Archive of Our Own

1.

The culmination of each of Ilya’s worst nightmares took place on a Wednesday afternoon. 

It was drizzling outside, dark stormclouds in the distance drifting closer and closer and threatening to open up the heavens above Ottawa. Ilya was shopping downtown, shopping for Yuna’s birthday present. He wasn’t sure what he was going to get her, but he couldn’t mess it up. Last Christmas, he’d gotten her a locket necklace to keep a picture of her family in, and she’d decided on a photograph of the four of them together, including Ilya, down by the lake at the cottage. They were all squished together to fit into the frame, Yuna’s chin on top of Ilya’s head, and Ilya’s temple pressed into Shane’s. 

On Boxing Day, she had opened the locket and showed him which picture she’d chosen, and he’d had to excuse himself from the dinner table when the lump in his throat grew too big to breathe around. 

He’d been into three shops already, but he hadn’t found anything that spoke to him, and the air was thick with the promise of a storm. He was about ready to give up for the day, deciding to stop for a quick smoke before running in to a couple more stores. He’d barely gotten the cigarette between his lips before he looked up and saw it. 

A hulking electronic sign hung up on a tunneled catwalk that connected two high-rise buildings. The screen was plastered with a face that was too fucking familiar. Because it was his own boyfriend’s face. Shane Hollander’s face. 

And it wasn’t just his face. It was his…everything. 

Before Ilya’s brain caught up with his body, he was already two blocks down the street. He was dodging civilians left and right, weaving through the crowd of Sunday shoppers to get a closer look. As if he needed it. As if this giant fucking billboard wasn’t visible from space. 

He finally came to a stop right below the sign, his head falling back on his shoulders as he stared up at the video. He tried and failed to process the reality of it several times before just giving up and watching it, slack-jawed and heavy-lidded.

Shane was fucking glowing against a warm, amber backdrop, his skin golden and luminescent. He was in a gym of some sort, sunlight filtering in through the windows and bathing him in brightness. His clothes were obscene. A white compression tank top tucked into whorish white shorts, all of it soaked through with sweat and nearly translucent, molding to his body and rippling with each contraction of his muscles. 

The video started with Shane on a treadmill, stumbling and grasping at the safety handlebars, soaking wet hair falling into his face, sweat slipping from his temples into the corner of his mouth and dripping from his chin. After a couple seconds he turned around, leaning his shoulders on the front control panel and walking backwards, his legs barely keeping up with the pace of the belt. The camera angle cut to the side, and he lolled his head to face it, making eye contact with the audience. His full, pink lips were parted, tantalizing with their wide Cupid’s bow. His eyelids were drooping, lethargic, tired. 

This was a look familiar to Ilya only from their bedroom. And now here it was, on display in downtown Ottawa, broadcasted for the entire fucking world to see. 

Ilya was going to be sick all over the sidewalk. 

In the video, Shane suddenly pushed himself off of the treadmill, tripping over his own feet. Faceless arms moved in from both sides to shove thirty-pound dumbbells into his hands, pulling him down until he finally adjusted to the weight. He did a couple reps of bicep curls, alternating between arms. He grit his teeth, neck vein protruding and abdomen tightening as he pushed himself to his limit. The camera cut to a supremely slutty shot of his vibrating, quaking arms, focusing on the contraction of his muscles and the crystal beads of sweat sliding salaciously down his smooth skin.

Without warning, the faceless arms flew back into the shot to snatch the dumbbells from his hands. Without the weight, Shane lost his balance and fell to his knees on the hardwood floor. His chest heaved, and his head tipped back on his shoulders, arm muscles flexing tight as he ran both hands through his dripping hair. The beat of his heart was visible through the thin material of his compression tank. 

Ilya watched in horror as Shane gripped the hem of that very same compression tank and tugged it up to wipe away the sweat at his forehead, revealing the chiseled, sweaty planes of his abdomen. 

He whipped his head around, alarm bells blaring between his ears when he saw several onlookers had stopped to observe the absolute pornography taking place in front of them. He wanted to cover their eyes, wanted to shoot the fucking billboard with a bazooka or explode it with his mind. 

Instead, he and the crowd around him watched as the faceless arms shoved Shane down onto his stomach, and he pushed himself up into a planking position. He held it for several moments before his eyes darted up and the camera whipped towards a clock on the wall that sped through five minutes in only a few seconds. When the shot focused back onto Shane, his head was ducked towards the floor, every inch of him quaking with the effort of holding the plank. 

This was hell. This was hell and Ilya was in it. Because this is exactly what Shane looked like when he was on the verge of an orgasm, gasping and begging and shaking and crying. This is what he looked like in Ilya’s bed, for Ilya’s eyes only, except now it was for everyone’s eyes.

On the screen, the manhandling arms were back, tipping Shane over flat onto the floor from his plank. Instantly, he curled up to start a set of elbow-to-knee crunches. For a moment, the camera focused on a drop of sweat traveling from behind his ear down the prominent vein in his neck, then followed it as it pooled in his collarbone. The shot pulled back out to show Shane thumping down to the floor, exhausted, eyes rolling back in his head, back arching just slightly. The hands were having none of it, pulling him to his feet by his wrists. 

Shane stumbled listlessly towards the gym’s brick wall, his shoulder ramming into it. He tried to hold himself up with an arm pressed into the wall above his head, but it was a fruitless effort. He slid down to the floor, breathless and boneless. His face was fucking vulgar, euphoric like someone was just off camera with his cock in their mouth. 

Finally, the faceless hands shoved bottles of Powerade in every imaginable flavor at him. He took one, holding eye contact with the camera as he chased a drop of the drink up the side of the bottle with his tongue. Then he squirted a healthy stream of it into his open mouth, smiled, and winked at the camera to close it all out. 

And then it was over.

Ilya could feel his heart beating in his eyeballs. And his cock. He was so fucking hard and he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk. As quickly as he could manage, he ducked into the alley between two buildings. His phone was in his hand and at his ear before he could stop himself. 

His boyfriend answered on the first ring. “Hello?” 

“Shane,” Ilya said staunchly in lieu of greeting. “What the fuck did I just watch?”

“What?” Shane asked, rustling noises crackling through the speaker. “What are you talking about?”

“This advertisement,” Ilya hissed. “What the fuck is this?” 

Shane laughed like this was at all funny. “Oh, the Powerade thing? I forgot they were dropping that this morning.” 

Ilya made an indignant noise. “It is porn. You were in porn.”

“Jesus, Ilya. It’s an ad.” Shane’s bratty eye roll was practically audible. “You’re being dramatic.”  

“Tell them to take it down,” Ilya demanded, entirely unreasonably. He knew this would never happen. He had to try, at least. “I have seen it now. They can take it down.” 

“That’s not how it works. You’ve done this before.”

Ilya passed a hand over his face. “No, Hollander, I have not. I have not done a porno before.”

“It’s not a porno!” Shane was far more exasperated than he had any right to be. “It’s for Powerade!” 

“Okey,” Ilya said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Powerade is brothel now?”

“No, what—” Shane huffed. “Sex sells, Ilya. You know that.”

“Ah, sex sells. So, you agree that you did a porno?”

“Oh my God,” Shane said on a scoff. “I’m hanging up on you.” 

“Hollander, don’t you—” Ilya started, but the line was already dead. 

He exhaled shakily through his nose, attempting to parse through the notes of fury and lust thrumming heartily beneath his skin. On one hand, he wanted to pull the video back up and lick the screen of his phone, pretending he could taste the salt of Shane’s sweat through the metal the way he tasted it when Shane was splayed out on their bed, face down and ass up and whimpering his pleasure into the sheets. 

On the other, he wanted to pour bleach into the eyes of anyone that had already seen his boyfriend’s fuck-me face. Which was likely tens of thousands of people at least. 

It was a very troublesome life Ilya lived.

He typed out a quick, impulsive text, and wasn’t surprised to receive an answer in mere seconds. 

ILYA:

Yuna. 

YUNA:

Hello, Ilya! How are you?

ILYA:

Bad. 

ILYA:

Was this video your idea? With Powerade?

YUNA:

Yes! Isn’t it great?

YUNA:

Powerade’s online engagement is up 123% since this morning.

YUNA:

Even their stocks have seen a jump today! 

YUNA:

And Shane’s socials are seeing huge numbers. This was a successful collaboration. I can’t wait to work with them again!

ILYA:

You cannot do this again. 

ILYA:

Is so bad for my health.

ILYA:

Please.

Yuna reacted to that final text with a laughing emoji. As if Ilya’s whole world was not crashing down around him as they spoke. And he was not being dramatic. 

He stomped around downtown Ottawa for two more hours, frightening shop owners and chainsmoking a number of cigarettes that would have sent Shane into an early grave if he were to ever find out. And he didn’t even find a fucking birthday present for Yuna, either. Which was perfect and great and didn’t at all make him want to kick a wall about it.

When he arrived home that night, Ilya watched the video again, curled up in his bed, in the cover of the private dark. On the billboard, the video had not been playing with sound. So Ilya had not known that there was an old, filthy beat attached to the advertisement that only emphasized its sensuality. Or, that the creative director had decided to leave the sound of Shane’s gasps and groans in the final cut.

Despite the envy curling low in his stomach, he was so hard it hurt. He palmed himself over his briefs, hissing at the bolt of pleasure that jumped up his spine. He shoved his underwear down his thighs, sighing in relief when he finally took himself in his hand.

Ilya could be annoyed about the video while also acknowledging how ridiculously fucking hot it was. He contained multitudes. 

It was easy to imagine himself there with Shane, in that gym, without the cameras. They’d done a version of this themselves, after all, all those years ago. Alone together in that shitty hotel gym, sweating and trembling and staring and surviving for months on the brush of questioning fingertips. 

Ilya spit into his palm and stroked himself, chin falling forward onto his chest as he imagined the wet heat of Shane’s mouth around his cock. He imagined pinning Shane to the ground, slamming into him, both of them sliding with each thrust as Shane’s sweat slicked up the hardwood floor beneath them. 

His hand tightened around his shaft, and he arched off of the bed as he swiped a thumb over his tip and pretended that it was Shane’s tongue. He turned the volume up on the video until the sounds of Shane’s grunting and gasping echoed off of the walls and filled the room. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that Shane was really here, really beneath him or on top of him or splayed out on the sheets begging Ilya to ruin him. 

But he couldn’t close his eyes. Not when Shane was right there in front of him, all exposed flesh and dripping sweat and wanton groans. A drop of pre-come blurted from Ilya’s slit when Shane grabbed the dumbbells and a particularly high whimper escaped from his lips. 

In the end, Ilya didn’t even make it through the full video. When Shane fell to his knees on the screen of Ilya’s phone, he came into his hand with a muffled groan, tossing his head back into the pillows and huffing out sharp breaths with each wave of pleasure that pulsed through his cock. 

When he lifted his head and looked back at the screen, Shane was dragging his tongue up the side of that Powerade bottle, eyelids drooping, beads of sweat dripping from the ends of his hair like dewdrops.

“Fuck,” he whispered, and scrambled to exit out of the video before his cock could perk with interest for another round. When the fog cleared and he sobered enough, he pushed himself out of bed to clean himself off.

For the rest of the night, he busied himself with tidying the kitchen and folding laundry and even vacuuming the fucking floors. But, through it all, in the back of his head, played the sounds of Shane’s moans and whimpers on repeat. By the time he climbed back into bed, he had thoroughly exhausted himself. Not enough, though, to forget about the video. He pulled the covers over his head and searched it back up, muting it to keep himself from getting hard again. He watched it play on repeat until his eyes ached, until they slipped shut against his will, and he fell asleep with that amber glow burning through his eyelids.

Still, his phone sat between his hands into the early hours of the morning as it played the video over and over and over again. 

2.

Ilya could not have imagined the magnitude of the advertisement’s impact. Not in a million fucking years. 

It followed him everywhere he went. On the television at the gym. On the radio in his car, the hosts discussing Shane’s sex appeal and his knack for embracing male sensuality. On the screens at the barber shop when he went for a quick trim. In the conversations of passing pedestrians on the street, lamenting on all the dirty things they’d love for Shane to do to them. Even in his own fucking home, as he sat down to watch a game while he ate his meal, and the broadcast replayed the advertisement during the intermission for the commentators to dissect. 

It was Powerade’s most viewed advertisement in history, having garnered over 50 million views across every social media platform imaginable. The whole fucking world was talking about Shane Hollander and his newfound status as a heartthrob sex symbol. There was no avoiding it, no escaping the knowledge that everyone around him wanted to fuck his boyfriend and all he could do was stand there and listen to them say it. 

Jealousy was new to him, this unpleasant, wrenching sensation that lived behind his ribcage. It writhed around inside him, chewing up the most vital pieces of him and spitting them back out, leaving him with nothing but ugly, putrid wounds. It clawed and bit and snarled, begging for escape, but Ilya held the monster deep inside, refusing to make it anyone else’s problem but his own. 

So, when he pulled up some silly game on his phone to de-stress and was instantly met with an in-game advertisement in the form of Shane Hollander’s sweaty abs and blowjob eyes, he smiled to himself. Then he remembered just how many other people were being greeted by the same ad in this game and also probably in every other app that existed. Ilya threw his phone to the other side of the couch and went for a fucking walk instead. 

It was cold out, and he was fucking shivering, and he would rather have been tucked under the blankets with his boyfriend, kissing up his warm neck and reveling in the feeling of the way he purred against Ilya. But his boyfriend was a hundred and twenty-five miles away, and Ilya’s bed was just as cold as the streets of Ottawa, so there really were no better options than this. 

There was a candy shop in the shopping center a ways down the road that he would drown his sorrows in. They knew him by name there, and always gave him a complimentary bag of dark chocolate caramels that he tried to wave away but secretly made him feel a little less alone. When he finally turned onto the right street, just a few stores down from the saltwater taffy and green apple jellybeans he needed to stay sane, he was distracted by a cluster of women, and a handful of men, too, gathered around an electronic advertisement screen in the middle of the sidewalk. 

And then he heard it. The music. The…the groaning. He saw the warm amber glow of the background filtering through the mass of people, and knew that all of them were staring at his boyfriend, listening to his boyfriend. 

Ilya approached quietly, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting up, tucking his head against his chin as he smoked and hoping that they didn’t recognize him in his beanie and oversized denim jacket. He eavesdropped on their sporadic conversations, their words cutting under and over each other just enough that he caught snatches of obsessive adoration. 

You don’t understand, Laura. I need him.

I bet his lips are so soft.

He could crush a watermelon with those thighs.

God, I just know he smells so good.

Do you think he could bench press me? 

His dick has to be huge, Taylor. Just look at him. 

I wonder what his sweat tastes like…

Rage thrummed through Ilya’s veins with each beat of his heart. But then he heard three specific words thats made him want to burn the city of Ottawa to the fucking ground. 

They’re calling him Canada’s Community Boyfriend.

His head snapped up, searching for the person who said this, but there were too many of them now. The crowd around the screen had doubled in size, all of them with their phones out, recording the advertisement in front of them. As if they needed to. As if the whole world was not already intimately familiar with the specific contours of each and every one of Shane Hollander’s ab muscles. As if they didn’t already know what Ilya’s boyfriend looked like on his fucking knees.

Ilya’s boyfriend. Ilya’s. And he didn’t fucking share. 

He was going to level the Powerade headquarters. He was going to put a hit out on the CEO and he was going to hire someone that knew a whole damn lot more about computers than he did to hack their systems and wipe them clean. Erase the fucking video from the world databases so no one could ever watch it again.

Except him. Because he was Shane’s boyfriend. Not the entire fucking country of goddamned Canada. For fuck’s sake. 

His blood roared in his ears as he shoved through the doors into the candy shop to escape before he did something drastic and landed himself on the news. He managed to spare a smile for the shop owners that greeted him, and went about his perusal of the sweets. He restocked on his favorites and then added some extra treats to the mix as a gift to himself for surviving these horrors. 

He dumped his purchase onto the counter at the register, and he was in the middle of fishing his wallet from his coat pocket when the college-aged girl behind the register suddenly squealed. Ilya startled, eyes flitting about the store for any signs of danger before landing on the girl. It was Tasha, he realized, remembering her name from the last time he’d visited the shop. 

Tasha was staring up somewhere behind Ilya, eyes glittering and smile blinding. 

Ilya turned, stilling when he realized that the television screen on the other side of the store from the cash register had gone to commercial. 

One commercial in particular. 

Fucking Powerade. 

“How much is total?” Ilya asked through gritted teeth, trying his best to speed through this interaction so he could go the fuck home. Leaving in the first place had been a big fucking mistake. He should have gone down to his basement gym and worked himself ragged, pushed himself until the screaming pain in his muscles was louder than the knowledge that there was at least one person in the world currently jerking off to a video of his boyfriend. 

Tasha didn’t even hear him, giggling to herself and clapping her hands to her blushing cheeks. “Oh my God. He’s just so…so…dreamy.” When her eyes landed on Ilya and she remembered who she was talking to, she gasped. “Ilya! You know him, right?” 

“Yep.” Ilya was aware of the irony and was completely unamused by it. “How much?”

Tasha’s mouth parted. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and he wished he could blame her for being so starstruck. “Are you friends with him?”

“No.” Ilya had been inside of Shane at least eighty-two times. He was not going to call him his friend. “How much?” 

Finally, finally, Tasha got the hint and turned the card reader around for him to swipe and sign for his purchase in terrible, awkward silence. He snatched his bag from the counter and stormed out of the store, glad to see that the crowd outside had finally dispersed. 

When he got back home, he pulled up the advertisement on his computer and watched it with his arms crossed, detached and unapproving. Yuna never should have given the green light for this. It was whorish and unbecoming. Shane had a perfect, boy scout reputation to maintain, and someone should have put a stop to this before so many people had seen it. 

Ilya paced his living room, scratching at his arms like an addict while the video played in the background. He needed to voice his concerns to someone. Maybe they’d be taken into consideration, debated seriously when he pointed out that this commercial was a net negative to the ethos of Shane’s brand. Maybe they’d already earned back the money for Powerade through content engagement and sales that Shane had been paid in the first place, and they’d rip the video from the television networks and social media and—

Ilya was being ridiculous. He was being unreasonable. And he wanted Yuna to continue to approve of his relationship with her son. He wanted her to like him. He wanted her to love him. So he said nothing, and continued to stew in his jealousy for the rest of the night until it lulled him to sleep like a lullaby. 

3.

As if his life couldn’t get any worse, Ilya received a Google Alert as soon as he walked through his front door, exhausted from a grueling practice. It had been exactly one week since the advertisement dropped and his patience was wearing razor thin. There was only so much more of this bullshit he could tolerate before he snapped, and he itched to do something that couldn’t be taken back. Tattoo Shane’s name on his skin. Tattoo his name on Shane’s skin. Bite him over and over and over until the wounds healed into scars that would never fade. 

These were terrible urges to have. 

Ilya was toeing off his shoes when he finally clicked on the taunting notification, and his eye twitched as he realized what he was looking at. 

Shane had sat down for an interview with Sports News Tonight. An interview about hockey, yes, but all anyone wanted to talk about right now where it concerned Shane Hollander was that damn fucking Powerade ad. 

Shane was sitting in a director’s chair with a table full of different Powerade flavors next to him. He was blindfolded, which Ilya found unfortunately thrilling, and he was trying to guess which flavors he was tasting without looking at the colors. It was Shane, so of course he got nine out of ten flavors right, and the crew behind the camera erupted in applause before he took the blindfold off with a smile and patted at his messy hair. 

“So, Shane,” a voice off camera said. “You’re leading the league with 134 points this season, only three points ahead of the second place slot, which is occupied by Ottawa’s Ilya Rozanov.”

Ilya’s heart skipped a beat at the quick grin that pulled at Shane’s lips. He threw himself onto the sofa and propped his phone on his chest to watch. 

“Only three?” Shane asked, lifting a brow. “I guess I’m going to have to step up my game.”

“Asshole,” Ilya murmured fondly at his screen. 

“Despite these close scores, the Metros are projected to clinch a playoff spot within the next few weeks, while the Ottawa Centaurs are likely to be eliminated from contention within that same timeframe. Why do you think that is?”

Ilya sat up straight on the couch. What the fuck? Who the fuck was this jerk-off? He turned the volume up so he could hear Shane’s answer more clearly. 

Shane frowned. He probably hated the reminder that Ilya was, objectively, a big fucking loser. “Well, um, it’s really unfortunate, but we have to remember that a franchise can’t build overnight success off of a single player. Hockey, at its core, is about teamwork. It’s about the collective rather than the individual. At the end of the day, if the team isn’t clicking, then it’s going to be hard to come back from that. Even if Ilya Rozanov is probably the greatest player of our generation.” 

The next time Ilya was in the same room as his boyfriend, he was going to suck the soul right out of his fucking cock. He was going to make him cry and scream and see colors that didn’t exist.

The interviewer laughed. “I don’t know about that, Shane. I think I’d put my money on you any day of the week.” 

Ilya inhaled sharply through his nose and considered the potential repercussions of sending anonymous death threats to this man’s house. 

“Now, I have to ask.” The interviewer’s voice pitched low, like he was sharing a secret. “The infamous Powerade commercial that has taken the world by storm…tell us about it.”

Shane shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it, looking skyward for an answer. “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, y’know? I’m not so used to this much attention outside of the context of hockey, and I definitely wasn’t expecting it now. I can say for sure that the last week has been totally crazy.” 

The interviewer laughed. “It’s everywhere, Shane. Even my grandmother has seen it, and she doesn’t own a phone. Everyone wants a piece of you.”

Everyone?

Ilya stilled. If that meant what he thought it meant…

“Like I said.” Shane grinned, resting his ankle on his knee. He looked unbelievable, like if Ilya were in the building he would take Shane back into his dressing room, pin him to the door, wrap a hand over his mouth and fuck him so deep that he tasted Ilya in the back of his throat. “It’s been really crazy. But I’m grateful for everything. Everyone’s been so nice.”

“Shanya,” Ilya groaned out loud to himself. “They are not being nice. They want to suck your dick. I have been telling you there is a difference.” 

“Can I get a little inside scoop on the process?” The man asked. “How did they make you look so…” He trailed off, likely gesturing expansively out of frame.

Ilya filled in the blank.

Sex-drunk?

Cockstarved? 

Freshly fucked?

Shane clasped his hands between his knees and leaned forward in his chair. His attention was no longer on the camera, but the man behind it, eyes shimmering with amusement. “Actually, they thought it would be better to make some elements of the ad more authentic instead of faking all of it. Before we started filming, I ran through a whole workout routine. Some cardio to warm up, then a weightlifting set, and we finished up by focusing on a core workout. I was beat by the end of it.” 

“So, it was real?” The interviewer asked, intrigued. His voice pitched higher in a way that had Ilya gripping his phone harder, knuckles whitening. “The sweat? The heavy breathing? The way you stumbled and slid down the wall at the end of it?”

Shane laughed. “Yup. Totally. I could hardly walk after all of that.” 

The interviewer hummed appreciatively. “Are you sure there’s no behind the scenes footage? Because I would’ve liked to see more of that.” 

Ilya was going to fucking kill him. 

Shane only smiled, like he had no clue at all that he was being shamelessly flirted with on camera for everyone to fucking see. Like this didn’t signal to every other desperate bastard that they might have a chance with Shane Hollander if only they compliment him nicely enough. 

“It’s the first advertisement I’ve seen in a while that just totally oozes sex appeal,” the man added. “It’s obvious why everyone’s so obsessed with it. You’re giving the people what they want. I mean, they’re calling you Canada’s Community Boyfriend.”

Shane’s lips parted, and a blush as pink as peonies bloomed across his freckled cheeks. “I’m sure that’s not…I mean that’s very…thank you.” 

Ilya’s blood ran cold. His head was swimming and his vision was going spotty. He was going to raze the entire country of Canada to the fucking ground. Watching as another man made his boyfriend blush was enough to make him dizzy with nausea. 

When the video ended, Ilya immediately pulled up his text chain with Shane. It wasn’t too late, so he knew Shane would still be awake. 

LILY:

You have new boyfriend?

JANE:

What?

LILY: 

New boyfriend. SNT interviewer. Very friendly.

JANE:

You saw that? I told you to turn off the Google Alerts for my name. It’s embarrassing.

LILY:

You are not denying? He is your boyfriend now?

JANE:

Don’t be ridiculous. That’s his job. 

LILY: 

Is his job to give you bedroom eyes behind camera? 

LILY:

Is his job to talk to you like he wants to fuck you?

LILY:

You think he could fuck you the way you like?

JANE:

Ilya.

LILY:

I do not think so. He doesn’t know this, only I know this.

LILY: 

He doesn’t know that you like it so rough. 

LILY:

He doesn’t know that you like it a little mean. 

LILY:

He doesn’t know how slutty you are.

LILY:

No one knows this but me. 

JANE:

You’re so fucking jealous. You sound crazy.

LILY: 

You like it. I know you do. I know you’re hard right now. 

JANE: 

I’m not.

LILY: 

You are. I know this. You’re always hard when you’re thinking of me.

LILY:

Thinking of how good I give it to you.

LILY:

You might already be touching yourself.

JANE:

Stop. I’m in public. 

LILY:

Has never stopped you from getting hard before.

LILY:

I bet you are already wet.

LILY:

Soaking through your panties.

Ilya’s phone buzzed in his hand and he let it ring four times before picking up, despite how fucking desperate he was to answer the call. He put it on speaker. “Yes?”

“You fucking asshole,” Shane murmured right into the microphone. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Ah, what is wrong, kotyonok?” Ilya asked, threading a pitying pout into his voice. “All hard and there is no one there to touch you? Not even your new boyfriend?”

Shane’s voice was so cute when he whisper-yelled that it was hardly tolerable, so petulant and prissy. “He’s not my—it was just an interview!” 

Ilya had grown tired of talking about that horrible, faceless man. “Where are you?” 

“Team dinner,”  Shane answered, and his swallow was audible. 

“In the bathroom?”

“Yes.”

“Private or stall?”

Shane hesitated “Stall.”

“Ah, so we better make this quick.” Ilya pressed the heel of his palm into his hardening cock and groaned louder than he usually would when he was all alone. 

“Rozanov, are you—?” Shane cut himself off, exhaling in disbelief. 

Ilya made an exasperated noise. “Are you not? Take your fucking cock out and make yourself come before someone walks in and figures out how much of a whore you are for me.” 

“Ilya,” Shane whined, but the sound of him tucking his phone against his shoulder and ear while he fumbled with his zipper gave him away. He could tell when Shane got a hand around himself because he purred low in his throat.

“My good boy,” Ilya murmured, keeping his own touch light as he stroked himself so he wouldn’t finish first. “Always so good for me. You want me to talk to you?”

“Please,” Shane whispered.

“You have to be very quiet, okay? I know this will be hard for you. You love to be loud.” He imitated Shane’s accent. “Fuck me, Ilya. Feels so good, Ilya. Harder, Ilya.” 

“Shut the f—“ Shane started, but cut himself off with a low whine. “Oh, God.” 

He could picture it perfectly. Shane tucked shamefully away into a filthy bathroom stall, his head pressed sharply into the divider, eyes squeezed shut against the embarrassment of being so desperate. The image of it was a tonic, healing and life-destroying at once. Heat bloomed at the base of Ilya’s spine, pressure building in his cock. 

“You know what I would do if you were here?” Ilya asked, hips thrusting up into his hand. His blood was roaring between his ears. He couldn’t believe that Shane was actually doing this, actually getting himself off to Ilya’s voice in public when someone could walk in at any moment. 

“What would you…” Shane trailed off, letting a particular noisy moan slip free. It was loud enough that Ilya heard it echo off of the stall walls. 

“Ah, I told you to be quiet, Hollander,” Ilya chastised. He used the pre-come leaking over his tip to slick the rest of his cock, and the slide was delicious. “Those noises are only for me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Shane whined, little moans still escaping him, likely in the same rhythm as the stroke of his hand.

Ilya hummed. “Is okay, I know it’s hard.” He tipped his head back and groaned, loud and shameless. This was too heady, too tantalizing. He squeezed the base of his cock to stave off his orgasm. “If you were here, I would suck your cock until it hurt, until you were begging me to stop. I wouldn’t stop until you came at least three times and you would take it like a good boy.”

“Jesus fuck,” Shane choked out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

“You better hurry.” Ilya laid his trap, waiting to see how Shane would react. “Wouldn’t want someone to catch you.”

He made a strangled noise on the other end of the line, some throaty thing that was all pent-up, submissive need.

“That’s what I thought,” Ilya purred, arching up off of the sofa. He laid his phone on his stomach and snuck his free hand up the hem of his shirt, tweaking his nipples hard. “Mmmm. You—you would like that, wouldn’t you? You want someone to hear you, yes? Want them to know you take it so good? Want them to know who you really belong to?” 

“Mmpff,” Shane groaned suddenly, and Ilya knew he was muffling the sounds of his release against his hand. Biting at the meat of his palm to keep the entire restaurant from hearing him cry out Ilya’s name.

That’s right. Ilya’s name. No one else’s. 

Ilya gritted his teeth, speeding up now that Shane had finished. “Tell me. Tell me who you belong to.” 

“You,” Shane murmured, the word on the verge of a whimper. The microphone was having a hard time picking up the particular sounds of his heavy breaths. “I belong to you.” 

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya said on a gasp, working himself over the edge, heels digging into the couch cushions as his release seeped through his fingers. His orgasm pulsed through him, down from his stomach to the tips of his toes, then zipping back up to his chest until he couldn’t breathe. His head felt full of helium, light and airy and dizzy as he panted through the aftershocks. 

“God. God, Ilya, I f—” Shane started, and swallowed his words with a sharp, panicked inhale. Silence followed, and then the banging of a door and a new voice that Ilya didn’t recognize. 

“Hollzy, man, are you good in here?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I—” Shane’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Just not feeling too great. Might duck out early.”

“You can’t leave until we cut the cake!”

Shane sighed. “Okay, okay, I’ll be out in a minute.”

The door slammed shut in the background.

Ilya raised a brow. “…Cake?”

“They, um, got me a cake.”

“Is not your birthday, Hollander.”

“It’s not a birthday cake,” Shane murmured, his tone laced with embarrassment.

Ilya blinked. Then realization dawned on him. “No.”

“They got my picture printed on a sheet cake at the grocery store.”

“Let me guess,” Ilya said flatly.”Your Powerade porn face.”  

“It’s not—” Shane took one of his ridiculous calming breaths. “They were fighting over the bicep piece before I left.” 

The high from his orgasm had officially waned. Ilya pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t want to know these things, Shane.”

“I should probably make sure they’re not trying to kill each other,” Shane said, regretful. “I love you. I miss you. Only a couple more weeks.” 

“Love you,” Ilya muttered, always loathing this portion of the phone call. His mouth pulled at the edges, and he toyed with fraying thread on the couch. “Enjoy your cake.” 

“Goodnight, Ilya,” Shane murmured, and Ilya could imagine him pressing a kiss to his fingers and then laying them to the screen of his phone before hanging up. 

The line went dead, and Ilya was left sprawled on his couch, covered in come with nothing but the distant memory of his boyfriend’s touch and a loneliness he couldn’t ever manage to shake. 

4.

When the video landed in the hands of his teammates, Ilya thought about shooting the sun with a nuke and wiping the Earth of all its inhabitants. 

The Centaurs had crowded into a local sports bar after their most recent loss, drowning their sorrows in alcohol and billiards. They had dispersed into groups when they’d arrived, the forwards playing pool, the defensemen throwing darts, the goalies sharing a pitcher of beer.

Ilya was sitting alone at the bar, nursing his second glass of vodka, when it happened. 

The familiar, slutty music of the Powerade advertisement started, and it echoed for only a moment throughout the bar before it was drowned out by raucous cheering. From Ilya’s own fucking team. 

Hell yeah! Fuckin’ A, Hollander!

Look! It’s Canada’s Community Boyfriend!

Need me a piece of that ass!

I didn’t get it before. But I do now. Goddamn. 

You think my wife would mind if I asked him to be our third?

Guys, this feels a little objectifying.

That last one was from Luca Haas, who would be the only Centaur Ilya would spare when he decided exactly how he was going to punish all of those other dumb fucking dickheads. There would be torture to be sure. Psychological warfare that was possibly, probably illegal. And they would deserve every second of it. 

He didn’t turn to watch, but he was so intimately familiar with the video by this point that he closed and it played out like a movie on the backs of his eyelids. Treadmill. Dumbbells. Plank. Crunches. Shane sticking his tongue out for a stream of Powerade the same way that his tongue hung from his mouth when he asked Ilya to come on his face.

Ilya continued to sip his drink. He nearly spilled it, though, when Wyatt Hayes slung a drunken arm around Ilya’s shoulder and leaned his hulking weight against him. “Rozy!” 

“Wyatt,” Ilya greeted, not particularly fond. 

“Missed you over there,” Wyatt said simply and affectionately. “You’re missing out on all the fun!”

“I am babysitting you drunk fucks.” Ilya glared up at him through his lashes. “Is not supposed to be fun.”

Wyatt pouted. “You could have at least watched Hollander’s commercial with us. Have you seen it?”

Had he seen it? Who hadn’t fucking seen it at that point? Monks? Nuns? Agoraphobics? 

“Listen,” Wyatt started, and Ilya was already sure he did not want to hear this. “I’m not gay, man. But if I was? Hollander would totally be on my list.”

Ilya was going to gnaw Wyatt’s hand from his wrist where it rested on his shoulder. “You have had too many margaritas. You are done for tonight.” 

Wyatt’s jaw dropped dramatically. “What? C’mon, Cap!”

Ilya waved down the bartender. “No more for this guy, ah?” Then he thought better of it and corrected himself. “No more for any of them, actually. They are cut off.”

The bartender opened his mouth to protest. 

Ilya beat him to it, feeling a little bit like an entitled prick. “Unless you would like me to tell your boss that you are happy to overserve your customers so you lose your three dollars an hour, you will use your magic to turn their beer to ginger ale.”

“Right,” the bartender said staunchly. “Got it.”

“Man, why are you being such a buzzkill, Rozy?” Wyatt asked, pouting. But then he waggled his eyebrows and grinned. “You could’ve at least told him to give us some Powerade.” 

Ilya closed his eyes. “Hayes. You have eight seconds to get away from me or you will be skating suicides for the rest of your career. You will be like the guy with the rock, ah, what is his name?”

“Sisyphus?” Wyatt offered.

“Yes, yes, him.” Ilya tipped his glass towards Wyatt in thanks. “When you think you have skated all the suicides that you could ever skate, you will still have more suicides to skate. This will be your life forever until you die. Goodbye.” 

“You’re no fun,” Wyatt grumbled, heaving a deep sigh and turning to relay the bad news to his teammates. 

Just as Wyatt finally ambled away, Troy Barrett slid silently onto the stool next to Ilya. He did not know that this was a particularly terrible time to decide to keep Ilya company. 

They sat in silence for a few long minutes before Troy finally worked up the nerve to speak. 

“You run that camp with Hollander, right?” He asked, chasing a bead of condensation down his bottle of beer with his thumb. 

“Yup.” Ilya didn’t elaborate. 

“I know he…” Troy paused to consider the best way to phrase it. “I’ve heard what they say about him.” 

Ilya was going to blow up this bar with all of them inside of it. “Have you?” 

“I know you two are close, and…I was wondering if you, uh, if you knew his type. What he likes.” 

“Ah,” Ilya said, his voice cold. “You are wanting to know if you are what he likes?” 

Troy sucked in a sharp breath, attention dropping down to the bartop between his hands. He refused to look at Ilya again, and a dark flush crawled up his neck from beneath the collar of his shirt. “Yes,” he admitted, low and slightly ashamed. 

Troy had been making eyes at Harris for weeks now, eyes that Harris hadn’t yet noticed. But Ilya had noticed. And Ilya knew that Troy had noticed him noticing. 

And all of this noticing being done by the wrong people meant that, unless he was as good at concealing his late-night trysts as Ilya used to be, Troy hadn’t fucked anyone since he’d arrived in Ottawa. Now he was looking to get some. Get Shane. 

You are not what he likes, Ilya wanted to say. He likes Slavic men with blonde hair and bad attitudes. He likes an accented voice in his ear telling him to bend over the back of the couch and take it like a good boy. He likes opening his mouth and begging for it to be spat in. He likes early Sunday mornings with five mile runs and healthy breakfasts and soft scratches to his scalp while he watches replays from the previous night’s hockey games. He likes to be told that his freckles are beautiful and that he’s perfect and good and loved. 

Ilya said none of this. Instead, he took a long pull of his vodka, knuckles whitening around the crystal glass. His heart was hammering in his throat. “He would not be interested.”

Troy was quiet for a moment. “Why?” 

“You sound desperate,” Ilya observed, raising a brow. He knew he should not be so cruel as Troy’s new captain. But everyone in the whole goddamned world wanted to fuck his boyfriend and Ilya was sick and fucking tired of it. “Hollander does not like desperate.” 

Troy thrummed his fingertips against the bartop for a moment. “How do you know?” 

Fear was a frigid reminder that he was treading ice far too fucking thin to be mouthing off like this. That Shane had too much to lose and he would never forgive Ilya if he drunkenly, jealously spilled all their secrets. But the idea of someone better, someone less twisted and mean, catching Shane’s attention was an unbearable, insupportable ache in his heart. 

“I think I heard Harris talking about you the other day,” Ilya lied. He was a horrible captain. “On the phone with somebody. Said he’s been waiting for you to say something. Y’know. Make a move.” 

Troy’s head whipped towards him. His eyes bugged out of his skull. “He said that? You heard him?”

“Mmm.” Ilya nodded. He knocked the rest of his drink back and kept his attention focused on the glass in his hands. 

“Okay,” Troy said to himself more than to Ilya. He sat up straighter, head turning quickly to look back at Harris where he’d taken up post as referee to the game of billiards. He shook out his shoulders and stood, smoothing down his shirt and fixing his hair as best he could without a mirror. “Thanks, Rozanov. I owe you one.” 

Ilya nodded shamelessly, knowing he would take this moment to his grave. He was so depraved. 

Troy shot him a small smile and weaved his way through the maze of tables back to their teammates. When he leaned up against the table that Harris was sitting at, looking up at him through his lashes with appraising eyes, and Harris’s lips parted in stupefaction, Ilya did not feel as bad about his mind games. 

Later, when he was alone in his hotel room, Ilya fished a Metros sweatshirt out from the bottom of his suitcase. If any of the Centaurs saw this, he would be hanged for treason, probably, but Ilya was sad and the shirt smelled like Shane, so he tugged it on over head and crawled into bed. He tucked the shirt over his nose to breathe in the faint trances of Shane’s scent, and pulled the familiar video up on his laptop. He was certifiably drunk, but even that didn’t stop his cock from swelling with interest at the familiar sight of Shane in that compression tank. 

He had barely gotten his hand around himself before Shane collapsed from his crunches to the floor, eyes rolling back with exhaustion and arching off of the floor like a slut. Ilya was already so wound up, so angry and horny and missing his boyfriend terribly. So when he was met with that look, that blissed out face that Ilya knew better than he knew his own, a dam inside of him broke instantly. Blinding pleasure flooded through him and he stilled, teeth gritted as each of his breaths was punctuated with little animalistic growls.  

As he came, his spend roped across the computer screen, decorating Shane’s face in his pleasure. It would be a bitch to clean up later, but it was a balm now. Something to remind him that only he knew what Shane looked like in the privacy of their bedroom, glasses crooked and covered in come, mouth open on a moan as Ilya tapped his cock against his plush lips. Only he knew what Shane sounded like when he begged, when he was teetering on the edge but Ilya wouldn’t let him tumble over it. 

But this wasn’t—fuck, it wasn’t enough. He needed—God, he needed—

Ilya propped his computer up on the nightstand and grabbed the pillow behind his head. He shoved it between his legs and hissed at the overstimulation against his spent cock. But he rocked his hips slowly into the fabric, soft and plush, staring at the video of Shane playing over and over again on the screen, covered in his drying come, until he was fully hard again, until he had to bite his hand to keep from crying out and waking Bood next door. 

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck,” he whispered. He closed his eyes on the image of Shane’s face, fucked out and sweaty, and humped into the pillow, focusing as hard as he could to pretend it was Shane’s hole, that his hips were grinding into the fatty swell of Shane’s stretchmarked ass. He captured the memory of the tight, hot squeeze of being inside of him, and listened to the wanton moans floating from his computer and it was enough.

Ilya came again, curling into a ball against the pillow that he had wrapped himself around, still moving against it like a dog in heat. The aftershocks were brutal, wave after wave of them coupled with the violent and awful absence of a person warming the bed next to him.  

When he regained enough strength to push himself up on his elbows and catalogue the mess he’d made, he realized with a sick sort of shame that tears had leaked out from the corner of his eyes onto the sheets. He’d also drooled on the sheets and come on the sheets. 

He was maybe, probably, certainly going to hell. 

While he was still delirious and a little bit tipsy and too fucking horny for his own good, he grabbed his phone from the nightstand and typed out a message.

LILY:

If Troy Barrett sends you a DM, block him.

JANE: 

Ilya, what?

LILY: 

Do not worry about it.

LILY:

I love you. Goodnight.

JANE:

Ilya.

JANE:

What does this mean?

JANE: 

Am I being pranked?

JANE:

Ilya, seriously.

JANE:

Hello? 

5. 

Ilya’s final straw regarding the god forsaken fucking advertisement came, shockingly, in the form of a butt dial. 

Excitement bloomed in Ilya’s chest when his phone buzzed and the name JANE popped up on the screen of his phone. He had been deciding what to eat for dinner, standing and staring aimlessly into his empty pantry. This was far more riveting.

“Shanya, moy lyubov,” Ilya greeted softly, too fond even to his own ears. He pressed his fingertips to his lips to keep that familiar, rabid smile from spreading across his face.

There was no answer on the other side of the line. Only a crackling feedback that indicated Shane’s phone was still deep inside his pocket. There was music, a thumping bass from somewhere beyond the microphone sliding against the denim of Shane’s jeans. 

“Ah, I see,” Ilya ruminated out loud. “My boyfriend has accidentally called me with his beautiful ass. Too much, too big, I always say. Too many squats. He does not listen.” 

Still no answer. But through the rumbling static and the vibrations of the music, Ilya did hear voices. They just weren’t talking to him. 

“Shane Hollander, right?” A deep male voice asked, filtering through the background noise. “I saw your video. You know the one.” 

And then Shane’s awkward laugh cut through it all, familiar and devastating. “Yeah, I know.”

“Everyone’s talking about it.” When the man said this, his voice was louder than it had been before. Which meant that he’d drifted closer to Shane. Maybe to hear him better. Maybe for worse reasons that killed Ilya to think about. “They’re calling you Canada’s Community Boyfriend.”

“Are they?” Shane asked, even though he knew they were. “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

The man chuckled. “I don’t know. I might have to agree. It was pretty hot.” 

Ilya’s vision crackled black. “Hollander,” he said, brash this time. There was no way Shane was going to hear his voice, but Ilya couldn’t just sit around and do nothing while another man was trying to steal his boyfriend’s virtue. “Shane. Shane.” 

“I think people are overreacting a little,” Shane admitted, sheepish. “It’s just a commercial.”

“I wouldn’t call it an overreaction.” The guy’s voice dropped low. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it.”

“Really?” Shane asked, appalled.

Good God. He didn’t even realize he was being flirted with.

Ilya angled the phone away from his face and yelled straight into the microphone, “Hollander, pick up the fucking phone!”

Shane didn’t hear him.

The man hummed. “Don’t you think that was the point of it? To get people to watch it as many times as possible because you look so fucking good?” 

Ilya’s hand shot into his hair, tugging at the roots. The Metros had beat the Admirals earlier this afternoon. If he bought a last minute plane ticket, Ilya could be in New York in the next two hours. So he could kill this fucking guy.   

“I mean, I suppose it is, maybe.” Shane paused. “But the main point of it was to sell Powerade. Because it was a Powerade commercial.”

Ilya absolutely could not listen to this anymore or he was going to have an aneurysm. He jammed his phone into the end call button, and angrily tossed his phone to the counter with a loud clatter. 

He turned and yanked the fridge open, searching for the vodka he kept tucked away in the back, and stopped. He’d forgotten that he’d stocked up on drinks just a few weeks ago, and Powerade lined the shelves, an assortment of flavors and colors that taunted and teased him. The enemy infiltrating his own fucking home.

With a snarl, Ilya stomped over to the trash can and heaved it back towards the fridge. He swiped an arm across the shelf and knocked all of the Powerade bottles into the trash where they belonged, then tied up the bag and dragged it to the curb where the drinks could no longer mock him. 

The vodka was waiting in his fridge when he returned, a drink that never mocked him, and that he could always count on to clear the muck and detritus from his head. Or at least silence it for just a night. 

He took a swig from the bottle. And then another. Then one more for good measure. When the first dredges of drunkenness lightened the weight in his shoulders, he leaned his elbows against the granite, and buried his face in his hands.

Ilya had never had much that was ever truly his. Not in any way that mattered, that wasn’t superficial and insignificant. But he had Shane. After all that time, he had something good and beautiful and loving, something that filled his life with so much joy that sometimes he couldn’t breathe around the way it fluttered in his lungs like butterflies.

And now that love, that infinite joy was being bastardized, trivialized by countless strangers who would never understand what it truly meant to love Shane Hollander. 

But Ilya knew. And all he had ever wanted was to call himself Shane’s boyfriend. Out loud. Where someone, anyone that wasn’t a fucking Hollander would hear him and know. Now everyone else had that privilege except for Ilya, who still couldn’t say a word. And it was killing him. 

He grabbed his phone off of the counter where he’d tossed it before throwing his miniature tantrum, and pulled the video up again. He watched it on a loop punishingly, obsessively. Between long pulls of vodka, he pictured what he would have done had he been there. He would’ve trapped Shane’s arms and legs against the floor beneath the dumbbells, face down and ass up. Would've bitten teeth marks into the pliant meat of his ass. Would’ve prodded his tight hole open with his tongue and fucked him with it on camera.

Now there was an idea for a Powerade commercial. 

It wasn’t long until his cock was rigid in his sweats, and he felt a little off balance from the alcohol sloshing around in his stomach. He shoved his hand down his waistband and pumped himself, rough and unforgiving. The friction was dry, and Ilya collapsed over the counter at the painful pleasure, forehead pressed sharply into his forearm and tattered moans tearing from his throat. 

But there was an undercurrent of sadness thrumming through him, pushing up against the delirious need. He lifted his phone and exited out of the video, typing out a shaky, drunken text with one hand while the other slowly stroked his cock. 

LILY:

i mikss you

LILY:

iwant to fuck yur pretty holew 

LILY:

want yo make you cryh 

JANE:

Are you drunk?

LILY:

no

LILY:

touhcinbg mysdlf

LILY:

thjnking aboyt you

When Ilya’s phone buzzed with a call a second later, he didn’t even pretend to be nonchalant about it. He picked it up on the first ring and cradled the phone next to his ear as if it were a precious animal. “Shanya,” he whispered, and he was still so hard, his cock throbbing in his hand, but the backs of his eyes prickled in spite of himself. 

Shane didn’t hesitate. “Why have you been drinking?” 

“I am Russian.” Ilya offered no further explanation.

“Ilya.”

“Shane.” Ilya paused, remembering why he was so upset. “Are you still partying?”

“What do you mean ‘partying?’” 

Ilya rolled his eyes, wishing Shane could see his petulance. “Party. With music, Hollander. Where stupid, probably ugly men are trying to fuck you. Are you with him still?”

“Huh?” Shane’s confusion was explosive. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“You called me with your butt. Again.” Ilya did a pathetic imitation of the man’s ridiculous Canadian accent. “Canada’s Community Boyfriend. That video was pretty hot, Mr. Hollander. I watch it one thousand times while I touch myself. I am boring just like you. Please let me fuck you in the back of my Honda Civic.”

“Jesus,” Shane said under his breath. “It wasn’t a party, Ilya. I couldn’t sleep. I went to the gym.”

Ilya was hard-pressed to believe that. Even if it did sound like a very Shane thing to do. “Ah, the gym. To show off your tight, slutty clothes and sweaty muscles. Maybe lay down on the floor and moan like you’re getting fucked.” 

“Oh my God. Oh my God!” Shane exclaimed, aghast, as he finally clued in. “Is this seriously about the fucking advertisement again?” 

“No,” Ilya lied, drunk and upset. “Is not about stupid fucking video.” 

“It is!” Shane scoffed. “What the hell is your problem with that commercial? You’re acting crazy!” 

“Oh, I don’t know, Hollander! Maybe my problem is that everyone wants to fuck my boyfriend! And I haven’t even fucked my boyfriend in a month. Or even…” Ilya twisted his lips and focused on a chip in the paint on the kitchen wall where Shane had knocked his suitcase into it last year. 

“Or even what?”

Ilya’s chest heaved with panic. His head was still light from the alcohol, inhibitions nearly nonexistent. He should hang up. “Nothing. Is nothing.”

Shane didn’t respond for a moment. And then, “Are you still touching yourself?”

Of course he was. He hadn’t touched his boyfriend in a month, and his raspy voice was filtering in through the speaker as if he was right there, speaking against Ilya’s skin. He stroked himself slowly, chills shuddering down his spine. “No.” 

“Liar,” Shane murmured. “I can hear you breathing fast.”

Ilya felt a little bratty tonight. “No you can’t.” 

“Keep going,” Shane instructed. Firm and demanding. “I want to listen to you. Spit in your hand. So you’re nice and wet. It’ll be just like my mouth.”

“Fuck, Hollander.” Ilya’s bones melted, grateful to be told exactly what to do to take himself apart. He spat into his palm and stroked it down his shaft, smothering himself in his own warm saliva. If he closed his eyes and focused on Shane’s voice, he could almost pretend it was his tongue swirling artfully around his cock. “I miss your mouth.”

“Sometimes, I…” Shane huffed, like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say.

Ilya rubbed his palm flat over the head of his cock and jerked at the overstimulation, biting off a curse. “Tell me.”

“Sometimes I want to suck your dick so much that—that my mouth waters when I think about it. Like I crave it. I want to feel you in the back of my throat. I want to choke on you.”

Ilya saw stars. His hips stuttered as he fucked into his own hand, and he pulled when a thick glob of pre-come oozed from his tip. He didn’t want to come. He didn’t want this to be over. Not when Shane was talking like this. “Christ. Oh my fucking God. Are you touching yourself?” 

Shane hissed like he’d just gotten his hand around himself. His voice was whiny, pathetic and small. “Yes. Fuck. I’m so hard. It hurts.”

There was nothing more in the world Ilya wanted than to fix this for him. To take him in his hand while he massaged his prostate with his cock and murmured filthy words into his ear until he came so hard he couldn’t think or speak or even breathe. “That’s okay,” Ilya purred, soothing. “I like you like this. Such a whore for my cock.”

Shane moaned. “Ilya.” 

Ilya white-knuckled the edge of the counter with his free hand. “Careful. You are in a hotel. Your teammates will hear.”

“I want them to,” Shane breathed. He growled quietly on the other side of the line, a suppressed moan that fought valiantly to escape. 

“Fuck. Have you showered yet?” Ilya asked, voice barely above a whisper, shame heating his cheeks.

“No,” Shane sounded leery through his heady panting. “I was just about to. Why?”

Ilya groaned, reaching down and pushing two fingers against his taint, jolting at the sudden onslaught of sensation. He was out of his fucking mind with want. “Don’t. I like when you’re sweaty.”

“You like when I stink?” Shane asked, incredulous, and Ilya knew his ears were burning with that delicious, disbelieving blush. “You can’t even see me.” 

“I can pretend,” Ilya said, a bit more bold, a whole lot pettier. “I have the Powerade video after all. Paints a pretty picture, yes? I am not the only one to jerk off to it. I know this.”

Shane choked. “Ilya. You’ve been jerking off to the Powerade commercial?” 

Ilya swore. “When I see it, I think of fucking your mouth. I think of drinking your sweat and pulling your hair and making you beg for my cock while I come on your pretty face. I cannot help this. My boyfriend is too beautiful.”

Shane gasped, mumbling obscenities under his breath. 

“Next time, when you’re here, you will watch me watch the video. You will see how hard it makes me, how I touch myself for you.” 

Shane keened. “Fuck. You’re so fucking filthy. Can’t ever keep it in your fucking pants, can you?” 

“Not with you,” Ilya said tightly. “You were made to be fucked by me. I can never forget this.”

“I wish you were here,” Shane cooed. His breathy, slutty moans were as pornographic over the phone as they were on camera. “You wouldn’t have to watch that commercial. I’d do anything you wanted. What would you want, Ilya?” 

“Can’t—” Ilya cut himself off with a gasp, the pressure of his slick thumb running along the thick vein in his cock whiting out his thoughts. “Can’t think. Feels…fuck, feels too good.” 

Shane’s boldness was characteristic of him when he was in the throes of pleasure. He had no filter, no control over his words and his desperation. “That’s okay. We’ll do what I want. Next month, before the charity gala, I want you to come inside of me.” Shane’s voice pitched higher, a little manic, the way it always did when he was approaching the edge. “I’ll wear a plug to keep it all inside, and then I’ll spend the whole night hoping that some of it leaks out and stains my suit so everyone knows that I’m being fucked like I deserve.” 

Ilya’s knees gave out from beneath him. He landed hard on the kitchen floor, head pressed against the wooden cabinets as his hand worked himself raw. He whined at the thought of his come spilling out of Shane’s raw hole in public, dripping down his legs and soaking through the fabric of his pants. Of their peers knowing exactly who was taking Shane to bed every night, knowing who was taking him deep and filling him up and making him scream until he couldn’t speak. Knowing who was really Shane Hollander’s boyfriend.

“Shane,” he said weakly, mouth open as the pressure at the base of his spine coiled like a snake about to strike. 

Shane whimpered, loud, right into the microphone. “Fuck, I’m so close, Ilya. Wish I could kiss you, wish I was coming on your cock, wish I was—” Shane’s words were cut off by a strangled, unintelligible sound that was vulgar and indelicate and so unashamedly Ilya’s alone to hear. Quick, successive puffs of breath into the microphone followed, the overwhelming waves of his orgasm that rendered him speechless.

Ilya came so hard he thought his eyes might have crossed. His orgasm blew right through him, numbing him from the neck down. It pulsed through his arms and legs, and his hips canted and stuttered as if Shane were right here in front of him, hole bared for Ilya to use. He collapsed from his knees to his ass, back pressed into the cabinets as he grit his teeth against the chills still shuddering up and down his spine. 

He hadn’t even caught his breath before Shane spoke, crystal clear and with a clarity that should not be achievable so soon after such an intense orgasm. “Can you tell me what’s wrong now?” 

Ilya huffed, spent. The room was starting to spin a little bit. “You are evil. Maybe the world should know this before they say you are their boyfriend.” 

“Please,” Shane begged. “I want to help you.” 

He could never deny Shane a single thing he asked for. But Ilya could not parse such a convoluted knot of wants and needs that lived inside of him. “I cannot explain. It does not make sense.”

“Your feelings don’t have to make sense. They’re still your feelings. And I care about them.”

Shane was too fucking good for him. Ilya didn’t think there was anything he could ever do to deserve him. 

Ilya sniffed. “Everyone talks about how much they love Shane Hollander. How he is their boyfriend, how they are obsessed with him. And it has been a month since I have even slept in the same bed as him. I cannot even call him my boyfriend like they are. Is not fair, I…”

Shane exhaled. “Ilya.” 

“Fuck.” Ilya pressed the balls of his hands hard into his eyes. “I just miss you.” 

“I’m sorry. I thought…” Shane paused. “I thought you would like the commercial. You always say that I’m boring.”

Ilya made a devastated noise. He couldn’t believe this. “Shane. You are boring. You are so boring. I like boring. I love boring. I want you to be boring forever.” 

Shane made an exasperated noise. “Ilya, that’s—”

“I want to come home to my boring boyfriend and listen to him tell me about his boring day while we eat boring dinner and fold boring laundry and make plans to visit his boring parents. You do not…” Ilya swore and closed his eyes as he knocked his head back into the cabinets. The conversation was derailing. He was baring too much of his fractured heart in his post-orgasm haze. “I think I need to go to bed, Hollander.” 

“No, Ilya,” Shane said, quick and insistent. “I want to finish this conversation.” 

The lump in Ilya’s throat was difficult to speak around. “I will see you next week, okay? I cannot wait. Counting down the days. I am very boring like this. You are terrible influence.” 

“Stop, we need to—”

He needed to hang up before he said something awful. I want to marry you, Hollander. I want to crawl inside of your skin, Hollander. I want to tell everyone in the whole world that I love you and they will never ever have you, Hollander. “Sleep well, moy zaychik. I love you.” 

Then he ended the call before Shane could get a word in edgewise. 

And as Ilya sat silently on his kitchen floor with his sweatpants around his knees and his cock limp against his thigh, the shame and loneliness were almost, almost too much to bear. But there was a calendar in his head counting down the days, and the clock on his microwave had just struck midnight, and he closed his eyes and smiled as he crossed off another. 

+1

Shane Hollander was sick and fucking tired of being Canada’s Community Boyfriend. 

Everywhere he went, he heard those words. The grocery store. The post office. Even the park where he did his morning runs. He had never been stopped by strangers this much in his entire life, even when he was the MHL’s number two draft pick, even after he’d won Rookie of the Year. Even after he’d captained his team into a Stanley Cup dynasty. 

He wasn’t being hailed for his hard work and achievements, no, he had been made a national sex symbol over the course of the last two weeks.

It was, frankly, absurd. 

He’d thought the jealous tear that Ilya had been on for the last few weeks was absurd, too. Right up until Shane had gotten him on the phone and heard the devastating waver in his voice as he admitted why he was acting so ridiculous. 

It’s not fair, I…fuck. I just miss you. 

That had put it all into perspective. Because, if he thought about it, he would also get a little bitchy if he was subjected to millions of people loudly proclaiming that they wanted to fuck his boyfriend. Hell, he would be more than a little bitchy. Even the thought of it was enough to set him on edge, to make him itchy, like he needed to crawl out of his own skin. Ilya was handling this fairly well for someone in his situation. 

He needed to show Ilya. Show Ilya that he was his without any shadow of a doubt, something that was permanent and tangible and real. A reminder that couldn’t be erased. So, Shane had made a stupid, reckless, last-minute decision a couple days ago while the team was on the road. It was dangerous and it was completely out of character, but it was what the both of them needed when their lives kept them so interminably apart. 

Since then, he’d been high on the adrenaline of it, high on the anticipation of sharing this new secret with Ilya and witnessing his reaction. Of seeing him for the first time in a month, and letting his beloved boyfriend fuck him so hard and deep that he’d carve out a new space for himself inside of Shane made just for his cock. 

So, when he heard the security alarm beep three times as the front door opened, Shane’s heart launched into his throat. It took everything in him, every ounce of his willpower, not to throw himself from the bedroom and down the hall to the entryway to take his boyfriend into his arms and crush him into his chest. Instead, he took a calming breath normally reserved for yoga but also often wielded in matters concerning Ilya Rozanov, and willed his pulse to slow. 

“Shanya?” Ilya called from further in the house. “Are you here, solnishko?” 

“In here,” Shane answered, wincing when his voice cracked. As Ilya’s footsteps approached, a bead of sweat trailed from the back of Shane’s neck down his back, curling over each knob of his spine until it reached the thin, frail fabric at his waist.

When Ilya walked into the bedroom, Shane was already on the bed, kneeling in the middle of the mattress. He wore a black and red Ottawa jersey, emblazoned with only one name and number.

ROZANOV.

81.

Because he wasn’t Canada’s fucking community boyfriend. He was Ilya Rozanov’s boyfriend. 

Ilya inhaled, sharp and quick. His duffel bag slipped from his shoulder onto the floor. 

Shane swallowed, breath shaky. “Hi.”

Ilya said something, quick and low in Russian that was too tangled and breathless for Shane to decipher. “Is that my…” 

Shane nodded, mouth dry. “I want you to see your name on my back while you fuck me. Just a reminder. That I’m yours.”

The look in Ilya’s eyes was a little feral. They darted all over him, from the number splayed out across his abdomen like a brand to the way that Shane’s knees parted just a little further on the mattress, sinking lower like he was sinking onto his cock. 

But Shane’s surprises were threefold. He was not even close to done. He lifted an arm to run his hand through his hair, coolly exposing his midriff. This was evil and intentional, a ploy to drag Ilya’s wild gaze to his waist. Because, to match the Rozanov jersey he wore, Shane had also chosen to sport a pair of sheer, lacy panties in a deep Ottawa red. 

His cock was already hard and dripping from the anticipation of being driven into the mattress, and the rough material trapped it up against his stomach. His tip poked out of the waistband, and pre-come had smeared on the skin just below his bellybutton, shining in the lamplight. 

A couple months ago, Ilya had sent him a link to a social media page that belonged to one of Rose’s friends, Molly. She was an actress, too, but she’d recently done a modeling campaign for a popular lingerie company. She’d posted the pictures to her page, and the cover photo was an image of her holding her breasts in her hands, wearing nothing but a skimpy red thong made of dangerously thin lace that did nothing to hide the most intimate parts of her.

You would look so pretty in these, Ilya had said.

Shane had replied instantly. Shut the fuck up.

Then he’d ordered them online under a fake name with a fake email address and prayed to everything holy that they’d arrive in discrete packaging. 

Ilya’s lips parted, and his cheeks burned red. His eyelids sunk to half-mast. His fingers flexed at his sides. “What is—you are—” He shook his head, blinking fast and frowning like he couldn’t understand, like he was hallucinating and Shane would disappear if only he just focused hard enough. He was making small, scratchy noises in the back of his throat with every breath, and Shane even doubted he realized it. 

“Wanted to look pretty for you.” Shane curled his legs out from beneath him and tossed them over the edge of the mattress, careful to keep them closed tight so he didn’t ruin the surprise. He leaned back on his hands and lolled his head to the side, cheek resting on his shoulder. He glanced up at Ilya, coquettish and fragile, through his lashes. “God, Rozanov. Aren’t you gonna come over here and give me a kiss?”

Ilya stalked towards him, all hard and dark and predatory. 

Shane expected Ilya to kiss him senseless. 

Instead, Ilya dropped to his knees at Shane’s feet and buried his face in his thighs. He wrapped his strong arms around Shane’s waist and locked his hands together at the small of his back, his grip tight and possessive. 

“What is this?” Shane asked softly, sinking a hand into Ilya’s curls.

“Missed you,” Ilya spoke against his skin. “Missed you so fucking much.” He lifted his head, murmuring as he pressed frantic, wet, open-mouthed kisses to the top of Shane’s thighs. His hands knotted into the fabric of the jersey, holding on like it was a lifeline. “Now here you are, in my jersey, in these pretty panties. Just for me. Perfect. My perfect boy.” 

“You haven’t even seen the best part yet,” Shane whispered, pulse racing. He was so fucking in love that he thought some days he might not survive it. He couldn’t believe he got to spend the rest of his life with the best person he’d ever known. 

“This cannot be true.” Ilya’s pupils were blown, his jaw slack when he blinked up at him. “You are not seeing what I am seeing.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Shane said softly, pushing the hair out of Ilya’s face, trailing a thumb across his cheekbone and down to his mouth, pressing firmly against Ilya’s bottom lip. “I’m full of surprises.”

Ilya opened up for him readily, sucking his thumb into his mouth and closing his eyes on a moan. He swirled his tongue around Shane’s finger just like he did his cock, his cheekbones hollowing out and his throat working as he swallowed. Finally, he pulled off with a pop, a string of saliva still connecting his wet red lips to the tip of Shane’s tongue. His voice was raspy when he spoke, dark and commanding. “On your stomach. I want to see what my name looks like on you.” 

“You could see it there,” Shane said, his vision blurring with nerves and need. “Or you could see it somewhere else.”

Ilya’s brows drew together. He tilted his head slightly. “What do you mean, Hollander?”

Shane bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. He was so fucking nervous. But he spread his legs anyway, putting himself on display for his boyfriend, reveling in just how slutty it made him feel. More slutty than any fucking advertisement or photoshoot ever could. 

He knew when Ilya saw it by the shutter of his eyelids, by the way his breath caught in his throat for a moment before whooshing out on a disbelieving exhale. 

“Do you like it?” Shane asked when Ilya failed to speak.

“Do I…” Ilya started, but his words puttered out. He didn’t move, didn’t blink, too busy staring at the new inscription on the inside of Shane’s thigh, just below the crease where his legs met his hips.

Илья, the tattoo said. Ilya. 

“I got it when we played in Dallas,” Shane admitted, breathless. He was worried Ilya would hear his heartbeat thundering between them. “No one knows me there and I went late after the game. Snuck out of the hotel.” 

Spots of red bloomed high on Ilya’s cheekbones. He said nothing still. 

“I, uh, I thought—none of the Metros are Russian, or—or Slavic or anything. They’ll probably never see it, but if they do, they won’t know what it means.” Shane was rambling now, fingers curling into the comforter. “If you don’t like it, I can get it removed, um, I know it was risky, but—”

And then Ilya was on top of him, mouth slotting ruthlessly over his, crushing Shane into the mattress and groaning into his own brutal kiss. His lips were everywhere, on Shane’s temple, his cheek, his jaw, his neck, peppering him in kisses like he just couldn’t help himself before dragging them back to his mouth, taking his bottom lip between his teeth and letting it snap back in place. 

“You will never remove this,” Ilya spoke against his lips, teeth clinking into Shane’s own as his mouth moved. He dragged a lethal tongue against Shane’s, making an animal noise in the back of his throat when Shane wrapped his lips around it and sucked. “Never.” 

Shane panted into Ilya’s mouth. “The guy said it will fade. Because of the placement.” 

“Then you will get it again.” Ilya pushed himself up to his knees and sat back on his heels, ignoring Shane’s protesting whine. He grabbed each of Shane’s knees in his palms and forced his legs wide apart, wide enough that the muscles in his groin burned. 

Shane moaned at the sudden pain, lifting his hips off the mattress like he’d find any friction. 

Ilya stared some more at the tattoo, his breathing uneven. “You are not real,” murmured. “Sometimes, in my head, I think…” 

Shane was so impatient tonight. So needy. “What do you think?”

“I think…you are like a dream.” He swallowed, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “One day I will wake up and you will not be real. Nothing so perfect could be real.”

Shane grabbed Ilya’s hand where it gripped his knee and brought it to his face, splaying Ilya’s palm over his cheek. He turned into the touch, and dragged his lips across Ilya’s flesh, a slow, reverent kiss. “Ilya…sometimes you really fucking break my heart.” 

“I am sorry, moy malysh.” Ilya’s pulse was fluttering at the base of his throat as he watched Shane kiss his palm. Then his gaze flitted back down to the tattoo. “I cannot believe you did this. Is forever, Hollander.” 

“I know,” Shane said confidently. “That’s why I did it.” 

“Does it…” Ilya exhaled. His thumb ghosted over the ink. “Does it hurt?” 

Shane shrugged, bashful. “It’s a little sensitive.”

Ilya pressed down hard, digging into the skin there with the pad of his thumb. 

Shane arched off the bed, cried out at the deep ache that burst beneath his skin so close to the crease of his thigh, so close to where his cock was trapped between the mattress, lace panties digging in to his sensitive shaft.

“I…” Ilya blinked hard and fast. “I am going to fuck you so hard you will still feel me inside of you next week.” 

“That’s what I’ve been waiting for,” Shane said, pouting slightly, chest rising and falling like he'd run a marathon. “Missed you so much. My fingers aren’t as good as your cock. Can’t get it just right like you do.” 

Ilya shuddered, a full-body jolt that he squeezed his eyes shut against, shaking his head incredulously. “You are going to kill me. Fuck.” 

“Take your fucking clothes off.” Shane trailed a hand beneath his—Ilya’s—jersey and pinched his own nipple, twisting it between his fingers and letting his head fall back in shoulders. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this bold, maybe telling Ilya that he wanted to attend their next gala with his come inside his ass “And show me who I belong to.” 

Ilya undressed at a lightning pace, tearing off his shirt and athletic shorts, leaving his underwear because he was too eager and impatient to get his hands on Shane. He climbed back onto the bed and shoved Shane’s knees roughly towards his chest, slipping a finger beneath the hem of the panties and trailing it towards his hole, then— ”Oh.” 

“I already—” Shane cleared his throat. He hooked a leg around Ilya’s waist and pressed his heel into the small of his back, urging him to move faster. “I already stretched myself. Couldn’t wait. Need you now.” 

“Fuck.” Ilya groaned, folding over Shane and pressing his forehead into his stomach. He dragged his tongue through the contours of his ab muscles, down to the crease where his hips met his thigh. “Is best part, Hollander. Making you beg for my cock. You would take this away from me? Ah, no. Not today.” 

“Ilya, we can just—” Shane choked on his own fucking saliva, every muscle in his body tensing, then melting into the mattress when Ilya’s mouth closed over his wet, prepped, quivering entrance. His vision burst with technicolor stars, eyes rolling into the back of his head and thighs quaking on either side of Ilya’s face. He always forgot just how debilitating the feeling of Ilya’s tongue prodding at his hole could really be, hot and searching and entirely familiar with every ministration that could pull Shane right to the edge. 

“This is how I used to fuck girls, you know?” Ilya mused, trailing down, sucking and biting and licking at the sensitive skin just below the swell of Shane’s ass. He teased his puckered hole with his fingers, slick with lube leftover from when Shane stretched himself open. “Push their panties to the side to see how ready they are for me. Just like this. You have to leave the panties on, see, because they are too pretty to take off. And is a little slutty too. Like she is begging so much that I do not even have time to undress her properly.”

Shane’s moan hit the back of his gritted teeth. “I don’t want to hear about you with other girls, Ilya.”

“Ah, other girls?” Ilya sounded pleased by this. He pushed a slow finger into him, waiting until he was two knuckles deep to curl up towards Shane’s prostate. “You are one of my girls, then?” 

Shane cried out at the blinding shock of pleasure, hands flying from the mattress to bury themselves deep inside of Ilya’s thick curls. He couldn’t speak, his brain melting out of his head through his ears in a pool of viscous gray matter. 

“This is how I know you are one of my girls,” Ilya lamented. He added another finger. “Always so loud for me.”

Shane could not parse the jealousy from the lust. Not in his current state. “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed. “There are no other fucking girls.”

Ilya hummed, low and throaty, scissoring his fingers inside, stretching and working him ruthlessly. “Now you know how I feel these last few weeks. Just another one of Shane Hollander’s many boyfriends.” 

That was it. Shane had had enough. He grabbed Ilya by his upper-arms then shoved him off of him and to the side, using that momentum to follow him. His leg swung up and over Ilya’s hip just as Ilya’s back hit the mattress with a thump.

Ilya made a startled noise, staring up at Shane with wide, glittering eyes. “Hollander—”

“You are such a fucking idiot, Rozanov.” Shane wrestled Ilya’s underwear down his thighs with shaking, desperate hands just before raising his palm to his mouth and spitting in it. He coated Ilya’s rigid cock in his own saliva and lined him up with his stretched hole, panties still tucked to the side. “There are no fucking boyfriends except for you.” 

Ilya didn’t have time to do anything but release a string of florid swears before Shane was sinking down onto him. 

The pressure inside of him was all-consuming and earth-shattering and everything he’d needed for weeks and weeks of missing Ilya and not having him. He sighed in relief, then canted his hips and moaned when he was fully seated on Ilya’s cock. He’d missed this. He’d missed this so fucking much it hurt every moment they were apart, every moment Ilya’s cock wasn’t filling him up to the very brink, just on the verge of too much. 

“Maybe I like that the whole world gets to see me like I was in the video,” he hissed into Ilya’s ear, grinding his hips down into Ilya’s pelvis and clutching handfuls of his pectoral muscles. “Maybe I like that they know they can’t fucking have me. That they’ll never fucking have me because I’m yours.” 

Ilya’s back bowed off the bed, the veins in his neck straining against his skin as he tipped his head back into the pillow and his mouth opened on a silent shout. 

Shane couldn’t help himself. He ducked forward and put his mouth to the pulse at Ilya’s throat, wrapped his lips around that frantic butterfly-wing flutter, and sucked. 

“Hollander,” Ilya choked, hips snapping up into Shane’s ass as his heels dug into the mattress. His hand shot into Shane’s hair, curling and twisting into the strands, tugging at the root until it hurt. “More. Harder.”

The angle was just so that the head of Ilya’s cock was ramming perfectly against his prostate, and Shane faltered, panting and whimpering into Ilya’s burning skin. But the sight of the purple bruise blooming just above the artery in Ilya’s throat ruptured something inside of Shane, and he couldn’t fucking stop. He latched onto him like a vampire, biting and licking and sucking, sliding from his collarbone up to his jawline and back down to where his throat bobbed as he moaned.

Ilya was babbling now, his accent thick and delirious as he begged and pleaded and thrashed against the sheets. “Pazhalysta, pazhalysta—da, da, Shanya, blyat, ya—oh, bozhe—”

Something dark and possessive unfurled inside of him at the marks he’d left on Ilya’s throat, claiming him, owning him in a way that no one else ever would. In a way that was out in the open for everyone to see, created so that they’d know Ilya could never belong to them like he did to Shane. He curled a hand around Ilya’s neck, fingers dragging against the saliva he’d left behind on his work. 

Ilya stared up at him, eyes wide as the moon. He nodded frantically, slapping a hand atop Shane’s where it rested on his throat and pressing down.

“You want me to—” The rhythm of Shane’s hips faltered and his head filled with fog. His heart kickstarted in his chest, racing at a pace too fast for his body to support and he couldn’t fucking breathe around the force of his love. 

“Please,” Ilya said on a sharp exhale.

Shane did as he asked, curling his fingers tighter around his throat, pressing that thin space between his thumb and forefinger against his Adam’s apple and bearing down. Not enough to damage, or to hurt, just enough for Ilya to feel it, too feel that loss. To know that he’d placed every ounce of his trust into Shane’s palm because Ilya belonged to him, his for the taking, his to do with as he pleased. 

Ilya’s eyes fluttered shut, lips parting, a vermillion flush spreading up his face to his hairline as his blood rose to the surface of his skin. The vein in his temple was tight and prominent, and Shane wanted to wrap his lips around it. 

“Like a collar,” Shane said in awe, releasing for a moment before gripping him hard again. His cock throbbed, hard and angry and red between them, pre-come dripping down onto Ilya’s pelvis and making it so perfectly easy to glide against him. Shane had to grip the base of his own aching cock to keep from coming too soon, and he gritted his teeth against the heat crawling up his spine, against the fire searing his nerve endings. “Since you want to be owned so badly.”

The sound Ilya made was not fucking human. His eyes were glossy and unseeing, red and watering, mouth open wide as he gasped for breath. He nodded weakly in fervid agreement, fingers digging into Shane’s wrist to keep him in place. 

“Breathe. You need to breathe, Ilya.” By the time Shane finally let go, sliding his hand up to cup Ilya’s, tears trailed down Ilya’s cheeks. He was so beautiful that Shane’s heart stopped beating in his chest. There was a lump in his throat and his eyes were going glassy, and he leaned down to press the gentlest kiss to his lips. But he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop himself from biting down, from sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, from swiping his tongue against his teeth. He tasted like mint, like Ilya, like first loves and laughter and light. 

“I love you,” Ilya choked, ruined. His face was wet and his lips were swollen and his cheeks were flushed. His neck was covered in love bites and a fading red ring where Shane’s fingers had just tightened around it. “IloveyouIloveyouIlo—fuck.” 

Shane was entirely numb, hands and feet and face stinging with pinpricks of pleasure from his heaving, unsteady breaths. He ground down against Ilya’s pelvis, milking his own prostate, mouth open and saliva leaking from the corners. “Feels—feels so—so,” Shane slurred, unable to finish his sentences, too blissed out and fuckdumb to do anything but moan like a whore. 

“Look at you,” Ilya rasped, voice scratchy and cracking. “You were made to take my fucking cock.”

Those words were a suckerpunch, landing straight to Shane’s gut. He collapsed, face falling into Ilya’s throat. “Yes,” he mumbled drunkenly. “Yes, made for this. For you.”

“So cl—close, Shanya, fuck.” Then, without warning, he pulled out from inside of him and shoved Shane backwards, waiting until Shane had fallen back on his hands, mouth open on an exasperated curse, to wrap his palm around his shaft and stroke furiously.  

“What are you…” Shane started, but trailed off when he realized what was happening. Static filled his head, his eyes crossing and his jaw going slack as he watched Ilya claim him. 

Ilya gripped Shane’s thigh in one hand and his cock in the other, angling it towards the new tattoo. With a bitten off curse, Ilya went taut as a bowstring, his hold spasming on Shane’s thigh as he came. White ropes of come striped across the tattoo, dripping down Shane’s thigh, the pearly translucence a stark contrast to the dark ink that spelled out Ilya’s name. Ilya rubbed a thumb into the mess, smearing it around as his hips twitched and his cock jerked, like this was exactly what was getting him off. 

“Oh, God.” Shane thought this was as good as it could get, staring at himself, at Ilya, decorated in vestiges of each other. Jerseys and tattoos and hickeys and come and spit and—

Then Ilya grabbed his waist in both hands, slipped his cock back inside, and thrust up into him, fast and unforgiving. He pulled Shane down to him, kissing him filthily, obscenely, fucking his tongue into his mouth the same way he fucked up inside of his hole. Deeply, laying his absolute claim. “You’re going to come on my fucking cock, okay?” He asked, and when Shane was too blissed out to answer coherently, he took Shane’s jaw in his hand and pressed his fingers into his cheeks forcing his mouth open. 

Then he fucking spat in it. 

Shane saw fucking stars. Ilya closed his mouth forcefully and waited for him to swallow while pounding ruthlessly into his prostate, and then Shane was climaxing, the force of it slamming into him like a freight train. Sensation blinded him, and he might have been speaking, might have been crying and begging and babbling nonsensical sounds, but there was no way to ever know. He reached down listlessly, trying to grab onto Ilya to hold him steady, but he didn’t have control over his body. He slumped bonelessly against Ilya, and his ears were ringing but he caught snatches of the words spilling out of his mouth and he was helpless to stop them. “I love you, I love you, I love—I love…I…” 

“I know this.” Ilya buried one hand in Shane’s hair and one wrapped protectively around the small of his back, holding him so tight to him that it was very well possible the two of them might fuse together into one. “Oh, Shane, I know this very much.” 

Shane’s vision was fading in and out and he couldn’t keep his eyes open. His muscles were still spasming, punching throaty sounds from his chest every time a shudder zipped up his spine. His tongue was so heavy in his mouth that he could hardly form words. “That was…that was....”

“Yes,” Ilya said, voice hoarse. “Yes, I agree.” 

By the time Shane came back to himself entirely, eyes clearing and feeling returning to his fingers and toes, Ilya already had his phone in his hands, typing rapidly. 

“Who the fuck are you texting?” Shane asked groggily, struggling to push himself back up to a sitting position. Ilya’s cock was soft inside of him, the final dredges of come that Shane had milked from him in those last moments leaking out steadily and trailing down Shane’s thighs. 

Ilya hummed. “Your mother.”

“Ilya. Be serious.”

“Am not joking.” Ilya shrugged and continued typing. “I am asking if she can get me my own Powerade commercial. I think I would like to be America’s Community Boyfriend.” 

An indignant noise tore from Shane’s throat. He snatched Ilya’s phone from his hand and tossed it across the bed. “Stop fucking texting my mom while you’re still inside of me! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Ilya laughed, lunging up off the bed to kiss Shane on the mouth, messy and wet and carefree. “Now that I think about it, would be sexy to see you all jealous.”

“I would not be jealous.” Shane leaned away from Ilya’s searching mouth and crossed his arms. “If you haven’t noticed, I am far more mature than you are.”

“Oh, you would be very jealous.” Ilya grinned up at him dopily. “I know this. You would be like angry little kitten, frowning all the time. Such a diva like this. I do not think getting tattoo of your name on my thigh would be enough. Would have to be my forehead, where whole world can see.”

Shane shoved him back down onto the mattress with a hand pressed flat into his chest, then laughed wildly when Ilya flipped them over and crushed him into the sheets with his heavy weight. His cock finally slipped out from inside of him. “Get off of me! You’re going to kill me!”

Ilya shoved his face into Shane’s throat and blew raspberries against his skin. “No. We will stay here forever and ever and ever. We will die here like this. Best way to go, I think.” 

“We have to get up.” Shane wriggled beneath him, fighting for freedom. “We’re disgusting. And you dehydrated me.”

“Oh, you are thirsty?” Ilya asked, kissing up Shane’s jaw, over his burning cheek to his swollen lips. He smirked against his mouth, devious and fiendish. “I will get you something to drink. What would you like? Water, tea, ginger ale…ah, I know. How about…Powerade?”

Shane gasped. He finally wrestled out of Ilya’s grip and tackled him backwards, the two of them fighting and laughing and brawling until they tumbled out of the bed and to the floor. They were breathless and boneless and buoyant and belonging completely, doubtlessly, perfectly to each other.