Work Text:
March 2015
Shane
He woke to the sound of Ilya breathing.
That was the first problem. Ilya was still there, still warm against his back, one arm heavy across his waist like it belonged there. Shane lay completely still and stared at the slice of grey morning light cutting through the curtain gap that fell across the grayscale painting on the far wall, and took careful stock of himself.
He felt...normal? Was it over? He wasn't sure... There was still heat warming the base of his spine, a low, persistent ember—but manageable. Easy to ignore.
What he noticed most was how every single one of his muscles ached. But what throbbed most wasn't his ass but his shoulder where Ilya's teeth had sunk into his scent gland, marking him. Not deep enough to mate for life, but enough to mark him as Ilya's omega until the bruise he was sure resided there had faded away.
He blew out a shaky breath and with it all the emotions he couldn't quite name swirling around in his chest. He breathed in the pungent aroma of stale sweat, slick, and sex, trying to fight off tears he could feel gathering on his lash line. It did nothing to help his melancholy thoughts.
He was still trying to process everything and figure out how to extricate himself from the bed when Ilya's phone went off. Ilya inhaled sharply, waking at the noise. He rolled away and silenced the alarm without comment.
Shane had been surprised to find in the middle of the night that Ilya had set an alarm to go off every four hours so he could take a dose of suppressants. He was still shocked and touched by his foresight.
Shane heard the cardboard of the pill box, the small rattle of tablets. Then Ilya's hand appeared over his shoulder, brandishing the box.
Shane took them with steady hands and popped two pills out of the packaging, emptying the first sheet of pills. Without a second thought, he chucked the trash in the bin next to the bed, already filled with used condoms, and reached for the water bottle on the nightstand.
"Hollander...how are you halfway through...," Ilya commented in what Shane was sure was supposed to be a casual tone but in reality had a note of shock and concern in it.
Shane swallowed his mouthful of water and rolled his eyes before setting the bottle down and answering, "I've been taking two at a time."
A beat of silence. Shane could feel Ilya working something out behind him.
"Hollander, I only gave you two the first time...," Ilya started slowly. "...because your heat was...how do you say...uncontrolled? You do not need to...keep that up," he stopped with a frustrated huff. English was clearly harder for him upon just waking up. Especially after spending most of last night and this morning fucking Shane's brains out. He muttered something in Russian before continuing, "Nyet, Hollander not good, I think long term."
"I have a game in three days," Shane said, shrugging as he set the water bottle down. "The double dose shortens it."
"Oh, now you are expert, da?"
Shane snorted. "Hardly. I looked it up." When Ilya just gave him an incredulous look, he continued, "On my phone. In the middle of the night." Ilya was watching him with an expression that sat somewhere between concern and something that looked uncomfortably like guilt. "Don't give me that face."
"I started this," Ilya whispered, blue-green eyes darkening to resemble the depths of the ocean with his concern.
"Probably. Fucking you semi-regularly most likely messed up my heat cycle," Shane snipped, unsure how to respond to this softer, more caring Ilya that still lay in his bed.
"Nyet, not what I meant. I gave you the first double dose." Shane blinked. He'd missed something.
"So what?"
Ilya glowered at him, "Hollander, it's probably not safe long term."
"Safe enough."
"Hollander—"
"I have a game in three days," Shane repeated, with finality. "It's fine. I won't miss the next game just because my biology doesn't want to cooperate." He peeled off the bedding that had stuck to his slick flesh and stood up. His legs were more unstable than he expected, and he did an unplanned squat before straightening up with effort and walking off, "I'm going to shower, I'm gross, and the bed's all messy." He crossed the room to the bathroom without waiting for a response. Ilya was mercifully quiet for once.
❖❖❖
Shane was halfway through his shower when Ilya appeared in the doorway, gloriously nude. He should have known he wasn't going to get enough time to regain his equilibrium. Ilya opened the glass door of the shower stall. Shane moved over without commenting and let him step in.
The water was blessedly hot, and the space was cursedly small. Shane kept his back to Ilya and stood directly under the spray, letting the hot water seep into his tired muscles and wash away the stale scents and unpleasant substances that clung to his skin as he waited for whatever came next.
"We need to talk," Ilya said.
"Okay," Shane said through a tight throat. He knew it was coming, but he had been hoping he would have a little more time to... he wasn't sure...
"You were deep in heat," Ilya said plainly. "You were not yourself...mentally," he continued, voice calm and even.
Ilya sounded so matter-of-fact. A little part of Shane wanted Ilya to sound remorseful? Wistful? He didn't know. All he knew was that his words hurt. There was nothing objectively inaccurate about what he said but it still left him feeling hollow. Like someone had scooped out the inside of his heart. Which was a stupid way to feel. Ilya wasn't his alpha. Fuck, they weren't anything to each other and it was for the best that way.
"I know that," Shane bit out through clenched teeth.
"Then you understand why I didn't---" Ilya paused. "What you asked for. I wouldn't...couldn't do that to anyone I was with... not when they cannot think clearly... and consent to such a life changing decision." Ilya blew out a breath and gently, oh so gently, brushed the back of his knuckles down his spine as if to soothe any hurt his words might cause. Damn him, it worked…somewhat. "You would have asked anyone in that room."
The words stung even as his touch soothed. Shane stared at the tile in front of him. He nodded jerkily, unable to find his voice.
"I am not saying this to be cruel," Ilya continued gently.
"I know why you're saying it." Shane exhaled. "And you're right. I wasn't --- I've never had a breakthrough heat before. I didn't know it could get like that. I was so...." He tilted his face briefly up into the spray. "Lost? I couldn't think straight." He stopped. Started again. "It was the heat." That was a fucking lie.
"Da," Ilya said, agreeing.
Silence for a moment. Water running. Steam thickening.
"There is more to it," Ilya said, more carefully. "Than just that...for me."
Shane turned then, because the tone required it. He didn't know what emotion had gentled his voice to a hesitant rumble of thickly accented words.
Ilya met his eyes through the steam. "Russia," he said. He looked...guarded?
Shane waited patiently, perplexed.
"I go back home every summer...Everything I came from is there." His voice was dull. Every word spoken seemed to cost him something. Without thinking, he reached out to him, combing his hands through his hair the way he did during their tender moments together, the way he knew Ilya liked. Ilya quivered and sagged into his touch. Closed his eyes and just breathed. Shane wasn't sure why home and family were so distressing for this man, but he did not like seeing him like this.
Just when Shane had given up on Ilya elaborating, he opened his eyes and continued. "Russia won't be good about a mated male pair... more than that, it would be---" he waved his hands around as if he could grasp the word he was looking for out of the air. Finally, he landed on "dangerous." Shane swallowed thickly and blinked. He hadn't realized...
A memory flashed behind his eyes. June 2011, MLH awards, Las Vegas. "Not everything is about you Hollander!... I go home in three days," Ilya's words rang in his ears. Fuck, he hadn't understood at all.
Now he did… Ilya was risking his own safety just being here with him. It wasn't just the hockey world he was hiding his sexuality from, but his country and his family, and yet Ilya was here with him now...caring for him as if he was all that mattered. How terrifying and sad.
"Oh, Roz," Shane said quietly, letting his hands slide down to cup the alpha’s face. The taller man let his head rest in his hands as if letting him hold his burdens even if it was only for a moment.
Something in Ilya's expression shifted, and he reached up and grabbed hold of his hands, pulling them away from his face to cradle them against his chest over his heart. "You should know, Hollander…" He paused. "It has nothing to do with your worth...as an omega." His voice was even but thick. "You deserve a mate who can give you everything...You are worth that... that is simply not something I am able to give..."
The words landed heavy in his heart. But at the same time, it soothed the hollow feeling in his chest. Wasn't that silly? That such words spoken by this asshole would affect him so. Maybe it was the truth that rang in them, the sad sincerity that filled the alpha's eyes that did it.
"Thank you..." Shane murmured. Not sure what else to say. How could he tell Ilya thank you for letting down one of his many walls? Or thanking him for validating his secret omega status and praising his value. Hell, thank him for risking so much to be with him! Yes, they weren't in Russia, but if they were discovered, word would reach back home, and it would be disastrous and dangerous for him.
Ilya leaned down until he bumped his forehead with Shane's. Just sharing breath with him.
Not sure how to transition out of such a tender moment, Shane floundered and eventually decided a complete change of topic was needed. He pulled away from Ilya and pushed his wet hair off his forehead. "Once my heat breaks and I'm back in Montreal, I'll get my blood work done and fix my suppressants. I can't have this sort of thing happen again...If you hadn't come...I don't know what I would have done."
Ilya nodded slowly, "Da, Hollander, that is probably a good idea."
Content with the conclusion of the intimate interaction, he turned back toward the spray, tilting his face up. He heard Ilya pick up a bottle and pop the top before slick, soapy hands glided over his shoulders and down his back, large and comforting. Shane sighed and allowed Ilya to clean him. Truth be told, he had already used the body wash, but he hadn't been able to reach every inch of his back. It didn't hurt to be thorough. When Ilya reached his ass, he spoke, "May I check you?"
Shane blinked in surprise. Not only because he had expected, and been looking forward to, Ilya cleaning him there and maybe even filling him with his fingers, but also the fact that Ilya was asking for permission even after the night they had just shared, and on top of it all, he seemed to genuinely care for Shane's physical state. "Y-yes...If you want to. I'm fine though, you didn't hurt me—You don't have to."
"Indulge me, Hollander," Ilya breathed across the back of his neck, somehow hotter than the water pummeling his front.
Shane didn't argue. He leaned further into the spray and relaxed more into his touch, and Ilya's hands moved to spread him, before gently and clinically, two fingers pressing carefully at the opening of his entrance, checking for anything amiss.
Shane stared at the tile and thought about his game schedule, trying to ignore how heat began to blossom in his belly at the light touch. It didn't work. His body made a decision completely independent of his rational mind.
Fresh slick came without warning. A sudden and unmistakable flood down the inside of his thighs swiftly followed by a painful cramp low in his abdomen at being so dreadfully empty. It had him folding at the waist. He caught himself against the wall with both palms, preventing his head from cracking into the tiles with the sudden motion. A sound escaping him before he could stop it, low and long, filled with pained pleading.
"Easy, Hollander. I'm almost done. Once you're dried and fed, I will be more than happy to fuck my knot into your sweet ass."
"Okay, I can wai—" Shane started.
But his body wasn't interested in waiting. His heat that he'd been so certain was receding roared back with complete indifference to his desires. The cramping intensified. Rolled through him again and again until instinct demanded he present to his alpha—no, the alpha. It was a graceless and involuntary thing trapped in the cramped stall as he was. His chest dropped lower until he was forced to press his chest into the tile, arms above his head, back arched obscenely, ass offered up to the alpha behind him. More slick gushed out of him, and he wailed wantonly, entirely unable to stop himself.
He heard Ilya chuckle softly behind him.
Then the sound of the glass door opening and closing as Ilya reached for something on the counter. Followed by the sound of foil tearing.
"Presumptuous," Shane gasped out.
"I had a feeling you weren't totally out of heat," Ilya replied. He could hear the shrug in his voice even if he couldn't see the man behind him from his awkward position.
"Fuck you," Shane said into the wall.
"No, I'm about to fuck you," Ilya chirped back before adding more gently, "Do you need me to open you?"
"No." He panted, pressing his forehead against the tile. "Just fuck me, alpha."
Ilya's hand settled at his hip. Steady and certain. As he used the other to guide himself in.
When he pressed in, Shane stopped thinking about anything at all.
It was nothing like the night before. The space wouldn't allow for a proper fucking. It was too small and the angle too awkward. Ilya set a fast pace with short strokes as Shane kept his forehead against the tile and let it happen, forced to notice how his body responded, sagging into the wall in relief as his insides liquified. There was nothing better than being filled and fucked, the thought crashed through his foggy mind. Followed by the unpleasant reality that he would eventually have to find a female alpha to settle down with. They existed. They were just rare. Some of them used strap-ons—he’d heard that somewhere. Yes, he’d just have to find one that did that. He’d have to! Surely there was one out there that would want him. He just needed the perfect woman who could make him feel just as good as Ilya did.
Ilya's hips snapped forward and hit that spot inside him, fracturing his somber thoughts. God, he didn't want to find someone else. He pressed his ass back against the alpha behind him, greedy and mindless. He didn’t need to think about that right now. Besides, he didn’t need to find that perfect woman for a few years yet. He gave himself over to the sensation this man was giving him. Forcing himself to live in the moment because, at some point, this crazy thing between them would be over, and all he would have would be his memories.
He was dragged further back to the present by Ilya nudging his legs apart further with his feet. He obliged obediently and instantly felt the change in the angle. He keened at the increase of pleasure despite the increased strain it put on his back. They fucked like that for a time, and it felt good, really good, but the pleasure wasn't building in him. He needed more. He whimpered, not sure what to do.
"You love being fucked, da, Hollander?" Ilya asked, pausing his thrusting to swirl his hips, grinding his cock into him deliciously.
Shane nodded helplessly.
"You love coming from just my cock," Ilya snarled. It wasn't a question but a statement. Shane whimpered, legs going weak at the spoken truth.
"So infatuated with my cock you forgot you have one of your own," his words cut through his brain fog like lightning. Fuck his cock... he glanced down at it, his neglected member drooled onto the tiles. It was flushed with need and achingly, painfully hard.
"Stroke yourself," the alpha purred.
Obediently, Shane reached down and just squeezed his cock. The relief was instant, and the stagnant pleasure finally climbed fractionally. He gasped out in relief. But stroking without lube had always had an edge of pain to it for him. "Need lube," he panted.
Ilya cursed in Russian. "Can you stand up?" Shane blinked, confused. The alpha didn't want him to present. He knew it wasn't perfect, but was it truly that terrible a job? "Wha---"
Ilya changed tacks, "Straighten," he ordered, voice gentle but commanding. Shane responded to the alpha's command instantly. Ilya reached around him with one of his hands and caressed his muscled chest. The other wrapped around his waist, and he spun them so that Ilya was the one taking the brunt of the shower spray. Shane was perplexed but trusted him...completely.
Ilya fondled him with his left hand while his right disappeared from around his waist to grab something. He heard the cap of a bottle click open. Had he brought lube too? "Hold out your hand," Ilya breathed into Shane's ear. Shane shivered and did as he was told. A healthy glob of conditioner was squirted into his hand. "Sorry, best we got," Ilya apologized, kissing his neck.
Shane grunted, not disappointed, and immediately glided the slick substance over his aching cock. He let his head sag first in pleasure before slowly melting back onto the tile wall out of the spray of water. Ilya chuckled behind him and started his thrusting once more. Shane didn't care that Ilya was laughing at him. His pleasure was finally building steadily, and with it, noises fell from his throat. It didn't take long to tumble over the edge, and his cock jerked in his hand. He watched as his load was quickly washed away by the still-running water.
He sighed in relief, but a slow cramp in his guts brought his attention to the fact that Ilya hadn't come with him or knotted him the way his body needed. He frowned. "Alpha?" he asked, perplexed.
"Shh…I did not want to knot you like this. We would be stuck in here and... what’s the word... a raisin by the time I soften," Ilya answered Shane’s unspoken question.
"Oh..." Shane muttered, disappointed, despite the logic of the alpha's words.
Ilya slipped his cock free from him. Shane tensed in alarm. Why was he leaving him?
"Easy, omega," Ilya crooned, gliding his hand up his side before lightly slapping it. "Turn around."
Shane did stiffly. Ilya swiftly grabbed his ass and pulled him close. Shane went willingly, still miffed. "Up," was all the warning he got before Ilya started lifting him. He jumped a little, startled, and inadvertently helped Ilya pick him up. He wrapped his legs around him automatically and stared at him, stunned. Ilya deftly pressed Shane's back into the wall and kissed him deeply. His cock nudged his ass in this new position. Understanding dawned, and with it a rush of relief and fresh slick.
"Oh!" He sighed happily and wiggled a little, trying to sink down on him. Ilya growled, and Shane froze.
"Careful, Hollander, don't want to drop you," he admonished before managing to somehow hook his legs up and over his arms, essentially Zercher holding his 200lb body up. Fuck his alpha—this alpha was strong. He was so turned on by the display. It made him feel delicate. He could feel his channel gush more in response.
"Fuuuck, Roz," Shane growled into the alpha's mouth, kissing him fiercely before gently biting his lip, trying to express his arousal and appreciation for the new position. Ilya snarled and kissed him fiercely for a moment before pulling back, "About to! Guide me," he growled, bucking his hips, his cock failing to notch into Shane's loose hole.
Shane instantly reached down and grasped the alpha's cock and guided him to the hungry opening. Ilya slammed home. Shane threw his head back in pleasure and just gave into the building ecstasy as Ilya fucked him ruthlessly. Never once did his pace falter, his grip slip on his legs, or his footing become unstable. It was one of the hottest things Shane had ever experienced.
It didn't take long to reach a second orgasm, so overstimulated after his earlier release. He didn't even have to touch his cock, so aroused by the new dominant position and how the electrifying jolts of pleasure were sparking from his prostate with every punishing thrust of Ilya's swelling cock.
Suddenly, Shane realized that Ilya had been able to fuck him with his knot longer before being locked fully inside him than he had been able to last night. Fuck, how stretched out was he? Probably able to be easily fisted. He shuddered at the erotic, tempting thought and lightly bit Ilya's shoulder. Not on his scent gland, but close enough that it had the alpha snarling out as a second release ripped its way out of his balls. He could feel the new jets fill the condom further.
He was so floaty in the head he didn't realize that they were out of the shower until he heard the water turn off and his ass hit the cold bathroom counter. He jerked slightly, and his eyes popped open, taking in the sight of Ilya reaching out to grab a towel off the rack behind him, having to twist his body awkwardly, still locked inside Shane.
With a towel procured, he began to dry Shane first, ignoring his own dripping wet self. Warmth blossomed in Shane's chest at the caring gesture. How was he ever to find a woman as caring as Ilya fucking Rozanov, the Russian asshole with a heart of gold? His heart ached at the thought. He didn't think it was possible, but he had to try, right? They couldn't be together. Not really. Besides, that's not truly what he wanted, was it? No, of course not. He wasn't gay. Just...just curious. Yeah, totally just curious, his inner voice mocked him.