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When Shane wakes up the morning after their victory over New York, it’s with a thumping headache and sweat drenched bed sheets. He pokes his head out from under the comforter, eyes screwing shut against the mid-morning sun. Hayden is curled up in the bed on the other side of the room, snoring softly and drooling from the corner of his mouth. Shane snickers, if he wasn’t feeling so awful he would have snapped a photo to text to Jackie.
He fumbles for his phone on the nightstand, shutting the alarm off when he finally gets a hold of it. He groans; his mouth feels fuzzy and a bolt of pain spikes in his lower back when he rolls over.
“Fuck,” Shane groans, sitting up slowly. He slides one hand down to prod the place on his back the pain is radiating from. There’s a kind of tender, itchy feeling when he runs his finger over the patch of skin above his tailbone. It feels superficial, rather than the pain of a broken coccyx he’d been worried about. No permanent damage then, hopefully.
He’s still running his hand up and down his back when Hayden groans and rolls over, blinking his eyes open. He makes a kind of groaning, confused sound. “What happened last night?”
Shane shakes his head, “I dunno, man.”
He remembers chirping Scott Hunter and getting more than he bargained for in return. He couldn’t get it out of his head after the game— the idea that Scott, who didn’t even play with either of them, had seen beyond the surface of his and Ilya’s relationship. Shane had left the stadium angry, with himself, with fucking Scott Hunter, with Ilya, who wouldn’t text him back.
So when a couple of his teammates had invited Shane to go out after the game, sounding almost certain that he would say no, he’d agreed to come. The team had whooped and cheered and the next thing he knew, they were throwing back shots in the VIP section of some club in New York. Getting their strict, grandma of a captain to come along on a night out during the season was a rarity, and they had all been drinking heavily for the occasion. Shane hadn’t meant to let himself get so carried away, but his relative sobriety had practically killed any of his alcohol tolerance, and it only took a few shots before he was feeling it.
“I’m gonna—,” Shane waves a hand in the direction of the bathroom and Hayden just nods, already tapping away on his phone with that lovesick look on his face he always gets when he speaks to Jackie. God, Shane hopes he isn’t that obvious.
Teeth brushed and face washed, Shane strips off his shirt, wincing when the hem grazes the sensitive skin of his lower back. He tries to look at it in the mirror, but twisting pulls the injury painfully, and he accepts that yeah, maybe he needs some help with this one.
“Hayden,” he calls out, unlocking the bathroom door and cracking it open, “I think I hurt my back last night, can you have a look?”
Hayden blanches, “dude, you better not be out next week when we play the fucking Raiders.”
“I don’t think it’s serious,” Shane steps out of the bathroom and goes to perch himself on the edge of Hayden’s bed.
Hayden mumbles something about killing Shane if he has to play the Raiders without him, flicking the light above his headboard on and sitting up properly. Shane’s stomach drops when Hayden honest-to-God squeaks and then hisses, “is this a fucking joke?”
“Is what a joke?” Shane’s head whips around to meet a wide-eyed Hayden.
“Shane, this is—,” Hayden cuts himself off, lunging for the packet of wet wipes he keeps on the bedside table when they travel. He presses the wipe against Shane’s skin and starts scrubbing at it desperately, and Shane practically falls off the bed at the stinging sensation.
“The fuck is wrong with you?,” he asks, stepping away from Hayden’s bed, “that hurt.”
“Not as much as looking at that hurt me!”
“What’s ‘that’?”
Hayden opens his mouth, then abruptly closes it.
“Take a photo and show me,” Shane shoves his phone at Hayden and braces himself, turning around. There’s a tell-tale click of the iPhone camera shutter and Shane snatches his phone back. Hayden can’t even look him in the eyes when he hands it over.
He clicks on the tiny preview thumbnail, and watches as the photo enlarges to full screen size. It’s almost an out of body feeling when his gaze zeroes in on the pale skin of his lower back. Because this is his body, those are the muscles that he trains religiously, but just above the elastic waist of his boxers, in a splash of black ink, are the words ‘Property of Ilya Rozanov’. Shane just manages to make it to the bathroom before he hurls.
/
“Just so you know,” Hayden huffs, “tugging your shirt down all the time like that just makes you look more suspicious.”
They’re in Boston, the morning of their game against the Raiders. Luckily, the only two people who’ve borne witness to Shane’s tramp stamp are himself and Hayden. It’s probably a good thing Rozanov seems to be done with him.
“Better than the alternative,” Shane snarks back. He’s in a foul mood. He’d texted Ilya the night before and got radio silence back, and he was permanently on edge about the tattoo situation. He’d need to find a discreet laser surgeon during the off season.
Their bus pulls up outside the stadium and they unload, bundled up against the chill in their Metros jackets. Shane plasters something akin to a smile on his face because he’s a leader, and he’s going to act like one. Even if the boy he likes won’t text him back. And he has a tattoo basically claiming that same boy owns his ass.
For the last week, Hayden had seemed to be caught between wanting to know absolutely everything that had led to the tattoo on Shane’s back, and wanting to forget he ever saw it. Shane had kept his explanation short; his and Ilya’s rivalry had translated into some heated sex over the years, which Hayden had looked equal parts intrigued and disturbed by. Not because it was gay, he had rushed to assure Shane, but because it was Rozanov.
The only saving grace was that Hayden and Shane’s camera rolls both pointed towards them being the only two players to end their night at that tattoo parlour, and that the guy who did it probably just thought they were two drunk idiots. Which they were, just famous ones.
JJ slips an arm over his shoulders then, knocking Shane off centre. “Why do you look so serious?,” he pokes at Shane’s side.
Because I have a tramp stamp that says my ass is property of the other team’s captain, is not something Shane can say out loud, so he just goes with, “Raiders home game, you know? Feeling the pressure.”
JJ nods seriously, “yes, lots riding on this. Rozanov is just ahead of you in goals this season, yes?”
“For now,” Shane mutters.
“You will not let him finish first,” JJ declares, clapping him on the back when they reach their locker room.
He never does, Shane thinks.
/
Shane isn’t even sure who started the fight. He just knows he can’t bring himself to focus on his own teammates— not when Ilya’s in the midst of it.
Ilya’s cockiness is admittedly one of Shane’s biggest turn ons, but it’s also the reason people use him as a punching bag whenever a fight breaks out. Someone lands a fist against Ilya’s cheek, and all of a sudden Ilya’s spitting blood onto the ice and Shane’s moving towards him with a single-minded focus. He skirts between the referees trying to break up the fight and skates up next to Ilya, one arm coming up to circle his waist and pull him away.
He struggles against it for a split second, just long enough to realise it’s Shane and relax into it. “You push me around now, Hollander?”
“Just don’t want to see you end up with a broken bone,” Shane huffs.
Ilya coos when Shane lets him go and slides to a stop at the edge of the rink. “Aww, league number two Shane Hollander looking out for me. I am very lucky.”
“No fun winning if you’re out, Rozanov.”
“Agree, I am only competition for you.”
Shane vaguely wonders what the commentators are saying about him pulling Ilya away. He figures he can spin it the right way in the post-match interviews, say something about it being no fun scoring the most goals in a season if his only competition was out for a few games. People like their rivalry, he thinks. He’ll pretend he was keeping it alive for them. Not that the idea of Ilya hurt drove him insane.
He skates out from the wall a couple of metres to watch the last players be pulled apart by referees, leaving Ilya leaning against the barrier behind him. None of the Metros look too hurt in the wake of the scuffle.
He’s about to pull away from Rozanov fully and get his head back in the game when a hand tugs at the hem of his jumper, pulling it down.
Shane whips his head around, bile rising in his throat, “did you see?”
Ilya’s gaze is keen, assessing, “not much. Not enough to read.” Shane swallows, and Ilya adds, “I do not think everyone saw. I was just looking at your ass.”
“Fuck off,” Shane hisses, face heating.
“You will show me. Later.”
/
The Raiders win, in the end. Shane can’t get out of his head after Ilya sees the tattoo, and it shows in his playing. At least the press take his story about pulling his rival out of the brawl to keep their competition alive and run with it— they love the rivalry, Shane’s sportsmanship, Ilya’s fire.
The only person who seems to have noticed the splash of ink across his lower back is the muse himself, who Shane had, in some kind of trance, texted to let him know he would be on his way over shortly.
“You staying in tonight? Or are you seeing your Boston girl?” Hayden asks, dropping his duffel bag at the foot of his bed.
Shane raises an eyebrow, “you’re going to keep calling him that?”
“Him?”
Shane pauses, his own duffel still in hand. “Hayden.”
“Yeah?”
“My hook-up in Boston. You realise it’s him, right?”
Hayden’s face morphs from confusion into slow dawning horror, “Rozanov?”
“Yep.”
“Rozanov’s your Boston girl?” Hayden’s still in the denial stage, he figures.
“The one and only.”
“So you’re, uh,” he shuffles awkwardly, “you’re staying in then?”
Shane sighs, “no.”
“Dude.”
“I know.”
Hayden shakes his head, “God, all those times you played better after you got laid, it was him.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Kinda ironic,” Hayden mutters. He gestures to the door, which Shane is already shifting towards, “well, be safe. And uh, have fun, I guess.”
“Always do.”
“Gross.”
/
The moment Shane steps through the front door Ilya pounces on him, backing him against the door and closing it with the weight of their bodies. He tries to catch Shane’s mouth with his own straight away, but Shane ducks his head out of the way.
“Wait. Hayden knows about us. I’m sorry,” Shane shifts on his feet, eyes trained on the carpet.
“Fucking Pike?” Ilya huffs.
“Oh, and maybe Scott Hunter too.”
Ilya barks a laugh, “he is hot, at least.”
“M’sorry. I think he just guessed. He told me I’m starting to sound like you.”
Ilya hums, “he is wrong. Your English is much better.”
That gets a laugh out of Shane, and he sways forward a little into Ilya’s embrace. “You’re not worried?”
“Scott Hunter, no. Pike is,” he shrugs, “annoying.”
“He won’t tell anyone.”
“He is still annoying.” Ilya nudges in closer, nosing along Shane’s jawline, “but you trust him?”
“Yeah.”
“And I trust you. So it is fine. I can kiss you now, yes?”
Shane doesn’t bother responding, just catches Ilya’s jaw and presses their mouths together, hot and wet like they’re trying to devour each other. He pushes off the door and backs them in the vague direction of the bedroom, Ilya going as easily as he had on the ice. Ilya navigates the layout with a practised ease, walking backwards and sucking Shane’s bottom lip swollen. Any illusion of control Shane had is shattered when they reach the bedroom and he’s manhandled onto the bed, hands above his head and delicate wrists held tight.
“I beat you tonight, Hollander. I think I deserve a prize.” Ilya’s angel face is split in a wicked grin, eyes wide and hungry.
It’s hard to think straight when Ilya’s on top of him, pinning Shane down like he might ever want to move. He struggles against the grip on his wrists just a little, enough to feel Ilya’s hold tighten and the promise of strength in those calloused palms. “Yeah, what do you want, Rozanov?,” he pants.
Ilya takes one hand away from his wrists, letting his index finger travel down Shane’s forearms and biceps, across his clavicle and chest. He stops to pinch at one hardened nipple, rolling it between his forefinger and thumb almost painfully. Shane whines, and Ilya leans down to blow warm air over it, then licks once over the abused nipple and his pec. “Think I want to see what you have been hiding from me, Hollander.”
In one deft move, Ilya has flipped him onto his front, with seemingly minimal effort. “Fuck,” Shane hisses, and gets a light tap on the ass over his sweats.
“God, ever since I saw little bit of your tattoo this evening, I have not stopped thinking about it. It has driven me crazy, imagining it.”
Shane should tell him no, probably, but his mouth must be offline and operating on its own accord because instead he says, “yeah, yeah. You’re going to like it. Even better than you imagined.”
“Big promise, sweetheart. I have imagined a lot.” Ilya toys with the waistband of his sweats. “You are sure I will enjoy?”
“Uh huh,” Shane writhes against the mattress, trying to get some friction on his dick.
“Maybe it is Boston Raiders tattoo? I would like that very much.”
“Better,” Shane gasps.
“Better?”
“Way better.”
“Fuck,” Ilya groans, finally giving in and ripping Shane’s t-shirt up and his sweats and boxers down. Shane drops his head, arching his waist down and his ass up. He’d already gone and gotten the guy’s name tattooed, it wasn’t like anything else could be more embarrassing.
Ilya is silent for a full ten seconds, just long enough for Shane to start feeling self conscious. This is fucking insane, he realises abruptly. “Sorry,” he mutters, shuffling up the bed an inch or two, trying to put distance between himself and the reality that he’d just shoved his tattooed ass in Ilya Rozanov’s face.
He doesn’t get far, not before Ilya’s palms clamp down against his hips and yank him backwards. His arms give out and his chest hits the mattress, probably giving Ilya an insane view of his ass. “Fuck, Shane, this is not real.”
Before Shane can confirm that, yes, it’s real and it’s stupid and he better enjoy it while he can because it’s getting lasered off when the season ends, Ilya’s mouth is on his tattoo, and he’s licking and slobbering messily across the skin.
“You like it?”
“Fuck you, you know I do,” Ilya growls against his skin, nipping playfully at it. “When the fuck did you get this?”
“Uh,” Shane’s having trouble stringing together words when Ilya’s teeth and tongue are on his skin like this, “New York. Last week.”
“So hot, Hollander.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Who did it? I give them five stars on Yelp. Send them a tip.”
“Dunno, forgot,” Shane’s drooling all over the bed sheets. “Thank Hayden. He wanted a tattoo for Jackie.” They’d pieced together most of the night semi-successfully with the photos on both of their phones, and the discovery of Hayden’s own tattoo. He’d escaped the night with Jackie’s initials and the date of their wedding tattooed.
“Fuck, I knew it was too good to be true. I owe my life to Pike now.”
“Your life?”
Ilya hums, “yes, my life. I will live ten years longer now, at least.”
“Good. You can spend them fucking me.”
“God, Hollander. I will spend rest of my life fucking you if you have this,” Ilya’s finger traces the linework, feather light.
“Well, the rest of the season, anyway,” Shane grits out.
Ilya growls, like something straight out of a shitty romance novel. “You want to remove it?”
“There’s not really another option.”
Ilya lands a sharp smack to his ass, “keep it.”
“Somebody will see it.”
“Good, they will know you are mine.”
/
Later, Shane has his arms full of sleepy, sated Ilya. “I need to go soon,” he tells him regretfully, smiling when Ilya pouts.
“No Hollander, you cannot leave. I own your ass, remember?”
Shane snorts, “only until I get it lasered, Rozanov.”
“Laser doesn’t work. Takes forever. I read about it.”
“Oh yeah? Where did you read that?”
Ilya shrugs, “internet.”
“Maybe I’ll get a cover up.”
“Of what? Flowers? Hockey stick?”
“Photo realistic portrait of you, maybe.”
“You have great taste in tattoos.”
Shane grins, “maybe you should get one.”
“So everyone knows my dick is property of Shane Hollander?”
“Something like that.”
“Shane Hollander, and Scott Hunter if he asked nicely.”
“Fuck off.”
Ilya, counter productive as ever, grips the back of Shane’s neck and pulls him in for a kiss. He makes quick work of getting his tongue down Shane’s throat, licking into his mouth. He’s reaching down and gripping Shane’s hips again, slotting a muscled thigh between his legs and rolling Shane’s hips against it.
“I really need to go,” Shane mutters when Ilya releases his mouth and starts sucking little bruises into his neck. He paws at Ilya’s cheek, pushing his face away, “you’re a fucking vampire.”
“Yes,” Ilya agrees, kissing the inside of Shane’s palm where it rests over the corner of his mouth. “I am vampire. Very hungry vampire. Need to bite you, Hollander.”
“I always look like a fucking chew toy when you’re done with me.”
Ilya sighs, ducking his head around Shane’s palm and kissing slowly up the outstretched arm. “That is because you are.”
“Am not.”
“You are,” Ilya insists. “You are my little toy, Hollander. Little plaything.” Shane shudders, isn’t that a thought. Ilya notices, and his smile turns feral, “you like that? You like to be plaything? Good, easy boy always ready for me to fuck?”
“Jesus,” Shane mutters, face aflame.
“I think you would like that. You even have my name on you, so someone can return you to owner if you get lost.”
“You can’t just say shit like that, Rozanov. Not when I’m flying out in two hours and you can’t do anything about it.”
“I am giving you something to think about, until next time.”
/
Next time ends up being two months later in Montreal, and Ilya's first course of action is to shove Shane chest first against the wall and wrench his t-shirt up to check the tattoo is still there. He never does get around to removing it.