenty of boats. He’d even gone deep-sea fishing that one time in Mexico with his teammates, and had a long, intense battle with a marlin. The fish had won. It still stung. Fucking fish.

The door opened before he could go full Ahab about it, though, and Ilya stepped in.

“Ginger ale,” he said, and Shane made himself sit up straight at the weight on the bed next to him. “Here.”

“Thanks,” he said, and took a sip, staring intently at the wall eighteen inches in front of his face. It was some dumb brown wallpaper pattern. When he didn’t immediately puke, he took another sip.

“You have to stop staring at me like that,” he told the wall. “It’s not helping.”

Ilya huffed, but in his peripheral vision, he turned his head. “Sorry. Was not trying to be weird. Keep drinking.”

Shane obeyed. “I know. Sorry.”

“Is it working?”

It wasn’t making it worse, at least. “Kinda?”

A big, warm hand settled on his lower back, and it didn’t help the nausea, but he appreciated it anyway.

“You have never gotten seasick before?” Ilya asked, rubbing a small circle. Shane took another sip. “You have been on a boat, yes?”

“You’ve been on a boat with me,” Shane pointed out.

“Kayaks are not boats, they are kayaks.”

“There’s a rowboat.”

“So no, you have not been on a boat before.”

Shane took another sip. “Yes, I’ve been on boats, but not boats like this on the ocean,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ve gone fishing and shit.”

Ilya was silent for a long moment, and then: “When did you go fishing?”

“I play hockey. I get dragged fishing all the time.”

“Have you ever caught a fish?”

“Yes.”

“You do not have to lie to me.”

“Of course I’ve caught a fish. They’re—fish, that’s what happens. You catch them.”

“Did you wear a hat and drink beer? Shane, do you have a fishing outfit? With one of those vests? Did you get a weird tan?”

The ship rolled. Shane’s stomach lurched, and he had to take a deep breath. “Please stop asking me questions about fishing.”

“Sorry. I’m sure you were a very good fisherman.”

“I was,” he grumbled.

“If you can walk, I think you might feel better on the deck,” Ilya said, still rubbing small circles. “Is cooler out there and the fresh air is supposed to help you feel better.”

Shane sighed, nodded, and let Ilya help him up.

------

When Ilya got back up to the deck, Shane wasn’t in the deck chair where Ilya had left him. He wasn’t anywhere on that part of the deck, which was empty and mostly dark, and he wasn’t on the other side either, and Ilya refused to panic. He wasn’t going to panic, Shane was an adult who was probably just puking in a bathroom somewhere and then apologizing about it, he hadn’t gotten kidnapped or fallen overboard—

But all the same, when Ilya spotted the dark silhouette further along the deck railing, the relief felt like a warm blanket. Shane looked over as Ilya walked up, flyaways of dark hair whipping around his face, and even seasick and miserable he was… breathtaking.

“Found some,” Ilya said. “Did not mean for it to take so long.”

“Stop apologizing, it’s weird.”

Ilya snorted. “Is not weird. I apologize all the time.”

Shane just raised his eyebrows.

“What? We cannot all be Canadian, saying sorry to the furniture.”

“I thought I’d kicked Anya!”

“I heard you apologize to the shower curtain last night. Did you also think that was—”

“Did you bring me dramamine or not?”

“Yes, of course,” Ilya said. “Here.”

He tilted the pills into Shane’s hand, watched Shane swallow them, then held out the bottle of water he’d also gotten. 

Finding dramamine aboard had been way harder than he’d anticipated, between him not speaking Spanish (or French, or German), and his accent not helping, and the fact that it wasn’t like the boat had a drugstore on it. He’d had to pantomime vomiting no fewer than three times, and finally, a responsible-looking British woman had overheard him and been an absolute angel.

“Thank you,” Shane said once he’d finished.

“Madge said it would mostly make you sleepy,” Ilya offered. “Is an anti—fuck.”

“Histamine?”

“Yes. That.”

“Madge sounds nice,” Shane said, and he shot a teasing smile at Ilya, so maybe he was starting to feel better already.

“Well, she shared her dramamine and gave me strict instructions,” Ilya said. “Was very no-nonsense. I think she is a nurse, maybe.”

Shane just hummed, then stepped sideways into Ilya, still leaning against the rail, their shoulders bumping and still, still, even here, Ilya thought be careful. Then he wrapped his arm around Shane, like Shane was asking for, and they leaned together and looked out at the sea.

------

“These are so cool,” Shane said, a while later, still looking out at the ocean. “I didn’t know they were here.”

“The jellyfish?”

“No, the other glowing sea creatures,” Shane said. “Yes, the jellyfish.”

“I had forgotten about them,” Ilya said.

Shane was quiet for a moment, and Ilya could practically feel him thinking.

“I didn’t know you’d been here before,” he said.

“Well. Not here. The Mediterranean,” he said. “Italy.”

“I’ve never been.”

“Was for a few weeks,” Ilya said, half-shrugging. “Some of the European players rented a villa for the summer. They invited me to visit, so I went for a bit. You know. To escape.”

“Did it work?”

“Mostly.” Ilya still wasn’t used to this, might never be used to it, talking to someone who already knew. “Was before my father was too bad, but they were still not happy. When I got back to Moscow Polina and I got into a shouting match.”

“Ugh, of course you did,” Shane said with a distaste that warmed Ilya’s heart. He’d never met Polina and probably never would, but Ilya had told him enough. More than enough. As much as he could, all for the pure, selfish pleasure of having someone on his side. “You never told me you went to an Italian villa for the summer.”

It had been a long time ago. Eight years, maybe nine? Ilya had gone out every night to the nearby town’s meager bar scene and gone home with someone more often than not. The last night he’d been there he’d picked up a man for the first time all summer. Matteo had had dark hair and serious dark eyes and hadn’t minded Ilya smoking in bed. After they’d finished, Ilya walked to the beach before he went back to the villa. There had only been a handful of jellyfish, but they’d been there. He’d watched them and not thought about anything at all.

“We did not talk much, then,” he said to Shane, warm against his side.

“You could,” Shane said. “Tell me. You could tell me everything. I would listen, you know.”

“Everything?”

“Of course, everything,” he said, and he said it softly but being with Shane felt like being with a floodlight, sometimes, his attention so bright it could be blinding. The sheer force of it could light someone on fire, probably.

“My rookie year, I tried to take the subway somewhere in Boston and ended up in Providence.”

“What’s Providence?”

Ilya turned his head and smiled into Shane’s hair. “A city in another state.”

“You took the subway to another state?”

“Of course not. I had to get on a regular train first.”

Shane started laughing silently, his shoulders shaking against Ilya.

“My English was very bad, and asking for directions only works if you understand what people say. And I did not want to look stupid, so I wound up on a commuter train to Providence. Is in Rhode Island. Which is a state and not an island.”

“Oh, my God,” Shane said, but he was still laughing. “I’m sorry.”

“Is fine. I took a very expensive taxi back home and never tried to take the subway again.”

“Why’d you try to take it in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” Ilya said, but that wasn’t exactly true, so. “I was homesick and wanted something to feel normal.”

“I wish I’d known.”

“So I could call you and you would explain American subways to me?”

“So the next time we played I’d know you were the dumbass who went to another state by accident.”

Ilya sighed. “At least I did not book a boat vacation even though I get seasick.”

“I don’t. Usually.”

Ilya just hummed in answer.

“You can also tell me everything,” he said, a few minutes later. “Anything.”

“I’ve never accidentally taken the subway to another province,” Shane said immediately, because seasick or not, he could be a dick.

“Then you have not lived.”

“Disagree,” Shane said, and then rubbed his face. “Fuck, I think it’s kicking in.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Better, I think.” He held out his hand and looked at it for… a weirdly long time.

“I think I should get you back to the cabin,” Ilya said, and Shane shook his head, like he was trying to clear it.

“Yeah.”

------

When Ilya got into bed, sitting up against the pillows, Shane threw an arm over his thighs and shoved his face into his hip. Then he pulled back and frowned.

“You’re not going to sleep?” he asked.

Ilya reached down and ran his fingers through Shane’s hair, just to watch his eyelids flutter closed.

“Sweetheart,” he said. “It is eight-thirty.”

Shane blinked, slowly. “Oh.” And then, after a dramatic sigh: “I really wanted to have sex on a boat.”

Ilya bit his lip so he wouldn’t laugh, kept stroking Shane’s hair. “I know,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

Later, when Ilya finally turned out the light and got into bed, Shane curled against him in his sleep like it was habit. It took him a long time to fall asleep, thinking of jellyfish and subways, of fishing trips and coastal villas and Shane’s little ugh at Polina’s name. Of stained glass and walking tours and churros and guidebooks. Of the first time he’d dared to imagine anything like this and how much it had terrified him. Of the first time he’d imagined this and the terror had been gone.

“Feel better, sweetheart,” he murmured into the dark, and finally closed his eyes.

Chapter 5: What the fuck is a lanai?

Chapter Notes

Shane watched the car with their luggage drive off, presumably toward the house they’d rented, and was at least ninety-five percent sure he wasn’t having a dream. Usually his dreams were weirder, like the time he’d been trying to sign a fan’s jersey but his sharpie kept turning into a carrot, or they were really boring, like all the dreams he’d had about puck drills. He’d also once had a sex dream about Seattle’s mascot—not the guy in the mascot, the actual mascot—but hadn’t even admitted that one to Ilya for fear he’d never hear the end of it.

“You are sure you are okay?” Ilya asked when Shane rubbed his face again. It was barely seven in the morning, but Ilya had made sure they were the first ones off the stupid boat.

“I think it’s just the drugs wearing off,” Shane said. “That big purple tentacle monster is really there, right?”

Ilya rolled his eyes and took Shane’s hand. “Okay, you are making terrible jokes, you are fine,” he said. “Come on. You can walk it off while we find coffee.”

———

“Sit,” Ilya said, rolling his eyes at his dumb, stubborn husband. “I will bring coffee and snacks.”

“I’m fine,” Shane insisted, as if he hadn’t just walked a whole fifteen minutes along the water without once asking Ilya whether he was wearing sunscreen. Shane loved asking Ilya if he was wearing sunscreen. Clearly, he was still a little out of it. “I’m coming in with you, just in case.”

“I am very good at pointing at things and paying for them.”

“I know that, I’m just saying—”

“I moved to Boston with terrible English and somehow survived,” he pointed out.

“You did end up in Providence,” Shane said, and smirked, because he was an asshole sometimes.

Ilya gave a long-suffering sigh, closed his eyes, and leaned down to murmur something to Shane in Russian.

When he stood upright again, Shane was predictably bright red. Less predictably, after a moment, he frowned like he was thinking.

“Vnutrenniy dvorik?” he asked, pronunciation even worse than usual because he was still out of it and Ilya was going to make him sit here and wait for coffee if it killed them both.

Apparently, he had to define something in Russian first.

“You know, is like—outside the house,” he explained, waving a hand through to air, mostly to indicate outside.

“The yard?”

“No, not yard. A space with a floor that is nice?”

Shane looked increasingly puzzled.

“A deck?”

Why did English have so many words that were basically the same thing but slightly different? Every time Ilya thought he’d gotten the hang of it, it had to go and do this.

“Kind of? But not with a wooden floor like a deck. Is on the ground, not—” he gestured. “Up.”

“A courtyard?”

“No, a courtyard is—” he gestured, architecturally. “Inside buildings.”

Shane blinked. There was a long silence, and Ilya was about to tell him to sit and wait again when he finally spoke.

“A lanai?”

“What the fuck is a lanai?”

“I don’t know! I think it’s some kind of outdoor space.”

Ilya put a hand on Shane’s shoulder and kissed his poor, confused, addle-brained husband’s forehead. “Sit down, I am going to go get you a croiss—”

“Patio!” Shane yelled, making Ilya jump. “Sorry.”

“Yes!” Ilya said, gesturing heavenward in fond exasperation. “Stay here and relax or I will not fuck you on the patio like I know you want!”

At least five heads turned toward them. Shane went wide-eyed and blushed harder. Ilya felt himself blush, and cleared his throat to cover it up.

“I will be right back,” he said, and apparently all he had to do to make Shane more agreeable was embarrass them both in a foreign country, because he sat at a cafe table and leaned back, casual as anything except for the pink stain still on his cheekbones.

“Get me a cappuccino,” he called after Ilya. “And a regular croissant, not a chocolate one, I don’t like those—”

“What is wrong with you?” Ilya asked, grinning, and strode victoriously into the cafe.

———

“What are you doing? Are you ready yet?”

“Yes,” said Shane, sitting on the huge sectional as afternoon light streamed through the windows lining the wall to his left. He was finishing up an email to Farrah because Ilya had spent ten minutes looking for his other sandal.

“Good. You should relax.”

“I’ll be more relaxed if I don’t have this email hanging over my head,” Shane said, and hit send. “There.”

Then he looked up at Ilya, standing with his back to the door, a tote bag slung over one shoulder, lounging against the frame like he was in an advertisement for hot men or something.

Technically, he was wearing shorts.

A bolt of pure alarm shot through Shane.

“You can’t wear those,” he said very, very calmly.

“Wear what?”

“What do you mean, what,” Shane said. He could feel every ounce of chill that he’d worked so hard for, over his entire relationship with Ilya, draining from his body. “Those… shorts.”

Ilya looked down at himself like he didn’t remember was he was wearing.

“They’re—you can’t go outside in that,” Shane went on. He gave up on chill. “I don’t care if we’re in Europe, that has to be illegal.”

Still looking down, Ilya hooked a thumb under the elastic waistband of the pale pink shorts, already riding terrifyingly low on his hips. They looked like—stretchy women’s running shorts, or something, about two inches long, straining around Ilya’s thighs. The material was pale pink and so thin it was basically see-through.

Shane was going to fucking die. There were people out there. People with cameras! Some of them might be Canadian! Jesus Christ, there were children.

“These?” Ilya asked, like there was any possible question about what Shane was referring to. “You do not like them?”

“That’s not the point!” Shane said, trying not to imagine Ilya’s imminent arrest for public indecency. “There are laws.”

“Relax, Hollander. Is Ibiza.”

“This isn’t nudity, those are—pornographic.”

Shane took a deep breath, because his idiot asshole husband was still grinning and lounging against the doorframe, still tugging the waistband of those stupid shorts down so low he could see the entire curve of Ilya’s hipbone, the material so thin he could see the entire outline of his—

“Hollander, I know you have seen real porn,” Ilya said. “These are just shorts.”

Ilya hitched one foot to rest, flat, on the door behind himself, his head back, his other hand finding his opposite shoulder and then drifting downward past his collarbone and the bear tattoo. He was going to get fucking deported from Ibiza, because no one should look that good, not ever, and especially not Ilya in—

Finally, a flashing neon light went on in Shane’s head.

You’re so dumb, it said.

“Oh,” Shane said out loud, and looked at Ilya’s face for the first time since he’d walked into the room. He was smirking. “Shut up,” Shane told him.

“You were telling me why you do not like my outfit?” Ilya purred.

Shane didn’t answer for a moment, but god, he kept looking, and that seemed fine with Ilya.

They hadn’t written their own wedding vows—the thought was fucking terrifying—but ever since, in whatever quiet moments they got, Shane had found himself telling Ilya the things he would’ve said. You know you can’t scare me off, one morning when they’d both woken up in the gray pre-dawn, and Ilya had silently burrowed into him. You’re the best part of my life, one afternoon when they’d tried to make muffins from scratch and failed so spectacularly that they both ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, laughing until they couldn’t breathe. I’m going to know you inside and out, late one night, collapsed on Ilya’s chest, both of them sweaty and sticky and gasping for air, Ilya’s hand still gripping the headboard.

“I never said I didn’t like it,” Shane said, because he knew Ilya: ten layers of cocky, fuck-off bravado plastered over a desperate desire to be loved. Or, right now, wanted. “I said I wasn’t sure if you should wear that outside.”

He felt a little self-conscious as he laced his hands behind his head and leaned back, letting his knees fall open, swim trunks tenting up, but Ilya’s lips parted and his eyes tracked down Shane’s body and Shane was never, ever going to get tired of that look.

“Hm. How can I help you make up your mind?”

Shane didn’t answer right away. Instead he took a moment to rake his eyes down Ilya’s body as obviously as he could, not that it was hard. Ilya wanted him to look? He could look.

“Turn around,” he finally said. “I haven’t seen the back.”

“The back is fine, you are overreacting,” Ilya said, and somehow made standing up straight and turning around into one languid, sexy move. Then he braced his elbows against the door and leaned in a little.

He would’ve gotten arrested if he’d stepped foot outside, Shane was pretty sure, because Jesus Christ. He’d seen Ilya in boxers and briefs and swim trunks and even in a speedo one time but this was—different. He swallowed and adjusted himself while Ilya wasn’t looking.

“They’re kind of short,” he said, as doubtfully as he could. The shorts were mostly tight, but where Ilya’s thigh met his ass, there was a gap between skin and fabric and Shane was pretty far if he tilted his head far enough, he’d be able to see into it. “Can you fix them?”

Ilya sighed. “They are not miniblinds,” he said, which didn’t quite make sense, but then he was sliding his hands down, one pinky dipping into the cleft, before tugging the hem half an inch down while he fucking. Undulated his hips. “Is that any better?” he asked over his shoulder.

Shane was pretty sure if Ilya squeezed, he’d put a finger through the fabric. “Maybe a little more?” he suggested, just to see the show again. Shane curled his toes against the floor and braced his feet so he wouldn’t touch himself or, worse, walk over to Ilya and get on his knees. He didn’t think that was Ilya was asking for, right now.

“They’re still really short,” he said. “I mean—you could feel for yourself, if you wanted.”

God he sounded dumb, but now Ilya had one forearm on the door, his head resting against it, his other hand splayed on the back of his thigh and slowly, slowly dragging up the hem of the shorts.

“Like this?” Ilya asked, and his voice had gone throaty, his breathing a little faster. Shane clenched his toes even harder against the floor. “That is what you want?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, and had to swallow. “Turn around again.”

Ilya spun faster this time, leaning against the door, head back, lips parted. He looked slightly flushed, and he was so hard the waist of the shorts was gapping open, a damp spot the size of a silver dollar at the tip. Shane’s brain went blank, and Ilya splayed a hand across his lower belly, then down to his hip, avoiding his dick. After a moment his mouth curved up in a smile.

“Well,” he said, voice even rougher. “What do you think, Hollander?”

Shane’s made himself sit still, every muscle in his body clenched. The pressure of his swim trunks on his dick was threatening to be a problem.

“I don’t think anyone else should see you like this.”

Ilya inhaled. “Like what?”

“In this…” What the fuck were words, even. “State.”

Like he couldn’t resist, Ilya dragged his fingertips up the length of his cock. Shane could see the way it twitched from ten feet away, and he could hear the tiny, throaty noise Ilya made as his eyes went closed and he bit his lip. Shane didn’t have any blood left in his brain.

“C’mere,” he said, and watched as Ilya walked toward him. Up close, the shorts were even better, or maybe worse, depending on the circumstances. Right now, better. Ilya stopped in front of him, close enough that Shane had to tilt his head back a little.

“Ta-da,” he said, and Shane rolled his eyes.

“Come here,” he said, and put a hand on his thigh.

Moments later, Ilya was straddling him, legs spread wide, knees on either sides of Shane’s hips. They weren’t like that often—reversed, usually—but Shane wrapped his hands around Ilya’s thighs, digging his fingers into hard muscle and his thumbs into the soft skin on the inside, and decided they should do it more.

“You will not let me leave the house like this,” Ilya murmured, and Shane had to crane his head back, Ilya fucking looming— “You want me all to yourself, Hollander?”

Shane tightened his hands on Ilya’s thighs, and when he did, he could see Ilya swallow. “What do you mean want?” he murmured. “I’ve already got you all to myself.”

Ilya kissed him then, bringing his mouth down hard, tilting Shane’s head back with one hand in his hair and the other against the back of the sofa, bracing himself. It was filthy, all tongues and teeth and Ilya biting Shane’s lower lip when he moaned, swallowing the desperate little noises he made. He’d been embarrassed by those, once upon a time, almost too busy worrying about himself to hear Ilya’s answering groan.

Fuck, it was good, and Shane thought he could stay like this for hours, Ilya’s warm, heavy weight on top of him, the prickle on his scalp sending shivers down his spine.

Still, when Ilya rolled his hips toward Shane with a soft moan, seeking friction, Shane dug his fingers into his thighs and pushed back. It got a protest noise out of Ilya, one that vibrated into Shane’s mouth, and after Shane stopped him again he pulled back.

“No?” he said, raising one eyebrow and looking at Shane’s dick. Shane’s fingers were digging into his thighs so deeply they’d probably bruise, and Shane stared. They were both breathing hard. The wet spot on Ilya’s shorts had gotten bigger, the tip of his dick an inch and two layers of clothing away from Shane’s. It twitched again as Shane watched. He forced himself to keep still, his whole body flushing with heat, his heart pounding

“Not yet,” Shane said, voice rough. He swallowed, tilted his head back against the sofa to look at Ilya, and felt himself smile a little. “I thought you wanted to show off.”

“Show off,” Ilya said, one eyebrow up, eyes crinkled at the corners as he sat back and steadied himself against Shane’s knee. “Does not sound like me.”

“It’ll be exciting and new, then,” Shane said dryly, and Ilya leaned forward and nipped his lip again. “Ow!”

“You deserved it. Are you going to help or do I have to do all the work myself?”

“You just told me I should relax.”

Ilya didn’t answer, but he tilted his head and put his hand to his shoulder, eyes going closed. Slowly, it slid from his collarbone to his chest, over his (stupid) (hot) bear tattoo, through the line of fur that disappeared into the waistband of his shorts, still gapping open. His lips were parted. He let out a tiny, barely-audible moan, and Shane was not remotely relaxed. He felt like a fucking—spring, or something, and he was afraid to breathe because it  might rub something against his dick.

He wanted to shove his face into the gap in Ilya’s shorts. He wanted to bite that spot where Ilya’s collarbone met his shoulder and he wanted to pull Ilya in and rut against him until they both came, but Shane knew how to wait for a reward.

Ilya was staring down at him, face flushed, lips parted. The cross glinted softly.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured.

“Go ahead,” Shane said, moving his hands up Ilya’s thighs and just—watching as Ilya circled his thumb and forefinger and slid them down the length of his dick. It pulled the fabric even tighter, and now Shane could see almost every fucking detail of Ilya’s dick. Almost. Fuck, the almost was going to make him crazy, and he pressed his thumbs into the soft place where Ilya’s thighs met his hips. Ilya inhaled sharply.

“Yeah, like that,” Shane managed. He felt stupid, stuck in that place where he needed to say something but wasn’t quite far enough gone that he didn’t care what he said. “You’re not shy, are you?”

Ilya snorted, which made Shane laugh, which made Ilya laugh, and then Shane had his head back against the couch with his hands still full of Ilya, trying not to giggle.

“Shy,” Ilya was saying with a smirk, fingers still gliding over his covered cock. “Is what I am known for, yes?”

“Shut the fuck up and give me a sex show like you’ve been wanting to do since you walked in here wearing those slutty little shorts,” Shane said, still trying not to laugh. “Get your dick out already, Christ.”

“Is called being coy, Hollander,” Ilya said, but he reached into his shorts, which somehow didn’t split at the seams, and wrapped his hand around his dick. He didn’t pull it out, but pumped himself slowly, the fabric taut against his knuckles. Shane could feel sweat sliding down the back of his neck, and he could swear his dick was jumping with every pump of his heart. “You are supposed to use your imagination to—” he broke off, a hitch in his breathing, “—make yourself extra horny.”

“It’s working,” Shane said, not taking his eyes off Ilya. “God, your hands.”

“You like them?”

“They’re gorgeous,” Shane said, the muscles of Ilya’s thighs flexing under his own fingers. “Just—I don’t know. They look good on your dick.”

Ilya’s shorts were bunched around his hips, the elastic waistband close to sliding off Ilya’s fist. Shane hooked two fingers underneath and pulled the fabric down slowly, knuckle by knuckle, until Ilya’s hand and dick were uncovered. He slid his hand back to cup Ilya’s balls with his palm, pressing his fingers against the thin skin behind them.

Ilya’s hand shot out to grab the back of the sofa, head bowed as he hissed something in Russian. All Shane caught was fucking good, so he pressed harder. Ilya’s thighs were starting to tremble.

“Where do you want me to come?” he asked, garbled and strangled. Shane dug his nails into the muscle of his thigh, and it got a choked-off noise out of Ilya.

“Nowhere,” he said, and swallowed. “Yet.” He sounded steadier than he felt. Ilya tilted his head back and exhaled hard, the muscles in his stomach flexing.

“Shane. Fuck,” he said, but his hand slowed. Gently, Shane ran a fingertip over his hole. He could feel it twitch through the thin fabric, so it did it again, circling it, the cotton dragging along, and Ilya made a noise in his throat.

“Don’t stop,” Shane said, still stroking lightly. “This good?”

“Yes. Fuck,” Ilya said, and Shane tried not to smile at reading Ilya right about this.

Shane forced himself to relax into the couch—well, half-relax, maybe, he was so close to exploding—stroking his hand over Ilya’s thighs, the hard muscle, the soft inside, his fingers still petting Ilya’s hole through the barely-there shorts. It was—meditative, almost: the slow, loose stroke of Ilya’s hand, the single bead of precum slowly gathering in the slit at the end of his dick, the way his arm flexed. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin, sticking the cross to his chest, and he was pink from the collarbones up.

For him. All this just for Shane to watch, this fucking—pornographic work of art, put on for the sole purpose of making Shane horny. It made his head spin.

“Shane,” Ilya finally said, after Shane had been watching for long enough. He sounded wrecked. “You can either look at me like that or you can tell me not to come. Pick one.”

“A little longer,” Shane said, and looked up at Ilya. “C’mon.”

Ilya closed his eyes and tilted his head back and called Shane a fucking sex dictator in Russian. Shane pinched his inner thigh for it.

“Holanderrrrrrrr,” he said, not quite pouting. “Tell me I can come already.”

Shane watched for two more slow strokes, Ilya’s fist loose around his dick, thumbing over the head, before he gave in.

“Yeah. Okay. My mouth,” he said, already pulling at the back of Ilya’s thighs. Ilya swore again and knelt up just enough for Shane to lick precum off his slit, his knees sinking into the couch cushions, and fuck, that wasn’t quite close enough—

“Closer,” he said, pulling back again. “Can you—"

Ilya braced a hand against the wall behind Shane and a foot on the floor, staring down glassy-eyed.

“Is this what—?”

“—just—”

Shane couldn’t fucking explain, just pulled until Ilya had one shin braced across his thigh and his dick finally within reach. He gave the head another lick with the flat of his tongue, and as Ilya swore he looked up.

“Don’t stop,” he said, and sucked the head of Ilya’s cock into his mouth eyes going closed as Ilya kept moving his hand, the circle of his finger and thumb bumping against Shane’s lips. Ilya made a desperate noise in the back of his throat, and Shane didn’t have to open his eyes to know the look on his face right then: wide-eyed and urgent, barely controlled.

Shane sucked a little harder, dug his fingers into the backs of Ilya’s thighs, and in return he got, “Fuck, Shane, sweetheart—” and Ilya came in his mouth.

Shane swallowed it all and moaned, because he fucking loved this and because his own dick felt like it was going to crack in half or something. He’d barely licked off the last drops when Ilya collapsed gracelessly on top of him, knee buckling, and attacked Shane’s mouth, murmuring something incomprehensible.

“What?” Shane said as Ilya moved onto his jaw, then his neck, tugging his head back by his hair. Ilya scraped his teeth across his collarbone and Shane hissed, then heard a thump as Ilya’s knee hit the floor. “I got slut,” he said, as a dazed afterthought.

“See? You are learning Russian very well,” Ilya said. “You know the important words.” He shoved at Shane’s knee, slotting himself between them, and reached for the drawstring on Shane’s swim trunks.

“Tell me the rest.”

“What the fuck,” Ilya said instead, pulling on one end of the cord, tied in a bow that didn’t budge. “Shane, why are you locking up your dick—”

“Because I thought we were going out and these sometimes come undone if I don’t double-knot—there,” he said, as Ilya pulled the rest free and yanked Shane’s swim trunks down his thighs, dick springing out so hard it slapped his lower stomach, leaving a wet dot. He hissed between his teeth and Ilya hauled him closer to the edge of the couch, then licked a wide stripe up the underside of Shane’s shaft.

“My beautiful bossy slut,” he finally translated, and sucked Shane all the way down.

Shane didn’t bother trying to last. He made it about sixty seconds of Ilya’s lips and tongue and the tight heat of his throat before he came with both hands buried in Ilya’s hair, hips rocking mindlessly as he emptied himself into Ilya’s mouth.

When Ilya’s finally pulled off, he buried his face in Shane’s thigh and then they stayed there like that, panting. Eventually Ilya shifted, straightening his legs with a pop in one knee, and rested his cheek against the inside of Shane’s knee, and Shane ran his fingers through his slightly sweaty curls, letting them coil around his fingers.

———

After a minute, Ilya grabbed Shane’s hand and tugged, so Shane put his dick away and slid to the floor. Ilya let himself be manhandled until he was sitting between Shane’s legs, his head flopped onto Shane’s shoulder, Shane’s arm over his chest.

“Where did you even get those?” Shane finally asked.

“The women’s section,” Ilya said. “Men’s shorts are not slutty enough.”

“Someone should fix that.”

“We should start a clothing line. Partner with Nike. Slutty men’s athleisure, will be all crop tops and short shorts. Plus those leggings where the butt is separated, but with room for your dick also.”

“Oh, my god,” Shane muttered, and Ilya patted his hand, trying not to laugh.

Shane went quiet, then, fingertips tracing patterns over Ilya’s skin, the sun slanting in front the windows and landing on the floor in wide rectangles. The house they’d rented was on a cliff, overlooking a beach, completely private. They could leave the windows open.

“Are you thinking or sleeping?” Ilya asked, after a while.

Shane shifted, sitting up straighter, his hand flattening against Ilya’s ribs, so there was his answer.

“You know you can wear whatever you want, right?” Shane asked. “I don’t—I’m not going to get jealous of someone else looking at you.”

Ilya shifted lower and tilted his head back so he could see Shane’s face. “Whatever I want?”

“Okay, I mean, I’d really prefer if you didn’t wear something that would get you arrested in a foreign country—”

“You think I would wear these for someone besides you?”

Shane didn’t answer, just stuck his face in Ilya’s hair and huffed.

“I like keeping some things only ours,” Ilya said, and felt Shane smile.

“Me too,” he said quietly, and then, like it was an afterthought: “I already feel like I share you enough.”

Ilya stopped breathing and hoped Shane didn’t feel it. “You do?”

“Someone posted a picture of us sleeping on an airplane to the internet,” Shane pointed out, and Ilya started breathing again. “Even without that, there’s all the fans, and the team, and the foundation and the camps, and—I mean—I’m not complaining about any of it, but there’s just,” Shane finally took a breath, “a lot of people who get your time and attention. And I like having pieces of you all to myself.”

Ilya put his hand over Shane’s. “You have a very big piece. Ow!” he said, when Shane pinched him. “I mean my heart! What the fuck?”

Above him, Shane made a skeptical noise, and Ilya huffed. He really had meant his heart.

“Sorry,” Shane said after a moment, and kissed the top of his head.

“I am not always talking about my dick,” Ilya grumbled.

“Okay, but like, given the context—”

“Though that is also yours. Which I think is very clear.”

“There it is,” Shane said, laughing, and okay, he had a point.

They stayed like that for a little while, on the uncomfortable floor with the sunlight making its way toward them, and Ilya was about to suggest they get up and actually go out when Shane spoke up again.

“I’m really glad everyone knows you’re mine now,” he said, the words coming out fast like they did when he was nervous. “I didn’t know it would feel this good.”

“Me either,” Ilya admitted.

“You didn’t?”

“I knew it would be a relief,” he said, slowly. “I knew hiding felt bad. What I did not realize was… that this would be so much more than not bad? I am fucking this up.”

“You’re really not.”

“We should get off the floor,” Ilya said, instead of anything else. “Are we still going out? I am ready.”

He pushed himself off the floor and offered Shane a hand up, only to find Shane half-glaring at him.

“That’s still not funny,” he said, and let Ilya pull him to standing.

When they were both upright, Ilya took Shane’s face in one hand, kissed him, and said, “I missed your horny panic face.”

“I don’t have a horny panic face,” Shane said, but he was smiling, now.

“I know you do not believe that.”

Shane rolled his eyes, kissed him again, and pulled back, still holding Ilya’s face.

“I want to go hold hands on the beach. Please help me be seen in public with you,” he said, obviously fighting a smile. It hit Ilya in the softest, squishiest part of his heart, just like Shane had known it would.

“Yes, yes, okay,” he said, and punctuated it with a forehead kiss. “Give me a minute, I will put on real shorts. Only for you, moy dvor.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Shane called, as Ilya walked off to find something decent.

Chapter End Notes

What the fuck IS a lanai?

Chapter 6: Too pretty to hold keys

Chapter Notes

Shane watched in horror at the red tail lights as they moved away, along the winding road. After a second Ilya slung an arm over one shoulder and rested his chin on the other, which was warm and lovely until they both nearly lost their balance and fell into the ditch.

“Okay, don’t,” Shane, attempting to adjust his lazy boa constrictor of a husband. “Just.”

“You are staring,” Ilya said, wrapping his other arm around Shane’s waist, voice low and slow in Shane’s ear. They rocked slightly back and forth, and—should they still be in the road? Oh well. “Is problem? I will fix.”

“Ilya,” Shane said, then turned his head. Everything tilted dangerously, so he shut his eyes for a second. “Ilya,” he said again. “Ilya, did you hear that?”

“Hear what,” Ilya said, then went quiet, still rocking them both back and forth. It was dark. Like, so dark, did Ibiza not have street lights? Shane was pretty sure that was a public safety… badness.

“The—”

“Shhhhhhh.” Shane rolled his eyes, but Ilya was actually so comfortable right now. He could have his way. “Hm. I hear nothing,” Ilya said, and squashed his mouth against the side of Shane’s neck, which kind of tickled. “But we are on an island, yes? Islands cannot have animals. Is okay.”

Shane started laughing, which made Ilya grumble into his neck, which made him laugh more, and god, this was so nice, to be here standing with Ilya all warm against his back, wherever here was, which was. Here.

“You’re so drunk,” Shane said, closing his eyes and leaning back into Ilya’s solid warmth. “I saw a squirrel today.”

“Does not count.”

“Does count.”

“No. Islands cannot have, you know. Teeth animals.”

“Ilya. Squirrels have teeth.”

“Shane. You are out here at night very afraid of animals and I am making you feel better. Also I will fight squirrels if you want.”

“Don’t. You’ll get rabies.”

“Not if I win the fight.”

“That’s not how squirrel fights work,” Shane said, but he was nuzzling the side of Ilya’s face as he said it, because Ilya’s face was nice and it was right there and it was just. Good. Sort of scratchy and squishy but also all warm and cozy.

“Should we get out of the road?” Ilya asked, eventually. He sounded like his eyes were closed.

“I guess.”

“Was not complaining,” Ilya pointed out. “Only asking questions.”

Shane sighed, turned his head more, gently bit Ilya’s neck, then finally separated himself with an unhappy noise. Ugh, his back was so cold. How did people live this way?

“Why were you going to fight squirrels?” he asked, a few minutes later, as they were walking very slowly down the curved driveway to their villa. There were trees on both sides. Shane wondered if they held attack squirrels. It was okay. He could protect Ilya, and squeezed his hand to tell him this.

“Because you are scared of them and I am good husband.”

Shane snorted. “Neither of those—” Then he stopped and frowned into the darkness. Neither. Neither. Neither! Was that really a word? “No. One of those things isn’t true.”

Ilya leaned over and planted a giant, sloppy kiss on Shane’s cheek, nearly knocking them both over. “Is okay you are afraid of squirrels,” he said grandly. “And I am best husband.”

He was watching Shane, grinning and floppy-haired. It was too dark to see well but Shane could tell his cheeks were flushed, his eyes were sparkling, and he looked so relaxed and sweet and happy that Shane wanted to crumple him into a little ball and keep him in his pocket forever.

“I’m not,” he said, staring at Ilya.

“No,” Ilya admitted. “You are second best husband. We can work on this.”

Shane shoved Ilya with his shoulder as he tried not to giggle. It failed, which made Ilya start giggling, which made them both nearly go sideways into a tree.

“Afraid of squirrels, dickhead,” Shane went on, even though he said dickhead with the cadence of sweetheart. “Why do you think I’m afraid of squirrels?”

“Because you heard scary sound.”

“I did?” Shane frowned into the darkness, still strolling along the villa’s long driveway. Now there was a stone wall to their right, and that meant—house soon?

There was some point he’d been trying to make, something he’d been trying to say before Ilya had been all cozy and nonsensical, and it had seemed very important at the time—

“He said I was American!” Shane said. He was way, way too loud, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “He said I was American!” Shane whispered.

Ilya looked around, wide-eyed. “Who?” he whispered back. “Squirrels??”

“The driver,” Shane hissed. “Of the car, when we were getting out.”

Ilya made the face he always made when he was about to ask what the fuck Shane was talking about, so Shane put his other hand over Ilya’s mouth, nearly tripped over his own feet, and went on.

“He was on the phone! When we were getting out, he glanced at us and then said American.”

“Mmmgin oowa?”

“A-mer-i-can,” Shane hissed, because that felt like a good answer to whatever the fuck Ilya had said.

Ilya rolled his eyes. Shane finally took his hand off Ilya’s mouth, then wiped it on his pants.

“Who cares?” Ilya said, at a normal volume.

Shane’s mouth fell open. “That’s—” he faltered. “I’m not American.”

Ilya stared in silence, looking like a confused and adorable puppy trying to do calculus. Shane reached out and ruffled his hair.

“Yes, I know this,” Ilya finally said.

“I can’t believe he thought I was American,” Shane said, and turned to keep walking. House. He had to keep an eye out for a very big house so they could go inside the house and then drink water and go to bed. “That’s why he was so annoyed! People are nice to Canadians.”

Ilya nudged Shane toward a flagstone path, which—right. House! There it was.

“He was probably thought we were going to fuck in the back seat,” Ilya said, and shrugged as they reached the front door. “You have keys?”

Shane rolled his eyes and shoved a hand into his pocket. “We were barely even making out. I thought we were in Europe.”

“Cab drivers still do not want tourists fucking in their cabs.”

“Nooo, Shane, everyone is so sexy and free all the time,” Shane said, searching his other pocket. Dimly, he noted that his Russian accent was better when he was drunk. “We will not even wear clothes, the Europeans do not care, I will unbutton every shirt I own to my bellybutton, ooh la la.” He cleared his throat. “I think you have the keys.”

Ilya was grinning again. “You had keys,” he said, but looked in his pockets anyway. “You always have keys, you are person who is like ‘I have keys’ when we go somewhere. You are keyholder. I cannot be keyholder.”

“Shit. No,” said Shane. “Fuck.”

He stared at Ilya. Ilya stared at him.

“I am too pretty to hold keys,” Ilya said, and Shane started laughing. “What? Is true.”

“Fuck, did we leave them in the cab?” Shane asked, breathless.

“He thought you are American. We will never get them back.”

There was a slip of paper in his pocket, so Shane crumpled it and threw it at Ilya. It bounced off his shoulder, and he looked at it so disdainfully that Shane burst into a new round of laughter.

“What, now we are throwing things?”

“It was a receipt.”

“You could have hit my eye. Blinded me. You should kiss it better.”

“I didn’t even hit you!”

“So I get no kisses?! This is so unfair.”

Ilya was grinning like an idiot again, and Shane had to take a deep breath. Fuck, what were they doing? Keys. Shit, the cab. Okay. Okay. “Okay,” he said. “Focus. C’mere.”

Ilya closed the three-inch gap between them, his hands on Shane’s hips.

“Hm,” he said, and kissed Shane’s right eyebrow.

“Sure,” Shane said, and stuck his hands into Ilya’s pockets. They were warm. God, Ilya had such nice thighs. Maybe he should never wear pants again, just go around—

Something was happening to Shane’s face, and he paused. “Did you just lick my eyebrow?”

“No,” Ilya said, and definitely licked his eyebrow again.

“You’re so weird.” What was he doing? These weren’t his pockets.

“You are weird.”

Keys! He was looking for keys. Shane’s fingers closed around a phone, and he pulled it out. No: definitely not keys. A phone for sure. He put it in his own pocket. If Ilya didn’t have the keys, he didn’t deserve his phone. At least he’d stopped licking Shane’s eyebrow and had moved on to nuzzle-licking Shane’s temple, which was kind of nice. Like a very big cat or something. The only thing in Ilya’s other pocket was change, and he scrabbled around for a moment, making sure it wasn’t keys.

“If you are going for my dick, you are like. Three drinks too late,” Ilya said, pushing his teeth (?) against Shane’s cheek (??).

“For once, I wasn’t,” he said, and his back gently hit the front door. “What are you doing?”

“Biting your freckles.”

Shane pulled his hands out of Ilya’s pockets and grabbed his ass, just to double check. It was not keys.

“Okay,” Shane said, and Ilya made a noise against his face that sounded suspiciously like om nom. Shane tilted his head back against the door. “Okay. Fuck. The cab. Can you pick locks?”

“Probably.”

“You’re such a liar,” Shane said, squeezing a handful of Ilya’s ass. Firm. Bouncy. He squeezed again, just to be sure. “’S okay, though. Are you still biting my freckles?”

Ilya made a noise, so Shane stuck out his tongue to see if anything happened. Maybe he could lick Ilya’s. Chin??

Incredibly, it worked, because after a second there was warm stubble on his tongue, and then Ilya’s lip, and just as Shane was about to be normal again Ilya bit his tongue.

“Ahhhhhh,” he said, which got Ilya to kiss him instead. They did that for a while, slow and lazy and unhurried, and god, Ilya was a good kisser. His tongue was so interesting, just, like, wet hot slick muscle, but in a nice way, and he was so warm and pleasant up against Shane.

Then, suddenly, Ilya froze, his tongue still halfway in Shane’s mouth, so Shane bit it. Gently. Ilya pulled away and stared at Shane in, like, amazement or astonishment or confusion or some feeling that made people stare. His hair was all fucked up. Shane grabbed it some more so it would get more fucked up.

“Shane,” he said, and started giggling.

“What?”

“Oh my god.”

“What?”

“We are too dumb for this.”

“You found the key?”

In answer, Shane heard four high-pitched beeps and a click, and—right, fuck, this place had a keypad with a code and not a regular—

Then Ilya opened the door that Shane was still leaning on and they both fell into a pile in the entryway, swearing.

———

Eventually, after they both got the giggles for what felt like ten minutes and then made out some on the floor and then got the giggles again, Shane managed to take his shoes off. Just because he was slightly tipsy didn’t mean he was going to wear shoes in the house.

Meanwhile, Ilya had deposited his shoes behind the couch in the main room—whatever villas called rooms like this, a solarium or ballroom or, shit, was this a parlor?—and walked through the back doors and onto the patio by the pool, overlooking the Mediterranean. It was probably the best in the whole history of the whole universe, besides hockey. And sex. But, like, still a really good idea.

Because he was responsible and nice and a good husband, Shane grabbed two cups of water on the way through the villa, then held one out to Ilya when he got outside.

“I get you drunk and you are still so responsible,” Ilya teased.

Shane, already drinking his, made a noise and grabbed for the plastic cup in Ilya’s hand because if he was going to make fun of Shane for being nice, he didn’t deserve water.

Ilya squawked. “What the fuck? Was a gift!”

“I changed my mind.”

“You cannot change your mind when you have already—”

Ilya had his stupid water behind his back, the two of them stumbling around, water sloshing everywhere, so Shane bit him somewhere around the collarbone. “You cannot just bite people!” Ilya said, like he didn’t fucking love it, and then Ilya’s cup was in his hand, over his head, and Shane ducked away just in time, shoving at Ilya’s arm.

The water poured over Ilya’s head.

“What the fuck?” Ilya squawked, looking wet and indignant like a fucking—owl in the rain, or something.

“Hooo,” Shane said, and then burst out laughing.

“This was your plan?” Ilya said, still indignant, cup still in his hand. “You are going to get me drunk and wet?”

“HooOOooo,” Shane managed, ending in a high-pitched snort that somehow hurt his nose. “Ow. Fuck.” Christ, he couldn’t breathe.

“Who what?” Ilya asked, though now he was trying not to laugh, too.

“You’re so mad,” Shane gasped. “Oh my god.”

“You poured water on me!” the last word went high-pitched. “Is maddening!”

“You poured it on yourself!”

“Because you made me! Come here. Give hug.”

“You’re wet,” Shane said, like it wasn’t his fault. Half his fault, though with Ilya, was anything really ever his fault? Ilya was usually asking for it, one way or another, so Shane had probably been justified in pouring water on him. He was pretty sure.

Anyway, Ilya looked nice all wet like this so he was welcome: his hair was kinda plastered down, but his shirt was sticking to him so it evened out. Shane was still thinking that he should pour water on Ilya more often when he suddenly realized that not only had Ilya gotten very close, arms outstretched, he was grinning. Too much.

Shit, Shane thought, panicked for a moment, and then threw the glass of water still in his hand at Ilya’s face.

“Fuck! No, fuck this,” Ilya said, and lunged for Shane, who was laughing too hard to move. “There. Now is also your problem.”

“You’re wet!” Shane yelped, voice muffled against Ilya’s chest. “Augh.”

“Oh, am I? Whose fault is this?!”

“Let me go!”

“No. Now we are both wet.”

They were both gasping for breath, and Shane couldn’t tell if he was crying from laughing or if the water on his face was from Ilya’s shirt. He was maybe going to suffocate with how hard Ilya was squishing him against his chest, but there were much worse ways to die.

“You’re squashing me.”

“Good.”

Shane tried to head butt Ilya, but only jammed his face against his stomach. Now he was awkwardly bent over even more, half trying to ram Ilya and half hanging onto him so they didn’t both fall over.

“Oh my god Hollander, quit it.” Another half-giggle escaped Ilya, somewhere over Shane’s head. “Stop, that fucking—"

In a burst of inspiration, Shane crouched, wrapped his arms around the backs of Ilya’s thighs, and lifted before Ilya could get through more than Shane what the—

Then he turned, took two steps, and threw Ilya into the pool.

———

Ilya was dying. He was drowning, and he was dying, and he was being dragged down by some sort of horrible—something—and this was how it was all going to end, in an impossibly deep—

Then his head broke the surface and he gasped, getting his feet under him and shoving his wet hair out of his eyes. Right. This pool was, like, four feet deep.

“What the fuck!” he shouted, still pawing at his face, trying to get the water off. “You are trying to drown me? On our honeymoon?”

There was a weird, hiccuping noise from the edge of the pool, and Ilya blinked, shoving more water out of his eyes. Shane was lying on the ground, making that noise and shaking and shit shit SHIT, Shane was crying and Shane was sad and Shane wasn’t supposed to be sad—

Then Shane snorted so loud it echoed off the walls, and Ilya realized he was laughing, because he was a dick.

“I could have died and you are laughing about it,” he said, walking through the pool toward Shane. Fuck, walking was hard. Was walking supposed to feel this way?

“Oh my god,” Shane gasped. “Fuck, Ilya—did you hear—” he dissolved into a fresh round of giggles. Ilya could have drowned and Shane had the giggles. Terrible.

“Hear what? You throwing me into the pool? Attempted murder?”

“Aaiiieeeeurp!” Shane said, and snort-laughed again. Now he was laughing so hard he was crying, and Ilya was still very annoyed by it and not at all charmed by his stupid drunk husband doing stupid drunk shit. “No, it was more like—eeeeeeeeeeeolp!”

“I have never heard this sound in my life.”

“Urrrrrrrrrrope? No, it was higher pitched, like—eeee—eoooo—"

At least Shane stopped laughing as he tried, very seriously, to recreate a sound Ilya hadn’t made. There was no way he’d made that noise, no matter what Shane said. He was not capable of making that noise. Even if he’d been flying through the air toward a pool. Ridiculous.

“Okay. No. Enough,” Ilya finally said, and splashed him. Shane squawked with indignation. “What the fuck? You just made that sound and you are making fun of me?

“AAAAaaeeeeolp!”

Ilya crouched in the water—which felt bad and abnormal on his skin? Like, too sticky?—winding up to drench Shane because he deserved to be wet for his terrible crimes against Ilya.

Then his foot slipped on the bottom of the pool and suddenly he was flailing underwater again, which had absolutely not been the plan, especially because now there was water up his nose and his skin still felt bad.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked the water when he was standing again.

“You okay?” asked Shane, up on one elbow. He’d stopped laughing for now, at least, though the corners of his mouth were twitching. Ilya splashed him again, and while Shane was blocking his face with his hand and swearing, he lunged forward to grab Shane’s ankle and pull.

“Hey!” Shane yelped. Ilya pulled harder. “You can’t drag me like this!”

Ilya braced one foot against the side of the pool and pulled Shane closer to the edge, because clearly he could drag Shane into the pool and he was going to drag Shane into the pool because Shane didn’t deserve to be dry.

“Wait!” Shane said, once his feet hit the water. Ilya wrapped his arm around one thigh so he couldn’t escape, and waited. “My phone.”

“Hurry up,” Ilya said, and tugged. Shane was barely bothering to pretend to resist as he pulled a phone—wait, multiple phones?—out of his pocket.

Then he stared at them in total confusion.

“What,” he said, one in each hand. He looked back and forth like he’d never seen a phone before, lying on his back with his hands in the air, as both screens lit up. One had a view of sunset over the lake from the cottage.

The other was a low angle of  Shane from the hips up, lying in bed, completely naked, his arm over his face. Shane looked comically surprised about it.

“When did you take this?!”

Ilya shrugged. “Like, twelve hours ago? Fourteen maybe?”

“You made it your… phone? Front?”

“You are always asking questions you already have answers for. Is pointless.”

Shane was making an exaggerated version of the face he made when he wasn’t sure if he should be alarmed or horny. Ilya saw it a lot.

“You’ve been walking around,” he said. “With your phone. Like this.”

“Is good picture! I call it ‘view from Shane’s dick.’ Now put it down.”

Shane didn’t put the phone down, just made an argumentative noise from the back of his throat and kept staring, so Ilya rolled his eyes and splashed him again.

“This is your phone, idiot!”

“Yes, think how bad you will feel for ruining it.” He tugged Shane again and Shane yelped for fuck’s sake! but managed to get both phones safely away before Ilya dragged him into the water. He went under and flailed for a few seconds before he surfaced.

Then he spat a stream of water directly into Ilya’s face.

“Gross,” Ilya said.

“Anyone could see that picture,” Shane said, already tugging his soaked shirt over his head. “Oh my god. Fuck.”

Was that why the water felt bad? Ilya looked down at his own shirt, wondering how he could escape it.

“We are in Spain, no one is looking,” he said. “You are not that famous.”

Shane struggled with fabric for a few seconds, then finally got the shirt off, throwing it onto the ground by the pool in a wet heap. He was drunk.

“People will look if they see that on your phone!”

Ilya stepped toward Shane, grabbing the side of the pool and caging him in. Weird in the water, but practically muscle memory at this point. “You cannot even see your face. Relax.”

Shane reached out and undid a button on Ilya’s shirt. Was that how this came off? Ilya had married a shirt genius.

“Obviously it’s me. Who else would it be?”

“What, you think you are only hot man in my phone? Maybe is—”

Shane’s eyes had narrowed, and the next thing Ilya knew he was underwater because his own husband was trying to drown him.

———

“Shut up, I know the word unicorn,” Shane was saying, a while later. “I just forgot it for a second.”

“Mmm. So you went with pointy horse.”

“It’s a horse with a point. Pointy horse is a good description.”

“Not even horny horse?”

“If I went up to someone and said, hey, what’s a pointy horse, they’d say a unicorn.”

Ilya kicked off the bottom of the pool again, floating toward Shane until they bounced off each other. Shane grabbed his hand underwater before they could float too far.

“We should be sea otters,” Shane said. The villa had come with a bunch of flotation devices for the pool, including a flamingo inner tube and a unicorn inner tube. The unicorn was white with a rainbow horn, which wasn’t even that pointy, but for once Ilya didn’t feel like arguing more.

Their clothes were half on the flagstones next to the pool and half on the bottom of the pool near the edge, and now they were both naked and half-draped through the flamingo and the unicorn, both floats sticking up sideways like Os. Ilya had, briefly, attempted to get properly atop the flamingo. The results had not been dignified.

“Why would we be sea otters?” he asked.

“The videos,” Shane explained. “You never saw them?”

Probably he had, but Ilya was in no shape to remember internet videos. At the moment, he wasn’t even sure what sea otters looked like, though he was like. Seventy-five percent sure they were mammals.

“Tell me.”

“They float around all day and eat and nap and fluff themselves. While they float. On the ocean.”

Ilya processed this for a moment.

“They what themselves?” he finally asked, and Shane snorted.

“Fluff.”

Ilya stared at Shane, trying to figure out if this was some horrible new slang term or if Shane was so drunk he couldn’t talk right or if there was some other, third option that was going over his head.

“I don’t know what that means,” he finally said.

Shane frowned. “Fluff? It’s when, like, you make something—” he gestured, underwater with his other hand. It was extremely unhelpful. “—uh. Fluffy.”

“I know what fluff is,” he said, and did not point out that he’d lived in North America for over a decade. Even drunk he could tell when Shane was being earnest and helpful and when he was being a dick. “But I don’t know what otters fluff themselves means. Are they pillows?”

“They’re animals, Ilya,” Shane said, and Ilya rolled his eyes. “No, shut up. They live in the ocean but they’re really furry, so they float around on their backs and like. Fluff up their fur. It’s really cute.” He reached out with his other hand and messed with Ilya’s hair. Ilya grumbled, but couldn’t be bothered to move.

“I am fluffy like otter now?”

“Pretty much.”

“Good. I want to float and nap and fluff.”

“A while ago there was this one video of two sea otters holding hands while they floated, so they wouldn’t float apart. It was super cute.”

“And now is us? Not floating apart?”

“Yeah.”

Ilya considered this for a moment, then pushed gently backward, floating away until their linked hands drew them back together. “Good,” he said, as they bonked gently together. “I like it.”

They lapsed back into silence, floating around the pool, Shane’s hand warm in his, the rest of him starting to get cold. It was late, and he knew that getting out of the pool was only going to get harder, but it was nice, being otters.

“My hands are all wrinkly,” Shane said, a few minutes later. He was holding his other hand up in front of his face. “Are your hands all wrinkly?”

“Yes. Probably.”

Shane didn’t answer, just made a grabby motion until Ilya gave him his other hand, pulling them even closer together, arms forming an X between them.

“Ilya,” Shane said, voice hushed. “Your fingers are so wrinkly. Wow.”

“What? Stop looking at my wrinkly hands.”

“No.”

“Stahhhp.” Ilya did absolutely nothing to enforce this.

“Your fingers are like. What are those dogs?”

“Which dogs?”

“The wrinkly dogs. Obviously.”

Shane was clearly making things up, but that was fine. He seemed happy. “A great retriever?” Ilya guessed.

“Is that a dog?”

“Maybe.” Ilya shrugged. “There are so many kinds of dog, probably you can pick two words and—"

Shane was rubbing the pad of Ilya’s middle finger back and forth across the tip of his nose, a look of total concentration on his face. Then he frowned, looked thoughtful, and switched to Ilya’s ring finger. Ilya reflected on how incredible it was that he’d managed to marry the weirdest person he’d ever met.

“What are you doing?” he asked, once Shane had gone through all four fingers and his thumb.

“Fingers are so weird,” Shane said, looked thoughtfully at Ilya’s hand, and then carefully  licked Ilya’s ring finger with the tip of his tongue. It was very warm. Shane made a face that was half-delighted, half-displeased. “It’s got, like,” he said, and then rubbed the pad of Ilya’s finger back and forth over the tip of his tongue. “Valleys in it?”

“Enh. Let me see,” Ilya said, then waited for Shane to finish licking him before bringing their hands to his own face.

Shane was right: fingers were so weird.

“You also have wrinkly dog fingers,” he said, and delicately licked one. Shane had been right. “Is like… raisins.” He licked another, taking his time and thinking about it. “Or. Something else very wrinkly.”

“Told you,” Shane said, so Ilya bit the top of his finger. “Owww.”

“Hush.” Ilya’s teeth had left a slight indentation in the pad of Shane’s finger, which was new and interesting.

“No.” Then Shane yawned, wide enough that Ilya could see his molars. “We should go to bed.”

“Or we could sleep like this.”

“It’s cold.”

Ilya swished their hands back and forth, under the water. “I thought we were otters.”

“Hm,” Shane said, and frowned. His face went from thoughtful to genuinely concerned for a moment, contemplating as he stared into the distance. Their floaties bonked together again, gently.

“What if,” he said, very seriously, “we pretended to be sea otters, and held hands in the human bed so we don’t float apart?”

“And this is promise?”

Shane made a soft version of the bitchy face he saved for reporters who asked truly stupid questions. “Obviously,” he said.

“Okay then,” Ilya said, and they untangled themselves from their flotation devices and managed to drag themselves out of the pool. They stumbled through the villa without turning on any lights, and five minutes later they were in the massive bed in the room with the skylights. Whenever Ilya closed his eyes, he could still feel the rocking of the waves. Which meant he was still drunk as hell because they hadn’t even been in the ocean.

“Spokojnoj nochi, moya vydrochka,” he mumbled.

Shane turned his head on the pillow and gazed at him, blinking.

“Otter?” he finally said, squeezing Ilya’s hand.

“Yes. But. Vydrochka is like. Special.” As if Shane didn’t know fondness in Russian when heard it.

“Vydrochka,” Shane said, and pressed a kiss to Ilya’s shoulder.

Chapter End Notes

A very big thank you to PANDAR for helping me with the Russian!

Nobody worry about the chapter count. It's fine.

Chapter 7: The best at relaxation

Chapter Notes

The house they’d rented for the week had come with a concierge service, and Ilya had let them talk him into almost every “luxury essential” they suggested. Shane frowned about it at first, like he wasn’t a fucking millionaire, but stopped complaining when fresh pastries showed up at the front door their first morning there.

Among other things, Ilya had let them organize beach chairs, an umbrella, and snacks from a café at the nearest beach. The woman on the phone had also suggested a cabana near a day club at a party beach, and Ilya had nearly said yes just so he could watch Shane try to act like he didn’t hate it, but in the end he stuck with the chairs and umbrella on the quieter beach by the café.  Every morning, someone else set up their lounge chairs and umbrella, and all they had to do was stroll up, sit down in the spot reserved them and no one else, and eat fancy olives to their hearts’ content.

So of course, within ten minutes on the beautiful beach on a gorgeous island in the chairs that someone else had set up, with a sweating bottle of mineral water on a small fancy table and a gentle breeze blowing off the Mediterranean, Shane looked at Ilya and said, “What do you do at a beach?”

He was sitting up nearly straight in his lounge chair, arms folded over his chest, wearing dark blue swim trunks and a light blue long-sleeve base layer shirt, even though he was currently in the shade. Ilya frowned about it.

“You relax, Hollander,” he said from his own lounge chair, which he was using to actually lounge.

“No, that’s what you do at a beach,” he said, with a little smile and a glance over at Ilya.

“You could always try it.”

Shane exhaled, then slowly put his hands behind his head, shifted back, and stared up at the umbrella. God, he was so bad at this. Ilya started laughing.

“Shut up,” Shane said, but he was smiling, then rubbed his hands over his face. “Am I really supposed to lie here all day?”

“Have you never been to a beach before? How do you not know what to do at a beach?”

“It’s like not it’s obvious! There’s sand and water and chairs!”

“Yes. You sit in the chairs on the sand and look at the water. Is not rocket science, Hollander.”

Shane looked out at the water, and then back at Ilya. “Is that really all there is to do?”

Ilya, starting to wonder if they were having two separate conversations, sat up enough to look at Shane over the top of his sunglasses. “Is this your first time at a beach?”

“I’m never asking you anything again,” grumbled Shane, who sat up and looked at the back of his lounge chair. “How do you adjust this thing?”

“No, because there is that very cute picture of you in the sand at your parents’ house,” Ilya said. “And I know you have been to Mexico with Hayden and JJ, you did not learn about beaches there?”

“Oh, I was busy picking up men at gay bars that trip,” Shane said, adjusting the back of the chair.

Ilya glared. Shane kept fucking with the lounge chair.

“It was fun, just not relaxing,” he said, clicked something into place, and finally gave Ilya his fuck off look.

As if wounded, Ilya put a hand to his chest. “Shane! I am on my honeymoon.”

“Which makes it extra weird that you’re being a dick to your husband.”

“My husband is in one of the most beautiful places on earth asking me stupid questions.”

Shane settled himself back onto the lounge chair, now at the same angle as Ilya’s, then turned his head and looked over. “Are you really going to lie there and stare at the water all day?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t have a schedule,” Ilya said, and marveled at the fact that, over a week into a vacation, he was explaining the concept of vacations to Shane. How had he survived this long? “I will probably also look at my phone and take a nap and go in the water and take a walk, and then when we are bored we will leave and do something else fun.”

“That’s literally all I was asking,” Shane said, a smile playing around his lips.

“Will it make you feel better if you make up a schedule?”

“Stop talking to me, I’m trying to relax.”

Ilya watched him for a moment as he put his hands behind his head again and stared at the underside of his beach umbrella. He knew Shane was capable of relaxing; there were days at the cottage when he was practically in liquid form, oozing from the couch to the kitchen to the bedroom and back. What he apparently couldn’t do was relax on purpose.

It was, unfortunately, fucking adorable.

“Wow,” Ilya said. “Look at you, being the best at relaxation.”

Shane flipped him off without looking.

“Very relaxed of you.”

Shane sighed. “Shut up,” he said, took his hands from behind his head, and started rummaging through the bag they’d brought.

“No,” Ilya told him. “Did I bring my iPad?”

“You can’t watch a movie at the beach,” Shane said, still facing away and leaning over.

“You don’t know what relaxing is, so I am not sure you are in charge of what I can and can’t do at the beach. Also I am going to read a book, anyway.”

There was a clank and some hollow noises from the beach bag—probably the fifty bottles of sunscreen Shane had brought—and then Shane sat up, shaking his hair out of his face, and handed him the iPad. Ilya took it, then caught Shane’s hand and tugged.

“Nnnhh. Kiss,” he said—demanded, really—leaning off his lounge chair and toward Shane.

And despite himself, despite therapy and I do and waking up that morning in Ibiza, on his honeymoon, Ilya waited for Shane to flinch, then hated himself for it.

Shane didn’t flinch. Instead he got that he look he did when he was secretly pleased about something, where the corners of his lips twitched and his eyes crinkled, and leaned in to give Ilya a kiss.

When they pulled away, Shane had one hand on Ilya’s knee, just below the hem of his swim trunks, and Shane glanced up the umbrella pole between their lounge chairs like it had offended him.

“If we move it they will come yell at us in Spanish,” Ilya said, and Shane huffed. “I know,” Ilya agreed, but slung one leg onto Shane’s chair so his hand could stay where it was.

———

Out on the sand, closer to the water, some kids were building a sand castle. Or, rather, they were trying to build a sand castle, but what they’d managed was more like a sand… pile. Not that Shane was judging their building capabilities or anything; the kids were probably all somewhere between four and eight, and there was one toddler whose sole responsibility seemed to be knocking down anything over a foot tall. They were doing great, considering. Really.

What they needed, Shane was pretty sure, was wetter sand in a more structurally sound shape, and they probably needed to let it dry a little more before dumping even more sand on top. Not that he was an expert. Obviously.

Next to him, Ilya shifted in his chair, then sighed in his sleep. He’d dozed off about thirty seconds after he started reading, probably because it was warm and he was relaxed and not because hypersomnia was a symptom of depression. Ilya hadn’t seemed depressed, lately, but—Shane worried he couldn’t tell. It seemed like the sort of thing your partner should know, but he hadn’t, and what if it slipped past him again? What if it got worse and he still didn’t notice?

Without thinking, he reached over and brushed Ilya’s hair off his forehead, just because he could. Ilya’s eyes flicked halfway open, and he stopped.

“Sorry,” Shane said. “Go back to sleep.”

Ilya grabbed Shane’s hand, then muttered something in Russian, mashed Shane’s knuckles against his lips, and went back to sleep with Shane’s hand held firmly captive.

———

Half an hour later, the kids were gone, the castle was abandoned, and Ilya was still dozed off on his lounge chair, stretched out like a lion on a warm rock or something. Shane’s book— a thriller Rose had sworn up and down he’d love—was, unfortunately, kind of boring.

He looked at the abandoned sand castle again. It really wasn’t bad. At the least, it was a solid foundation, well-dried in the Mediterranean sun, and the tide was going out, so it wouldn’t be washed away for a while. The beach was relatively quiet for now. Ilya was still asleep.

Plus, the kids had left a bucket behind. Obviously Shane would have given it back if he’d noticed in time, but they were long gone before he’d realized it was still there. May as well put it to use, right?

The sand was hot under his feet and the sun was a little too bright, even peeking around the brim of his baseball cap, but Shane was right about the sand castle: the foundation was solid, if a little sloppy. Nothing a little salt water and careful shaping wouldn’t fix.

Plus, hidden inside the bucket was a second sand toy, a rectangular container with crenellations on the bottom. It looked like it would be good for ramparts.

———

Shane wasn’t sure how long he’d been messing around with the sand castle when the kid showed up. It was the sort of soothing, meditative thing that made him zone out and lose track of time, so when he looked up and saw a serious-looking girl standing three feet away and frowning, his brain stalled out for a minute.

“Hi,” he said, after several seconds. “Sorry, was this yours?”

“This is not very big,” the kid said, giving the sand castle a disapproving look. She had a slight accent that Shane couldn’t place.

“I’m shoring up the foundation,” he said. He was kneeling on the sand, smoothing out a wall, so he was looking up at her. “It’ll fall apart, otherwise.”

“I think you’re done with that part,” she said. “It’s time now to make it taller.”

Shane blinked, then looked around. Did this girl have an adult somewhere? European parents didn’t send their ten-year-olds to a beach by themselves, did they? Where they could talk to strange men on their own? If Jade or Ruby did this, Hayden would be freaking out.

“Do you have parents?” he asked. He still hadn’t moved.

“Yes,” she said. She didn’t elaborate.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

Shane looked around and was about to ask where and whether “here” meant “Ibiza” or “this beach,” when a woman in big sunglasses and a bigger sun hat strolling down the sand called out and the girl called back without looking up. It was German, maybe? Dutch? Something from up there.

“Hello,” he said when she walked up, then immediately wondered if he should have tried French. He stood, brushing off his hands.

“Hello,” she responded, then nodded at the girl. “Hilde loves to build sand castles.”

“I can see that.”

The woman nodded, then gave Shane a brief once-over. “American?”

Shane was going to get a maple leaf tattooed on his face. “Canadian.”

“Ah,” the woman said, as if this explained something. Shane didn’t know what. “You’re on vacation?”

“My honeymoon, actually,” Shane said. He felt like he was being questioned and kind of wanted to point out that he’d been there first and Hilde had talked to him, but he didn’t. “My husband’s taking a nap over there.”

“Congratulations,” the woman said, then looked over at the kid, who was now very seriously packing sand into the bucket. “Don’t let her boss you around too much. Hilde is very…” she paused, then shrugged. “Bossy.”

“Thanks,” Shane said, for some reason, and the woman retreated ten feet, set up a chair, and pulled out a book.

———

When Ilya woke up, Shane was on the beach being bossed around by a girl in a bright pink swimsuit. His main job seemed to be lifting buckets of sand to the top of a sand castle wall while the kid pointed. Sometimes he’d point somewhere else and they’d have a discussion about it.

The little girl—who was maybe ten, Ilya thought?—also seemed to have several younger kids reporting to her. As Ilya watched, each of them ran back and forth on the beach, picking something up and then presenting it.

After a bit, Shane glanced up, and Ilya waved. Shane waved back, so Ilya stood up, stretched, and started heading over.

The moment he left the shade of the umbrella, Shane frowned, and Ilya rolled his eyes, went back to their chairs, and grabbed the sunscreen, spraying himself ostentatiously as he walked over.

“I like your castle,” he said, one hand on Shane’s back, under the the long-sleeved SPF 50 sun shirt he’d insisted on bringing. Ilya considered this a crime, but he’d already lost that argument once.

“I think it’s Hilde’s castle, at this point,” Shane admitted. “Though I should probably get credit for the foundation. Here, I’ll get your back.”

“Kiss first,” Ilya said, because he could. No one so much as glanced their way.

“You taste like sunscreen,” Shane said, turning Ilya and spraying his back. “You didn’t use this on your face, did you? I brought the good—”

“Yes, the different sunscreen for faces, I know,” Ilya said, pulling the stick out of his pocket and holding it up. The label was mostly in Korean, but Shane swore by it, and he was the sunscreen expert.

“Thank you,” Shane said, like it was a favor to him and not for Ilya’s own good. “Do you want help with that too?”

His fingers were on the back of Ilya’s neck, smearing around the last of the sunscreen, then trailing down his spine. Ilya shivered, skin drying in the breeze off the sea. “Okay,” he said, even though he’d put sunscreen on his face right before he’d fallen asleep an hour ago.

“Hold back your—yeah,” Shane said, as Ilya pulled his hair out of his face and closed his eyes. Shane’s cool, slightly sticky fingers settled on top of his, and they both went quiet as Shane smeared sunscreen all over his face.

He was so careful, was the thing; careful and gentle, patient and thorough. He avoided getting sunscreen near Ilya’s eyes and slathered it into the end of his nose and the tips of his ears, and even now, Shane’s attention felt like an indulgence, like drinking chocolate syrup straight from the bottle.

I tricked him, he’d told his therapist Galina once, during a particularly bad week. I pretend to be different when we’re together, and that’s the person he loves. He doesn’t know what I’m really like.

She had sat with that for a moment, pen held still in her hand, giving him space to go on if he wanted to. He hadn’t.

Do you think that’s true? she’d finally asked. Because from what you’ve told me, it sounds like your partner is pretty smart, and it sounds like he knows you pretty well. Maybe better than you think.

“I lied. I already had sunscreen on my face,” Ilya told him, eyes still closed. “I just wanted you to do it.”

“Good. I’ve seen you put sunscreen on before,” Shane said.

“I can put sunscreen on perfectly fine!”

Shane made a noise that was, Ilya thought, way too dismissive. He sighed.

“Maybe I just wanted your attention,” he said, finally opening his eyes just in time to see Shane’s trying-not-to-smile smile. “What.”

“Nothing.”

“You were laughing at me.” He tried to pout, but that just made Shane smile more.

“No, I wasn’t,” Shane said, then cupped the back of Ilya’s head and brought his face down just enough to kiss the tip of his nose.

“Now you have to put more sunscreen there,” Ilya pointed out, and now Shane was laughing at him as he grabbed Ilya’s hair to hold his head still and smeared sunscreen over his nose again. “Thank you.”

“Did I miss anywhere else?”

“If you want to take your shirt off I could put sunscreen on you.”

“I’m all right.”

This time, Ilya did pout. “You are robbing me of an essential part of a honeymoon.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, have you not seen me naked enough?” Shane said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t think I put clothes on yesterday until—”

“ALLO,” said a small, wet, breathless child, as he nearly ran into Shane. He held up his cupped hands, filled with beach detritus, and said something in a language Ilya didn’t know.

“Ah,” Shane said, turning. He bent down, carefully inspecting the stuff in the kid’s hands, and plucked out an item or two. “Merci.”

The kid said something else, then turned, flung the remainder of his handful into the sea, and ran off again.

“I do not think that was French,” Ilya offered.

“I forgot how to say thank you in German,” Shane said, brushing sand off of the smooth pebble and shiny black shell he’d taken from the kid.

“Seems like it was fine,” Ilya said, glancing after the kid. There was a whole squadron of them, searching out shiny things in the sand, then running back to present their objects to Hilde, who rejected most of them. Ilya assumed their parents were among the adults sitting nearby. “You are decorating now? And rejecting most of the decorations?”

“We can’t just take everything,” Shane said, carefully pressing the pebble into the top of the sand castle. “Some of it’s literal trash.”

“Hollander, they are children.”

“They get to fling everything we don’t take into the water! They love it,” Shane insisted. “Besides, this way they get to feel a sense of accomplishment—"

“They are four years old, they will feel accomplishment either way.”

The look on Shane’s face told Ilya exactly what kind of four year old Shane had been, and he grinned.

“Fuck off,” Shane muttered, and Ilya kissed the top of his head.

“No,” he said, and wandered off to find something pretty.

———

It wasn’t that Ilya needed to beat a bunch of small children at the find-something-pretty challenge. He wasn’t that sad or desperate, for fuck’s sake. It was just that if he didn’t find the prettiest shell on the beach for Shane’s castle, what was the point?

When he’d finally found the right thing, he sauntered back to Shane, hands behind his back, and waited for him to finish judging a child. Ludicrous. There was plenty of space on the stupid castle.

“Hi,” Shane said, brushing his hands off. “You brought something?”

“I brought you the best thing,” Ilya said, and there was Shane’s not-smiling smile again, the one he seemed to think didn’t give anything away.

“Okay. Let’s see it.”

“You are going to be very impressed,” Ilya went on. “Is probably the most beautiful item ever found on this beach.”

“Do I get to see it, or just hear about it?”

“I searched for hours and rejected many lesser objects. Only the best for Shane and his sand castle.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms. Ilya wondered if he was making his biceps do that on purpose.

“You will not be able to think about any other decorations,” Ilya said, taking a small step closer.

“This is a family beach,” Shane said, keeping his voice low. “There are children—”

“Oh my god, Hollander, what do you think I am talking about?” Shane glared, and Ilya felt the thrill of victory. “I am just talking about this very good shell that I found.”

He held out one hand. In it was the ugliest shell he’d managed to find: a long spiral with the tip broken off, the edges worn down, the surface pitted and full of holes, a dull, ugly gray color. Shane looked at the shell, then looked at Ilya.

“Is my gift for you,” Ilya said. “To make your sand castle pretty. This shell took me a very long time to find.”

“Oh,” Shane said.

“Has probably seen better days,” Ilya went on. “But this shell has been used a lot, yes? Think of all the things that have lived in it, the storms at sea it has weathered.”

Shane was starting to look mildly panicked.

“Maybe it is not pretty,” Ilya went on, as sincerely as he could. “But I think it is beautiful. And it is for you.”

Shane stared at the seashell like he was conflicted, then took a deep breath and plucked it from Ilya’s palm.

“Thank—oh my god, fuck off,” he said, when Ilya cracked up.

“You are so easy!”

“I was being nice,” Shane said, shoving at Ilya’s chest. Ilya caught his hand instead.

“You think I have terrible taste in shells.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. You own more than one shirt with rhinestones.”

Ilya pulled on Shane’s arm until they were embracing, Shane’s arm hooked around his waist, and even after nearly two weeks of honeymoon it was still a thrill, out in the open like this. Even more thrilling that no one else on the beach could be bothered to look.

“I am not taking fashion advice from someone who owns ten copies of three shirts,” Ilya said.

“Are you gonna get me a better shell or not?”

Ilya rolled his eyes and pulled the other shell from his pocket. This one was also a long spiral, but pearly white and shimmering, sunlight glinting off its perfectly smooth surface in rainbows. Finding it had taken Ilya ages and he’d nearly had to fight a crab, but he’d gotten it.

“Ta da,” he said. “The prettiest shell on the beach. All yours,” Ilya said grandly, and Shane took it, kissed him, and carefully set it on the highest point of the sand castle.

Chapter End Notes

Very Small Crab: [in front of a pretty shell, angrily waving pincers in the air]
Ilya, gently nudging it away with a stick: I do not want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t move. Stop trying to pinch me I am five hundred times your size

Chapter 8: Don’t break into a world heritage site

Chapter Notes

Shane’s phone alarm was the most unpleasant noise Ilya had ever heard, like trumpet-shaped nails scraping down the inside of his skull, and it woke him up so hard that he accidentally kicked Shane.

“Ow,” Shane said, probably, face-down in a pillow.

“Is that your fucking alarm?” Ilya asked, propped up on one elbow. It was still completely dark outside, the cliffs and sea black beyond the wall of windows lining the bedroom. Moonlight barely filtered in from somewhere, and it was just enough for Ilya to see blurry shapes in the dark.

Such as Shane, who made a noise and dragged a pillow over his head like he wasn’t responsible for the combination bagpipe-and-fire-alarm sound currently torturing Ilya.

Ilya flopped back down, heart pounding, and prodded his husband. This produced another noise.

“Go turn it off,” he said, still prodding.

Shane lifted the pillow and turned his head just enough for Ilya to understand him saying, “It’ll turn itself off in a minute.”

Ilya waited about ten seconds. The alarm kept going.

“Shane,” he said.

“Nnnngggggg,” Shane said.

“Shaaaaaaaane.”

“It’s almost over, it’s fi—ow, what the fuck?”

“Go,” Ilya said, whomping him with the pillow he’d just stolen. “Turn. It. Off.”

“Jesus, okay,” Shane muttered, got up resentfully, and walked over to the shelf where his phone was still squawking. He turned it off, yawned, then walked back to the bed.

“Nooo,” Ilya said when he realized what was happening. “No, what are you doing?”

“It’s still dark out.”

“That is the point!”

“Five minutes,” Shane said, collapsed back onto the bed, and promptly wrapped himself around Ilya.

“No. We are getting up,” Ilya said, but he said it into Shane’s hair, his eyes already half-closed. This was another of Shane’s funny little mysteries: nearly every day, he rolled out of bed at 6 a.m. on the dot, put on sneakers, and went for a run without so much as blinking.

Six was fine. But any earlier, and Shane was a grumpy, sleepy, warm octopus of a man who was impossible to coax out of bed. Not that Ilya was much better, but he grumbled about getting up no matter what time it was.

“I’m up,” Shane said into Ilya’s shoulder, and arm and a leg slung over him.

“This was your idea,” Ilya mumbled, even though his eyes were closed.

“’S a good idea.”

When Ilya opened his eyes again, the room was lighter and Shane hadn’t moved an inch, still a hot, heavy blanket half-draped over Ilya.

5:45. Fuck.

“Come on. We are late,” he told the top of Shane’s head.

“Shit,” Shane said, and pushed himself up enough to squint at a clock. “We’re—fuck.”

“Yes.”

“Why’d you let me go back to sleep?”

Ilya allowed himself a second to marvel at the audacity, then sat up on the other side of the bed. “I am going to go make coffee,” he announced. “If you are asleep when I come back—”

“I’m up,” Shane said, and Ilya yawned and headed for the kitchen instead of pointing out he’d already made that claim once that morning.

———

Somehow, they made it out of the villa both fully dressed and technically awake. They bickered over who would drive the rental car the half-hour to the eastern coast, but Shane won that argument by grabbing the keys first. The whole way, they only passed one other car.

The guidebook had described the hike to Torre d’en Valls as a “moderately intense” hike of approximately 1.3 kilometers, and Shane had prepared for his definition of “moderately intense” when he prepped their hiking packs the night before: plenty of water, some granola bars, a small first aid kit, sun screen.

The hike was not moderately intense. It was barely a hike. If anything, it was a stroll on a wide, well-maintained path that sloped gently upward to their destination, and Ilya had somehow found the energy to chirp Shane about it at six thirty in the morning.

“Is good that we brought so much water,” he was saying. “Heat stroke is very serious.”

Shane sighed.

“We should probably be pacing ourselves,” Ilya went on, for some reason. “I do not want to tire myself out before we get to this tower.”

“Are you done yet?”

“Luckily I have seventeen power bars with me in case I get fatigued. And a map. And a tourist brochure.”

“You’re gonna need all those things when I push you off this mountain,” Shane grumbled.

Ilya stopped, put his hands on his hips, and somehow made looking around into a production. God, he could be dramatic when he wanted to be.

“What mountain?” he asked.

“If you don’t want to come you can go wait in the car,” Shane pointed out. “No one is making you come on a nice sunrise hike.” It was technically true, sort of. He hadn’t really given Ilya the option of saying no, but also, Ilya was an adult who knew how to veto a plan when he felt like it.

“If I waited in the car I would miss your grumpy morning face,” Ilya said, grinning and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Shane didn’t say I don’t have a grumpy face, because he wasn’t rewarding Ilya for this behavior.

“You’d also miss a very fucking romantic sunrise in Ibiza,” Shane pointed out, and he got to watch Ilya’s face turn from his annoying smile to his real one, the one that was like sunlight and rainbows and the cool side of the pillow on a hot night.

“Would not want to miss that,” Ilya said, took Shane’s hand, kissed it, and kept their fingers linked as they walked along the path. Shane counted it as a win.

———

“I think we could probably get in,” Ilya said, looking up at the stubby tower. Could it be a tower if it was, like, two stories high? “Break down the door, maybe? Eat our pastries on the roof. How hard can it be?”

“It’s literally a castle,” Shane pointed out.

“A small castle.”

“The guidebook said the walls were, like, three feet thick,” Shane said. He’d invented the number, but he was right in spirit. It was a fucking defensive tower. For defense, against… pirates, or something. They weren’t getting in.

“Where is your sense of adventure, Hollander? You will not storm the castle with me? The door is probably not three feet thick.”

“I don’t think I packed enough PowerBars for a siege.”

“We could climb the wall,” Ilya pointed out. “Is not too high, for a tower.”

Shane wrapped an arm around Ilya’s waist in the cool, gray light of early morning, then rested his chin on his shoulder. “I know I already told you I’m not bailing you out of Spanish jail.”

“Shane! That is not what you said.” Ilya turned his head so their noses were nearly touching, leaning back into Shane. “You just said that my very normal shorts were probably illegal, not that you would leave me to rot in prison.”

“Ilya,” Shane said, very calmly and reasonably. “Please don’t break into a world heritage site.”

Ilya sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, but only because you asked so nicely,” he said, and Shane considered that a good time to grab his ass.

———

“Here,” Shane said, pulling pastries from his pack. “I brought you one of those almond ones you like.”

“Ahhhh,” said Ilya, holding his mouth open, still screwing the top back on his water bottle with both hands. Shane gently wedged the pastry into his mouth. “Ayy ooo.”

“We should’ve brought coffee,” Shane went on, grabbing a pastry for himself out of the bag. It was spinach-filled, which Ilya was probably going to make fun of him about in a few minutes, but he didn’t care because it was actually really fucking good. Also, the almond ones tasted like marzipan, which happened to be the worst substance on earth.

“Coffee would be good here,” Ilya agreed. “Is too bad Europeans are weird about going places with coffee. They have not heard the gospel of Dunkin.”

Shane snorted, inhaled a pastry flake, and started coughing. Ilya reached over and rubbed his back. “Jesus Christ,” Shane gasped.

“They used to have marshmallow flavored iced coffee. Was pretty good,” Ilya went on, soothingly, while Shane kept coughing. “Better than blueberry flavor.”

“Oh, god,” Shane managed. His eyes were watering.

“Less good than coconut,” Ilya went on. “Please try not to die of pastry.”

“None of those things should be in coffee.” He finally inhaled properly, then cleared his throat.

“Shane, you put fish powder in yours. No one is taking your opinions seriously.”

It was marine collagen, not fish powder—well, okay, technically it kind of was but that wasn’t the point—but Shane knew when he was being baited.

“I put it in yours, too,” he said instead, taking another bite from his pastry as Ilya sighed.

They were sitting on a flat patch of ground, their backs against a small boulder, ten feet from a dropoff that led to the ocean. From here, trees obscured the tower behind them, but in front of them was another, smaller island—the guide book said it was some kind of bird sanctuary—and then the twin blues of the Mediterranean below and the morning sky above. There wasn’t a single other person in sight. Shane leaned back against the rock and pressed the side of his leg against Ilya’s. Ilya pressed back.

They ate their pastries as the sun came up, glittering over the water, casting the world in pale, bright light. It was warmer than Shane had expected, for some reason; warm enough to feel on his face. Warm enough to press against his eyelids when he closed them and warm enough to soak through his shirt, but not as warm as Ilya’s hand on his knee. He leaned his head back against the rock and tried to let the dawn break over him.

“I forgot sunglasses,” Ilya said. “Would probably have been a good idea.”

“I never said thank you for choosing me,” Shane said. His eyes were still closed, but he could sense Ilya turning toward him, so he cleared his throat. “I’m glad you did and I never said that.”

Since his life had exploded, Shane had decided he should also try therapy, so he’d done his research, compiled a list, and made an appointment. So far, he’d met with Nick precisely once, and while he seemed nice enough, all they’d talked about was some basic info and a bit of Shane’s background. Maybe in the next session they’d start fixing some things.

“You are so fucking Canadian,” Ilya said, hand tightening on Shane’s knee. “What do you mean, thank you?”

Shane frowned, his eyes still closed. “I mean thank you. I appreciate what you did.”

“You sound like you are signing off an email about contract negotiations. ‘All best, Shane Hollander.’ Maybe next week we will circle back.”

Shane took a deep breath in, then let it out slowly, hoping Ilya wouldn’t notice. He was fucking trying to communicate—properly for once!—and of course Ilya was being a dick. Here. Watching the sunrise, on Ibiza, during their honeymoon.

After another deep breath, he lifted an arm to shade his eyes and turned to face Ilya.

“Quit it,” he said.

“What? Emails?”

“No. Quit being like this,” Shane said. “I’m being serious. Don’t just blow this off.”

Clear as day, he could see Ilya think about making a blow this joke, then decide against it.

“Okay,” Ilya said, voice suddenly soft. “You are welcome. I would do it again.”

“I know you didn’t have to,” Shane went on. “I know you could have made your life a lot easier.”

He hadn’t technically practiced this, but he’d gone over it enough times in his head that he’d thought he had it all smoothed out. Only now, Ilya was looking at him with mild alarm, so probably he should have rehearsed in the mirror or something.

“What the fuck would I want with easy?” Ilya said, after a moment. Shane waited for the inevitable except you, since you’re so easy joke, but it didn’t come. “Easier is not better. Is probably not even really easier, most of the time.”

“I know,” Shane said, turning back toward the sunrise, eyes closed. “I should have chosen sooner.”

“Why, so you could have been miserable in Montreal for months or maybe years instead of just for the playoffs?”

“So it could have gone differently,” Shane said. “If I’d listened to you, if we’d done it our way, I could have eased them into it a little more—”

“They were dicks to you because they are fucking dicks, not because you came out the wrong way,” Ilya said, his accent starting to slide. “If we had come out to them a year ago maybe everything would have been sunshine and rainbows, yes. But maybe they would have spent a year shitting on the best thing to ever happen to Montreal.”

“I know,” Shane said. “It’s just—I could have done better.” And that was the thing, wasn’t it? That was the whole point of having a memory, so you could look back and learn from what you’d done. Get it right the next time. Keep at it until you did.

“If you keep talking about the things you wish you had done I will start to suspect you don’t like how it turned out,” Ilya said, and Shane’s eyes flew open, then immediately shut again.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he said, squinting over at Ilya. He didn’t look pissed off, but Shane really should have practiced this. “Fuuuuck. Of course I like how it turned out, I just… I wish I hadn’t hurt you so much getting here. And I’m sorry I did. And I don’t want to do that again.”

Ilya looked at him for a long moment, one eye shut against the sunlight.

“Everything I was afraid would happen did happen, but in the meantime I made us both so miserable—”

“Okay, you do not get all the credit for that,” Ilya said. “Was not all your fault.”

“It was mostly my fault.”

“You do not get that much credit. I also fucked some things up.”

Shane held his breath for a long moment, staring into Ilya’s eyes. Eye. It was still very bright.

“Ilya,” he said at last, voice soft.

“What?”

“Did you just admit—”

“I admit nothing.”

“—that sometimes you really are wrong—”

“This has never happened.”

“—and then you can be a real asshole about it?”

“I thought you were apologizing for everything being your fault! What happened to your apology?”

“You tried to take credit for it!”

Ilya scoffed and turned his face back to the sun, both eyes closed. He didn’t look as he slid his hand into Shane’s, intertwining their fingers where they rested on Shane’s lap.

“Does not sound like me,” he said, his head back against the rock behind them.

“You’re impossible,” Shane said, smiling into the sunlight.

“You like it.”

“Yeah.”

They sat there, in the dirt, at the far end of an island with the sun and the sea spread before them, for a long time. Shane did his best not to think, something he’d never been all that good at, but it was easy to focus on the way the light felt on his skin and what Ilya’s fingers felt like laced between his own.

There was this one meditation he listened to sometimes on his favorite meditation app. It was for clarity, allegedly, and it featured a gentle-sounding British man instructing the listener to imagine light entering their body and filling it slowly, from the toes up, until they were brimming with pure, golden light.

Shane usually ended up imagining a glass of beer foaming over. He was pretty sure that he was meditating wrong, but the sunlight made him think of it now. Maybe this was what it was supposed to feel like: so bright he could feel his pupils constrict underneath his eyelids, the warmth sinking through his shirt, his pants, through the bottoms of his shoes to the soles of his feet.

“There is this thing that Galina has me do sometimes,” Ilya said, and he sounded low and lazy, like he was also sun-drenched and golden. “Because of, ah, neural pathways I think?”

“Okay,” Shane said. It definitely sounded like something brains had.

“She thinks it is going to reroute the bad thoughts or something if I do this enough, I don’t know. But every day, I am supposed to write down five things that make me happy.”

Shane turned his head to squint at Ilya, who hadn’t moved: head back, eyes closed, one leg straight and one knee bent.

“And so the first four things are always different. I am supposed to keep it small, she says. Seeing a pretty bird. Getting a hat trick. Birthday cake Oreos. Stop making a face about the Oreos. Everyone but you thinks they are delicious.”

Shane, who hadn’t been making a face, made even less of a face and flipped Ilya off with his left hand. Ilya didn’t open his eyes to look.

“The fifth thing is always you,” Ilya went on. He still hadn’t moved. “Even days when you are being an asshole and I am angry at you, when I think of the things that make me happy, I think about you. Okay? You are there on list after list after list.”

Shen lifted Ilya’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

“I love you,” he said, turning his head and carefully opening one eye.

Ilya kissed the back of Shane’s hand and then squinted back. “I know,” he said, and squeezed their fingers together.

Chapter End Notes

1. The Torre d’en Valls is, indeed, a defensive tower for defending against pirates or something. Ibiza has a bunch of these old towers along the coast, built in the mid-1700s, and they were used to watch for pirates so they could warn people. I haven’t been there, but I looked at a lot of pictures and now I want to go to Ibiza.

2. I haven’t been to Europe in twenty years, so I don’t know the current state of takeaway coffee. I only know that in the early aughts, the Italians seemed to think that taking a walk while drinking a latte was a crime and they never let me do it.

3. I finally broke and signed up for tumblr, mostly so I can post "Hi, I'm still alive and still writing" once or twice a month so you all don't worry. I'm here! I'm finishing! I'm just slow! Anyway it's another way to contact me, I guess, though I really have no idea how to work this thing. Please lower your expectations before visiting glittercitylives.tumblr.com.

Chapter 9: Better than Montreal

Chapter Summary

Quick warning: this one's got some canon-typical discussion of a death by suicide. (You know the one.)

Chapter Notes

Ilya was at the cottage, again. He could always tell right away. Maybe it was the light, or the quiet, or the way the landscape felt like it shifted when he wasn’t looking. Maybe it was that part of his brain that never went quiet: small and bright and alert, always watching. Always ready to sound the alarm.

Maybe it was everything, or maybe he’d had the dream so many times at this point that he’d know it…

Well.

In his sleep.

Ilya didn’t even fight it any more. Fighting it had never worked; he could fight most things, but that was her hand dangling over the edge of the hammock, pink and moving softly and alive, and Ilya had never been much good at fighting hope.

It went the same, every time: Ilya walked to the hammock and she was there, smiling up at him. Mama, he said. Shane’s in the house. I want you to meet him.

She had never once said yes. She’d never said anything, just took his hand and kept smiling. Ilya held on tight and tried to keep looking at her, tried to put off what came next, but that never worked. He looked up, at the cottage, at Shane’s silhouette in the kitchen window. He waved: come out here. Shane disappeared, moving toward the back door.

Then, he waited. He hoped, stupidly, that this dream would be different, that the clock wasn’t running out, that Shane would walk through the door any second, but Ilya knew better. In the hammock, his mother’s face began to pale, the skin around her eyes going gray. She squeezed his hand, smiled, same as always, and now it was his turn to beg: wait. Please. He’ll be here.

It was almost over, now, and the part of Ilya that was already  waking up thought dimly that this should’ve been routine, that it shouldn’t feel so much like a hand closing around his throat, but it did. It always did. The house was silent and still as a tomb and the veins were showing beneath his mother’s skin and he had her hand in both of his, frantically looking back at the cottage, saying don’t go, please wait, he’ll be—

Waking was a relief, finally, in the way it was a relief to get your feet under you after falling down a hill, upright but still stumbling. Moonlight slanted across the floor from the skylight in bright blue-white blocks, and he was slower to remember where they were than he should have been.

On his fucking honeymoon. His brain couldn’t have waited two more days to get back to Canada?

Ilya took a deep breath, rolled onto his back, and reached his hand out for Shane. He was there, warm and solid—Ilya had known he would be, he’d known—but he had to shut his eyes in relief all the same. Slowly, he let his fingers drift down Shane’s arm until he was covering Shane’s hand with his own. Shane’s fingers twitched in his sleep and half-curled around Ilya’s. For all that he was so controlled and contained when he was awake, Shane slept like a lunatic, sprawled everywhere, currently face-down between two pillows with one arm thrown over a third and the other out behind him, toward Ilya.

It helped. Ilya’s heartbeat slowed. He breathed in to a count of four and out to a count of six, one of the thousand tricks he’d picked up from Shane, and that helped, too. Ilya stared at the sky light in the ceiling, a few dim stars above, and wished it were helping more. Even though he was awake, even though Shane was asleep next to him, even though he was on his honeymoon in one of the most perfect places he could imagine, the dream still felt like it was there, coiled and writhing under the surface of his mind. He couldn’t shake it. Carefully, so he wouldn’t wake Shane, he got out of bed.

The villa had a pool that overlooked the Mediterranean, which was objectively ridiculous. Ilya walked past it to the double-lounger they’d set up their first night there to watch the sun set over the ocean. Afterward, they’d fucked on it. Better to sit there and think about that than about—anything else.

Ilya sat. He watched the ocean. The moon was maybe three-quarters full, light glinting off the waves, lighting the sky enough that he couldn’t see many stars. He could wish on one and didn’t, because what would he wish for—that his stupid brain would make dream-Shane walk faster? Terrible wish.

He was still sitting there, starting to shiver in the cool ocean breeze, making terrible wishes, when the patio door opened. Ilya knew who it was, but he looked anyway, just to watch: Shane outdoors, in nothing but his boxer-briefs and a blanket slung over his shoulder, walking past the pool in the moonlight.

“Sorry,” he said, when Shane reached him. “Did not mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t,” Shane said, and took the blanket off his shoulder to spread it over Ilya. “Sometimes I just wake up.”

The blanket was enormous, ludicrously soft, and fuzzy, probably made of endangered chinchillas or something. It had to be illegal.

“Thank you for blanket,” Ilya said, because Shane was still standing there, looking at him, frowning a little. He looked like he was adding something together, drawing a conclusion, checking his work. Then he sighed and knelt on the lounger next to Ilya.

“Move,” he said, and Ilya huffed.

“Why? This spot is warm and there is plenty of—” Shane ignored him, pushing Ilya forward and wedging himself between Ilya and the back of the lounger. “Ouch. You have elbows.”

“Shut up, Jesus,” Shane muttered, still sounding half-asleep, hair tousled and sticking up in horrible directions. Ilya wanted a portrait. “Act like you’ve cuddled before.”

“You act like you’ve cuddled before,” Ilya grumbled, but he let Shane manhandle him until he was leaning back against Shane’s chest, head on Shane’s shoulder, sitting between Shane’s legs, the illegally-wonderful blanket over them. Shane draped one arm over his shoulder, hand splayed over his ribs, and pushed the other into his hair. Ilya sighed and closed his eyes and told himself to relax, even as he braced himself for what was coming.

“Why’d you wake up?” Shane asked, voice still sleep-rough but soft.

“Just woke up,” Ilya mumbled, and Shane didn’t answer for a long time, just ran his fingers through Ilya’s hair. Someday Ilya was going to figure out why that always felt so good, but not today, because—

“Did you have the dream again?” Shane asked, so no, Ilya hadn’t gotten away with it. Of course he hadn’t. Shane still felt guilty for all the times he hadn’t talked to Ilya about feelings in the past, so now, Ilya would probably never have an undiscussed emotion for the rest of his life. There were worse fates.

“Yes,” he said.

There was a long pause, Shane’s fingers working through Ilya’s hair. A breeze drifted in from the ocean: shivery and salty, so Ilya pulled the blanket tighter around them.

“Did I come out of the house this time?” Shane asked, in that quiet, hesitant way he did sometimes when he knew the answer to a question, and knew he wouldn’t like it.

“No,” Ilya said. “Is not your fault.”

“I know.” The movement of Shane’s fingers hadn’t changed, firm and rhythmic and soothing. Ilya let himself be lulled. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t… I don’t know. Tell the version of me in your head to hurry the fuck up.”

Ilya snorted.

“Maybe try using your captain voice and telling him to hustle,” he suggested. “Works for rookies.”

“Shut up.”

Ilya tilted his head back until he could see Shane’s face. “No.”

Shane sighed a very put-upon sigh, then kissed Ilya on the forehead. Ilya couldn’t make his own brain behave, couldn’t dream of a faster Shane or a different scene entirely, but here he was by the sea with the softest blanket he’d ever touched and a half-awake husband giving out forehead kisses like there was an infinite supply.

It struck him, suddenly, that he could have asked for all this. Any time, he could just ask.

“Do that again,” he said, eyes closed.

“Do what?”

Ilya tapped his forehead with one finger—didn’t open his eyes—and a moment later, he was rewarded with the warm press of Shane’s mouth. Ilya swallowed.

“She never says anything, only smiles at me,” he said, before he could change his mind. One sunlight-flooded morning, earlier that summer, he’d promised. It had seemed much easier then. “I think,” he started. He breathed. From here, on the deck of the stupidly fancy villa they’d rented, there were no other lights, no sounds of cars, no low hum of civilization. It was either late or early. Both, maybe; it felt like time was stuck, like maybe Ilya dreamed them into a place somewhere outside the world, built just for the two of them. Hadn’t he wanted that, once?

“I think I forgot how her voice sounds,” he said, and it felt like a confession.

“Oh,” Shane said, so softly, his hand tightening around Ilya’s ribcage. Ilya covered it with his own. He hadn’t had the dream for months before tonight, since back before Hayden’s stupid fucking video. He’d thought that the next time he did, it would be different. Being publicly with Shane would fix it, he hoped, Shane coming out of the house in the dream a metaphor so obvious even his subconscious could come up with it.

But no. All that and the dream was still the same: Shane inside, oblivious; his mother dying over and over in the hammock. Ilya unable to stop thinking the worst of the people he loved.

“I stole the crucifix,” he said, since he was confessing things, anyway. “Or maybe it was supposed to be mine. I never asked.”

Shane’s hand stopped moving through his hair.

“Stole it how?” Shane asked, sounding shocked. “From where?”

“I think my father got a bag of her things from the hospital,” he told Shane, doing his best to remember it himself. He’d known she was dead right away, but it had taken so long for everything else to unspool: an panicked call, a rush to the hospital, a long wait in a fluorescent-lit emergency room. He’d been twelve, too old to cry but too young to stop himself. Andrei had been sixteen and blank-faced, jaw flexing as tears ran down his face.

His father hadn’t cried. He’d shouted.

“He should have buried her in it,” he said. “Instead it was in a plastic bag on her dresser that he didn’t touch until he was going to marry my stepmother ten months later. So I took it.”

“Good.”

“He tried to get rid of her, after,” Ilya said, the words rushing out. He made himself breathe again. “He threw away all her things. Rearranged the house. He wouldn’t say her name. He would barely admit we’d had a mother. I was so angry, all the time.”

He could leave it there, for now. He should, probably; he’d confessed enough for now.

Something firm and gentle pressed against the top of his head: a kiss. Ilya’s eyes closed.

“Angry with him because—” he gestured. “And angry with her, for leaving.” He swallowed. “She killed herself and I was mad at her for it.”

There was nothing special about that, and he knew it. An extremely common and healthy part of the grieving process, Galina had said, soothing and matter-of-fact. And it made a difference—it helped—it did, except sometimes he dreamt about her and woke up thinking about how much anger his mother had faced in her life and how she deserved better in death.

Shane didn’t say anything, but he moved his hand up just enough to touch the crucifix with his thumb and pressing the warm metal into Ilya’s skin, rubbing it back and forth. It was soothing, solid. It could have felt like an exposed nerve. It would have, with anyone else.

“How come I am always telling you about the bad things I have done but you are not sharing?” he asked, a minute or two later.

“I’ve never done anything bad.”

Ilya sat up exactly enough to give Shane the look that statement deserved, and Shane laughed.

“Anything else,” he said.

“Such a nice Canadian boy.”

“Fuck off. I sneaked out of the house once. I think I was fifteen.”

“You.”

“Yes, me.”

“Sneaked out to where?”

“A party one of the older guys on the team threw because his parents were out of town. I climbed out my bedroom window and then was supposed to walk a few blocks for my buddy who could drive to come pick me up. The whole time I thought the cops were gonna come and I was gonna get arrested.”

Ilya tried to picture it—fifteen-year-old-Shane, sneaking along the street in suburban Ottawa at midnight—and literally couldn’t.

“Was it a good party?”

Shane sighed again.

“Shaaaaane.”

“I don’t know,” Shane finally admitted. “I made it like three blocks before I turned around and went home. Shut up.”

“I said nothing!”

“I can tell you’re laughing.”

“Is a very cute story,” Ilya said, still laughing. “Baby Shane walking around his parents’ neighborhood trying not to look—okay, okay, I am done!” He managed to grab Shane’s hand when he poked Ilya in the ribs, and then Shane’s other hand when he did it again, and after a brief wrestling match they were somehow wound together on their sides, giggling, the blanket slumped to the ground.

“Come back to bed,” Ilya said, once they caught their breath, his face smashed against Shane’s throat. It shouldn’t have been as comfortable as it was. “Is cold without illegal blanket.”

“Illegal?” Shane said, after a moment.

“Yes. Is too cozy. Probably illegal.”

He didn’t get a response, and was about to pull back when he felt Shane’s fingertips drift down the side of his face, then over the shell of his ear. Ilya closed his eyes a little tighter.

“Hey,” Shane said, and Ilya could feel him swallow. “I’ll try to come outside faster next time, okay?”

Ilya wanted to say it wasn’t Shane’s problem to fix. It was his dream, his brain; he was the one stuck in the same loop. Shane couldn’t will a figment of Ilya’s imagination into doing anything, and they both knew it.

Then again, he didn’t know anyone else with Shane’s sheer force of will, so hot and bright it felt like staring into the sun, sometimes.

“Okay,” he said, and he could feel Shane’s smile as he kissed Ilya on the forehead.

———

“We could stay,” Ilya said, twenty minutes later, from his spot on Shane’s shoulder, lying together on the bed. The angle of the moonlight through the ceiling was sharper than it had been earlier, the morning closer.

“Stay?” Shane asked, voice rough, like he’d already been asleep.

“Here. A few more days. Change our flight home, nothing will explode while we are gone. Is just the usual bullshit.”

Shane took a long time to answer, tracing slow circles on Ilya’s shoulder blade.

“I’m looking forward to getting back, actually,” he said at last, and Ilya snorted.

“Of course you are in fucking paradise and can’t wait to play hockey,” he teased.

“Shut up,” Shane said warmly. “I mean, yeah, but not just for that. For everything.”

“Because you love change.”

“I don’t have to love it to know it’s good sometimes.”

Ilya lifted his head just enough to look Shane in the eye. “Who are you and what have you done with my Shane?”

“I’m not that bad.”

Ilya paused, chin on Shane’s shoulder. He thought: just ask. You’re allowed.

“You are serious and not just trying to make me feel better?”

“What? No,” Shane said, sounding genuinely confused. “Of course I’m excited.” There was a slight pause. “Did you think I wasn’t excited?”

Ilya put his head down again and stopped looking at Shane. He didn’t need to see how relieved Ilya felt right now. “I don’t know,” Ilya said, giving a tiny shrug. “You were so sad about the Voyageurs.”

Shane snorted and flopped his head back on the pillow. “Well, yeah. I won them four cups and they were dicks to me.”

“Oh. You won four cups?”

Shane flicked Ilya’s shoulder blade in answer, so Ilya brushed his fingertips over the ticklish shot just above Shane’s hip. Shane yelped.

“The Centaurs are a good team that could be a great team,” Shane said, because now that hockey had entered the conversation it was going to be a while before it left. “And they definitely seem… better… than Montreal—"

“They are better,” Ilya insisted. “They are much better.” He tentatively agreed with Shane about their greatness, but he knew in his bones and with every beat of his heart that they’d treat Shane better.

“And I get to play hockey with you every day,” Shane finished. “Yeah, I’m excited.”

Ilya took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and exhaled. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“Okay," he said. "We will catch our flight and go home.”

Shane's thumb had found the knob at the base of Ilya's neck, and now he was drawing slow, lazy circles around it, like he was falling asleep. "I like that," he finally said, and he sounded like he was falling asleep, too.

"You like what?" Ilya asked, not opening his eyes.

"Going home together," Shane murmured, and Ilya had to take a deep breath and press his face a little harder into Shane's shoulder. It was a while before he trusted his voice again.

"Me too," he said, and the last thing he felt before he fell asleep was Shane's lips in his hair.

Chapter End Notes

A version of this chapter was the very first part of this fic I ever wrote, back in like... May of 2022! And now there's a show, and I guess there's going to be a third book, and the whole Heated Rivalry fandom looks slightly different than I did when I started!

What a world.

Before you go, here are two other fics I think you'll probably like.

If you'd like to read about Shane and Ilya going clubbing on their honeymoon, please check out Down Bad by jsmika2. It's sweet and hilarious and perfect in every way.

A Danger to Yourself or Others by onetrueharem is an alternate version of (parts of) The Long Game that I really, really enjoyed and that I think deserves more love. Do yourself a big favor and go read it. (Mind the tags & warnings for mental health stuff.)

Anyway. Thanks for reading!

Works inspired by this one

A Patchwork of Love and Canadian Sour Cream by MiniMangoes

Cover Art for Effortlessly Spectacular by PinkLetterDay