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There was nothing Ilya loved more than fucking Shane Hollander – except, as he’d finally said out loud, maybe Shane Hollander himself.
All these years, he was the one thing he’d never been able to quit.
Even smoking, he’d stopped a few years ago, because it made Shane’s nose wrinkle and he complained he couldn’t smell Ilya over the nicotine stink. Until this week, he’d have denied that Shane was why.
He’d told Shane the trainers in Boston threatened him, when he asked.
It wasn’t not true. The lie was that he gave a single shit about the threats – what were they going to do, fire him? Please. He was Ilya Rozanov. For smoking? Empty threat, and they all knew it.
No. He’d quit for Shane, and the look on his face when Ilya had walked into his condo smelling like nothing but cedar and roses and salt after three weeks without a cigarette had been worth every miserable second of it.
Ilya hadn’t seen Shane that worked up since the first time he’d fucked him, years ago, and hadn’t seen it again since. He’d sucked Ilya’s dick that night, before Ilya got to touch him, dug his fingertips into his thighs high enough up to touch the edges of the slick between Ilya’s legs – and then smelled his fingers, and licked it all off while holding direct eye contact with him.
Ilya had shoved him back down onto the bed and fucked him into oblivion, because after whatever the fuck that was, his cock hadn’t even dreamed of going soft after he came down Shane’s throat.
But that had been years ago.
And neither of them ever mentioned it again.
The same way they never mentioned anything about their designations.
Like the way Shane knotted Ilya’s hand while he got fucked. The way his fangs clicked together on the rare occasions Ilya had showed up with marks from nights with other lovers. The smell of slick in the air when Shane decided to really be a brat because he knew it drove Ilya crazy.
The whole alpha/omega business seemed to run contrary to what they really wanted from each other – Shane was an alpha who wanted to get fucked. Ilya was an omega who wanted to fuck him.
It didn’t work. (Not to mention all the million other reasons they couldn’t be anything to each other in real life – which they also never mentioned, hidden away with the fact that they both wanted to be, anyway.)
Instead, they chose to be everything to each other in dark hotel rooms where they could just be Hollander, who liked to get fucked, and Rozanov, who liked to fuck him.
And that worked, until it didn’t.
Until they fell apart long enough to come back together and understand that for whatever all the other things were worth (and everything they weren’t), they had never been anything but Shane and Ilya, two terrified boys who’d been loving each other in the dark for years.
And now they were here – in Shane’s cottage. They’d spent days wrapped up together, laid out a years-long plan to be allowed to love each other in the light, Shane loved him. Ilya’s boyfriend, Shane Hollander, loved him.
Ilya had been hugged by a mother and clapped on the shoulder by a man who called him “son” with a smile on his face.
Ilya had never been happier in his life.
But now Shane was asking him to stay. It was the middle of July – he didn’t have obligations in Boston until the second week of August. There was no reason for him to say no.
He didn’t want to say no.
But he’d only planned to stay a few more days.
Three more weeks here, with Shane, with his parents… it was paradise. It was all he’d ever wanted. It was the thing he’d fantasized about for years, whenever he’d been too filled with shame or want or heat to think about anything other than the alpha his body had decided years ago was his.
For all the women (and the few men) he’d fucked in the last five years or so, they’d all been betas. A few other omegas, too, but even that had gotten harder in the last year. The first time he’d brought a very pretty alpha girl back to his bed after the first time he’d fucked Shane, she’d left disappointed after his whole body recoiled and he snarled at her when she put her hands on the waistband of his pants.
The only one his omega wanted was his alpha, his Shane.
And his omega wanted Shane. Wanted Shane in a way that Ilya… didn’t.
And that was the whole problem, really.
Because he was in control of his omega, usually.
He didn’t nest. He didn’t croon, or whine. He hardly ever slicked, and never acknowledged when he did – it was only ever with Shane, anyway, who’d never acknowledged it either. (Except that one time when he did acknowledge it, and the fact that Ilya replayed the memory in his head every goddamn day of his life.)
If he stayed here until he had to go home, though, he would be here when he was very much not in control of his omega.
Because he would be in heat.
Ilya’s heats had always been miserable. Outside of them, he had absolutely no desire to bottom, for anyone. The idea of it made him fucking nauseous, actually. But the moment his brain glazed over into the sticky-hot haze, he wanted. From the time he presented in high school, he’d been on the highest doses of suppressants available from shady doctors his father recruited to make sure no one knew his stupid fucking faggot son had presented as an omega.
He'd made miserable nests during unpredictable and vicious breakthrough heats, alone in his bedroom with the door locked from the outside, and spent the whole thing screaming and crying and clawing at his own skin. It was horrifyingly lonely, with nothing but his fingers to sate the deep ache inside him. They didn’t. They just made it worse, really.
His father made sure he didn’t starve to death, even though he’d wished he could. Food was shoved unceremoniously through the hastily-unlocked door, served with a bottle of room-temperature water and a few uncreative slurs about being an omega or fucking men – only one of which his father actually thought was true.
He probably would’ve let him starve, if he’d known he was right on both counts.
Or maybe he would’ve been more proactive about it.
It didn’t really matter, and he would never know, now that the man was dead.
He'd found out later, from an American doctor, that not letting his body go through his very first heat before starting the medications had definitely made his heats more painful, more unpredictable. They could probably be normalized fairly easily, he told Ilya helpfully, by spending a few heats with an alpha he trusts instead of trying to get through it alone.
Yeah, right. Easy. He didn’t think a female alpha was going to be able to fix whatever his father had broken, and he might’ve fooled around with Sasha as kids, but he’d never been so fucking stupid as to try and find a big alpha cock in a Moscow club to keep him company.
Then, he’d made the most incredible mistake of his life when he’d fucked Shane Hollander, the prettiest fucking alpha boy in the whole world, because his heats got fucking worse. Because now it wasn’t the vague urge to have something inside him, it was the feral need to have Shane inside him.
But he still didn’t want Shane inside him.
So, his heats stayed just as miserable as they’d always been, except for the part where each one was longer and more painful than the summer before.
Last summer, he’d almost called Shane on the worst day, just to hear his voice, desperate for anything – anything – to make the fucking pain stop. But the idea of telling Shane why he was so miserable, what he didn’t want but maybe needed, had made him so nauseous he’d thrown up and passed out, completely delirious from exhaustion and hurt and something he was too overwhelmed to look at any closer.
But now Shane was his, and everything that had hung unclaimed between them for years was theirs, and knew that for this to work, he had to be Shane’s too.
He had to tell him why he was going to leave, at least.
And it would be better this year, at least. He would be in his own apartment in Boston, a place he felt safe in. Shane would let him take some clothes with him, maybe a blanket if he did the big blue puppy eyes on him.
He could call Shane, maybe, in the moments where he was a little more lucid, where hearing his voice would help instead of hurt.
- - -
“Ilya,” Shane said softly, the ghost of a finger trailing across Ilya’s jaw. “Hey. You still listening?”
“Hm? Da, yes. Listening.” A lie. He had no idea what they were talking about, completely lost in memory and longing and pure dread.
Shane lifted up a little, from where he’d been tucked between Ilya’s side and the back of the couch. The movement sent a hit of Shane’s scent straight through Ilya’s nose and into his dick – his suppressant dose had started tapering yesterday, preparing for the heat he scheduled for next week, and he could already feel the edges of preheat in the way his body was aware of every molecule of his skin that was in contact with Shane’s.
Shane smelled like dark fruit and thunderstorms – rain and the electricity that crackles in the air before it’s split by the lightning. He hated it, thought it was strange, but Ilya had been dreaming about peach trees and lightning bolts for years before he’d finally realized that it was the ghost of Shane’s scent lingering on his pillowcases, worming into his subconscious.
Shane’s finger tipped Ilya’s head up, imperceptibly, just far enough to remind him he was supposed to be listening, again. His eyes flicked up to Shane’s, trying to push down the blush that threated to spread onto his face when he realized he’d been staring straight at Shane’s scent gland, lips parted.
“You aren’t.”
“Maybe you are too boring, Hollander,” he deflected, knowing it didn’t hit the right tone to be effective against Shane. Whether it was a good thing or bad thing, Shane definitely knew him too well at this point to let him get away with that.
(It was a good thing, he just wasn’t sure he was ready to say all things Shane wasn’t going to let slide anymore.)
“Ilya,” he said again, a little firmer this time.
“Shane,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
“You asked me earlier, to stay. Until training starts.”
“I asked you again ten minutes ago,” Shane said, and he was smiling, but there was something else in it that made Ilya’s heart hurt.
“I want to,” Ilya said, but it was soft and slow in a way that he knew Shane knew the next word would be but.
“Why? I thought… You said boyfriend. Not me. I thought you wanted this.” I thought you wanted me. When their eyes met, Ilya could practically hear what Shane left unsaid.
The hurt in his eyes was almost enough for Ilya to change his mind. Almost. “I do – I do, lyubimmy. Is just… is summer, yes?”
Shane’s brow furrowed, not understanding. Ilya usually loved his directness – he very rarely used strange English idioms that Ilya didn’t understand. Now, though, he wished his boyfriend was a little better with euphemisms.
It was an open secret that the omegas in the league tended to suppress heats until the summer, it was just what you did. Quite a few alphas did, too, but ruts tended to be shorter and quicker to come on – easy enough to come off the pills for a bye week or Christmas or All-Star break.
Ilya knew Shane spent the day before Christmas with his family and then had a rut before break was over. He told Ilya, on their disaster day in Boston last year, that his hands started to get fidgety if he only had one a year – and Mr. Hockey did not tolerate anything interfering with his game.
“Have a thing I have to do in summer,” Ilya mumbled, looking away. He rubbed his year, trying his best not to take note of the way Shane’s face spelled out every thought like a closed captioning machine.
He was confused, still not quite getting – oh. Oh. But…? Then he was sad, for half a second, before his face went back to confused.
“You have… someone? In Boston, for it?”
And no, he hadn’t settled back into confused. He was still sad, with a little confused sitting over the top. Ilya’s heart broke a little more, realizing that Shane thought that Ilya would tell him he loved him, say they were boyfriends, make a plan to be with him forever… just to go back home and call his normal girl to help him through his heat?
Was that really the type of man he thought Ilya was?
It wasn’t entirely undeserved, but he thought that Shane, of all people, saw through that.
“You think I will cheat on you?”
“I… no. I don’t. But we didn’t technically say…”
“Shane,” he said heavily, cupping Shane’s cheek in his hand. “No one but you, yes? There is no one else. Has never been, for this.”
Shane’s mouth opened and he flinched back a bit, shocked. “Never? Ilya – you don’t do them alone. Tell me you don’t do them alone.”
“Oh, you want to hear about other big, strong alpha in my bed? Or pretty girl with – “
Shane’s lips curled into a snarl that Ilya was sure was entirely unconscious. “Shut up.”
Ilya’s next taunt died on his lips. Shane looked dangerous, every bit alpha in a way Ilya had only ever imagined him. He picked himself up a little more, leaning over Ilya, who was still laying almost flat on the couch.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, asshole. Just that it… it hurts, doesn’t it? Alone?”
They were approaching questions Ilya didn’t want to answer – of all the things they’d never talked about, this was probably one of the ones they shouldn’t have gotten this far without.
Their designations were so fundamentally intwined with sex, to have one without acknowledging the other… it was stupid. It was dangerous, probably. Definitely, if Ilya admitted that the months of being a fucking zombie after Shane left him in Boston were the rejection sickness he’d refused to acknowledge at the time.
“You do yours alone,” Ilya snapped at him.
“That’s fucking different!” Shane raised his voice a little, and Ilya shifted away from him instinctively – he couldn’t go anywhere, but Shane reacted to the motion anyway. His whole body softened again, going quiet. “I get a little horny and restless, spend a few days in the gym. I – it’s not the same.”
“Whatever,” Ilya said.
“It’s not. Answer the question,” Shane said, dark eyes hard and completely fixed on him.
Ilya couldn’t look at him. “It hurts either way, probably.”
Shane’s hands were impossibly soft on his face, and Ilya fucking hated it. “Oh, baby. No. It doesn’t.”
Something angry and pathetically jealous flared in his stomach. He swatted Shane’s hands off his face. “And you know this how, alpha?” Ilya regretted it as soon as he said it. He dug his heels in anyway – he wasn’t sure why, even as he did it. “Glowing reviews, yes?”
“No! And you know that. Fuck! I know from fucking sex ed, my fucking parents, Jackie, Rose – not like that.” Shane tacked the last part on when he saw Ilya grimace at the implication of him knowing anything about heats from Rose Landry. “I tried to fuck Rose one time and had a panic attack that lasted two days. We talk.”
“Talk, fine, whatever. They are pretty omega girls who do not throw up and pass out if they think too much about getting fucked, probably, so… Is different.” The words were out of his mouth and in the air where he couldn’t get them back before he had any idea he was going to say them. He was going to throw up and pass out now.
It might be preferable to the rest of this fucking conversation.
Shane stared at him. His mouth was open, but his face was entirely blank, like the loading screen on an old computer.
A painfully long moment passed where neither of them moved.
He wondered how long it would take to walk to the airport, or if Shane would call the cops if Ilya stole his car.
Finally, Shane unfroze, and his face softened. “I love you so much. You have to give me more context than that.”
“Don’t want to.”
“Too bad. You can go in the other room and text me, if you want, but we’re having this conversation.”
“No!” Ilya’s hands darted from where he’d been rubbing his fingers against his wrist to find some contact with Shane, the idea of being told to leave felt like needles in his skin. “No,” he said, softer. “But do not look at me.”
Ilya tapped Shane’s hip to get him to sit up, settled himself into the corner of the couch. He pulled Shane down into his lap, Shane’s back to his chest.
“Is not good, in Russia. To be a man and…” the word caught in his throat. It was the same, in Russian, omega, and he always had trouble saying it when he referred to himself.
“An omega?” Shane supplied quietly, gently.
Ilya ’mm’ed an agreement. “My father did not let me have first…cycle after I… when I was teenager. Started pills the same day.” He felt Shane tense in front of him. His scent spiked. “Very strong, but. They do not work right, if you start…like that. Had a lot of… when it happens anyway?”
“Breakthrough,” Shane whispered.
“Yes. That. Were…very bad. He locked my door. Didn’t have anything to… help.” If Shane made him explain what help meant right now, Ilya really was just going to leave. He shrugged his shoulders like it wasn’t a big deal, like it was possible to imagine worse pain than the memory – the memory repeated over years, crying for something he couldn’t have and didn’t even think he wanted, anymore. “Team doctors fixed the meds eventually, but…” they couldn’t fix me. I don’t know if anything can fix me. He shrugged again. “Helped some. More predictable now, at least.”
Shane was holding himself perfectly still, but the sharp electricity that usually undercurrented his scent poured out of him – furious and threatening.
Ilya felt very small. Shane still hadn’t spoken, nothing but the thick scent of angry alpha in the air between them. He’d never smelled it from Shane, but the shape of it was all too familiar. “You are upset with me,” Ilya said. It was a statement, not a question, barely loud enough to be heard.
Shane gripped his own thighs hard. “No. I just don’t know if I’m allowed to look at you yet.”
“Fine.”
Shane turned impossibly quickly and wrapped his whole body around Ilya. His scent changed immediately, washing over him sweet and soft. “Not upset with you. Never at you, baby.”
And, oh. Shane wasn’t upset at him – he was angry at his father, at the Russian doctors who did what they were told without any concern for what it would do to Ilya.
Shane had never called him baby before tonight. It struck something warm deep in his chest, where his omega lived. He liked being Shane’s baby, maybe.
Some of the nausea in his stomach eased, not even enough for him to notice, but his body relaxed just a little.
“That is not why I will not stay. Is just the… before the story.”
“Give me a minute, unless you want to see real crimes.”
Ilya laughed, short and without much humor, but it was a real smile. Shane was still clinging to him, and Ilya couldn’t tell how much he was comforting Ilya and how much he was comforting himself. There was something protective about it that he wasn’t used to in the way Shane typically clung to him.
He’d told him deeply upsetting, personal things before, and hadn’t gotten this kind of reaction. It wasn’t bad. He didn’t dislike it, he just didn’t understand it.
The realization came all at once – Shane’s snarl at the mention of someone else in his bed during his heats, calling him baby, the possessiveness, the caretaking – for all that Ilya had been keeping his omega in a locked box, away from Shane… Shane had been keeping his alpha, probably, in a locked box away from him.
And now, after all these days at the cottage, they’d finally let down the last barrier between them. They could be, finally, just them. Fully.
To do that, to give in to it, fully... Imagined moments flashed through his brain like a film reel – Shane on top of him, eyes dark and heavy. Shane’s hands between his thighs. His fangs glinting in darkness against Ilya’s neck, blood on his lips. Touching, pressing, pushing, claiming.
No. Not happening.His stomach churned painfully even as his pulse jumped.
Shane pressed a soft trail of kisses from his forehead to his jaw, and Ilya’s eyes fluttered closed. “I love you,” Shane whispered into his mouth, kissing him slowly.
Shane pulled away, and leaned back in immediately to lick across his scent gland and drag his teeth along it on the way back. It was just hard enough to feel the razor-sharp edges of his fangs, not hard enough to leave a mark. Fucking Christ. Did he know he couldn’t just do shit like that?
Ilya felt slick pool under him, betrayed by his own body, and hoped against hope that Shane couldn’t smell it. “I love you, too,” he whispered back, face shell-shocked and slack.
Shane settled back into his lap and pulled one of Ilya’s hands into his, resting it against Shane’s stomach. He leaned back into Ilya like it was any other night at the cottage, like he hadn’t just lit up every corner of Ilya’s brain with his electric fucking lightning bolt bullshit.
“Okay. You don’t have to tell me everything right now. It’s okay.”
“Have already started. Will be harder to start again later, probably.” Meaning, if you let me stop now, I will get up and leave here and never tell you, and there’s no way I can keep you forever like that.
“Okay.”
And then he was quiet. Waiting. Ilya liked that about him. He didn’t needle with questions, the way Ilya did. He let him take his time. Ilya used to joke that he asked too many questions, but it was only ever when Ilya was being a fucking asshole, all one-word answers and silence that stretched past thinking into a statement.
“When I… it…” He couldn’t seem to find the words, anxiety curling tight in his chest as the silence turned heavy. Something small and scared bubbled up in front of everything else. “You will still love me if I go home, yes?”
“Please don’t go home,” Shane’s fists were clenched, his mouth was tight. “I’ll sleep in the guest room. I’ll go stay with my parents, if you want me to. But I might actually go insane if I can’t… if you…” and then Shane fucking growled, nails digging hard into his own skin again.
Ilya’s mouth felt dry. “If I… what.”
Shane turned to face him again, standing up on his knees, tight around Ilya’s thighs. His hands fell on Ilya’s shoulders with a significant amount of Shane’s bodyweight behind them, bringing their faces close. Ilya had to tip his head back to look at Shane properly.
Shane’s voice was quiet but snarly, eyes full of fire. “You don’t fucking get it, do you? You’re mine. You said it. You’re my boyfriend and I love that, but you’re my fucking omega, too. If you don’t want me to touch you, to be here, fine. I hate it, but I’ll get over it. But I need you here. Where I know you’re safe, fuck! At least here I’ll know there’s food that I made and my bed that smells like us and there’s things to help if you want them and… I’m gonna go crazy enough if you don’t want me here. I need you to give me this, baby, please. Don’t go home.”
His eyes were so wide, burning with possessive frustration and something desperately sad. Ilya knew a little bit about what heat did to alphas, even when they weren’t in rut. When it was your omega, bonded or not… it could be intense. He obviously didn’t know enough about it – for some reason, he’d never thought it would apply to Shane. Never thought Shane’s alpha would care that much about him.
Ilya’s omega was clawing at his chest, reaching for this version of Shane like he’d never allowed himself to reach for anything. To stay here a place that would be safe and warm, a person who would touch soft and careful, something that maybe – finally – didn’t have to hurt.
“Okay. Okay, lyubimmy, am sorry. I didn’t – I will stay. And, I think, maybe… you stay, too.”
Shane’s eyes snapped up to Ilya’s as his whole body sagged against him with relief. “Really? I can stay?”
Ilya’s stomach stayed clenched, but the feeling was different than it was before. “Yes, I think so.”
Shane smattered messy kisses over his face. His scent calmed quickly, rounding out at the edges until it was the deep, soft thing Ilya loved. “Because you want me here, right? Not because I do? I’ll do literally whatever you want, even if you want me to leave. Anything.”
“Yes.” It was the true answer, but it didn’t carry any amount of confidence.
Shane’s smile faded, reading the tension still riding each plane of Ilya’s muscles. “I still need the rest of the story, don’t I.”
“Probably, yes.” He still didn’t want to tell it – it wasn’t like anything happened. He was just… afraid of getting fucked. By his boyfriend. Who loved him. Who’d been getting fucked by him for years without a problem.
“Now?”
“Can we go to bed? I will tell you, just… in… bed.” The preheat and the emotions and the sheer force of alpha coming off Shane were all coming together to scream nest, nest, nest. Shane smiled softly, nodding, and gave him a hand to stand up – and used that hand to pull Ilya in for a kiss before he let it go.
Ilya snagged the blanket they’d been laying on off the couch, and the hoodie Shane had discarded when he got hot earlier. Shane either didn’t notice, or did a really good job pretending he didn’t, while they walked back to the bedroom.
The bed already looked vaguely nest-like when he looked at it, with a line of pillows along the top and down Ilya’s side, which he hadn’t even noticed until now. He wondered if Shane had.
Probably.
Shane stripped off the clothes he was wearing and folded them gently onto the edge of the bed. He left them there, not saying anything about them. He ran his hand along the side of Ilya’s face, thumbing through the soft curls over his ear, which Ilya had always thought was one of Shane’s favorite places for his hand to be.
Shane smoothed an errant strand behind Ilya’s ear and kissed his cheek, just in front of his hairline. “I’m going to go brush my teeth, baby, okay? Unless you want me to wait for you.”
“I am fine, Shane.”
“I know.”
Shane’s clothes and the blanket (and Ilya’s clothes, and half the things in the dirty clothes hamper) ended up tucked around each other on the bed. It wasn’t a perfect nest – Ilya didn’t think he’d ever put this much effort into one before, could barely even remember the last time he’d made one at all – but it was nice. It smelled insane – like him and Shane and sweat, all cedar and plum and salt and rain mixed together into something that was completely them.
Shane was long-finished getting ready for bed by the time Ilya stepped into the bathroom. Shane handed him his toothbrush with a smile. Ilya took the time to admire him – in just his boxer-briefs, the delightfully satisfying display of hickeys sprayed across his body – fucking gorgeous.
They stepped back into the room together, and Ilya tried not to glance at Shane. It was stupid. It was an okay nest, he knew. But the urge to ask Shane if it was good, if he’d done a good job, had sat insistently on his chest since the moment Shane’s eyes fell on it.
He didn’t have to ask. Shane stopped a foot or so from the bed, ran his fingertips along the blanket tucked under the outside edge. Shane kissed him, and looked at the nest again. “You made it for us,” he said, something like reverence in his voice.
“Yes.”
“It’s a good nest, baby.” He pulled Ilya towards him again. “Perfect,” he said, leaning to kiss Ilya’s shoulder. “Just like you,” he whispered against his skin.
Ilya crawled into the bed, taking his usual spot, feeling a little taken aback at how proud he was of the nest. It was nice to lay in. Shane said it was perfect.
Expecting the familiar weight of Shane to plop down next to him, or maybe just right on top of him with how raw they were both feeling tonight, Ilya waited, all stretched out like a cat who found a patch of sunshine.
Shane was still just standing there, watching him.
The doubt started to creep back in. He said it was good, but what if he was just saying that? Maybe he doesn’t want to lay in it. Why would he want to lay with you?, the nasty little voice in his head whispered. He plastered his best smirk on his face anyway. “The pillows will not hurt you, Hollander.”
“I’m not coming over there until you ask me and you know it.”
Ilya had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to know. Shane wouldn’t come any closer – why not? Shane had been plastered to his side for days, and now he needed, what, permission? To get into his own bed? Ilya frowned.
Shane stared at him for a long time, waiting for something Ilya didn’t even know how to say he didn’t understand. Something he was obviously supposed to know already. Something that he apparently he needed to know, to be enough for Shane.
Realization flicked across Shane’s face. “Oh my god, you don’t –“ Shane fell into a crouch on the floor, hung his head between his arms so Ilya couldn’t see him anymore. Ilya’s frown deepened. Shane looked back up at him, eyes dark with something that might’ve been tears, or maybe just annoyance. “Do you never even watch porn? Jesus.”
That was… not on the list of questions he’d ever expected to be asked by Shane Hollander. “Not… like this.” His voice was small, and he shivered under the weight of Shane’s eyes. ”Shane,” he whined. “I don’t…” I don’t understand. Why are you so far away? What did I do?
“Okay,” Shane sounded like he’d made a decision of some kind. “Okay. Can I please come into your nest, baby?”
Ilya was still frowning. He felt like a fucking child – confused and vulnerable and Shane was looking at him with something that felt far too close to pity. He wanted to snap at him. He wanted to lash out. But mostly he was just sad and confused. And cold. Very, very cold.
“You said… is ours.” Ilya was about to start fucking crying. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why did Shane suddenly just want it to be Ilya’s nest? Wasn’t it supposed to be for them? Did Shane change his mind about wanting to stay? Or maybe he changed his mind about everything, all of this, loving him at all.
Maybe he just wanted Rozanov – the charming, sarcastic asshole – and finally realized that Ilya would only ever be a sad, damaged trainwreck of an omega who couldn’t even make a nest right.
“I – fuck – I mean, it is, of course it is –“ Shane dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m not doing this right. Please just say yes. I want to come lay with you.”
“Yes,” Ilya said weakly, and Shane was on him faster than he thought was possible. His hands weren’t gentle. Shane gripped hard against his shoulders, kissing him deep and firm and slow, and Ilya pulled him closer with trembling hands.
“You’re fucking shaking,” Shane said, pulling back. He touched Ilya’s face, fingers steady and strangely warm against his skin. “What can I do?”
“Don’t know,” Ilya said. He didn’t know, and it was fucking infuriating. He’d been fine five minutes ago. “Cold.”
Shane found the extra blankets crumpled into a nice, soft line at their feet, and pulled them up over both of them. He moved quickly – efficiently. No movement wasted, nothing sharp. He didn’t hesitate, exactly, when he moved to lay back down, just slowed. He let Ilya’s hands find his hips and position him where he wanted – laying half on top of Ilya’s chest, pressed together all the way down to Shane’s toes tucked between Ilya’s calf and the mattress.
Ilya felt like he could finally exhale properly.
Warmth soaked back into his body slowly, absorbed from Shane’s skin and his steady weight and his soft whispered reassurances.
I love you.
It’s safe here.
I have you.
It’s okay.
My baby.
Ilya had trained himself for years to deflect, deny, hide any part of himself that was soft. Vulnerable. Omega. Every carefully-honed reaction cried out at him to tell Shane to stop – stop touching him like that, stop talking.
But he didn’t want him to stop – Ilya felt fucking idiotic, but he didn’t want him to stop. Because he knew what had happened. His hormones and his omega and his nerves in general were so fucking frazzled and dysregulated that a 10-second misunderstanding with Shane sent him into full rejection-sickness meltdown.
Ilya’s instincts won out – because if he told Shane to stop, he would stop, and Ilya needed him to keep repeating the words like a mantra in his ear almost as much as he needed to breathe, at this moment. So he kept his mouth shut.
Shane, eventually, trailed off slowly when Ilya started stroking his hair.
Ilya didn’t give the silence any time to grow thick before he filled it.
“I will finish story now.”
Shane looked up at him, but Ilya only knew because he felt his head move. Ilya’s eyes stayed resolutely fixed on the ceiling. “We can talk about it in the morning. Maybe we should just sleep, tonight.”
“No.” Shane sighed but didn’t protest, so Ilya continued. “After my mama died,” he said, taking a shaky breath. “It got worse, at home. My father never hit, but he was mean. Was almost as bad, for him, to be omega and to be gay. He says all the time, oh, poor Ilyusha has to go play in America with the fags and the sissies. At least he will fit in.”
The translation was clumsy, but the point came across. The words he’d used had been worse – crueler, more graphic. But Shane didn’t need to know that to understand, and Ilya was perfectly happy to never learn whether they even had English translations.
“He locked my door, during heats.” The word sizzled on his tongue like a cigarette burn. Heat. He wasn’t sure he’d ever said it out loud. Definitely not to refer to himself. “He yelled a lot, during them. That I am disgusting, weak. That strong men present as alphas only. Is unnatural. That mama should have taken me with her.” His voice crackled across the last sentence, and Shane’s body – already tight – shifted to circle him a little better, like there was still something to protect him from.
He didn’t mention the night he would’ve tried to go with his mama, after the second Prospect Cup where he’d lost and the screaming and the pain had been the worst it’d ever been. He would’ve, if there had been literally fucking anything in the fucking nightmare room other than the mattress, a few shitty old pillows, and his own desperate stink. So he’d banged his hands against the floor until they were cracked and bloody and bruised, screamed himself hoarse until he couldn’t anymore, and fell asleep through silent, broken sobs.
That part didn’t matter, and he definitely didn’t think he could handle whatever Shane’s face would do if he told that part of the story.
He opened his mouth again, but Shane cut him off. “Wait, baby, please,” he said, splaying his hand across Ilya’s stomach. “Just – I just need a second.”
Shane breathed harshly against him, fingertips digging into Ilya’s skin. A moment passed, and he dragged himself up to leave a line of tender kisses across Ilya’s collarbones, up his neck, the side of his face. He pressed his forehead against Ilya’s temple, and stayed there.
Ilya picked up Shane’s hand and turned it over so he could kiss his palm. Shane stroked his thumb across Ilya’s lip, and Ilya made a quiet sound in his throat. Ilya moved him again, to rub his wrist against the scent gland on Ilya’s neck, and Shane stumbled over his next inhale.
“Okay,” Shane whispered. “I’m okay.” He took a deep breath, kissed the corner of Ilya’s eye, and laid back down onto Ilya’s chest.
They were both breathing a little easier.
Something in Ilya’s stomach settled.
Whatever happened before, that was then. Separate. Here, now, was just his Shane. And he could be just Shane’s Ilya, if he wanted to be.
“Sorry. I’m good.” He wasn’t – Ilya could smell Shane’s fear and anger on the air between them – but what he really meant was you can keep going now.
“Is not much else. Just. Has always hurt very bad, and been very scary. Is also only time I ever want to… switch, and – “
“Switch, like, bottom?”
“No, Shane, like the light. Obviously.”
“Oh fuck you, Rozanov.”
“Is what we are discussing, yes? Pay attention.” Uncomfortable as he was, Ilya couldn’t resist such a good opportunity to make Shane blush like that under his freckles. But he had to turn his attention back to the rest of his sentence, and any remnant of teasing vanished as he continued. “But yes. I think, is like… I am in pain, and I want that, and they are only ever together. Has been many years, and now… they are the same.”
And Ilya really only understood it himself as he said it out loud.
The difference was almost imperceptible – between being scared of being fucked, and the pain coming with the thought just because they lived next to each other in Ilya’s brain.
But it was there.
They were different.
He wasn’t quite sure how that was supposed to change anything, but an incredible calm seemed to settle over Ilya, and he breathed in deeper than he had in a long time – and immediately the acrid scent of Shane next to him put him right back on edge.
Shane was fucking vibrating. Every breath growled into Ilya’s ear. His hands had clenched into fists, flexing tight with every heartbeat. When Ilya glanced down at him, his usually wide, bright eyes were dark and narrowed as he started into space.
“Shane,” he said carefully. “I am fine. Is better now, after I told you. Calm down, lyubimmy, please.”
“He fucking conditioned you to be afraid of something you literally have to have. Don’t fucking tell me to calm down.”
“Does it help to remind you that he is dead?”
“A little.”
“He is gone, Shane. I will be fine,” Ilya said again, bringing Shane’s hand up to kiss the clenched fingers one by one.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Ilya did smile, then, and pushed Shane onto his back so Ilya could crowd him back against the mattress. “I am here,” he whispered into Shane’s ear. “And you are here.” He rested his weight on one elbow and slid the other hand down Shane’s side to his hip. “And no one else is here.” He nipped lightly at the edge of Shane’s jaw.
Shane gasped, probably mostly in surprise. “There’s no fucking way you’re horny right now,” he said, but his legs parted to let Ilya slide one thigh more comfortably between them, and he tipped his head to give Ilya better access to his neck.
“Do not pretend you are not also,” Ilya replied, rolling his hips against Shane’s – and they were both half-hard, regardless of if Shane wanted to pretend that emotions meant they’d suddenly become the kind of people who hadn’t fucked at least 15 times in the last six days – they had, and they’d lost count on the second day – be so for real, Shane.
They kissed lazily, hips grinding against thighs, soft sounds panted into each other’s mouths until they were both gasping more than breathing. Shane lost patience with it first, and tugged Ilya’s underwear down under his ass. Ilya shuffled them off and kicked them away with as much grace as he could manage one-handed.
He leaned back down over Shane, Ilya’s elbows bracketing his head. Shane slid his own shorts down, not bothering to take them all the way off, just far enough to free his cock from the waistband.
When Shane wrapped his hand around them both together, it slid perfectly – fucking amazing – bit it was too perfect. It should’ve been dry, a little rough. Shane’s fingers pressed up, behind his balls, and Ilya made a sound he didn’t think he’d ever made before – a high pitched little whine – and realized it was his own fucking slick, dripping down to his cock.
“Shit, baby, you’re so fucking –“ Shane said, and Ilya’s hips jerked involuntarily. Shane’s fingers slid farther, up, up, yes – no. Yes? Ilya almost missed the way Shane’s eyes widened, the little sound he made when he touched Ilya’s hole. He’d spent the last half decade agonizing over whether or not he wanted Shane to fuck him – he wasn’t sure he’d ever spared a single thought for whether Shane wanted to fuck him. Shane ground his hips up one more time, hard. “Oh my god. Oh –“
Shane’s cum painted the skin of both their hips. Ilya whined another high, needy sound and Shane slid his slick-wet fingers across Ilya’s hole again. Shane’s other hand pulled Ilya’s hips down against him, rocking up to meet them.
He couldn’t think straight. It felt good, he didn’t like it – or maybe he liked it too much? It was too much, not enough. Tears welled up in his eyes and he had no idea if they were good tears or bad. “Shane.” The word was weak and drawn out, a desperate plea for something he couldn’t identify.
“I got you, baby, I know. C’mon – so fucking pretty like this – come for me.” He mouthed at Ilya’s neck, wet and open-mouthed, as he spoke. He ended his sentence by nipping at the skin above Ilya’s scent gland, grinding his leg up against Ilya’s cock. Ilya came hard, moaning into Shane’s shoulder.
Ilya collapsed down onto Shane and tucked his face into his boyfriend’s neck. The scent coming directly out of his neck smelled a bit like Ilya, with how much skin-on-skin they’d had the last few days. Ilya felt like his brain was spinning inside his skull, not a single thing he could arrange into a meaningful thought. Shane was pleased, completely relaxed, and Ilya felt a strange surge of pride to know he’d done well for his alpha.
Shane tolerated lying under their sticky mess longer than he normally did, the silence broken only by their own breaths. He didn’t have to go far – they’d put a pack of baby wipes in the nightstand before the end of Ilya’s first day at the cottage – but since it meant he had to get out from under Ilya’s body, it was too fucking far.
Ilya took a wipe from Shane, after giving him a single look that said if Shane tried to help him clean up he’d fucking bite, and cleaned himself off.
Ilya pulled Shane back down where he’d been, and relaxed back into his nice warm spot against Shane’s neck. He trailed his hand lazily across Ilya’s back, nudged his nose through Ilya’s disastrously mussed curls. “You are so gorgeous, and I don’t think I say it enou–“
“Do you want to fuck me?” Ilya was paying so little attention that he hardly even registered the fact that he’d talked over Shane.
“What? Like, now?”
“No.” Maybe? “You have… never thought about it?”
“I mean… yeah, I’ve thought about it.” Which was, objectively, the reasonable answer, even if Ilya had hoped he would say no – Shane was an alpha. He didn’t have any of Ilya’s ridiculous fucked-up baggage until ten minutes ago. And Ilya was just the most selfish omega in the whole world, so wrapped up in himself that he’d never even offered, and Shane– “I love what we do, and it didn’t seem like you wanted…anything else, and that’s fine. But yeah, fuck. I’ve thought about it.”
“But you… have never…?” Ilya asked cautiously. He wasn’t sure if it was worse if Shane hadn’t, because of him, or if he had, with someone else.
Shane snorted. “No. I tried, with Rose, but I literally almost passed out when I touched her.” He continued in a quiet voice, embarrassed. “She wasn’t mine. Wasn’t you.” Ilya’s heart pounded unevenly in his chest.
“We should practice, maybe.”
Shane’s whole body froze. “Practice?”
Shane was looking down at him, and Ilya tucked his face further into his neck. His voice came out slightly muffled against Shane’s skin. “Do not know… how I will be. When my… when it starts. Is better, probably, to have tried already.”
“So we practice.” Shane’s voice stayed even, but he couldn’t hide the scent of yesyesyesyesyes rolling off of him.
“Yes,” Ilya said. He was drowning in heady waves of Shane, his face tucked right into his neck, and he wanted to burrow into his skin and live there – or maybe run far enough away that he never had to think about this again, but that urge was a little quieter now than it had been earlier.
“Tomorrow?”
“Okay.” The familiar nausea gripped him, but Shane’s hand on his back was steady. The panic eased. Not gone, but enough to breathe through.
“Go to sleep, baby.”
“I love you, Shane,” he whispered.
“I love you too.”
Ilya woke up still draped over Shane, sticky all over with sweat. All the blankets were thrown off, and Shane’s skin felt cool against his when he moved.
Shane had his phone in one hand, the other curled around Ilya’s waist to rest on his spine. Still half-asleep, Ilya nudged his nose against Shane’s neck. A fresh wave of his scent washed over them, sweet and pleased and relaxed.
Shane tossed his phone down. “Good morning, baby.”
“’S hot in here,” Ilya mumbled.
Shane chuckled. “You’re hot.”
Ilya took stock of his body – he was hot. His heart beat fast, too fast for having just woken up. It felt… it almost felt like he was right on the edge of his heat starting, but that couldn’t be right. He should have almost a week of pre-heat first, hadn’t even gotten all the way off his meds yet.
He couldn’t tell. The warmth in his body didn’t feel like anything he’d felt before. It was… nice, almost. Like lying on Shane’s dock in the sunshine, the end of a long run at the start of a Boston summer. It’d only ever felt like a forest fire, searing and burning uncontrolled inside him.
He was thinking too clearly for his heat to have actually started, he was pretty sure of that, at least. And Shane would be able to tell, right? He’d be able to smell when it started.
“Feel weird,” he said.
“Good weird or bad weird?”
“Is not bad.” He was too confused, too out of place in his body for it to be good, but it definitely wasn’t bad. It was unsettling, though, in its novelty. It’d always been fucking miserable alone, but at least he knew what to expect. This was… better, right? Even in his own mind he couldn’t say it confidently.
Shane glanced at his phone again. “Okay. Shower, first. We’re all sweaty.”
Ilya whined and groaned dramatically, and made Shane half-drag him up out of the bed, but he went. Shane directed them through a disappointingly efficient shower, slapping Ilya’s hands away when he reached for Shane’s hips. Ilya pouted, and Shane placated him with a kiss. “Later,” he whispered, and then pulled back with a smile. “I made a list.”
“Of course you did,” Ilya said, rolling his eyes. “What is on boring list? Not blowjob, obviously.”
Shane flicked him, and reached behind him to turn the water off. Ilya bit his shoulder, and he yelped. “Hey!”
Ilya shrugged innocently and handed Shane a towel.
“The list,” Shane said, swatting at him with the towel, “is everything we need to do today before we get distracted.”
Ilya raised his eyebrows with a suggestive smirk even as his stomach twisted. His brow furrowed. Not knowing what was happening with his own bady right now was driving him fucking crazy. “I do not know how long… until…”
Shane glanced over at him, assessing. He stepped into Ilya’s space and took a long breath. “Tomorrow, probably? Maybe tonight, but I don’t think so.”
And he was going to be fucking right, probably. It was infuriating. If there was anyone he could tolerate being able to tell him things about himself, it was Shane, but only barely. Ilya nodded, wanting to talk about literally anything else. “So, list?”
“Nothing interesting. Groceries. Laundry. If there’s anything else you want to talk about…” Their eyes met. The last item on the list probably wasn’t written down, but it was still there. Practice. They were both thinking it, and Shane (because he was always fucking perfect all the fucking time) continued without listing it. “Groceries first. There’s probably stuff you want, right? There’s not much left here, anyway. We can order it, or we can just go, if you want.”
Ilya wondered briefly if he was having a fucking stroke. Did Shane Hollander just suggest going to the grocery store together? The man who, since Ilya met him, had been convinced that everyone in every hotel knew who was supposed to be in which room? The one who was sure that if they had a beer together after a game, everyone would assume they were fucking? That Shane Hollander? He wanted to go to a public store. In Ontario. In the middle of the summer. With Ilya Rozanov. Who had absolutely no business in a store in Ontario in the middle of the summer except that he was there with Shane Hollander, covered in hickies and smelling exactly like two people who’d been having sex – with each other, specifically – for the last week. Right.
“You would… you would want me to go with you?” He’d almost said let me go with you before he caught himself. He didn’t even want to go, nor was he ever going to be the type of person that anybody let do anything.
“If you’d rather pick out your own stuff, sure.”
“People would see us, probably.”
Familiar panic flashed across Shane’s face, but he smoothed it over quickly. “Yeah.”
And Ilya had no desire to go to the store right now – the thought of people near him, or how Shane might react to people near him… no, thanks. But the fact that Shane would have, if he said yes? Just to prevent the ridiculous, imaginary hurt of someone else picking up a bag of chips? Something unfamiliar rumbled in Ilya’s chest, and he tried to cover it with a cough. Was he fucking purring? He didn’t even know he could do that.
Shane glared at him. “Why are you laughing?”
“Am not!” He wasn’t. He was smiling, though. Shane was very cute when he was pretending he wasn’t freaking out.
“So do you want to go or not?”
“Not even a little.”
“Thank fuck.”
Ilya laughed for real, then, and pulled Shane down next to him on the couch. “What goes on Shane Hollander’s boring grocery list, hm?”
Shane started listing things – chicken, rice, spinach, fish, potatoes – all fine, normal things to eat, but Ilya wrinkled his nose. Too many years of suffering through heats with nothing with water and meat and potatoes when he needed sugar and carbs (and wanted chocolate almost as much as he wanted Shane) flicked through his head.
Shane looked up at Ilya, who was still glaring at the grocery order on Shane’s phone. “I’m putting in real food first, but then you can add whatever. I won’t even make fun of you if it’s all Cheetos and ice cream.”
Ilya grinned back at him. He was, truly, the perfect man. “Is more fun if you do, though.”
And then Shane lectured him for ten minutes about the carcinogenic effects of artificial sweeteners when Ilya added a case of Coke to the cart, and shoved a basket of dirty sheets at him when they were done with ordering groceries, and Ilya had never been happier to be exactly where he was right now.
When he went to deal with the sheets, though, he got about four steps away from Shane when he realized he didn’t want to be a single step away from Shane – let alone on the other side of the house doing fucking laundry.
He turned, and Shane was already there. “Will you come –“
“Can I go –“
Shane smiled softly at him, and then snatched the basket back out of Ilya’s hands, and completely ignored every protest of how he could carry the fucking basket, Shane, come on.
They made every task on Shane’s list into a two-person job – laundry, putting food away, cooking. Ilya wasn’t particularly helpful with any of those things. He trailed behind Shane, who’d gotten a little intense about doing things for him, and didn’t really want him to help, anyway. So he offered sarcastic, counterproductive commentary on everything with his arms wrapped around his boyfriend from behind while he did whatever he needed to do, and they were both perfectly happy with the arrangement.
Through it all, the warmth radiating off Ilya’s skin slowly got warmer and warmer, the distance he could tolerate Shane being away from him got shorter and shorter. Which did mean, unfortunately, that he couldn’t talk himself into leaving the room when Shane called his parents to cancel dinner tomorrow, even though he wanted to absolutely melt into a puddle on the floor when Yuna definitely realized what Shane meant when he said ‘Yeah, no, we’re just gonna hang out here alone for a few days,’ and she said ‘Oh! Well, you boys have fun,’ as if that wasn’t the worst possible response to get from your parents when you said actually we need to be alone so we can literally just fuck constantly for a week. But whatever. At least they wouldn’t have any more surprise interruptions – ideal, really, since he didn’t particularly want Shane to commit a surprise murder.
They checked things off the list slowly – laundry done, clean sheets and blankets and towels folded neatly on Shane’s dresser; food cooked and neatly portioned in fridge, snacks and bottles of water nicely arranged in the bedroom, despite the way Ilya knew Shane hated food in the bed. Then, all at once, there wasn’t a next thing on the list, except the thing that wasn’t on the list, and they suddenly forgot how to make eye contact with each other.
Shane took a deep breath before he opened his mouth, and Ilya knew what he was going to say before he spoke. “We don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”
And he did want to, but not because he wanted. He was still scared – less, he knew, than he had been two days ago, but still scared – but the start of this heat already felt so incomparably different than any other… he didn’t want to try for the first time when he had no idea how he’d be feeling about it.
So, yes, he wanted to do it now – while he could still think, still be rational about it, knew he would know how to say stop if he needed to, knew that Shane would be able to be rational about it (which he might not be either, later).
He also desperately wanted to take the out Shane was giving him, and take a nap on the couch or play a video game or anything that didn’t have anything to do with sex. But that was not productive right now, probably.
“No,” he said slowly. “I do. Just… Is scary.”
Shane’s arms wrapped around his waist, his head on Ilya’s shoulder. “But you are brave,” he said, echoing Ilya’s own words back to him. They’d been his mother’s originally, in Russian, when he’d fallen learning to skate or been nervous to talk to the first girl he’d had a crush on. Something about Shane repeating his mother’s words back to him, not trying to tell him he shouldn’t be scared, just steady and solid and there… Ilya’s eyes filled up with tears as he rested his chin on Shane’s head.
Shane kissed the side of his neck and stood up. He didn’t say anything about the wetness on Ilya’s face, just tugged his hand toward the steps to the bedroom. “C’mon, baby.”
Ilya allowed himself to be led.
He sat down on the bed first, because he told Shane earlier that he really didn’t like asking him to come into the nest, but Shane refused to just go in even if Ilya said it was fine. Shane eventually tolerated the compromise of Ilya reaching for him, because that was like a type of asking, even if it wasn’t words.
Shane hesitated for a second, but then Ilya’s hands were on his hips, drawing him in, and he came willingly. They just kissed for a long time, the familiar weight of Shane’s body on his helped hold back the anxiety that threatened to overwhelm him.
It’s safe here, he reminded himself. Just Shane here.
His hands shook anyway.
He noticed, suddenly, that it was dark in the room despite it being the middle of the afternoon. Because Shane had lowered his stupid fucking blackout shades that Ilya made fun of, probably because he knew this would be easier for him if it was dark. And it was. He didn’t know if he could’ve done anything in full daylight, right now.
He didn’t know what to do with that realization, or the emotions he seemed to be feeling about it – how intrinsically Shane knew him, even though they’d had maybe 2 real conversations before this week.
He’d never been nervous in bed like this – he’d always known exactly what he was doing, known exactly what he wanted his partner to be doing, been completely sure of telling them exactly what to do. Especially with Shane. From the very first time, they’d moved together like they’d done it a thousand times. It’d taken them years to learn how to understand how to talk, but they’d understood how to touch from the first brush of their lips.
Now, though, he didn’t know where to put his hands.
Shane, too, seemed restrained. He was usually quick to push Ilya’s shirt up, splay his hands across his abs, lick up the side of his neck, bite impatiently at his lips. His hands stayed firmly planted on either side of Ilya’s head, his weight on his elbows.
Ilya did his best to let muscle memory take over, to fall into the familiar rhythm of losing clothes and kissing Shane. He tugged once on the hem of Shane’s shirt, and he sat up on his knees to pull it off. He was so fucking hot, and looking down at Ilya like nothing else mattered in the whole world.
And maybe, possibly, Ilya was starting to accept that nothing else did matter to Shane – not as much. Definitely not right now.
Ilya’s hands went back to his hips, and he felt a little more like he knew what he was doing. Shane still wasn’t touching him, and he was becoming fairly sure that he wouldn’t, until Ilya told him he could. Still not quite settled enough to tell him to do anything, Ilya picked up one of Shane’s hands and tucked it under his t-shirt, into the spot he usually would’ve put it himself.
Shane seemed to take the hint, and started moving a little bit more naturally. He kissed him a little harder, rucked his shirt up. Ilya moaned when he scratched his fingernails down his chest lightly, and Shane smiled into his mouth. He pulled Ilya’s shirt up a little further. “Off?”
“Mm,” Ilya replied, lifting his shoulders up so Shane could pull it the rest of the way off. It was an acceptable enough answer, and Shane tossed it onto the bed. They spent a long time kissing, again, before they went any further.
Ilya was sure they’d never spent this long on the build-up before – even the first time he’d fucked Shane, they’d spent quite a while on the prep, but the kissing and taking clothes off had been only a few minutes, hurried and giggly and wanting.
Shane kissed his neck, his shoulders. Ilya let his eyes close, letting himself lose his brain to the sensation of Shane’s hands and mouth on him. He trailed down, across his chest, his stomach, his hip bones. His hands touched the waistband of Ilya’s pants, and paused. “Okay?” he whispered.
“Okay,” he whispered back.
Shane slid the shorts off his legs, letting them drop wherever. He wasn’t stopping to fold their clothes today, apparently. Shane didn’t touch his underwear, just slid his hands up and down Ilya’s thighs, continuing the soft trail of kisses down his body. There was something about it that somehow didn’t feel sexual, even though they were definitely both hard. Just Shane showing him that he loved him, that he could relax.
He was trying to relax. It was mostly working.
On the way back up his legs, Shane’s fingertips dipped under the hem of his underwear, and paused. Please, Ilya thought, and flinched away from his own mind, shocked.
Shane felt the reaction and pulled his hands away, sitting up a little. “Too much?”
He made an embarrassing, sad little noise and put Shane’s hands back where they were. “No. Is good.”
Shane looked at him, unconvinced.
“Shane,” he said, and it came out in a whine. “Please.”
Shane’s eyes turned dark, lips parting in surprise. Ilya smelled the spike of his arousal in the air, and his own hips rolled up in response to it. Shane’s fingers moved to the elastic, and Ilya shifted to let him pull them down.
Shane stared at the cloth in his hand, and glanced back down at Ilya – watching him with wide eyes, completely lost for any words except Shane, please, more. Shane brought it up to his face, breathed in deep. His eyes rolled up, and he sighed into the fabric before he dropped it on the ground.
Ilya’s mind flashed to a Vegas hotel room, years ago, Shane spread out in front of him. If Shane had been hot then, he was a fucking god now – all sharp lines and soft hands and alpha, fuck.
Shane leaned back over him, catching his lips again – quick and desperate, familiar. Ilya hooked his fingers in the waistband of Shane’s pants, pushed them down over his ass with his underwear at the same time. Shane shoved at them, kicked them off without breaking their kiss.
Fully naked, the nervousness seemed to settle over them again. Shane’s hands stilled on his shoulders. Instinctively, they were laying with Shane’s knees on either side of his hips, a position ingrained into them like breathing, perfectly comfortable, completely natural.
A position completely unsuited to what they were doing.
Shane – slowly, hesitatingly – put one hand under Ilya’s knee. He paused, probably looking up to check in, but Ilya’s eyes were clenched shut, face tipped up towards the ceiling. There weren’t any coherent thoughts in his head, just blind panic.
Shane spoke softly, closer now. “It’s okay, baby. You’re doing so good. We can stop, if you want.”
Ilya shook his head. No. He didn’t want to stop. He still didn’t open his eyes.
“You still want?” Shane said, a terrible impression of Ilya’s voice. His lip twitched up at the corner. “There you are.” He touched Ilya’s cheek, and Ilya tipped his head into his hand. “It’s okay, if it’s a lot. If you don’t want to talk. I just need to know you’re okay.”
Ilya nodded, a single tear running into his hair. “You want me to touch you?”
He nodded again. His whole body was tense. “You want me to keep talking?”
Another nod. “Please,” he whispered.
“Okay, baby. I can.”
Ilya knew Shane hated dirty talk – he loved when Ilya did it, but he thought it was embarrassing, usually. That wasn’t what this was, anyway. Shane wasn’t saying anything dirty. He was just sweet.
His hands found Ilya’s hips again, steady and slow. He never moved too fast, nothing startling or unpredictable. “So pretty, baby. So brave.” The words came in a whisper, just loud enough to hear in the quiet room. He kissed Ilya’s thigh. “’M so proud of you.”
Tears rolled freely down Ilya’s face even as he shifted his knee to part his legs a little further, a silent indication of yes, more. He felt the fear and the want in equal measure, every whispered word and soft touch pushing the fear away. It wasn’t getting smaller, but maybe farther away – pushed into the past, where it belonged.
The now belonged to Shane and safety and wanting.
Shane moved to kneel between his legs, soothing every panicky breath with kisses and whispers. He mouthed at Ilya’s hard cock, little licks and kisses, sucking lightly on the head of it. Ilya sighed into the familiar sensation, let Shane’s hands part his legs a little further.
“Doing so well,” he said, a little louder than a whisper, now. “More, baby?”
Ilya’s hand found one of Shane’s, tangled their fingers together. He pulled him up for a kiss, finally looking back at him. “Good?” Shane whispered.
Ilya nodded. He was good. Probably. Better than he’d expected, at least.
“More?”
“Yes.”
“You’re so gorgeous. I love you.” Shane started to pull away again, but Ilya stopped him with both hands on his face.
“Shane –“ His voice was thick. He couldn’t find the rest of the sentence.
“I know, baby.”
“Ya tebya lyublyu.”
Shane kissed him again, found his place back between Ilya’s thighs. His hand moved steadily from his hip to his cock, and further down. Ilya fought to keep his muscles relaxed, tried to just watch Shane.
The consistent, soft stream of reassurance and praise from Shane’s mouth faltered as soon as his fingertips touched the slick, hot skin around his hole. “Shit – God, Ilya – smell so fucking good, baby.”
Shane’s finger circled once, twice – giving him time to react, say no, stop. His body surprised even him, rocking his hips towards the pressure, whining impatiently.
Shane kissed his knee, pressed one finger in. Ilya hissed, but it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, it was just… unfamiliar. Shane was watching him, scenting the air, searching for any sign that he was upset.
“More,” he asked. “Shane, more.”
He was right on the edge of his heat, he probably could’ve taken Shane without fingers at all, if he’d wanted to – which he didn’t – but the single finger was just frustrating. Not enough to feel like anything, just enough to remind him what they were doing.
Shane, still so good at following instructions, even like this, kept going.
He could feel the second one. It was just barely starting to feel like something other than weird when Shane turned his hand just a little, crooked his fingers – and holy fuck. He gasped, his hand gripping Shane’s wrist hard, maybe hard enough to leave a bruise. Shane froze immediately.
Was this what it was supposed to be? All the years of wishing he could be dead instead of a fucking omega, and there had been this the whole time? And that wasn’t even anything – the first tiny stroke of pleasure, just barely getting started. And then he was crying for real, for a million things he hadn’t known and could never fix.
And then Shane was there, holding him, touching his face. “It’s okay, you’re okay, baby, it’s okay. We’re okay. Just you and me, remember? We’re here, now, it’s okay.”
We’re here, now. He took a shuddery breath, forced his eyes up to find Shane. “Hi, baby,” Shane said, smiling sadly. “I got you.”
Ilya choked out another rough sob, trying to get his breathing under control. Shane leaned down towards him, and Ilya smelled the soft rain scent of Shane trying to calm him down. He breathed it in, let it wash over him.
“Am okay,” he said, finally.
“What happened? Did I –“
“No. No, lyubimmy. Was not you. Was just… good, yes? Made me sad, for me.” Which wasn’t exactly what he meant, but it was as close as he was going to get in fucking English right now. After 10 years, you’d think it would be easier – and it was better – but it was still a fucking chore.
“It was good?”
“For one second. Do not get cocky, Hollander.”
“I’ll show you cocky, Rozanov,” Shane said, kissing him. It felt more normal than any kiss they’d had in two days, lighthearted and a little antagonistic.
“Oh, you will?” Ilya asked when he pulled back. He didn’t feel like he’d been crying five minutes ago. He felt good.
“You want to…?”
“Yes.” It came out more confidently than any time he’d said it since they’d started talking about this, feeling like he actually meant it.
They both moved a little more confidently, too. A little less careful. Shane moved fairly quickly from one to two fingers to three, and Ilya had chosen not to take note of the noises coming out of his mouth or he might die of shame. His whines turned from pure sound to words without any conscious decision being made. He just wanted. “Shane, now, now, now…”
Shane stilled, his whole body pulled tight with restraint. “You want it?”
“Da, please, want you.” The absence of Shane’s fingers felt like a loss until he was pressing against him again, and “Fuck – fuck, fuck, Shane – s’big, god, fuck!”
“Holy shit, baby, oh my god – you’re so fucking – oh my god.”
Shane didn’t move when he was all the way in. He pressed his face to Ilya’s neck, breathing harshly. Ilya was on another fucking planet. He’d never imagined that anything could feel like this. He wanted to stay here forever, just him and Shane with nothing between them, finally giving themselves what they were supposed to have wanted the whole time.
“More. Move, Shane.”
He pulled back slow, eased forward again. It felt fucking electric, but neither of them had ever liked anything slow. A few more strokes and he was fucking him like he meant it – not fast, but deep and hard. Shane was mouthing messily at his neck, teeth scraping against skin. “Fuck, Ilya – ah – mine, baby. Tell me you’re mine.”
“Yes, yeah, yours. ‘M yours.” Forever. Let me be yours forever, let me have this, let me have you like you have me.
Unfamiliar pressure was building in Ilya’s stomach. He felt the swell of Shane’s knot at the base of his cock, the stretch as it pressed in and out of him was fucking indescribable. “Do you want – fucking shit – want it?”
“Fuck, yes, yes.” Ilya felt his knot catch, tugging against his rim, unable to slip past it anymore. The rhythm turned from thrusts to deep grinding, and the pressure in his stomach built higher. Shane was still nipping at his neck, growling mine, mine, mine into his ear, and Ilya entirely lost his rational train of thought again.
“Yours – mine, Shane – bite me. Wanna be yours – fucking, bite me.”
“Jesus fuck, baby, shit – gonna, fuck,” he cursed. He ducked his head down, biting into the soft spot below his collarbone. Sharp fangs split the skin easily. It wasn’t what Ilya wanted, but it was close enough. His whole world exploded, every nerve in his body lit up white-hot. He clenched down hard around Shane and he came too, cursing and clutching their bodies together.
It took a minute or two for them to catch their breaths. Shane was licking lightly at the bite mark on Ilya’s shoulder, already starting to mend under his tongue. Ilya almost wanted him to leave it alone, let it scab over, let it scar.
“That was… woah.” Shane said.
Ilya felt like that was a pretty accurate description. “Was good, for you?”
“Is that even a question? Fuck. I didn’t think… Yeah. Yeah, it was good.”
Shane shifted, and Ilya clenched around him again with a little gasp. He was reaching for a towel, and lifted himself up just enough to wipe most of the cum from between their stomachs. It wasn’t perfect, but they were going to wake up sticky and sweaty and disgusting either way.
“And it was… you liked it, too?” Shane asked.
That was like asking if he liked sunshine or hockey or Shane. His immediate response was to say no, because to say yes to ‘liking’ any of those things felt like a lie. “Was… I have no words. Very good.”
“Mm, good. You did so good, baby,” Shane said. Ilya made a pleased sound, and it melted into a low, rumbly purr. He didn’t try to hide it this time. “I like that,” Shane told him, running a hand over his chest.
“I meant it earlier,” Ilya said, yawning. “Want you to bite me.”
“I wanted to, too. You know it’s not because I didn’t want to.”
“We could. No one would know.” Shane was saying something else, but Ilya was too close to sleep to hear it. “Bite me,” he murmured into Shane’s hair before his eyes closed all the way, the sound of Shane still talking like a lullabye in his ears.