Work Text:
“I wouldn’t be able to go home again. Ever. Do you get that?”
Coming to Ilya’s room, Shane had expected to try to have a serious conversation, and be met with some witty jibes and aggravating nonchalance. He never expected the truth to fall out of those beautiful lips.
“Because of your family?”
“Because Russia! I would not be able to go back to Russia!” Ilya scraped his fingers through his hair.
Shane almost didn’t want to ask his next question.
“What would happen to you?”
Ilya hesitated. He almost didn’t want to answer. “I don’t want to find out.”
“What would your parents…”
“My father is police. My brother is police.”
“And your mother?”
“Dead.”
The realization hit Shane like a brick. He scanned his memory for any mention of Ilya’s mother. Nothing came up. His father, his brother… With the hard single syllable hanging over them like a boulder, he said the only thing he was capable of saying.
“I'm sorry.”
Ilya did his best to brush it off. He was strong. He was a famous hockey player. Who definitely didn’t cry. “I was young. … My father is very old fashioned. And sick.”
“Sick like crazy?”
“That too, a little, but no. Sick more like…”
“Oh, like cancer?”
He had to rip off the Band-aid. “Dementia.”
“That’s awful.”
Ilya couldn’t help the sniffle that accompanied his inhale.
“Hey,” Shane said softly. And he did the only thing he could think of at that moment: he climbed into Ilya’s lap and wrapped his arms around him, kissing him gently.
“Sorry,” He managed, nearly choking on unfallen tears. Hockey players don’t cry. Russians don’t cry. Ilya Rozanov did not cry.
But here was Shane, who had known him for years. Who took everything seriously, who bunched it up between those dark brows in a glorious furrow and figured it out analytically. Who had never said “no”, even when he probably wanted to. Even when he probably– definitely– should have.
And for perhaps the first time in his adult life, Ilya let himself be small. He tucked his chin into Shane’s chest and folded his arms across his back and focused only on the steady heartbeat thumping next to his cheek. A tear streaked down his jaw and he only noticed when Shane’s thumb delicately drifted to catch it under his chin.
Words failed him as he looked up into Shane’s soft, open face as if it were the gates of heaven; his exhale was enough to draw Shane’s lips to his own.
Normally their kisses were competitive – full of fire, the scrape of teeth and the rasp of tongue and the stealing of gasping breath from each other. But this was different. Softer, slower. Ilya could feel every nerve ending where his lips fit themselves against Shane’s. Warm, like honey. Like summer. The feeling traveled down his throat and bloomed in his chest, his own heart racing to catch up as it spread across his shoulders and down his back– everywhere that Shane’s fingertips traveled. And then those fingertips were pinching the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head and for the split second their mouths were disconnected, Ilya felt like he was drowning. When Shane returned, he could breathe again.
His own fingers worked down the buttons of Shane’s shirt, but he didn’t push it off his shoulders just yet. There was something making him shy, like they hadn’t hooked up dozens of times before. Something had changed here. As if by taking off Shane’s shirt, he was also shedding a version of himself that no longer fit.
Instinct took over as Ilya pushed the linen off of Shane’s shoulders, his need to be enveloped by him overtaking the magnitude of the situation. Shane pulled at the drawstrings of his pants as he covered Ilya’s face and neck with open-mouthed kisses. Ilya slid them both up against the pillows, Shane falling forward against his body. His warm skin smelled fresh from his post-game shower. Ilya wanted nothing more than to wrap himself in the scent.
“Take off your pants,” Ilya whispered. It was less of a command and more of a wish, a plea. Shane pulled the grey slacks down his legs so that Ilya could marvel at the tan of his skin and trace his fingertips over the stretchmarks on his hips.
“Take off yours, too,” Shane breathed in response, his gaze traveling down to Ilya’s sweatpants and then dragging itself up past his chest to meet his eyes. Ilya expected the blown pupils of lust; but what he found was pure, unadulterated hope in the brown pools of his irises.
Shane remained in his lap as he pulled off Ilya’s sweatpants, kicking them down his legs and off the end of the bed. Their shy, open smiles were mirror images of each other. They brushed their noses together, mapped each other out with their hands, rediscovered their peaks and valleys together in the tapestry of their bodies. Shane’s nose skimmed underneath Ilya’s chin, his lips charting a route down his neck and onto his collarbone before sliding down to Ilya’s cross necklace with his tongue. The gold glinted against Shane’s mouth, resting on his bottom lip for a reverent moment before falling back onto Ilya’s heart.
For years, Ilya had prayed that God and his country looked away when he was committing sins of the flesh. Now, he hoped that God could see him make love to this man who was not a fall from grace, but grace itself. His salvation.
It only took a few seconds for Shane to open himself to Ilya, to sink slowly down on top of him until he bottomed out. Ilya couldn’t help it; another tear fell from beneath his lashes. But this time it was not for anger or fear.
Shane’s face grew worried, even as he filled himself with Ilya. “What’s wrong? Did I… did I hurt you?”
He smiled, wiping the tear away and muttering something in Russian against Shane’s collarbone. “Nothing. Is nothing. I just…” He pressed a kiss into the wide plane of Shane’s chest. “I just wish we could be like this forever.”
“I’ll do my best,” Shane cracked a smile before reattaching his lips to Ilya’s. It was incredible, being this close. Shane moved his hips slowly, back and forth, each time eliciting a sigh from the man underneath him. His fingers tangled in Ilya’s curls and Ilya settled his arms around Shane’s waist, guiding his movements ever so slightly.
They stayed like this for minutes, for eons, tiny movements and the slide of skin bringing each other to the edge and then slowing back down, simply lost in the feeling of holding each other. Ilya sucked each of Shane’s fingerprints into his mouth, wanting to etch the ridges onto his tongue. He grasped onto the wide expanse of his back. His blue eyes met brown as he tried to convey his feelings with each kiss, each touch, each press of himself into his lover.
Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? Love, or something incredibly close to it. He had never felt this way with any of the other people he’d brought into his bed. They were sexy, sure. Lithe bodies and wanton mouths. They were simply means to an end. Ilya was always gone before the morning sobriety could catch up to them, stealing hearts like a thief in the night and shattering them on the way out the door.
He thought he had felt it with Svetlana, when his head was resting in her lap or when her arms were supporting him as his father yelled at him through the phone. He had thought, briefly, that he would marry her one day. She knew his baggage. His culture. The cracks in his façade. She would keep his secrets and his heart safe.
But with Shane, he felt as though his heart was residing outside of his body, cracked free from the cage of his ribs and taking flight. Daring and spontaneous and nearly as delicate. And that’s what it meant to love something, right? To let it go, to watch it leave, and to beg on your knees for it to return.
Ilya didn’t often come first– with Shane, it was the feeling of him collapsing and the symphony of his moans and whines that pushed Ilya over the edge– but this time he allowed himself to take what he needed. His climax rushed through him, flooding his body with warmth and leaving his chest in something akin to a purr as he spilled himself and a bit of his soul into Shane. And Shane in all his perfection rode it out, snapping his hips as the waves slowed to a ripple, giving everything he had with his body when words got in the way. Their eyes met as Ilya reached up to tug on Shane’s lip with his teeth and with a final gasp he clenched around Ilya, painting Ilya’s abdomen with his own masterpiece.
When they were both sated and sticky, Shane stayed on top of Ilya, their chests heaving in and out in tandem and their heartbeats slowing to a steady thud. With the little strength he had left, Ilya rolled them over to seat himself between Shane’s legs. Shane traced his fingers up Ilya’s back and through his hair, gently pressing Ilya’s head down onto his chest.
And here Ilya rested.
For the first time in years, his mind did not wander to the terrible truths of the world or the wrath of God, making him crave a cigarette and a stiff drink. The demons took the night off, scared away by the implication of something… more.
In the early hours of the morning, Shane reached for his folded clothes and dressed. Ilya wanted to pull him back into bed, to curl up against him again – but they both had early flights and roles to play and masks to wear. Ilya watched as he dressed, drinking in the sight of him one last time.
“What?” Shane asked, hand on the doorknob and bright eyes locking with his own.
I love you. Or something incredibly close to love.
“Nothing,” He said with a hint of a smile. “Goodnight Shane.”
Shane cracked a half smile back, one that was true and open and real. “Goodnight Ilya.”
***