Chapter Text
“Murderer!”
Shane’s been awake for two hours already, done his morning run, his usual cool down, and is now contemplating breakfast, and it’s still too fucking early for the level of offense Ilya is leveling at him from across the kitchen.
“Good morning,” he greets, bypassing his scowling husband to start unloading the pre-prepared breakfast rolls their nutritionist has delivered. “Did you sleep well?”
Ilya likes to spend his sleep curled around Shane like a particularly affectionate octopus these days, snoring softly into the back of his neck, and he’s been exceptionally clingy since getting in from the airport, so he already knows the answer.
“You’re a monster!”
“Coffee?”
Ilya pauses his outrage long enough to perk up at the suggestion and take over the process of working the machine. He makes Shane’s black and dumps a shit-ton of caramel syrup into his. He then stretches all of his patience waiting for Shane to take his first sip.
Shane in no way draws it out just to annoy him. “Okay,” he says eventually, setting down the mug and fixing the temp on the oven so their wraps can be warm and crispy just the way Ilya likes. “What did I do?”
“Like you don’t know.”
He thinks back on the last few days, looking for the source of Ilya’s ire. There’s not really much he can have done. Ilya’s been shooting a commercial in New York, with a layover in Boston tagged on to make a nuisance of himself with Marlow and Svetlana. Shane’s very carefully followed the elaborate, and frankly over-indulgent instructions he’s been left for Anya, who, while pining for her Papa, has enjoyed more pampering and spa visits than Shane even knew a dog could get. She’s had fucking steak for supper three nights in a row, because apparently Shane gets sappy and indulgent when he’s missing his husband.
"Your Rebooks are in the closet next to the laundry basket. I had them cleaned, not thrown out.”
“Yes, thank you.” Ilya leans over to kiss him on the cheek before settling back against the counter, scowl returning. “It is not that.”
“Is it because there’s no Nutella in the pantry? I did order it, but they were out of stock so I’ve got another delivery coming in tomorrow.”
“No, but again, thank you.”
“Then I’m gonna need you to give me a hint, because I’ve got nothing.”
Ilya’s eyes practically glow with intent as he stares over the top of his sugar-filled monstrosity of a coffee. “Hint? Okay… is tall and green and beautiful and tragically cut down in the prime of life and-”
Shane freezes halfway between the counter and the oven, their tray of wraps balancing in one hand. “Wait… is this about that fucking plant?”
“His name was Humphry, and you murdered him!” Ilya all but wails.
“Why is the plant British, Ilya?” Shane’s been asking for literal years and still never received a good answer.
“His nationality is totally unrelated to his vicious manner of death!”
“He’s-” fuck his life, he’s gendering plants now, “it isn’t fucking dead!”
“He’s wilting! He’s breathing on incense!” Ilya sets down his coffee with an elaborate flourish, freeing up his hands for his favorite wild gesticulations. “Humphry was six years old. Six years, Shane. He survived two moves, one flood, and the time you left the balcony door open in February.” He pauses, his eyes widening in horror. “Was that a previous attempt? Have I been forcing him to live with his would-be murderer all this time?”
Jesus fucking Christ, okay… Shane slides the tray into the oven and shuts it. “I watered him.”
“You drowned him!”
I followed your instructions!”
“My instructions said check the soil with your finger. Two inches. There's a diagram!”
There is a diagram, and it’s color-coded and annotated in both English and badly translated French, just in case. Which, in hindsight… maybe more neurotic than sweet.
“You like diagrams!” Ilya points out. Which is true; he does, and he loves that Ilya does his best to meet those expectations now instead of just labeling everything in his neat but still impossible-to-read Russian cursive.”
“I do,” he agrees. “And I’m also very good at following instructions. Your words, not mine.”
Ilya sounds like he’s been shot.
“And this is why I keep telling you we can just get artificial ones,” Shane reminds him. “They have good ones now. Hayden and Jackie have one in their hallway, and I honestly thought it was real for like a year.”
“Because Jackie cleans it with a cloth every week, which is even more work than a real plant, and for what? For nothing. For a lie.” Ilya says all that like they don't have a cleaner.
“For a lie that doesn’t die when you go to New York.”
“So you admit you killed him?”
“Absolutely not.”
"I don't believe you." Ilya presses both hands flat on the counter at his sides and takes such a long, dramatic inhale Shane struggles not to laugh at him. “And fuck your faux-liage. Plants are good for air quality.”
“We have an air purifier.”
“Is not the same.”
“It’s better. It has a filter and an app.” Shane picks up his coffee again. “It sends me a notification when the air in here is bad. Humphry never sent me a notification.”
“Because he was too polite.”
“Because he was a shrub in a fucking pot.” Shane drinks and marvels at the knowledge that once upon a time he might actually be taking Ilya seriously right now. “And you’re not actually upset with me, so if this is your attempt to pick a fight so we can have crazy reunion sex over the counter-”
Ilya splutters. “I would never!”
“Right,” Shane shrugs. “My mistake. So I guess you also don’t care that I got myself ready before I went out for my run this morning. Just in case.”
Ilya goes very still. “What?”
“Just in case I ran into a tall, handsome Russian man who caught my eye.” Shane takes another sip of coffee. It’s cooling off. He’s going to need a fresh cup. “I didn’t, though. So I guess it was a waste of twenty minutes.”
For one second, maybe two, there’s nothing but the hum of the oven heating and the tick-tick-tick off the wall clock.
Then Ilya makes a noise low in his throat, Shane’s second favorite sound after his laugh. His coffee mug is taken out of his hand, and his lower back hits the edge of the counter with Ilya crowding in against him, one hand on his hip and the other shoving up under the hem of his t-shirt.
“You do this,” Ilya says against his jaw. “And then you let me talk about plants... my husband is a terrible man.”
“You started that conversation,” he feels the need to point out.
“I am never leaving again.” Ilya kisses his throat and across his chin, then back to the corner of his mouth, out of order and without any real focus, just the desperate urge to fuse themselves together. Shane snatches a handful of his hair and bites down on his throat when he tries kissing down towards his shoulder. “Ever. Never again. Not for one second. They can film the commercial here, in the kitchen. I hate it. I hate being away from you. I hate New York, I hate Boston, I hate Marlow-”
“You don’t hate Marlow.”
“Today I hate Marlow.” Ilya’s hands are cold from the coffee mug, and Shane’s skin jumps under them. “Ninety days, Shane!”
“It was three.”
“No, was at least a year.” Ilya bites his bottom lip, not exactly gentle. “I counted every minute. Don’t pretend you don't do this too.”
He does count. Every second he’s away from Ilya is a debt the universe needs to repay. Ilya obviously agrees with him, shoving his hands under Shane’s thighs and lifting until his ass lands on the counter, the fruit bowl rattling next to him.
“Okay,” Ilya looks at Shane with his unruly hair and adoring eyes, his mouth already flushed. “Okay, here is what happens now. I am going to take my time. Very slow. I am going to find every single place you like me kissing and I am going to stay there until you cannot remember your own name-”
“Ilya.”
“-and then I am going to do it again, because you have been very mean to me this morning, and also because I love your thighs, and I have not been between them in a hundred years-”
“At least....”
“-so I will start there.” He gets both hands around the backs of Shane’s knees, dragging him forward to the edge of the counter and lowering his head to mouth at Shane through his sweatpants. Shane sinks his fingers back in his hair and holds him right where he wants him.
“The oven’s on.”
Ilya doesn’t stop, too focused on trying to get his hands under Shane’s shirt, his pants, his hair… anywhere and everywhere he can, making up for the limitation of only two hands with sheer enthusiasm.
“Ilya. The oven.”
“Yes, fuck, fine-” Ilya tears himself away just long enough to kill the heat and turn off the dial, then he’s back on Shane with a whine of broken need.
“The wraps’ll go soft,” Shane says, because someone has to be reasonable, and Ilya has both hands in the waistband of his sweatpants. “If you leave them in there with the residual heat, they’ll steam up.”
Ilya lifts his head and stares at Shane in total, beaming adoration.
“I’m just saying… if you want them crispy, we should take the tray out and put them on the rack. Otherwise we’re eating soggy-”
“I love you so much.”
“The tray-”
“I love you, and I love your beautiful domestic brain, and I love that when I am touching your dick you are thinking about condensation.” Ilya reaches behind himself without looking, yanks the oven door open, drags the tray onto the counter with a bang and a hiss of breath because he doesn’t bother with a cloth, and then he sucks his thumb into his mouth for a second and gets his hands back under Shane’s thighs a heartbeat later. “There. Fixed. No sog.”
“You burned yourself.” Shane takes Ilya’s hand in his and sucks his fingers into his mouth. The sound Ilya makes is obscene.
“Fuck… Shane…”
Then the world tips sideways as gravity loses its fight with the sheer determination of Ilya Rozanov.
Shane tightens his grip instinctively, one arm around Ilya’s neck and his knees clamped around his ribs, and Ilya takes his whole weight like it’s nothing, walking them out of the kitchen and past Anya, who lifts her head off her bed and thumps her tail twice before deciding she knows better than to get involved.
“Put me down.”
“Nope”
“Your arm.”
“My arm is fine,” Ilya scoffs. And sure, everything is healed over nicely, but Shane is always going to check Ilya’s lack of self-preservation for him.
“I can walk…” He doesn’t necessarily want to. It’s pretty much impossible to think about anything when Ilya’s holding him tight, his strong arms a cage around him.
It’s all fucking perfect until they reach the landing and Ilya stops in front of that stupid plant. “Say thank you, Humphrey, for epic dicking my husband is about to give me.”
How is it that there is literally nothing Ilya can say that will ever come close to killing Shane’s hard on? It’s not fair. No man should have that kind of fucking power. “Epic dicking? Really? That’s what we’re going with?”
“Eh,” Ilya hoists him up higher and heads to the bedroom. “We can workshop it.”
Shane is putting a great deal of effort into focusing solely on two things right now. The first, obviously, is hockey. He’s nearly three months into his first season with the Centaurs, and he’s determined to prove that he can not only integrate well into the team, but that his talent isn’t something defined by Montreal.
It helps that the team is already in a good place. Ilya’s done wonders with them as their Captain, and while Shane will sooner pull his own thumbnails out before admitting it, there’s something increasingly comforting about just being able to play hockey again without the pressure of captaining a team who, at best, dislike him and, at worst, actively hate him.
He’s always wanted to be Captain because that’s always been the pinnacle of achievement. Shane Hollander, Captain of the Montreal Metros. The most successful player in the most successful team…
But he’s been there, done that, and it’s never brought him nearly as much joy as just playing on the same team as his husband does.
If he and Zane alternate the A, so be it. Maybe he’ll captain a team again, maybe he won’t. He’s happy where he is.
For now, at least. There’s a whole fucking plethora of fun to be had in being married to his captain.
Which is the second thing he is focused on. Ilya. Being his husband. Building a home together.
Having a little breathing room, even here, in the middle of what’s arguably the most important year of their careers. After a decade of being kept apart by circumstance and fear, they are pretty much in each other’s pockets twenty-four seven, and that’s still not enough.
The honeymoon period of their marriage might be marred by the sheer fuckery of Alexei, but they’re purposely choosing a hard reset.
Ilya’s brother is still in custody awaiting deportation, his sister-in-law and niece are in a very nice hotel, and Shane is pretending none of them exist. He’s got his own mental bet on how long that will last, but for now he’s taking every day as it comes and thanking the universe just for the joy of being able to live it.
He’s also clinging to the fact that he’s still in that perfect, love-sick phase where he finds every single thing Ilya does, from the sublime to the ridiculous, to be some degree of endearing.
Even… whatever the fuck this is.
“Are you seriously sulking right now?” It’s a stupid question. Fully fucking rhetorical. Yes, obviously Ilya is sulking. Shane just can’t quite get his head around why. It’s been a great night. A home game win, a late-night meal with Rose and her new publicist, home to snuggle with his petulant, overgrown manchild of a husband…
“I’m not sulking,” Ilya says, arms crossed, bottom lip protruding in a pout. “I am… ruminating.”
“Ruminating,” Shane echoes.
“Yes. Ruminating.”
Shane shakes his head, more fond than annoyed. “What are you ruminating about?”
“None of your business.” If Ilya’s pout gets any bigger, Shane is going to have to stop the car.
“Ilya…”
“Fine! I hate Rose Landry.”
The turn onto their street is always quite this time of night, and until the bulb gets changed in the streetlamp, it’s extra dark. Shane keeps his eyes on the road. “You love Rose. You literally just booked a spa trip with her next month.” The two of them together are frankly pretty fucking terrifying. Shane usually just does as he’s told on the days they hang out.
“I’ve changed my mind.” Ilya turns his shoulders so he can look out of the window. With the dark outside, his reflection is clear and no less pathetic. “You’ve fucked her.”
“Yes. And?” Ilya’s little jealous streak when it comes to Rose is cute, and maybe a little more thrilling than it should be for Shane, but it’s also old news.
Ilya turns back around to face him. From his expression, it’s obvious he can’t decide on trying to look annoyed or sorrowful. “You’ve never fucked me. Not properly.”
“Ilya, I have done things with you that neither god nor science would want to classify. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your cock,” Ilya gestures at Shane’s lap as if he expects said cock to stand to attention when addressed, “has never been in my ass.”
“It’s never been in hers, either!” Shane says before he can stop himself. Ilya’s expression turns thunderous. “Where’s this coming from?”
“You have the world’s most perfect cock,” Ilya says simply, and it doesn’t matter that they’re alone in the car, or that he’s married to the idiot waving at his crotch; Shane’s face burns bright red. “And it’s a crime I haven’t had full experience.”
What the entire fuck is Shane supposed to say to that?
“Okay…”
He pulls into the driveway, kills the engine, and sits there with his hands still on the wheel because it seems safer than looking directly at his husband.
“Okay,” he says again. “Is that something you want?”
They’ve done plenty over the years. Ilya likes having his ass played with, which is great because Shane’s pretty obsessed with it himself and doesn’t think there’s a reasonable person in the world who can blame him. They mess around with hands and mouths and toys, once, in his bathtub back in Montreal, and Ilya is always the one to take that particular lead.
He asks for what he wants, and Shane gives it to him gladly. He just… doesn’t really ask for this, and Shane is never going to push for something when they’re already pretty fucking happy with what they have.
But yeah, if Ilya wants, then Shane is…
Having a heart attack and won’t be able to focus on anything else for the next three business days.
“No,” Ilya says.
Shane nods slowly, not exactly disappointed, but... “Okay.”
The garage light clicks on, motion-sensitive, throwing Ilya’s face into a strange half-glow. He chews the inside of his cheek and looks sideways at Shane through the dark fall of his lashes.
“Maybe,” he amends.
“Maybe?”
“Is a possibility. Hypothetical.”
A hypothetical scenario where Shane fucks him. Okay. Sure. Maybe. Possibly. Jesus fuck.
“Right.” Shane takes the keys out of the ignition and sets them in the cupholder, which is not where they are supposed to live, but if he keeps them in his hands he might break them.
Ilya’s leg starts jittering up and down. “Yes.”
Oh shit. “Really?”
“Yes,” Ilya says, louder, and then immediately looks out the window again in an attempt to pretend the word didn’t just come out of his mouth.
Ilya is a menace about many things. He’ll demand treats and cuddles like a particularly obnoxious house cat, but they’re all small, superficial things. The things he wants, the things he needs… Shane usually has to pry those out of him with a crowbar.
So there’s a question he needs to answer, which is, namely, why now?
Once he’s got that, then yeah, abso-fucking-lutely.
“Okay.”
Ilya’s head snaps back around. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That is all you say? Okay?”
“What do you want me to say?” Shane unclips his seatbelt. “You told me what you want. I said okay. That’s how it works.”
“Is not how anything works,” Ilya mutters, but he’s already fumbling for his door handle, and out he goes, slamming the car door hard enough that the whole frame shudders.
Shane sits there for a second in the dark. He can hear Anya inside, barking sharp, excited yips because she knows the sound of their car.
Ilya’s already got the door open, keys jangling as he flings his coat up onto the hook. He crouches to greet Anya, ruffling her ears and saying something to her in Russian that Shane doesn’t catch, and then he straightens up and heads for the kitchen without looking back.
Okay, so maybe okay isn’t the right answer here. Yay? Is yay more appropriate? Was he supposed to have taken that as a cue and fucked Ilya over the hood of the car?
That’s not even practical! The metal is hot. It wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone.
The conversation should be done. Ilya asked, Shane said yes. So...
This is how they work now, after years of not working at all: one of them says a thing out loud, the other one says okay, and then they do it.
Except Ilya is currently filling a glass of water Shane knows he doesn’t want, and drinking maybe half of it, and setting it on the counter with the kind of care that means he wants to slam it but won’t because slamming things was his father’s way, and Ilya is anything but Grigori Rozanov.
“Are you mad at me?” Shane asks.
“No.” Ilya keeps his back to him.
“Are you mad at yourself?”
That gets a pause. Ilya’s shoulders hunch up around his ears, then drop dejectedly. “Is late.”
“It’s ten forty.”
“I have practice tomorrow. You have practice tomorrow. Everybody has practice.”
Shane leans against the doorframe and watches him all but work himself in circles. He’s good at watching, and Ilya will always be his favorite subject. Ninety percent of hockey is reading the ice, figuring out what a body is going to do half a second before it does it. He’s usually pretty good at transferring those skills. But apparently not tonight.
He’s about to spiral, not sure where he’s gone wrong and aching at the idea of missing something, when Ilya lets out a beautifully dramatic sigh and turns around.
“Yes, I am mad at me.”
“Okay,” Shane says slowly, then, “Fuck. Not okay. Or yes okay, but…”
All at once, Ilya is soft and sweet. He pulls Shane into his arms and tucks his chin over his shoulder. “Is something I want, yes?”
“O-” Motherfucker… “I want it, too. I want to give you the things you give me.” He means that more than anything.
“I told Galina this. She says to tell you.” Gold fucking star for the miracle worker that is Ilya’s therapist. "So here I am. Telling you."
“I'm glad you did. But we don’t have to rush it,” Shane whispers into the side of Ilya’s neck. He fits his hands under the back of Ilya’s shirt and holds him in place, palms flat against warm skin. “We’ve literally got forever.”
Ilya makes a low, disgruntled sound and doesn’t let go. “Forever is very long time to wait for one good thing.”
“It’s not waiting if we’re doing everything else,” Shane points out.
“Not the point.” Ilya pulls back far enough to look at him, hands still on Shane’s waist. “No time like the present, yes? Is what you say. Very Canadian.”
Shane laughs, and it comes out louder than he means it to, sharp in the quiet kitchen. “Nope. Absolutely not.”
Ilya has the nerve to look surprised. As if there’s a world in which Shane is even going to attempt anything when he’s this wound up. “No?”
“Nope.” He gets a hand on Ilya’s chest and pushes, not hard, just enough to make his point. Still, he knows the best way to put it is to both pander to his ego and protect his sensitive neediness. “You made me wait years before you finally popped my cherry, Rozanov. Literal years. You can hold out until you’re a little more relaxed.”
Ilya’s whole face goes through about four separate expressions, and Shane watches every one of them with enormous satisfaction.
“I-” Ilya lifts his hand, one finger raised, which is never a good sign. “You teased me for years!”
“No, I didn't.”
“You did! You-” Ilya steps back and starts gesturing, both arms now, the water glass in genuine danger as he sweeps close to the edge of the counter. “Months and months and months and-”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Okay, so we go to hospital, check you for concussion…”
“If anything, you were teasing me! You’re the one who sent me dick pics!” Shane laughs, the tension leaving his shoulders in tandem with Ilya’s.
“That,” Ilya huffs, “was incentivization!”
“I was right next to Hayden!” And the thrill of seeing Ilya like that was matched only by the terror of being caught.
“Hayden would fuck me,” Ilya pouts.
The mental image is so absurd Shane nearly chokes on his tongue. “No! He wouldn’t!”
“Okay, no he wouldn’t, but-”
The doorbell cuts him off.
Anya bounces off her bed, barking excitedly at the front door.
Shane’s pulse jumps to his throat as Ilya’s hand closes hard around his forearm and tries to pull him back.
Absolutely fucking not. In that split second, his whole mind is awash with fear and a dark, bitter anger at himself for letting Ilya convince him they no longer need security on site. Alexei’s locked up, and the community is gated. Help is three, maybe four minutes away at most, only…“Stay here,” he demands, putting his hand flat on Ilya’s sternum to move him back.
To the shock of absolutely no one, Ilya doesn’t do as he’s told, but gets a fist in the shoulder of Shane’s sweater and hauls, trying to pull him behind, their feet tangling in the hall runner.
“You stay,” Ilya says.
“Ilya-”
“Is my house.”
“It’s my house too, asshole! Let go-”
The bell rings again. Anya’s claws skitter on the tile as she throws herself at the door, still barking, and they arrive there together in a shoving, graceless knot with Shane’s elbow in Ilya’s ribs and Ilya’s arm banded across Shane’s chest like he thinks he can just physically remove him from the situation. He probably could. He’s not going to get the chance.
Shane wins by three inches and the fact that he’s closer to the handle. He turns the deadbolt, pulls the door back, keeps his body between the gap and Ilya, and looks out into the dark of the porch.
Svetlana is standing on their step. She takes one slow, critical look at both of them and shakes her head in despair. “Did either of you two idiots check the camera?”
That’s a no. Shane was more concerned with getting there before Ilya did, which means... well, it means they need a better plan in the future.
“I don’t think serial killers use the doorbell,” Ilya defends them both, slumping against the door frame.
Shane doesn’t think serial killers are really their problem, but he manages to cling to the shreds of his dignity long enough to invite her inside.
“This is a surprise; we didn’t know you were in town.”
Svetlana steps past him into the hall. Anya immediately shoves her whole head into her thighs, bouncing on her paws in delight when her enthusiasm wins her ear scratches.
Ilya watches her pass with a frown. “Where is your bag?”
Svetlana straightens up and doesn't meet his gaze. “It’s sort of a last-minute trip.”
Shane tugs Ilya inside, closes the door and turns the deadbolt again, and in the light of the hall he can see her face properly for the first time. Her eyes are swollen, the skin under them shiny, and there’s a stripe of mascara dried at the outer corner where she’s wiped at it and not checked in a mirror after. She’s wearing a coat over what looks like a sweatshirt, and Svetlana does not, in Shane’s limited experience, wear sweatshirts in public.
She’s been crying.
He tries to think of a reason and doesn’t love the answer. Ilya was in Boston three days ago. He came home and made a joke about hating Marlow, and it was a joke, but Marlow isn’t here, and...
“Is everything okay?” Shane asks.
Ilya stares at Svetlana with his mouth slightly open. “No…”
No?
“No!” Ilya shakes his head, his eyes getting wider by the second. “No….”
“No what?” Shane says.
Svetlana’s chin comes up. “Don’t do that.”
“I am not doing anything!”
Her bottom lip is trembling as she scowls. Shane still has no fucking clue what they’re talking about. “You can’t possibly just fucking know!”
“Am I wrong?” Ilya demands. He doesn’t look upset, or worried, or much of anything at all, but Shane gets the weird impression that’s only because he’s waiting for a cue from her.
“No,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I’m so lost.”
Svetlana seems to fold in on herself, clutching her arms tight. “Can you really tell? Is it that obvious?”
“No!” Shane doesn’t think he’s ever seen Ilya look quite so ready to burst. “I need a cue here, Svetik …am I happy, am I worried, am I getting on a plane to commit a crime…?”
Shane steps between them. “Okay, if we’re committing crimes, I really need some context.” He looks at Ilya, then over to Svetlana.
Who raises her chin, mouth trembling, halfway between a smile and a fresh round of tears. “I’m pregnant.”