tbh myshane doesn't like when ilya calls him "Hollander." It takes him back to those early days, but not in a good way. soooOOooo here is switchy shane becoming a power bottom over being called "Hollander" one too many times.
Shane matches Ilya’s roughness and leaves a trail of little bites and hickeys down his neck. He uses his fingernails to dig parallel lines on Ilya’s pecs, watching the skin turn white then red under his movement. He licks the man’s abs and then bites hard enough to leave an indent the shape of his four front teeth.
This seems to wake something within Ilya, who flips them over in a flash and brings his own mouth down against Shane’s neck, sucking and biting and moaning into the warm skin.
Ilya presses their bodies together, their cocks rutting and spreading the pre-cum leaking between them. Then it’s the normal wind-up, lube and condoms and fingers and moans and “okay please I’m ready please.”
The moment Ilya thrusts inside of him, he lets out a deep, “Fuuuck, Hollander,” and Shane stills. It’s the third time Ilya has called him by his last name in as many days.
“Stop,” Shane says, and of course Ilya does. He pulls out and looks concerned.
“Everything okay?” Ilya asks, his brow furrowed.
“Lay down,” Shane demands, gesturing toward the bed. Ilya complies.
Shane uses the headboard for stability as he straddles Ilya and then sinks down onto his hard cock. He groans at the pressure. “You can’t-” Shane starts, gathering his thoughts. The clash of anger with horniness is making his brain spin. “You can’t fuck me while calling me that. Okay? I’m not Hollander to you.”
“Shane,” Ilya moans immediately, the name sounding so perfect on his tongue.
Shane grinds his hips down, rewarding Ilya for correcting himself. “Exactly,” he says. He sinks down until he can practically see the tip of Ilya’s cock through his own abdomen, so full of him, so content. When he looks down, Ilya’s eyes are pressed shut in a blissful expression, his arms tense as he holds Shane’s hips and helps him thrust. Shane uses his own hands to take Ilya’s off of him and pin them against the headboard.
“You can call me slut,” Shane moans, filling himself up over and over again with Ilya. “Or cumslut, or baby, or hole.” He moves faster, thrilled at the control he has at this moment. “But not my fucking last name. Okay, Rozanov?”
Ilya nods, his eyes still shut. His moans and the way he’s jerking his hips, the only part of his body in his own control right now, confirm that he’s enjoying this little switch up.
“Look at me,” Shane demands.
And Ilya finally opens his wide blue eyes, filled to the brim with lust. “Fuck, Shane,” he moans as they stare at each other, their bodies moving in tandem.
“Look me in the eyes while you cum inside me,” Shane says. His hands are still holding Ilya’s arms down, but he moves one to cup the other man’s face. It’s not long before Ilya is crying out, his cock pulsing in a way that makes Shane spill all over Ilya’s stomach.
Read the full fic this is from on AO3
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father after his older brother's untimely death. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
Read it on AO3
Ilya’s debts are accruing at a pace he cannot keep up with and it’s terrifying. He tries to believe Paula when she says her kindness toward him is out of friendship, but it’s a type of care he’s entirely unfamiliar with. And this from Hollander is beyond what he could ever feasibly pay back.
“I’m going to shower,” he says, pulling his hand back. He grabs his gym clothes and sneakers — it’s almost time to meet Paula there anyway.
“Oh, okay,” Hollander says. “I guess maybe I’ll see you up there. I have PT in an hour or so. I’ll start… unpacking,” he looks around the room, as if to scan for a dresser he could unpack into.
Ilya bolts from the room all the way up five flights of stairs and sets the treadmill to the fastest pace the machine will go. He runs nearly five kilometers before Paula even gets to the gym.
“I heard what happened,” Paula says. She climbs onto the elliptical next to him but doesn’t start it. “I’m so sorry.”
“Everyone keeps saying sorry,” Ilya huffs. “I don’t know how to respond. We don’t say sorry so much in Russia.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Paula says. They both laugh. “How are you not still sore from yesterday?” Paula asks, dumbfounded. “There’s no way my legs could make this machine go right now. I figured we would stretch and take it easy.”
Feeling his own body aching under the stress, Ilya nods and presses the emergency “stop” button. He climbs off and grabs two mats, placing them on the floor. Paula sits down on hers and immediately stretches her hamstring, bending over her right leg to touch her toes. “Thank God,” she says.
It’s silent for a beat as they both give into their achy muscles. Ilya breaks the silence. “I hate that I’m a burden. Benny was going to room with me and Hollander is giving up his suite because of me.” He says these words while facing the royal blue foam beneath him so that he doesn’t have to look at her face.
“None of this is your fault,” Paula replies, echoing Hollander’s words.
“If I weren’t here, they wouldn’t need to do this,” Ilya retorts.
“Have you ever considered that maybe people want to help others? That it feels nice to be useful sometimes?” Paula asks gently. “I’m sure you’ve experienced that before. Being a shoulder to cry on for a friend or giving someone a hand with a task. It’s nice to be needed.”
“I guess, yes. Maybe. Probably,” Ilya says. He thinks of Svetlana’s many break ups, and how they always became so much closer when she was heartbroken. It is much easier being on the other end of the equation.
“Well, I can only speak for myself, but I want you here. I’m glad you’re here. And, if Benny had told me earlier, I would have demanded you stay with me and Al on our couch, but I think this solution is even better,” Paula tells him.
“Better for me, maybe, but not for Hollander. He gets fucked over.”
Paula laughs at this. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s going to be miserable,” she jokes. He’s slightly comforted by this, considering for the first time that Hollander’s offer might not have been one hundred percent selfless like he’d assumed.
After a dip in the pool and a very long shower, Ilya returns to the empty staff room. The television is on, providing a bright, synthetic light source for the otherwise dim room. Hollander connected a lot of wires and devices to it, and there is a rectangular white remote on the bed.
Hollander’s bags are standing neatly in a row between the couch and the wall of the ship. There isn’t any storage space, just one small, navy blue couch that’s seen better days. Ilya places his own duffel on one of the couch cushions and tucks his gym clothes into the side pocket, trying to make his belongings as tidy and unobtrusive as possible.
He sits on the bed — their bed — and acquaints himself with the white remote Hollander brought. The television is so close to the foot of the bed that it’s almost hurting his eyes: he knows this setup would have been his dream as a child, with how easy it is to see the TV while lying back on the pillows.
He uses the four arrows on the remote, shaped like a giant plus sign, to flip through the icons on the screen. He quickly notices a small cartoon that looks exactly like Hollander, doing a little dance on the right side of the screen next to all of the game icons. He laughs at the spiky black hair, round face and freckles staring back at him. The character is even wearing a navy blue shirt with red shorts, Metros colors.
——
When Shane returns to the room later in the afternoon — he had wanted to make himself more scarce, to give Ilya some space, so he avoided coming right back after PT — he finds Ilya swinging the Wii remote, a little out of breath from the effort.
“Oh!” Ilya startles, stilling and letting the video game tennis ball go right past his character. Shane notices that there’s already a Mii icon with curly blond hair and black workout clothes, facing away from the camera in the fake tennis match.
“I see you figured out the Wii,” Shane smiles.
“Ah, this is what it’s called?” Ilya replies, setting the remote down. “Sorry, I was bored.”
“No, I’m glad you’re using it. I set it up for both of us,” Shane reassures him. Then he examines the screen more closely, seeing Ilya’s perfect score on the board. “Okay, but maybe not if you’re that good.”
“Is too easy,” Ilya shrugs.
“Well, you are on a pretty low level still,” Shane says, his competitive spirit sparking like an ember that just touched kindling.
“Show me harder one, then,” Ilya demands.
Shane navigates to a doubles game and sets the level higher. Ilya is still making all of his shots. “Are you sure you’ve never played this? I think you’re hustling me.”
“We do not have in Russia,” Ilya says. “I don’t even own a television.”
Shane presses “pause” on the controller and looks at him, his jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Ilya says, finally making eye contact for the first time in a long time.
“What do you even do all day?”
“Read. Is why we are so smart in Europe,” the other man shrugs.
“Oh, fuck off,” Shane says. “I play plenty of Europeans in MarioKart Live tournaments.” Okay, maybe that was too much information to share.
“In what cart?” Ilya furrows his brows.
“I have so much to teach you,” Shane says with a smile.
They have their typical dining times and Shane’s physical therapy that night, giving them a few hours apart, but they otherwise spend the rest of the day in front of the television in their tiny room. It’s a great excuse, Shane thinks, to confine himself next to Ilya in the name of beating his ass at video games.
Ilya falls asleep with the white Wii steering wheel on his chest after losing a 64-game MarioKart tournament while Shane watches the highlight reel to see where he could have done better.
Shane reclines, too, and wishes their bodies were closer together, wishes he could slide in next to Ilya without it being weird. The tension he’s felt emanating from Ilya all day got a little looser with something simple to focus on, but it didn’t disappear. He’s sure that getting too close to each other would only escalate it.
——
Ilya stirs awake and quickly notices his back pressed against something warm. He turns over and realizes it’s Shane, who is facing away from him and very lightly snoring. In his dreary, sleepy haze, he allows himself to press back against the other man and enjoy the simple comfort of their bodies together just for a moment.
When he wakes up again, Hollander is gone. His phone says it’s 10:30am, later than he’s used to sleeping. The toothache that normally comes to him in the mornings after grinding his teeth all night is missing, too.
“Soooooo, what did you get up to last night?” Paula says in a singsong-y tone, smiling as Ilya sits down in the chair next to hers on the pool deck.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he frowns. “But I am a man with dignity. I do not put out so quickly.” It’s not true at all, but he doesn’t feel like explaining to her the ins and outs of top drop and how he hasn’t yet learned how to be physically intimate without becoming a kinky, dominating slut devoid of deeper emotions. He’s not even sure he could explain that to himself.
“Mmmkay,” Paula says, not believing him. He lets her exist in that fantasy world.
Paula puts her book back up to her face and Ilya sees a half-naked man on the cover with an eight-pack. He’s got his arm around a woman in a bikini with comically large tits. “What are you reading?” he demands.
“Romance,” she shrugs unabashedly. “The guy is in a mob and she is being held for ransom but they fall in love, it’s kind of enemies to lovers.”
“And you like this?” he asks, flabbergasted.
“Are 47 year-olds not allowed to like sex?” Paula raises an eyebrow at him.
“Yes, but…”
“Everyone reads smut,” Paula says, dismissing his concerns.
“I do not,” Ilya interjects.
“Well you should,” she tells him. “Maybe then you’d be less weird about what’s going on between you and Shane. It’s just sex and romance, Ilya. Everyone does it. Everyone deserves it.”
He huffs, opening his own book and trying to pay attention to the words on the page. “You have more of these books?” he asks, finally.
Paula smiles. “I’ll bring you one tomorrow.”
“I will maybe read it,” Ilya says. “Maybe.”
He returns to the room when he grows tired of having the bright sun on his face — something he never expected to grow tired of. Hollander is flipping through channels on the television.
“Oh, hey,” Shane says. “Good timing. Have you ever seen The Bachelorette?”
“No,” Ilya replies. “What is this?”
Hollander explains everything there is to know about the franchise, how there’s one woman dating dozens of men at a time to try to find her future husband. He tells Ilya about the star of this current season, Rose Landry, a celebrity who he claims the network chose because the show has been low on viewership lately.
“I love Rose’s movies so I think she’ll be a great Bachelorette. They’re just starting a marathon of it to recap the season and I haven’t seen any of it yet,” Hollander explains. “Unless you’d rather play video games instead, or-”
“No, I am intrigued,” Ilya replies. He sits on his side of the bed, careful not to make contact with the other man.
——
Five episodes later, they each have a clear favorite contestant locked and loaded for next week’s live episode. They’re surrounded by empty plates with small ketchup and mustard splotches, both reclined on the pillows. They had debated whose bachelor choice is better over room service burgers and fries, a late lunch.
Paul T (Ilya’s pick) is mysterious and brooding. None of the other guys on the show like him, but he puts on the charm for Rose and always ends up sweeping her off her feet. Alex M (Shane’s pick) is more popular among the other contestants and has a few “bromances” with the guys in the house. He’s got a more boyish look about him and always makes Rose laugh.
Neither Shane nor Ilya do the easy psychoanalysis of understanding why they’re each magnetized to their respective favorites.
Shane is equally exhausted and full of energy at the same time, the kind of feeling that only happens after a long day of watching television. His body wants him to either go on a long run or crawl out of his skin. He can see that Ilya has the same kind of restless energy, too. They haven’t kissed all day.
Shane shuts the television off and turns onto his side, looking at Ilya’s profile. Ilya shifts his face the tiniest bit. Their eyes meet.
He might not know a whole lot about interpersonal moments like this, but Shane knows enough to be sure that Ilya should probably initiate a kiss right about now. It was Ilya who ended their makeout last time, so anxious and caught off guard, and now Shane is horizontal in front of the man after they’d already discussed the potential of being physical and dating. It seems like a no-brainer.
Instead, Ilya breaks his eye contact and checks the clock. 4:45pm. “You have PT,” he announces.
Shane would like to say something snarky, like “are you my mom?” On second thought, he’d like to tell Ilya to make him stay on his knees for long enough to really need PT, and Ilya can decide what to do with a kneeling Shane for hours on end. Instead, Shane nods and just leaves.
He spends the entire session with Doug thinking about what he must be doing wrong to make Ilya shut down like this. The only real data he has to draw from is when he dated a man named Luke a year or so ago. They’d met at a bar in Montreal — not a sports bar, to be sure. It was immediately obvious that Luke had no idea who Shane was or what Montreal’s hockey team name even was, for that matter. It’s part of why Shane allowed himself to indulge in the dating scenario like a normal 22 year-old.
Luke had been nice to him. They’d spent a few months together, texting and talking on the phone whenever Shane was away, or having sex and watching movies in each other’s homes when he was in town. It was… nice. Until it wasn’t.
Shane had spaced about dinner plans, which was unlike him but it was during the play-offs and he was too stressed to even check his calendar. Luke had made pasta for them and rented a movie, even lit some candles (he mentioned that fact later on.) Half an hour into their scheduled date, Luke called him to formally end things.
He used some harsh language about why it would never work out between them. Things like “You do whatever your mom wants you to do and you’ve never had to grow up” and “You’re too rich and spoiled to know what it’s like to go through trauma.” All of the shame Shane had about his closeness with his parents was coming out of someone else’s mouth, and it crushed him. All of the things he hated about fame were being reflected back to him, too, painting him in a negative light he’d tried to escape from ever since.
Shane wonders if that’s how Ilya sees him, too. Ilya, who had to leave the NHL way too early and go home to a country that doesn’t accept him. Ilya, whose brother died when he was way too young to have to deal with something like that. The very short list of personal items Shane knows about the man are all tragedies, and it would make sense for Ilya to deem him immature for not having even a fragment of the hardships he’s been through.
“Either these exercises are too painful right now or you need to get something off of your chest,” Doug says, interrupting Shane’s spiral.
“Sorry,” Shane says. “Just in my head.”
“Hard to miss the season, huh?” Doug guesses. Shane is grateful that he doesn’t even need to come up with a reason of his own. He nods and goes back to squatting on the BOSU ball.
The next three days go by in similar fashion. There are stolen glances and tense moments littered between Shane and Ilya coexisting in their temporary space like roommates. They play so much MarioKart that Shane needs to use eye drops to mitigate the pain from the screen time. They join Paula and Benny near the pool sometimes, and Shane doesn’t comment on the weird book he sees Paula hand off to Ilya with models posing half-nude on the cover. Their backs touch each other under the covers when they sleep, and every once in a while Ilya turns in his sleep and his face is close enough that his breath is on Shane’s neck. It’s nice. Easy (mostly.)
Shane tries to stop wanting more for now and focuses instead on the small joys of introducing Ilya to new things, getting front-row access to watch him becoming much more boyish and carefree as he leans into gaming and binging television like everyone else their age does.
——
Ilya doesn’t get the timing right. He should be paying attention to the clock better, maybe even setting an alarm on his phone, but he assumes Hollander is going straight to dinner from PT like he typically does, giving him plenty of alone time in their shared space.
The memory of Shane straddling him in the hot tub the other night, and the four days he’s now spent mere inches from the man, have been making Ilya’s skin burn. There’s a heat inside of him that feels bottled up. A ticking time bomb. If it isn’t dealt with soon, it’ll be a problem.
He takes the time that he thinks he has, being leisurely about it all. He palms his cock through his boxers gently as he replays memories. He’s slow to get the lube from his duffel, and even when he does, he takes his time warming it between fingers before wrapping his slippery hand around his dick and moaning at the sensation. He doesn’t even pull up the video from weeks ago that’ll get him off immediately: he wants to indulge in this, not rush to orgasm.
If they were staying in a normal room on the ship, there would be an extra latch on the door he could lock to keep Shane out. There would at least be the warning sound of the light “beep” when someone’s card goes through the reader.
Instead, all he has is a millisecond between hearing the turning of the handle and seeing Hollander’s shocked face.
“Fuck,” Ilya says, pulling the blanket over him.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Hollander lets out, grabbing the door and closing it.
“Holland—” Ilya is interrupted by the door slamming shut.
He pulls up his boxers, slips into his workout shorts that are conveniently on the bed next to him, and bolts to the door.
Hollander is standing there, frozen in the doorway, his face and ears beet red. Ilya’s body moves faster than his brain can. He makes a fist in the fabric of the man’s shirt and pulls him into the room, pushing him against the wall in the entryway. He presses his lips to Shane’s and is immediately met with reciprocation.
Their mouths move quickly, hungrily together, tongues sliding in unison and wet lips biting each other lightly. Ilya pulls off, pushes the hair out of Shane’s face and really looks at him, then pulls the strands harder to force Shane’s mouth open more, making room to slide his tongue in. Everything he’s dreamt of doing to the man every day of the last four years comes to his mind and he can barely decide where to start.
He all but throws Hollander onto the bed, then lowers himself on top of him, bringing their mouths together again quickly so he doesn’t have to go too long in the absence of it. Their hard cocks make contact and Shane moans into Ilya.
“Fucking touch me already,” Hollander says, and it’s the exact right thing. It’s demanding and desperate all at once, shattering the need for Ilya to take full control and making everything feel more even.
Ilya moves his hand between them and under Hollander’s waistband. His lower stomach hair is so soft, the skin so warm, and Ilya gets goosebumps as he slides his hand over Hollander’s dick. His own hand is still lubricated enough to move against it easily, and Shane lets out a shaky breath as he does.
It’s not enough. Ilya needs more. He puts his mouth back on Shane’s neck, sucking lightly as he continues moving his hand. He can feel Hollander’s heart beating quickly when his mouth trails over a pulse point. He makes a line of kisses downward, slowly, until Hollander catches on and places both hands on Ilya’s head then pushes it down toward his crotch. It’s bossy and decisive and everything Ilya wants right now.
Ilya rips off Hollander’s shorts and boxers, admiring the man’s glistening cock for a brief second before taking the entire thing into his mouth.
“Ilya,” Hollander moans, bucking up into him.
The familiar ache of his jaw opening around someone is so fucking delicious, made better by the fact that it’s finally Shane. Ilya licks up the shaft in front of him and circles his tongue around the tip before taking Shane fully into his mouth again, letting it fill his throat to the brim. He’s almost too lost in the act of it to notice when heat starts spreading through his mouth, a nostalgic taste filling him and dripping onto his chin as Shane moans and balls his fists into the sheets. He keeps Shane in his mouth, feeling the cock get smaller as he swallows around it.
And then Shane is using his bossy hands again, pulling Ilya off and back up the bed so they’re face to face. Shane licks the tiny trail of his own come off of Ilya’s chin, and Ilya has to stop himself from wondering where the hell Hollander learned that.
They’re kissing again, still just as eager as they were that very first time. Shane shifts them both, positioning himself on top of Ilya. “Let me show you how to do this, kid,” he chirps.
Ilya chuckles at the reference to their first night together. Something warms in him at the idea that Hollander remembers those words all these years later. Maybe Shane replays the night in his head all the time, too. If memories were YouTube videos, that one would have a million views from Ilya’s account, but he wonders now if Hollander would match that number.
He stops thinking any coherent thoughts when Shane’s mouth is on him, his warm tongue licking from base to tip. And then Shane’s open, pink mouth takes Ilya in, sucking him deeper and deeper until his nose is pressed flush to Ilya’s skin. Shane moans, causing a flutter deep in his throat that vibrates and sends Ilya to another dimension.
Ilya moves his hands down to grab Shane’s head, trying to pull him up and down. In an instant, Shane’s hands find Ilya’s wrists and force them down onto the bed. He shakes his head and glares at Ilya through his eyelashes. He bobs up and down himself, holding Ilya firmly against the bed.
The feeling of his own hands immobilized is enough to making Ilya fucking explode down Shane’s throat. He can’t even try to pull away out of courtesy: he’s forced to just let Shane take it, and there’s something so unbelievably hot about that.
——
“Good boy,” Shane says as he pulls off Ilya’s cock and returns to his horizontal position on the bed. The look on Ilya’s face is enough to know that was the right thing to say. He had decided, without really thinking about it, to let the “Daniel” persona shine through during their sex, giving himself permission to do what he wants and not wait for someone else to say it’s okay.
He can tell he is starting to crack the code of how to get Ilya out of his own head. He wants to call Hayden to scream “I figured it out!” but there are too many details he doesn’t want to share. Details that belong just to him and Ilya.
Ilya is still catching his breath, his face an adorable shade of red. Shane wants to live in the beautiful silence between them right now, in this moment where Ilya feels like his, unable to slip away just yet. Ilya finally looks at him and there’s a soft smile on his face. Shane leans in and kisses him.
“Don’t pull back this time, okay?” he says when their mouths part.
Ilya nods. “I can try.”
“Don’t just try. Do,” Shane’s never heard himself be this bossy outside of the locker room. He likes it.
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father after his older brother's untimely death. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
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Ilya wakes up convinced the ship is sinking. Scenes from ‘Titanic’ flash through his brain as he examines the water coming from various points of the ceiling, horrified.
The carpet is coated in at least two inches of water and it seeps into his socks immediately, making his sore feet tingle at the frigid temperature of it. He tries to remember the safety presentation from the first day of the cruise. They really should not serve any alcohol before that; he should have paid better attention.
Ilya swings open the door to the hallway, sure that it’ll be filling up with ocean water, too. All he can think about is getting upstairs to gather his people and get them onto one of the orange safety boats along the sides of the ship. In the back of his head, though, there is a voice saying “I knew it was all too good to be true.” Hollander, Paula, Benny, everything he’s seen… it’s all too much. Of course it’s time for that to come to an end.
But then he sees that the hallway is fine. Completely dry and empty, no screaming people running upstairs to safety.
He blinks. He looks behind him, where his room is still wet. A small splotch of water is creeping out from where he’s standing into the hallway, even more so now that his door is wide open, but it contrasts with the dry carpet in a way that clearly proves there is no other water in the area.
“What the—” he is interrupted by Benny and a professional-looking lady walking swiftly toward him.
“I am so sorry about this,” Benny says in his serious work voice.
“We are so sorry,” the woman corrects. Her blonde hair is pulled into a tight bun, her bright red lips pinched in a pitying frown. Her nametag says “Helen - Sweden.”
“What’s going on?” Ilya is too confused to say anything but the question.
“There’s a family two floors above you. They think one of their kids snuck into the bathroom and turned on the bathtub in the night,” Benny explains. “No one noticed until ten minutes ago, when your upstairs neighbors called to report the flooding. We’re here to evacuate all of you and find a solution.”
“What time is it?” Ilya is still orienting himself and accepting that his fear isn’t currently manifesting.
“7:45 am,” the woman replies immediately.
The two employees lead Ilya up to the dining room where the other evacuees are waiting.
“I’m so sorry,” a young American mom says to Ilya. She’s holding a tired-looking toddler and it’s clear they’ve both been crying. “I didn’t hear the water. I feel so stupid.”
“It’s okay,” he reassures her with soft eye contact and a friendly touch to her forearm. But honestly, he has no idea if it’s okay. He doesn’t know what happens when your room floods in the middle of the ocean.
“So, here’s the idea,” Benny says to the group, speaking confidently and professionally. Ilya would laugh at his professional voice if he wasn’t so confused and concerned. “We have one empty room on board since a group left early from the LA port a while back. One party here can have that room — it has a king sized bed. We are currently working with housekeeping to figure out solutions for the other two parties. If nothing is found, we will need to disembark you at the next port and refund your entire cruise.”
Ilya doesn’t need much brain power to know that he’s the lowest of the pecking order here. The other party put out by the flooding is a sweet-looking elderly couple. He’s not about to ask to get the empty room. At the same time, though, the allusion to the refund punches a hole in his stomach. Missing the rest of the cruise would be unthinkably awful. He can’t even let his brain go there.
“How long will it take to get our original rooms back?” the man from the elderly couple asks.
“We aren’t completely sure,” Benny replies. “This is unfortunate timing. We don’t have a port for another five days, and we are not comfortable allowing you all to stay in those rooms until they are deep cleaned, dried out, and assessed for any mold or mildew. That could take a few weeks, if not the rest of the cruise.”
The group groans.
“Let them have the room,” the young mom tells Benny, gesturing to the older couple. She and Benny look to Ilya to check if this is okay.
“Yes, of course give to them,” Ilya says, unclear why he’d even be asked.
“We will happily take whatever else is available for the next sea days, and if need be, we can get off at the next port. This is completely my fault, I’m so sorry,” the mom reiterates. Ilya feels awful for her. He also glares at her husband, who is letting her take all of the blame and hold onto both kids while he sits quietly to the back.
“It was accident. Is okay,” Ilya reassures her again. He smiles at the toddler who is looking him right in the eye.
“We’re still waiting to hear from housekeeping about the other solutions. They’re working on it as we speak,” Helen says.
“I’m sorry again, Mr. Rozanov,” she tells him directly. There’s a fear in her eyes that Ilya is somewhat used to: it’s the same fear a lot of people have when they’re thinking he’s some kind of angry Slavic man just waiting to explode on them.
“Really, is okay,” Ilya says. He hopes she believes him.
Benny gives him a little pat on the shoulders and walks away, seeking more answers.
—-
Shane finally spots Ilya at breakfast. He’s unsure why the other man is in the dining room way earlier than usual and with an unfamiliar group of people, but he doesn’t care. He walks over bravely if a bit hesitantly, not understanding the complicated look he receives when they make eye contact.
“Can I join you?” Shane asks, realizing nobody is sitting down.
Ilya smiles back at him and nods. “I should get food, too,” he says.
They fill up their plates at separate ends of the buffet: Ilya a bacon and cheese omelet, Shane another fruit and yogurt parfait. Ilya leads them back to the group and Shane finally asks, quietly, “Who are they?”
“Ah,” Ilya laughs, sitting down at a two-top next to the young family. “My neighbors, I guess. Or, they were.”
Shane feels guilty that he’s never even introduced himself to the people around him on the ship, nonetheless gone to a meal with them. “Oh, shoot, is it okay that I’m here, then? I figured -”
He’s interrupted when Benny comes up to the group and addresses all of them at once.
“Okay, folks, we have an update. I wish it was a better one,” Benny says. His gaze catches on Shane, but he doesn’t say anything.
Shane looks at Ilya, confused.
“There are no other places for long term guest use,” Benny continues. “We have the staff lounge as a short term solution until our next port, and then all parties not in the aforementioned open room will indeed disembark when we get to Mauritius in five days. I’m so sorry. Of course, as I said, we will refund your trip and Voyageur is offering everyone a free week-long cruise of their choice to make up for the inconvenience.”
Ilya’s head is in his palms. The mom next to them starts crying, which sets the toddler and older kid off. Shane wonders how he’s never seen a child on this cruise before. He also wonders what the fuck is happening.
“My room is flooded,” Ilya explains before Shane has to ask. “Bathtub leak. All three of our rooms are soaked,” he points to the family and an older couple on the other side. “There is one open room that the couple will have. I guess the family will be in staff lounge”
Benny comes up to their table, pulling up a chair for himself. “So, I figure we can do 12 hour shifts. You have the bed from 7am to 7pm, while I’m working, then I take the next shift,” he says, grabbing a potato wedge from Ilya’s plate and eating it. “You’ll be nocturnal but we’re all jet lagged anyway.”
Ilya shakes his head. “I cannot take your bed from you.”
“It’s that or the pool chairs,” Benny shrugs.
“… Or my bed,” Shane finally says. They both look up at him.
“I also cannot ask that of you. 12 hour shifts would be miserable, and it’s so long,” Ilya says. Benny is just smiling.
“We wouldn’t do shifts,” Shane shrugs. “It’s big enough for two people.” He tries to hide how excited the idea is making him.
“It would solve a lot of problems,” Benny says, looking at Ilya to convince him. “And it’s just a short term solution until you fly home from Mauritius.”
Shane’s heart sinks at the idea of leaving Ilya at the next port. It also hastens at the thought of spending the rest of the cruise in the same cabin as the man. He doesn’t have time to weigh all of the pros and cons before he says, “Why can’t he just be in my room after that, too? I have a suite, it’s meant for two.”
“Now we’re talking,” Benny says. “I knew I liked you.”
“No, that’s not fair to you,” Ilya says.
“More fair than getting kicked off the cruise for something out of your control,” Shane retorts.
“Touché,” Ilya says.
Shane raises an eyebrow.
“What? I Googled it,” Ilya smiles.
“How big is the staff lounge?” Shane asks, calculating his next plan.
Benny laughs. “Probably the size of your bathroom.”
“Okay, then, they’ll take my room until the port,” Shane gestures to the family.
“Well now I really like you, Shane Hollander,” Benny says with a big smile.
When Shane sees the size of the staff lounge — a tiny, dark triangular room with a large mattress placed haphazardly on the floor — he knows he made the right choice. There’s not even a bathroom in here, so they’ve been instructed to use the gym five floors up. There’s one tiny window: a porthole that’s mostly underwater. He can’t begin to imagine a family of four being cramped in here for almost a week.
Helen, a stern staff member helping Benny, had gone with him to his suite to help him pack all of his things and carry them down three floors to their temporary home, apologizing to him again for the accommodations before leaving to help the others. It’s dark and small and he does not care in the slightest because it’s a space he’s going to get to share with Ilya.
Ilya, on the other hand, does seem to care. Maybe not about the downgrade of the space, but something is clearly bothering him.
He took longer than Shane to come down to their new quarters. Benny had accompanied him and Shane heard Benny promise to bring the rest of his things from the dryer later that day. And now they’re completely alone, with just their bags and five days to fill. It’s the first time they’ve been behind a closed door together, Shane realizes.
“I feel terrible,” Ilya says the second they’re completely alone.
Shane wants to give him a hug. Instead, he touches the man’s hand. Ilya allows it, even shifting his own hand so their palms come together. Shane pulses his finger muscles, hoping it sends comfort through their touch. “It’s not your fault,” he says. He wants to say “I’m happy this is happening” and “I would share a shoebox with you if it meant getting two months by your side” and “let’s just lay here and cuddle” but of course he doesn’t.
au where shane is transmasc and ilya is a t-dick and boypussy worshipper. he goes fucking feral for eating shane out. he wants his mouth and chin coated in his boyfriend at all times. he has a mental list of the different tastes of shane and he always asks shane if he can eat his pussy after a game or workout, before the shower washes away his favorite flavor. he can tell when shane's bottom growth kicks in, even if it's just one centimeter, because he knows the exact length of his boyfriend's dick in his mouth. his #1 song on spotify wrapped is always "pussy is god" by king princess. he gets a tattoo of an anatomically correct clitoris above his elbow and marly asks why he got a wishbone there.
After Ilya stays in the cottage that first summer, something shifts in a way that scares Shane. He's used to getting completely wired around Ilya: each hookup night meant falling asleep no earlier than 3am, either because they were all over each other until the late hour, or because Shane was pacing around his hotel room, unpacking what just happened.
But now, he gets so tired whenever Ilya is around. His eyelids start to droop and, even though he's spent days or weeks looking forward to reuniting with his boyfriend, all he wants to do is fall asleep in Ilya's arms.
He decides to go to the doctor for some labs, checking for conditions that would make him fatigued. Words like leukemia and lupus came up on his Google searches, so he braces for the worst.
"Everything is perfect, Shane," his doctor tells him over the phone a week later. "But, you know, if you're worried about it, you could talk to a psychiatrist."
He makes an appointment for the next day with the first psychiatrist he finds. He explains the issue again: extreme sleepiness, maybe even narcolepsy, if Web MD is right. After more prompting, he specifies that this happens specifically around his partner.
The psychiatrist smiles at him. "Do you know much about nervous system regulation?" she asks gently. When he shakes his head, she explains further. "There are some people or settings that cause our nervous systems to feel calmer, and, especially for people who spend a lot of their lives in a state of fight or flight, those soothing feelings can make us tired and sleepy. Maybe your body finally feels safe and able to rest."
He doesn't tell Ilya about this until months later, and he's met with a loud squeal and a thousand kisses on his cheeks, jaw, forehead, and collarbones. "I love being your safe place," Ilya says.
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father, and because a cutdown on Visas made it hard for him to commit to an American team. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
Read it on AO3
Of course the part of Ilya’s brain that tells him “this is too good to be true” comes rearing back up the following morning. It was bound to happen eventually. That part of him, which is like a devil on his shoulder trying to get him to distrust the world around him, has been right too frequently to be discredited. It was right when his mom died, and when his brother died, and when he left the league. It was also right (albeit temporarily) over a week ago when Hollander left the ship.
He’d had multiple good days in a row, and Hollander — Shane — was being nice and friendly and romantic. Comforting. Protective.
Yes, it’s probably the protectiveness from Hollander that gives this devious part the microphone now. And the part is screaming, “Life does not go like this. Something is going to happen.”
The more he listens to it, the more he realizes how truthful it is. Something is going to happen in less than two months when the cruise ends and they dock for the very last time. He and Hollander will fly all the way across the world from each other and Hollander will return to a life of celebrity and endless money while Ilya starts another mind-numbing waiter job. Well, or…
Or he can give into the pills in the mint box. A choice that is way more likely if he has to experience losing Hollander once it’s too late to reel his feelings in. Right now, the loss would be a cut that could heal with stitches and a year of applying scar cream. But, a week from now? A month from now?
He commits to a new outlook as though it’s some kind of mission. He will enjoy his time with Hollander, but from a distance. He’ll keep focusing on the other things bringing him joy on this cruise, things that will still be available to him after all of this ends.
—
Shane is almost too preoccupied with the final day in New Zealand — this time at a port in Wellington — to mourn the fact that his next excursion will be without Ilya.
Ilya and Paula go over their plans at breakfast as all three of them apply sunscreen and fuel up on protein. The two are scheduled for a hike through a mountainous region next to the ocean, which was marked as “strenuous” due to the steep incline, long mileage, and multiple rope bridges. Shane is jealous for a million and one reasons, but he’s also excited to see a place called “Zealandia Te Mara a Tane”, a nature sanctuary.
The short bus ride escorts Shane and his familiar elderly companions from the dock — which is along a gorgeous, rocky coast — and into the lush greenery next to them. They are each given a “Zealandia” branded set of binoculars and bucket hats, which makes Shane feel ridiculous, but he wears them anyway.
Their tour guide, a young woman named Ana with a thick Kiwi accent (Shane had learned this word yesterday) opens the glass door to the nature space and escorts them forward.
The birds are one thing: dozens of species make themselves known to him within just the first ten minutes of entering the sanctuary. Ana identifies a Tūī by their unique melodic whistles and points one out to the group. It’s metallic blue, with two large puffs of white at the front of its neck, almost like a bowtie. There’s a Takahē bird, which has a red beak that looks almost like a penguin’s, and Ana explains that the beaks are prehistoric. There are plenty of tiny cuckoo birds and robins chirping between the trees.
Shane once read that bird sounds are calming to human nervous systems, and he feels the truth of it.
But the plants — the plants are something else entirely. Shane abandons the group quickly to buy a “Plants of New Zealand” book he’d spotted at the gift shop just so he can start identifying them on his own. Everything looks like it was invented by aliens, or like God handed markers to a bunch of five year olds and asked them to draw what they think flowers should look like. Pink and green and white chaotic flora decorate the entire area. Large, citrus-scented trees (Taratas, Shane recognizes) line the space and offer tons of light green and yellow foliage. More fungi than he could ever count seems to pop up everywhere, in shades of white and red and pink.
His phone yells at him for being out of storage from how many photos he’s taking. He deletes a few old videos of locker room debauchery to make more room. He deletes the Grindr app to make space, too.
On the ride back to the ship, and for the first hour after returning to his suite, Shane reviews the photos meticulously and places his favorites into a separate album to show Ilya. He calls his parents before he remembers he has no idea what time it is in Ottawa.
“Hello?” Yuna says, her voice groggy and confused.
“Shoot, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Shane apologizes.
“No, no, it’s okay. Are you okay” Then, more muffled: “David, it’s Shane.”
“Hi Shane!” David says in a lively voice in the background.
“Your father was still up reading. It’s not that late. I’m glad you called,” she affirms.
“We miss you, kid!” he yells.
“I miss you, too. And I can hear you fine without yelling,” Shane smiles.
“Send us photos from New Zealand today, I’m tired of looking at the same five pictures from the Hobbit world,” Yuna requests.
“The Shire,” David corrects, still yelling a little.
“Okay,” Shane says. It was part of why he called anyway. He selects a bunch from his album and sends them to his group chat with his parents. “There.”
“I got ‘em!” David announces proudly. “Oh wow, so beautiful!”
“These are amazing, Shaney,” Yuna says.
“Do you think I can use them as one of the posts we promised the cruise line?” Shane asks her.
“No,” she replies without hesitation. “We need you to be in them.”
“What about the selfie from yesterday?”
“No selfies. That’s not really professional enough. We need a full body photo of you on the ship, and another few of you on excursions,” she explains.
“Well, that’s not exactly easy to accomplish on my own,” Shane says.
“I thought you said you’ve been making some friends?” Yuna asks.
“Yeah, but not, like, photographer friends,” he explains. His face burns a little the vague reference to Ilya. He worries his mom — who’s a professional at reading his mind — can pick up on something.
“They don’t need photography skills,” Yuna laughs, as though this is a ridiculous suggestion. “Just the ability to hold a camera and press a button. You should wear your Metros shirt for the one on the ship, okay?”
“‘Kay,” Shane agrees.
He recaps more of the past few days for them, leaving out the hue of romance that had lingered over them like a beautiful fog and instead focusing on the specific excursions and sights. They say their goodnights and Shane heads to his PT appointment. At dinner that night, he looks for Ilya but can’t find him anywhere. The photo album is practically burning a hole in his pocket with anticipation, but he assumes the other man is too exhausted from nine miles around the coast.
—
The next two days, Ilya makes himself scarce again. There’s one day at sea and then one at the port in Sydney, Australia. He works out with Paula and eats his normal meals, but spends most of his time sleeping in his room, using melatonin to make the day go by like he’s used to doing. He curses himself for slipping back into the habit, but not enough to make him actually stop it.
He’s quickly forced back out of his shell in Sydney, where he and Paula do a hike in Blue Mountain National Park. The terrain reminds him of Hawaii: there are so many clusters of trees with rust-colored rock faces poking out. The guide takes them to a waterfall, which of course takes Ilya’s breath away all over again.
He feels himself coming back into his body with every deep breath of the piney mountain air. He feels his sarcasm returning every time Paula strikes conversation. They allow themselves to fall to the back of the pack of hikers so they can chat more.
“If you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be?” she asks him. It’s just one of a seemingly endless list of questions she has up her sleeve. She’s a professional at talking to people, Ilya has learned. Which makes sense considering how much of her life is spent cruising around the world with strangers.
“I am not ice cream,” Ilya retorts.
“We’ve been over this. You’re not a type of shoe or pasta noodle either, but you definitely do have a Doc Marten and Cavatappi vibes. Now play along or I’m finding a new friend and you’ll be bored for the last two hours of this hike. I’m too sore and tired and need a distraction.”
“Fine,” he huffs. It at least takes his mind off of the blister in his right shoe and the dull pain in both knees from two strenuous hikes in three days.
“I can go first, as an example,” Paula tells him. “I’m..” she thinks for a second, “a coffee ice cream base, because I have a lot of energy. With chunks of caramel. Not like a caramel swirl — actual chunks, like they’re chocolate chips. Oh, and I want chocolate chips, too. And also something colorful, so probably gummy bears.”
“Gross,” Ilya says, imagining cold and wet gummy bears mixed with a coffee flavor.
“You’d still eat it,” she laughs. “I’ve seen how much ice cream you eat.”
Ilya shrugs and thinks about all of the flavors and toppings he’s seen. The endless desserts on the cruise have given him plenty to draw from. “I would be strawberry base,” he announces matter-of-factly. “And fudge swirls but the fudge has bourbon. And big sea salt flakes like what they put on the cake last night.”
“That’s perfect,” Paula gasps. “You’re sweet but maybe a little outside of the norm like strawberry, you have a bite like the bourbon does. Unexpected like salt in ice cream. Only, it’s missing something.” She thinks for a beat, then says confidently: “You have a hard chocolate shell on the outside. One of those magic shells you need to break with a spoon.”
Ilya nods, completely agreeing with her. He feels quite seen by her read on him.
He can’t help but think of how Hollander would answer this question, just like he’s filled in the boy’s answers for every other one of Paula’s strange little riddles. Macaroni noodles, white Adidas slides, and now cookie dough ice cream with chocolate sprinkles, served over a warm brownie. Always something comfortable, reasonable, logical, sweet.
That night, at the hot tub, he sees Hollander for the first time in over 48 hours.
—
Seeing Ilya for the first time in a while is akin to how Shane felt when they first met. The man’s beauty is absolutely striking, especially when you aren’t expecting it. His hair is curlier, eyes bluer, chest fuller than Shane’s memory could ever paint them. The eye contact as Ilya sees him disrobe and get into the hot tub makes Shane’s stomach flip over.
He feels sadness bubbling up at how unfamiliar Ilya’s presence feels despite how much he’s relived their last kiss over the past two days. He couldn’t walk five steps in the Sydney Opera House without getting a flashback of Ilya’s lips on his or his hand on Shane’s knee.
Now, sliding into the hot tub, Shane is more anxious than he wants to be. He wonders how one person could elicit this level of disarray from him. He wonders if he affects Ilya even a fraction of the amount that Ilya affects him.
“How was the Opera House tour?” Benny asks him, and Shane realizes that there are other people in the space. It’s not that he couldn’t have spotted the five blurry bodies lingering around him and Ilya, just that he didn’t even register them.
“Really nice,” Shane says, taking in the group. Benny and Ilya are in the corner next to the entryway steps that Shane finds himself perched upon. In another corner, there’s a middle aged couple speaking a foreign language to each other that he thinks is Portuguese. There’s an older man along the other wall of the tub, about a meter away, drinking whiskey or scotch on the rocks and reading a newspaper despite the fact that it’s 9pm.
“How was the hike?” Shane asks Ilya.
“Really good,” Ilya responds before taking a sip of what must be a piña colada. Shane looks at the frost coating the outside of the fancy cocktail glass. It’s quiet for a second, and he wishes it was just him and Ilya here, but also worries about what they’d talk about if they were alone. There’s something about Ilya right now that feels off.
“What kind of ice cream would you be?” Ilya asks both Benny and Shane.
“...What?” Shane thinks maybe Ilya meant to ask what kind of ice cream they’d like to order, or something. An ice cream and piña colada is a lot of sugary coldness at once, but who is he to judge?
“Let me guess, Paula asked you that?” Benny laughs.
Ilya nods. “She has asked you this before?”
“Yep. Every year, like clockwork. And it’s the same answer every time. Mint chocolate chip,” Benny says. “An unexpected favorite that everyone loves, with a minty freshness that keeps you coming back for more.”
“Hmm,” Ilya considers this then nods. “Hollander?”
Shane is struck by the use of his last name, like a slap across the face, but tries not to show it. He gathers from context clues that the flavor should have something to do with his personality. He supposes he’s somewhat straightforward and palatable. He goes with his own favorite, a safe bet: “Chocolate chip cookie dough, probably.”
Ilya smiles at this. “Da, I can see that.”
Shane sinks deeper into the water and Ilya’s body language opens a little. Eventually, their legs make contact below the surface and Ilya doesn’t pull his away. Just the soft scratchiness of his hairy shins is enough for Shane to get lost in for now.
Eventually the other guests excuse themselves from the hot tub. Benny leaves a while later, announcing that he's calling it a night because there are five days at sea where he'll have to be "on" for activities and other "fun management." Once he's gone, it's just Shane and Ilya. Shane is sweating from the hot water but refuses to give up the opportunity for alone time. He turns his body more and makes eye contact, almost afraid to break the comfortable but loaded silence between them. He can tell that Ilya has been waiting for the alone time, too. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking.
Ilya looks down at his lips, then back into his eyes. "Hi," he says, and it makes sense to say because he's finally really seeing Shane for the first time in a few days. Shane sees him breathing faster just as his own breath catches.
Without a word, Shane presses his lips to Ilya’s, not overthinking the fact that he’s initiated every kiss they’ve had lately. Ilya’s lips open, almost immediately, almost (almost, Shane thinks) desperately. He deepens the kiss and moves his body closer to Shane’s so their chests are touching. Their hot, wet skin slides together and creates more of a stir in Shane’s swim trunks. He puts a hand on the back of Ilya’s neck and runs his fingers through the wet curls.
They stay in that somewhat chaste pose for a minute, moving their tongues together as Shane tugs lightly at Ilya's hair, until Ilya’s hands find Shane’s hips underwater and pulls him closer. The touch is ecstatic. Shane feels his head spin. Ilya guides his hips until Shane is straddling him on the bench.
They’re both breathless, just two warm and electric bodies trying desperately to be closer, closer. Shane’s knees are getting scraped by the cement surface of the bench and he doesn’t care. He shouldn’t be kneeling in any way, but the buoyancy of the water and weight of Ilya underneath him protects the joints just fine.
Ilya moves his mouth down to kiss and nip at Shane’s neck. Shane automatically grinds his hips down, his hard cock rutting against Ilya’s. He could fucking come just from this, he thinks, repeating the motion.
“So hard for me,” Ilya whispers as he pulls Shane down against him more. Shane kisses him again and moans into his mouth at the words and the friction between them.
The ship tips a bit, hitting some kind of wave below them, and the movement causes Ilya’s empty cocktail glass to fall off the ledge and onto the wooden deck by the tub. The sound of it breaking shatters whatever is happening between them and Ilya comes back to himself all at once: Shane can see it happening, can see Ilya realize that they’re in public and getting ahead of themselves.
“Come to my room,” Shane says, hoping to get back to the Ilya of ten seconds ago before he slips away completely.
Ilya considers it, then shakes his head. “We shouldn’t, Hollander. We can’t. Not yet.”
ilya texts cliff "he🏒🏒 yeah" and hears a roar of laughter from the other side of the hotel lobby.
"holy fucking shit, roz, that's so funny. H-E-double hockey sticks, oh my fucking god. who taught you that?!" cliff yells, barreling toward him.
at least once a week from then on, cliff finds a reason to use "he🏒🏒 yeah brother" and "what the he🏒🏒" and "let's give them he🏒🏒 tonight" and eventually "he🏒🏒o cap" and then calling him "i🏒ya" over text . ilya is convinced he doesn't use the letter L at all anymore.
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father, and because a cutdown on Visas made it hard for him to commit to an American team. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
Read it on AO3
“It was a little much,” Ilya laughs as he recaps the picnic event for Benny.
“And that's after I made her reign it in,” Benny says, laughing too.
“But it worked,” Paula interjects. “Sorry that I like seeing my friends happy.” She lifts up her arms as though to suggest she’s innocent.
“I am not complaining,” Ilya shrugs. “Thank you.”
They’re eating breakfast, Ilya and Paula coated with a sweaty shine after their morning workout. His cheeks hurt from smiling.
Ilya walked Shane home last night and gave him a kiss in front of the door to his room. He didn’t ask to go in, even though part of him really wanted to.
That morning, he also didn’t immediately look for Shane, even though he wanted to do that, too. He needs to be slow and intentional and not fucking crazy about this, he decides. Even though the kiss is still tingling his lips and Shane’s freckles appear like a constellation every time Ilya closes his eyes.
He sees Shane at a perfectly respectable time that day: 2pm, by the pool. Ilya and Paula are reading next to each other again and Shane walks up to them.
“Mind if I join?” he asks, smiling at Ilya.
“Please do!” Paula says, beaming.
Ilya nods and gets up, pulling a recliner from a few meters away to be closer to them and putting it into a more relaxed position for Shane.
“Oh, you don’t have to-” Shane tries to stop him, but Ilya is too fast and doesn’t care to be told not to.
Ilya pretends to go back to his book, which is ‘Anna Karenina’ printed in both Russian and English. His mother owned dozens of dual language books, mostly the classics. It’s how she learned English. And while he still has all of her copies, he would never take a risk by bringing them traveling. Those are locked up in a safe in his apartment next to tons of old letters she wrote (some even addressed to him) and a large stack of family photographs.
He peers over his shoulder at Shane and reads the title of the beautiful, large, hard-covered book in his hands: he can’t make out the top few words, but in bigger print beneath it says ‘Guide to Trees.’
“You are reading about trees?” he asks, surprised it’s not sports-related.
Shane looks up at him. “Yes. I like them.”
Ilya can’t help but smile at this. “What do you like about them?”
“How much time do you have?” Shane jokes.
“Two days until New Zealand. I am all ears, as you say.”
Shane puts his book down. He looks over to Paula, as though to make sure she isn’t listening in. Ilya looks, too, and finds his friend asleep, her own book sprawled across her chest. He quickly adjusts the umbrella to make sure she’s completely shaded while she naps.
“There are over sixty thousand tree species. I learned that when I was little, and it stuck with me. A lot of those species are found in only one or two countries. You can literally tell where you are in the world just by identifying local trees,” Shane explains.
Ilya nods, already engrossed.
“I’ve had this book for probably ten years and I usually take it on vacation with me. It’s organized by country, see?” He holds it up to Ilya and shows off the tabs on the side, which are separated by continent and then alphabetically into countries. The edges of the book are worn down, the pages somewhat puffy from years of use. “I like to study up and try to memorize the names and identifying factors of each species native to wherever I’m going. Like, in Mexico, we saw a ton of Mangroves and fan palms.” He flips to the right pages to show Ilya the photographs.
“Wow,” Ilya says. “And yesterday, in Fiji?”
Shane is clearly happy he asked. He flips pages and shows Ilya the Sea Poison Tree entry. The tree has little whitish-green pods with small, white lines poking out that eventually turn into beautiful purple flowers that look like pom poms. “I was reading this one last night. It was right behind us at the picnic, remember?”
Ilya nods, delighted. “I saw it.”
Shane smiles. “So, anyway, I’m just reading up on New Zealand and Australia before we get there. There are so many for those countries, it’s intimidating.”
“Can I look, too?” Ilya asks. Shane nods and he scoots his chair even closer to Ilya. He holds up the book so that Ilya can see it as he flips through. Later on, when his arm gets tired, he passes it over and Ilya takes a turn.
They go back and forth like that for the better part of the afternoon. Every once in a while, one of them comments about the colorful leaves in a tree or reads a particularly mind-blowing fact out loud. They stop to order drinks or refill waters, but every time they get up, Ilya finds himself quickly pulled back into resting his head in the little nook he's carved at the top of his lounge chair that is so close to Shane he can feel the other man’s hair tickle his forehead.
—
Shane is happy for the two days at sea to catch up on his reading and rekindle his Wii Tennis addiction — and, of course, to sneak in time with Ilya. But he’s even happier when they finally arrive in New Zealand.
He and Ilya finally compared notes on excursions instead of forcing each other to simply guess if they’d be spending the day together or not. The first day in Auckland, Ilya makes up for his missed ziplining adventure with a New Zealand counterpart, surely just as dangerous. Shane is signed up for a tour of part of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ set, which Ilya admits he wouldn’t appreciate anyway.
Shane spends the entire two and a half hour bus ride to the site completely buzzing, wishing his dad was with him. They’d watched all of the movies together when Shane was in elementary school, all in one weekend, to celebrate the final film’s DVD release. He was convinced that his dad invented the term “binge watching.” David even made themed food — special breads and cakes and potatoes — and they ate on a hobbit schedule all weekend, having meals called “Elevenses” and a separate “Dinner” and “Supper.”
The Shire is as majestic in real life as he remembers it being on screen when he was twelve.
There are tiny hobbit homes with circular, wooden doors all painted vibrant colors. Each home looks like a small bump in the hill with a facade carved into it. The entryways are framed with hundreds of flowers, all different varieties.
On top of one of the houses, Shane sees a giant Monterey Pine and takes a picture of it to show Ilya later. He takes approximately two hundred photos of the Shire to send to his parents, including an awkward selfie with as many hobbit homes in the background as he can fit. And, pushing aside any embarrassment that would stop him, he snaps some photos of the quaint, green stony paths to send to his landscaper as inspiration for the cottage.
The second day in New Zealand is somehow more exciting than the first, as Shane and Ilya have both selected the glow worm boat tour in the Waitomo caves.
It’s another few hours by bus, which Shane spends studying trees in his book and pressing his foot back against Ilya’s every time the other man moves his feet around, a coy game that’s definitely not making his heart beat faster.
Their small group is instructed to place all phones, recording devices, and bags into metal lockers next to the entrance of the cave. Shane complies, fitting the large tree book and his day pack in. Ilya slides his own phone, the only thing he brought for the day, into Shane’s locker, too. Shane grabs two granola bars and stuffs them into his pocket, just in case.
“Now, the glow worms prefer complete silence,” the guide explains to them as they enter the mouth of the cave. “We use quiet motors and expect everyone to respect our ‘no talking’ policy to not disturb the environment.” They all nod. Shane wishes more public spaces had “no talking” policies. He likes these glow worms and their way of being already.
The boat seats ten people, all crammed together on a bench that lines either side of the small wooden hull. The caves are freezing and he’s glad Paula warned them both to bring layers. The cold air makes him nostalgic for hockey, if you can even be nostalgic for something you’ve only missed for a month. He can’t imagine what that nostalgia feels like for Ilya.
Thinking of Ilya, Shane turns his body a tiny bit so that their exposed knees can touch. He smiles up at the man and notices something strange in Ilya’s eyes that he cannot place.
—
Ilya Rozanov is terrified out of his fucking mind. He is on a tiny, barely functional motorboat that is making weird fucking noises as it navigates them through water that is literally pitch black. Oh, and did he mention that this is all happening in a cave?
All of his senses are heightened now that they’re farther into the darkness. He can feel every single wave in the water like an earthquake through his body. There are massive spikes coming down from the roof of the cave and their pointy, rocky tips are so low Ilya thinks he might need to start ducking to avoid getting his head split on one of them. Everything is wet and smells like a locker room and the hair on the back of his neck is perpendicular to his skin at this point.
But then Shane’s knees are on his. And they make eye contact. And Shane is smiling at him.
Ilya looks down at their sneakers, letting himself imagine they are in a car or rickshaw or any other mode of transportation. He places a hand on Shane’s knee, stabilizing himself.
After a while, he looks back up and makes eye contact again. Shane looks concerned.
“Sea sick,” Ilya whispers, a measly excuse.
“We’ve been on a boat for weeks,” Shane retorts, his voice as quiet as he can make it.
“Fine, I am scared, better?”
Shane smiles. He all but puffs out his chest in some kind of macho expression, clearly making up for the manatee moment all those stops ago. “I’ll protect you.”
It would be helpful, if the dangers Ilya thinks they’re facing were things Shane could possibly protect him from. No amount of Stanley Cups could make his instincts sharp enough to catch a cave spike before it slices Ilya’s body in half, he’s sure of that.
Shane covers Ilya’s hand with his own, and the warmth does, actually, feel protective. Safe.
And then the other man gasps, and it sends Ilya back into a tailspin. “What?” Ilya whispers, sure that he’s about to be told of a catastrophe in the making.
Shane removes his hand from Ilya’s and points. Ilya looks up, allowing himself to examine the cave again for the first time in at least ten minutes. All of the spikes are brighter now, but this time from a teal light that emanates from a thousand different sources. It’s like someone put twinkle lights everywhere, or like the stars from the sky are being stored here until it’s time to go back up to their places in the galaxy. It’s bright and beautiful and colorful and unlike anything Ilya even knew existed in this world.
The fear releases its tight clutch on his chest, ever so slightly, and he allows his eyes to roam all over the cave where the same sight is repeated over and over again as they travel through.
He makes eye contact with Shane when they both are turning to get a different view and the smile on Shane’s face makes him loosen even more. He can see the green-blue light reflected in Shane’s wide brown eyes and off of his glossy hair.
“Kiss me under the glow worms?” Shane asks.
Ilya nods and leans in, thinking that this must be why people write love songs and recite poems and make paintings. This must be why people choose to wake up every day even when the sun is too hot and the work shifts are too long and governments are evil and everyone they love will die someday. This — Shane’s lips against his, under a million beautiful lights that nature seems to be shining just for them — must be what makes that worth it.
tbh myshane doesn't like when ilya calls him "Hollander." It takes him back to those early days, but not in a good way. soooOOooo here is switchy shane becoming a power bottom over being called "Hollander" one too many times.
Shane matches Ilya’s roughness and leaves a trail of little bites and hickeys down his neck. He uses his fingernails to dig parallel lines on Ilya’s pecs, watching the skin turn white then red under his movement. He licks the man’s abs and then bites hard enough to leave an indent the shape of his four front teeth.
This seems to wake something within Ilya, who flips them over in a flash and brings his own mouth down against Shane’s neck, sucking and biting and moaning into the warm skin.
Ilya presses their bodies together, their cocks rutting and spreading the pre-cum leaking between them. Then it’s the normal wind-up, lube and condoms and fingers and moans and “okay please I’m ready please.”
The moment Ilya thrusts inside of him, he lets out a deep, “Fuuuck, Hollander,” and Shane stills. It’s the third time Ilya has called him by his last name in as many days.
“Stop,” Shane says, and of course Ilya does. He pulls out and looks concerned.
“Everything okay?” Ilya asks, his brow furrowed.
“Lay down,” Shane demands, gesturing toward the bed. Ilya complies.
Shane uses the headboard for stability as he straddles Ilya and then sinks down onto his hard cock. He groans at the pressure. “You can’t-” Shane starts, gathering his thoughts. The clash of anger with horniness is making his brain spin. “You can’t fuck me while calling me that. Okay? I’m not Hollander to you.”
“Shane,” Ilya moans immediately, the name sounding so perfect on his tongue.
Shane grinds his hips down, rewarding Ilya for correcting himself. “Exactly,” he says. He sinks down until he can practically see the tip of Ilya’s cock through his own abdomen, so full of him, so content. When he looks down, Ilya’s eyes are pressed shut in a blissful expression, his arms tense as he holds Shane’s hips and helps him thrust. Shane uses his own hands to take Ilya’s off of him and pin them against the headboard.
“You can call me slut,” Shane moans, filling himself up over and over again with Ilya. “Or cumslut, or baby, or hole.” He moves faster, thrilled at the control he has at this moment. “But not my fucking last name. Okay, Rozanov?”
Ilya nods, his eyes still shut. His moans and the way he’s jerking his hips, the only part of his body in his own control right now, confirm that he’s enjoying this little switch up.
“Look at me,” Shane demands.
And Ilya finally opens his wide blue eyes, filled to the brim with lust. “Fuck, Shane,” he moans as they stare at each other, their bodies moving in tandem.
“Look me in the eyes while you cum inside me,” Shane says. His hands are still holding Ilya’s arms down, but he moves one to cup the other man’s face. It’s not long before Ilya is crying out, his cock pulsing in a way that makes Shane spill all over Ilya’s stomach.
Read the full fic this is from on AO3
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father, and because a cutdown on Visas made it hard for him to commit to an American team. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
Read it on AO3 (Chapters: 18/25ish)
The day in Honolulu goes by in a haze. Ilya is riding the high of his helicopter ride, his body buzzing like it’s still beneath the giant rotors and soaring through the clouds. The excursion for the day is a walking tour through a farmer’s market where he eats more varieties of fruit than he ever knew existed, including one that looks disgusting but tastes like ice cream.
The tiny thoughts of wishing he could share this experience with Hollander are easier to shake. He is sharing the experience with himself, and for once that feels like enough.
Hundreds of stalls in the market sell so many unique foods that he wishes he could have ten more stomachs just to try it all. There are drying hot chili peppers hung from the stands, alongside hanging bushels of bananas. The bowls of fruit are endless, overflowing with offerings like mangoes and apples and so many others he doesn’t know the name of. Luckily, the excursion includes a sampling menu, giving him small bites of nearly everything. The grilled chicken skewers are coated in sweeter barbecue sauce that gets all over his face and he drinks fresh coconut water directly from the shell. He eats a bite of white fish that is so flaky it crumbles on his tongue. He tries a rubbery sliver of conch and instantly regrets it.
He lingers in a large crowd standing in front of a large older man playing a rendition of the song “Hallelujah” on the ukulele and smiles as he bites into a juicy, round stone fruit he’ll never know the name of. It’s bliss.
The highlight of it all, though, is the poke bowl he gets from a little stand at the end of an aisle. A young boy and his mother compile rice, raw salmon, green onion, mango, and sriracha aioli into a small coconut bowl for him. The salmon melts in his mouth. He didn’t realize fish could be better or worse based on where it’s from or how it’s cut: he figured that fish is just fish. But this convinces him otherwise. He might as well be eating raw butter, with how soft and savory it is. The addition of fresh mango and the slight bite from the sauce, on top of perfectly cooked, fluffy sticky rice, is something from a god damn cooking show. He thinks the chefs from the Food Network, who he’s become very acquainted with as it plays often in his stateroom, would lose their every loving shit over the bowl of food in his palm.
That night, on cloud nine from his perfect Hawaiian adventures and two or three piña coladas, Ilya decides to message Hollander. Or “Daniel.” He has nothing to lose, now that the man is gone from the cruise. He figures there is enough distance between them — both literally and emotionally — that Ilya will not be so crushed if he never hears back. At least that’s what he tells himself.
He pulls up their thread on Grindr. There’s a pang of pain when he notices that “Daniel” is online, a green dot lit up next to his name. Ilya tries not to overthink the possibility that Hollander is talking to other men on here, already moved on.
Ilya: I am sorry for running. I wish I could explain myself and make it up to you. I wish you didn’t leave.
He closes out of the app immediately after hitting “send,” then makes his way to the front deck where Benny is waiting for him.
It was Benny’s idea to meet here as they sailed away from Hawaii. He swears the stars are even brighter in this stretch. Benny has an app on his phone that he can hold up to the sky and map the stars onto. He walks around, outstretching his arm in various directions to find the right positioning for lining up the phone’s map with the sky in front of them.
“Ah!” he says, figuring it out. “There’s the big dipper. And there,” he turns a bit. “Is Venus. You can see her shining tonight with just the naked eye. That’s so cool.”
He hands the phone over to Ilya to give him a shot at it. Ilya swirls it around like Benny had, seeing the names of constellations light up as he moves. “Wow,” Ilya whispers, looking at the Aries and Taurus constellations and how they map onto the symbols of each sign. He finds the matching ones in the sky and feels proud of himself for being able to clearly make out each of them.
Ilya nods, still in awe. They both stare up at the sky until their necks hurt, and then realize with a laugh that they can sit back in the recliner seats right in front of them to avoid some of the pain.
“I could look at it forever,” Benny says.
Ilya nods. “Me too.” He doesn’t mention the part where too much time alone under the sky always makes him wonder where his mom is, and if she’s up there looking over him. He’s felt closer to her lately and the thought is less grief-filled — it’s actually comforting.
“I’m glad you’re having so much fun while your boy is away,” the other man tells him.
Ilya doesn’t understand. “What?”
Benny looks at him, confused. “What do you mean what?”
“Who is my ‘boy’ and why is he ‘away’?” Ilya makes quotation marks in the air as he says it.
“Shane Hollander? Am I just completely making up our conversation from three days ago where we all acknowledged you’re into him?”
Ilya’s head spins. “No, it happened. But what do you mean, away? He left. He is gone, not away.”
Benny sits up. “Oh my God, you think he left the cruise for good?”
Ilya sits up, too. “Yes, Paula says people do. Not made for cruise or something. What? Why?” His breathing is quick and his heart is going as fast as a hummingbird’s.
“Buddy, he’s coming back,” Benny says, his eyes wide. “Is this why you’ve been extra sad on me lately? God, I didn’t realize, I would have told you days ago. His mom pulled him out for some famous people shit, photoshoots and whatnot, but he’s meeting us at another port. I thought I’d be picking him up today in Honolulu, but he’s delayed until Fiji now.”
Ilya could fucking pass out. “You are kidding,” he says, accusatory. “You are making prank.”
“No, I’m not,” Benny laughs and puts his hands up in the air. “Swear to God.”
Ilya’s brain is running through a million things at once, landing finally on the desperate, embarrassing message he sent to Hollander a mere hour ago.
“Fuck,” he says, placing his hand over his eyes and rubbing his temples with his index finger and thumb. “I just sent him an apology. Said I wished I could explain.”
“Oh no, you mean you apologized for being weird?” Benny feigns shock. “What ever will Shane do now that he knows you’re a nice, thoughtful, sappy human being? The horrors.”
Maybe this whole “having friends” thing isn’t as great as it’s cracked up to be, Ilya thinks. He glares at Benny.
—-
Shane could kill his mother. She is blasting “Mamma Mia” in the car to the airport, trying to cheer him up after her stupid plans made him miss his flight to Hawaii and instead catch a red eye five days late. The fact that this song is now steeped in the memory of Rozanov is only making things a million times worse.
He presses down on the volume knob to turn off the music entirely. He stares out the window, moping as he watches drops of rainwater race down the glass. Rozanov and all of his favorite belongings are somewhere in the middle of the ocean right now, and he is here in his rainy hometown with an aching knee and low grade headache.
“You’ve already been to Hawaii. When you were eight,” Yuna says. “And you can go back whenever you want. I’ll take you this summer, if that will help. That way you’ll even be able to do hikes around the island.”
“It won’t be the same,” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You have three more minutes of moping before I need you to shake it off, kid,” she says sternly. “You got to see your teammates and show off your beautiful cottage. You can’t act like a spoiled rich kid, Shane, this isn’t a good habit to form.”
She’s right, and he knows it. He’s held in the complaining all week, though, putting on his most professional facade for the film crew despite three days of rain and an electrical fire from the camera cords that almost lit up his favorite sugar maple tree in the front yard. It was like he was in a constant race with the clock — the lingering deadline of the Hawaii flight had put massive pressure on him from the second he left the boat in LA and just barely made his flight back east. Every new bump in the road meant new bouts of anxiety until his fears came to fruition and he was forced to miss so many more opportunities to bump into Rozanov on the ship.
Plus, seeing his teammates wasn’t a walk in the park, either. The amount of angst he’s had over missing the season soared exponentially when he saw their smiling faces, their bond seemingly closer than it was a month ago. At least he got one on one time with Hayden, who came over for dinner after the team photoshoot.
Shane confessed to Hayden that there was someone he was “into” on the ship, using gender neutral pronouns because he’s never formally come out to his friends. Shane gave an abridged (and PG) recap of their run-ins, ending with the most recent message from Rozanov.
“I think he likes you,” Hayden said. And that was how Hayden acknowledged that Shane wasn’t exactly keeping a secret about this whole sexuality thing, but at the same time made it clear that he didn’t need more of an explanation. Shane could’ve hugged him for that.
“What tells you that? He pushed me away and then disappeared. I couldn’t even find him to say goodbye,” Shane explained.
Hayden just shrugged. “Liking someone is terrifying.”
Ilya seemed too big and brave to ever be afraid of anything, but Shane realized he didn’t know enough about the man to really make that conclusion.
“I have no idea if he likes me, though. Or what he wants,” Shane replied.
“Does he know what you want?” his friend asked. Shane shook his head. “Then tell him, bud. Be direct. It’s so much easier that way.”
The flights from Ottawa to Fiji are so insane that Shane now understands the entire point of taking a cruise ship to these remote destinations. He has to go from Ottawa to Calgary — a four-hour flight over most of Canada — then from Calgary to San Francisco — another three hours — and finally San Francisco to Nadi, Fiji. That last flight is 11.5 hours, longer than Shane has ever been on a plane.
His mother reminds him to keep his compression socks on and stretch hourly on the flights to avoid blood clots, worried that his injury will somehow make him more prone to them (Google disagrees, but he does it anyway.)
Three blockbuster action films and ten episodes of a food competition show later, plus a smattering of short naps, Shane gets off the plane halfway around the world from where he woke up.
He’s shuttled to a hotel near the airport to stay in overnight while waiting for the ship to dock, and the waiting feels one hundred times harder now that he’s so close. Shane has no semblance of what time of day it is back home, or what time zone his body is even accustomed to right now, so he finds himself floating in the hotel pool at 1am Fiji time. It’s lit up light blue and surrounded by large fan palms, situated on the hotel’s roof.
For the first time, he allows himself to imagine what it’ll be like to see Rozanov again. He wants to hear about Hawaii and their stop yesterday at Western Samoa. He wants to know what’s going on inside the man’s head, and what his “explanation” is. He wants to try that kiss again, from the top.
He tries to plan out what to say. “Hi,” is too casual. “Hey,” is maybe okay but is it also weirdly casual? It is at least better than “Hello.” If the greeting is hard to pin down, the actual content of his first words are impossible. I missed you I missed you I missed you, his brain screams on repeat, but he knows that’s not the right thing to say, either. And would a handshake be too formal?
His concerns only have time to skyrocket the next morning as he boards the ship before most of the passengers are even awake, scanning for Rozanov despite knowing it’s too early to see anyone. The familiar smell of his suite — ocean air mixed with his own piney shampoo — and the same red carpeting on the floors make his re-entry feel weirdly like coming home. He unpacks his carry-on bag (he’d done laundry at home so everything was clean again for the ship) and opens the patio door to let more of the sea breeze in.
Looking out at the island, he’s struck with the realization that all of the seasons of Survivor are filmed nearby. He’s also struck with the memory that most of the excursions for this port are things he cannot physically do, meaning there’s close to no chance that Rozanov will have selected the same one as him. He grabs the pamphlet and reads through the excursion options, refreshing his memory. Ziplining, strenuous hikes to waterfalls, beach volleyball — Doug would reprimand him for all of those.
He disembarks the ship three hours later for his boring bus ride around Fiji, cranky that he can’t do anything more exciting. Everyone else has already left for their big adventures, it’s just him and the same elderly groups he’s spent most excursions with already.
As he walks along the pier connecting the ship to the land, someone calls his name.
“Shane Hollander!” Paula repeats, waving at him from across the pathway.
He swerves out of the walking traffic and heads over to her. She’s standing in front of a yellow taxi, the side door open, and she gestures for him to get in.
“Oh, I’m doing a bus tour, actually,” he corrects her nervously.
“I know that’s what you’re signed up for,” Paula says, smiling. “But I have a different idea. You okay to trust me on this?”
Shane barely knows this woman, but he figures he doesn’t have all that much to lose, so he nods and gets into the car. Paula loads into the front seat and tells the driver, “Okay, back toward the beach, please.”
Ten minutes later, the taxi drops them off at a white sandy beach that’s so idyllic and quiet it could be a painting. Paula leads him closer to the water and toward a patch of tall green coconut palms and rosewoods. The trees open a tiny bit and there’s a picnic blanket. On top of the blanket is Ilya Rozanov seated cross-legged and drinking a glass of juice.
The shock of seeing him again goes straight through Shane, just like the first day on the ship. He turns to look at Paula for an explanation, but she’s already ducked away.
“Um... Hi,” Shane says and curses himself for going with that greeting.
Rozanov looks just as shocked as he is. He plants his cup in the sand and stands up. “I knew nothing about this,” the man says defensively. “She took me here for picnic before I could go to the zipline place, said she was picking up another friend. I promise I did not plan this.”
Shane is walking closer to the blanket without even realizing his body is moving. “You shouldn’t go ziplining. My PT says it’s more dangerous than people think.”
Rozanov smiles and lets the tiniest sliver of his guard down. “Maybe she put me here to save me from it, then.”
“It seems like this is a setup,” Shane says bluntly, not playing into the suggestion. He thinks about what this might mean. He hasn’t exactly been all that afraid of being caught flirting with Rozanov on the ship, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Paula had picked up on something during ABBA night. The idea of a hockey fan sniffing out his sexuality is a bit scary, but she doesn’t seem like the type to sell the story to the press. He’s tired of living with that fear, anyway.
“Yeah, there is really only food for two,” Rozanov admits. “I looked in the basket.”
“Good food, though?” Shane asks. They’re much closer to each other now, and he stills a third of a meter from Rozanov.
“Very good. Fruit, rice, fish curry in a warming thing,” he lists off.
“Thermos,” Shane corrects.
Rozanov nods. He looks down, scanning Shane’s body. “You have no cane or crutches.”
“Yeah, I got approved to leave them back home in Canada. The brace is enough now, I just have to be careful,” he explains.
“So, no ziplining.”
“No ziplining.”
—-
Shane Hollander is holding his gaze for so long it makes Ilya’s breath catch. When Paula said she had a special plan for the day, he was expecting a fun hike, not one on one time with Hollander in the most romantic setting possible. He’d be angry at her if he wasn’t so happy.
“We should sit. For your knee,” Ilya finally breaks their silence. He holds his hands out, offering Hollander help with lowering to the ground. He grabs a bottle of cold coconut water and hands it to him.
“Thank you,” Hollander says, getting comfortable on the thick, checkered blanket beneath them.
“Did you see my message?” Ilya asks. It takes more bravery than he’s willing to admit to himself.
Hollander nods but doesn’t say anything. He clearly doesn’t know what to say.
“I thought you left the cruise for good,” Ilya admits.
“What?!” Hollander’s eyes go wide and he laughs. “God, no. My mom had to basically drag me back home. I had a sponsorship thing and this TV filming she booked. Don’t get me wrong, it was worth going home for, I’m not trying to sound like a spoiled asshole. But… It sucked to leave and not know what was going on… here.” Hollander gestures between them.
Ilya’s heart drops a bit at that last sentence. He didn’t want Hollander to suffer from his own mental turmoil. “I’m sorry I left it like that.”
“I just don’t understand,” Hollander shrugs. “Is it some kind of dom thing? I don’t think I liked it.”
Ilya sighs. He takes a sip of his drink, gathering the words in his brain and forming them into English. “I freaked out. I wanted to be able to be your friend and do adventures together while we’re on this cruise, you know? I was having fun.”
“I was, too,” Hollander says.
“I don’t want to be a random hookup,” Ilya admits. “I can’t do that. I have done it over and over and over again. I know how it ends.”
Hollander looks confused and maybe offended. “You think I’m just a random hookup?”
“No!” Ilya says, defensive again. “Well, not if we don’t hookup, da? And I let it get too close. I got all dominant again like I always do. It’s too easy. I shouldn’t have made it so sexual.”
Hollander’s cheeks and ears turn pink. “Oh. You want to be friends.”
“Yes!” Ilya says, relieved that his message is coming across.
“Just friends,” Hollander says, disappointment painted across his face. Ilya hates that he elicited this emotion and has no idea what he said to make it happen.
“You do not want this?” Ilya says in a smaller voice. Fear clashes through his ribcage as he waits for Hollander to confirm that he only wanted Ilya for sex, just like he’d originally thought.
—--
Hayden’s advice lingers in Shane’s head, emboldening him.
“I want you,” Shane says directly into Rozanov’s eyes. “Not as a hookup, not as a friend. Something… in between.”
The other man’s face softens and a tiny hint of a smile is there with a look of relief. Thank fucking God, Shane thinks.
“Yeah?” Rozanov asks, lifting his eyebrows and holding Shane’s gaze.
Shane nods. “We can do excursions and hang out and… do physical things, if you want,” he says shyly and feels his face burn up again. “Dating, I guess. Just for the cruise, of course.” He’s starting to ramble now and can’t stop. “I know you live so far away and the hockey season is so demanding and—”
Rozanov is smiling more widely as he interrupts him. “I want you, too, Hollander,” he says into the small space between them, his voice no higher than a whisper.
“You should call me Shane now, Ilya,” he says. Shane leans forward and gently presses his lips against Ilya’s, not needing to be asked. He feels the man’s smile turn into the shape of a kiss. Neither of them move at all, they just let their lips slowly move together, no tongues or needy hands or body parts crashing. Somehow, it’s more charged than those desperate, intense makeouts of the past. It’s even better.
Paula’s basket for them is, indeed, incredible. Ilya introduces him to many types of tropical fruits, pointing out which ones he already tried in Hawaii and Western Samoa.
“They eat this on Survivor,” Shane says, taking a bite of raw coconut flesh.
“On what?” Ilya asks, confused.
“Oh, we have a lot of TV to watch together next week when we’re at sea.” They both smile, and Shane feels himself redden at the realization that he just indicated they’d hang out in each other’s rooms.
“I can’t wait,” is all Ilya says, his mouth full of fresh papaya. They watch the ebb and flow of light blue waves against the sand while sitting in a blissful silence. Something inside of Shane loosens the tiniest bit, a clenched fist finally letting its knuckles get their color back.
“You are so sneaky,” Shane hears Ilya whisper to Paula on the car ride back to the pier.
“Oh, you have no idea,” she replies with a mischievous smile. Shane doesn’t know if he’s concerned or thrilled.
[fic clip from shane and ilya falling in love on a four-month cruise around the world, in an AU where Ilya's not in the NHL]
[minor spoilers if you're reading along on tumblr and not AO3]
“Take my picture?” Shane asks. “Just make sure the ship is in it.” He poses with his drink. Their boat is in the background and Ilya moves the camera to get everything in one frame. He’d been informed about Shane’s need to post photos from the trip, and received a short lesson on how to get the angles right when Shane had him take photos of him on the balcony of their room. Shane always looked adorably nerdy, smiling directly to the camera in a fake way and not knowing what to do with his hands except put them in his pockets or on his hips.
Ilya snaps a couple dozen, wanting to give him plenty of options, then turns himself and the camera around, taking a selfie with Shane in the background. He looks at it and smiles.
“I think that’s our first photo together,” Shane says.
“Oh, wow,” Ilya hadn’t considered that. “It is.” Why does that make him sad?
“We should take more,” Shane concludes immediately. He takes Ilya’s phone and presses it into the wet sand, tilting it up so that the camera can see their full bodies. He sets it to “photo blast” to take a bunch at once, along with a five-second timer.
Once they’re lined up in frame, Ilya puts an arm around Shane, who in turn tilts his head toward Ilya. As the timer goes off, though, a large wave creeps up and knocks the phone over. It slides down the sand before Ilya grabs it.
“Oh fuck,” Shane gasps.
“It’s okay, I have waterproof case,” Ilya pulls it out from the water and shows him the thick box his phone is kept in. “I kept breaking phones while on runs and whatever.” He wipes the sand off on his shirt and opens the photo app.
They look through the slideshow together and laugh. You can see their faces drop into fear when the water creeps into the frame, and then it’s nothing but the sky and a corner of Shane’s head as they run toward the phone.
Ilya scrolls back to the very first photo of the set, pre-catastrophe. Both of them are beaming into the camera. Ilya has never seen what his adult face looks like with such a genuine smile on it before.
Ilya looks up from his book. Shane has his legs strewn over Ilya's knees, lying back on the couch they bought for the cottage's back patio. The chairs and loveseat that had been here previously hadn't allowed them to get comfy and close enough for long, lazy summer afternoons like this.
"How many hours do you think we have spent kissing?" he asks.
Shane scrunches his face. "Why?"
"A thousand?" Ilya suggests, ignoring the question.
"Maybe." Shane sets to actually calculating it. They're been married for three years, after three years of dating and about ten of... whatever they were doing before that. There are some days when they probably kiss for hours, slow makeouts that aren't even leading to sex. Other days, their sex is hungry and fast and they kiss through it, equaling at least thirty minutes of lip-to-lip contact. 3 years of living together is over a thousand days, so if you were to average it—
"Five thousand?" Ilya interrupts Shane's train of thought.
"Maybe. That sounds like a lot."
"Is not enough, though," Ilya shrugs. "We need ten thousand."
"Says who?" Shane laughs and moves his right foot to gently poke Ilya's stomach.
"Says me. And Malcolm Gladwell," he holds up his book and then reads directly from it. "In order to achieve true mastery in a field, you must dedicate ten thousand hours of practice to it."
Shane rolls his eyes. "You're an expert at kissing, I promise."
"No, science does not agree," Ilya sets the book down on the wicker table next to him and moves Shane's legs so he can climb on top of his husband. "Let's add one more hour now," he says as he brings their mouths together, and the promise of five thousand more hours of this glows like a ray of sunlight in Shane's chest.
Anyway here's Ilya experiencing queer joy because it's Pride Weekend in my city <3
[fic clip from Cruising, Ilya goes dancing with his out queer friend Benny]
Ilya has only ever listened to Lady Gaga music while working out, never around other people. The bold, pro-LGBTQ themes in her newest album, Born This Way, plummeted her reputation in Russia and he had to commit a minor crime just to get her songs onto his iPod.
It’s therefore doubly magical to get to dance to her music with Benny and Shane. It makes the lyrics of the album’s title song ring that much harder in his heart. Being around Benny, who is so unabashedly queer and unafraid to show it, provides something for Ilya that he never knew he was missing.
He feels at once connected to every other queer person in this world, and in the history of this world, like he’s a small part of the ongoing (seemingly eternal) battle for acceptance, fighting on the frontlines with millions of comrades instead of all alone. Images of Stonewall from the 1960s and the AIDS crisis and the brave protests he’s seen on Russian television of queer people demanding change flash in front of his brain. He is here, looking visibly queer, unafraid for once in his life to be seen like this. He is part of something so much bigger than himself.
During the lyric “No matter gay, straight, or bi,” Benny points to himself for “gay” and to Ilya for “bi” and they both laugh. Ilya wants to find every single queer club in the world and dance to this song over and over again with his people. He wants to buy the faggiest clothes he can find and strut all over Europe in them, a cigarette in his mouth and Shane on his arm.
How had he not known it could be like this?
The music ends and Ilya wipes tears from his cheeks.
Read the whole fic on A03 (18/25ish chapters)
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father, and because a cutdown on Visas made it hard for him to commit to an American team. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
Read it on AO3 (Chapters: 18/25ish)
Ilya figures he has two options: he can sulk about this information, returning to his depressive cave, or he can accept it and move on. He chooses neither and both.
That is to say, he forges on with his cruise routine as though nothing is happening, but the heaviness in his chest lingers without reprieve. He tells himself that he cannot let one person ruin this experience that cost almost his entire life savings. Plus, if he is really going to find the things that make him want to stay firmly in this present reality, on this planet that only seems to throw him hardships, it cannot boil down to one single human being.
Using Hollander as his “reason” would be the worst idea of all time. He knows this from reading therapy books and watching American romcoms to brush up on his English. He also knows this by the simple fact of having a brain: all logic tells him that it’d be needy and gross to rely on Hollander as his sole purpose.
He’d love for Hollander to have been one of his reasons, but that is beside the point.
“You’re getting burned,” Paula says to him. She’s sitting with a romance novel in her hands, reclined on a chair at the bow of the ship. She holds up the aerosol can of sunscreen.
Ilya stands up and holds his arms out so she can spray him.
“Spin,” she commands. He does, and she sprays his back.
“Thank you,” Ilya replies. “You want some?”
“Nah, I’m embracing the rays today. I want to be tan for Hawaii. Al and I are going to get our photos taken by this professional photographer our friends recommended,” she explains. “But I’m worried about you. I hope you’re getting those moles checked regularly.”
“Some people like the moles,” Ilya replies snarkily.
“I like them!” Benny says, peeling up the brim of his hat and peeking over from the chair next to Paula. Ilya had assumed he was sleeping, so he startles at the interruption.
“Technically it’ll be when we’re in Spain, so not for over a month, but the photos are just one part of it. I have a whole plan,” she beams. Seeing the looks of curiosity on both of their faces, she clarifies: “A whole plan that I’m not telling either of you until way closer to the time. I don’t trust anyone to keep this secret.”
“I am soooo good at secrets,” Ilya says. “Please tell me,” he whines.
“I’m not, so good call,” Benny quips.
All three of them laugh.
“You’ll know soon enough,” Paula reassures.
“But seriously, congrats on 20 years. I can barely make it 20 days,” Benny says.
“I cannot make it 20 hours,” Ilya jokes. He can’t hide the hint of sadness underneath it, and of course Paula spots it like a bright pink Easter egg in an open field.
“How’s your dating life going, Ilya?” she asks. She pronounces his name better than most Americans because she spent over twenty minutes trying to get it right when they were biking in the gym together earlier in the week.
“It’s not going,” Ilya says. “It maybe was. But now, no.” He’s trying not to mope, but something about this maternal presence prodding at it makes him feel all soft and small.
“Who messed it up?” Benny asks.
“Me,” Ilya responds. “Well, I don’t know. Probably me. I thought we were trying to be friends, he thought we were going to fuck, I freaked out, end of story.”
“Why did you freak out? You didn’t want to be with him?” Paula takes the last sip of her pina colada and sits up, swinging her legs over her chair so she’s facing Ilya directly.
Ilya thinks on this. Of course part of him wants to be with Hollander, but a far larger part wants to have Hollander in his life in a more stable and reliable way. “If I fuck him, it will become about sex,” Ilya says. “And he is too important for that.”
“Wait, this is Shane Hollander we’re talking about, right?” Benny asks. He’s also sitting up facing Ilya directly, and his sunglasses are off so he can look directly into Ilya’s face.
Ilya’s eyes go wide. He would blush, if Russians did that. “How did you know?”
Paula is trying to hide her smile but Benny starts laughing and she quickly follows, both of them making a whole show about how very not subtle Ilya has been.
“Your chemistry is like a firework show, of course we picked up on it,” Benny says. Paula just nods, unable to talk through her smile. It’s clear they’ve been conferring behind his back. It’d be cute if it wasn’t humiliating.
“Fuck,” Ilya puts his head in his hands. “Well, at least it’s no secret.”
“And that man does not just want you for sex,” Benny tells him. “Trust.”
Benny stands and pats them both on the shoulders. “I’ve gotta go clock in. The over-40 singles mixer is happening in the piano lounge in twenty. Goodbye, Mr. Future Shane Hollander.”
Ilya’s head is spinning too fast to correct him. There is no future with Hollander. There are just two chapters of a sad story, both of which end with thousands of kilometers between them and Ilya pining over someone he can’t help but push away.
“You look like you need more ice cream,” Paula announces. Ilya nods and they retreat to the bar.
The next day, the ship docks in Kauai. Paula comes to his room before he’s ready to leave, catching him by surprise.
“I have something to cheer you up more than ice cream,” she says. “To bring your color back, like we talked about.”
“Should I be nervous?” Ilya asks.
“No. You should be excited. Wear some form fitting clothing and meet me at breakfast in ten,” she declares. “Don’t forget your face sunscreen!” she yells from further down the hall, already running away.
Over omelets and toast and their usual coffee orders (espresso for Ilya, caramel iced frappe for Paula), she announces the surprise.
“This port has one of those premium excursions where you can pay extra for something really cool. Al and I get a few opportunities to use them, and we love this one. So, we’re taking you with us on…” she builds the suspense dramatically and mimes doing a drumroll. “A helicopter ride around the coast!”
Ilya smiles at her, his eyes scanning her face to see if it’s some kind of prank. “You are serious?”
She nods. “Yep. Fifty minutes in a little helicopter, with views of cliffs and volcanic rock and… ugh it’s all so cool. I wish I could be experiencing it for the first time all over again. But seeing you see it for the first time will be enough.”
Ilya doesn’t know whether he wants to cry or jump up with glee. How did he get so lucky? But there’s also a pang in his chest with growing concern at accepting too much from the woman. “I do not know how I could repay you.”
“Being my friend is enough,” Paula shrugs and takes another bite of bacon. He can tell that she’s being genuine.
“I will not be crashing your anniversary celebration?”
“Oh God, no. The photos are tomorrow in Honolulu and we have our own celebration every night in the captain’s quarters,” she winks at him.
“And this is not just because I am so depressed?” Ilya asks, raising a brow.
“No, this is not a pity invite. I promise.” Paula slurps the rest of her frappe and Ilya, again, believes her.
After breakfast, Ilya, Paula, and Al board into a small white car that drives them to the helicopter business. It’s his first time around Al since the first day of the cruise.
“Thanks for keeping my wife company lately,” Al says to him from the front seat of the car.
“She is the one keeping me company,” Ilya shrugs.
“I always hate that I have to be working so much on these things. It can get boring for her when there isn’t the right crowd,” Al tells him.
“Yeah, last year the only people who seemed remotely interesting ended up being a swinger couple trying to sleep with us,” Paula adds. “If someone has a pineapple on their door, do NOT assume they just want to be friends.”
“Noted,” Ilya says.
The helicopter seats four people: the pilot and Ilya up front with Paula and Al behind them. The windows are so large that Ilya can see everything around them, like he’s in the eye of a massive bug. The pilot hands them all large headsets with ear muffs and little microphones that curve in front of the mouth. When he turns the helicopter on to take off, it’s so much louder than Ilya ever expected. And that is all the more thrilling.
Within a few minutes, they are already high enough in the air to make out an entire section of the coast. Large cliffs and mountains poke up directly out of the sea with a jarring juxtaposition that takes Ilya’s breath away. The jagged features have more shades of green than Ilya has ever seen in his life. It contrasts the bright blue sea so perfectly that he wishes he could capture these colors and remember them forever. Photographs would never be vibrant enough to do proper justice.
The pilot announces various landmarks as they go by. “Waimea Canyon,” he says, pointing in front of them. Wavy edges of the coast hug the sea. The land is black from the volcanic activity, with green trees sprouting up before a beach even has room to form. Up the coast, the cliffs turn into a light red type of rock that looks like it could be in the Grand Canyon, if Ilya remembers his geography books correctly.
The helicopter gets close to these features, moving seamlessly around them. Ilya wishes he could know the names of all of the trees and plants he can see clearly through his window: there must be a thousand different varieties.
“There’s the Na Pali Coast,” the pilot announces a while later, pointing to Ilya’s right. The mountains are so jagged and thin that they look like knives stacked together, still covered in green with the black volcanic layers underneath. Ilya understands why people like rock climbing and hiking. The idea of being on top of those things seems so exhilarating.
“We’re heading to my favorite part!” Paula says into the microphone so all of them can hear.
“It’s true, she loves this,” Al confirms.
The helicopter makes a swift turn, heading closer to the land than they’ve been yet. It flies through a wide passageway in between two mountains that opens into a large enclave. In the center is a flowing waterfall so tall it could swallow the aircraft whole. The pilot hovers them so close that Ilya can hear the falling water over the sounds of the engine.
Paula points to it just before Ilya can spot it: a rainbow, made from the way the sunlight hits the loose drops of water from the edge of the fall.
“Color,” she says, squeezing his arm gently.
Ilya doesn’t even try to hold in the tears. The sight is too beautiful for being coy about emotions. At this moment, he feels closer to magic than he ever has. This must be how people start believing in God, he thinks. He is overcome by it.
“Привет, мама. Я скучаю по тебе,” he whispers at the rainbow, wiping tears from his cheeks.
[Fic clip from my WIP — OR Hollanov try to see if they can recognize each other's cocks because they really are just two boys]
"I would recognize that dick anywhere,” Ilya whispers into his ear.
“There’s nothing recognizable about it!” Shane protests, sitting up.
“Hollanderrrr your dick is so pretty,” Ilya teases as he flips over on the bed and straddles Shane.
“You wouldn’t be able to pick it out in a lineup,” Shane challenges, kissing Ilya on the collarbone and moving their bodies together.
That’s how their evening plans are decided. Shane and Ilya each create a photo album of five dick pics, all collected from old conversations on Grindr or semi-embarrassing Google searches. Ilya finds one that he took of himself a few months ago to send to one of his longer-term hookups. The only thing in the background is a white comforter, not enough to give it away as his own apartment. Not that Shane has seen the place anyway.
“You first,” Shane says, handing his phone to Ilya with the album pulled up. After careful scrutiny, Ilya lands on the third one in the lineup. He thinks Shane would put his own right in the center, as a way to reverse-psychology Ilya out of picking it since that’s the obvious placement. Plus, there is something so Shane about the cock, something he cannot explain.
“This,” Ilya says, holding it up.
Shane frowns, confirming that Ilya’s answer is right. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Ilya beams. His smile pulls his cheeks so high he can barely see Shane’s angry face because they blur his vision. “I told you!” he brags.
“Let me try,” Shane grabs Ilya’s phone. He carefully deliberates, swiping between the photos over and over again.
“This is less fun,” Ilya says. “You are looking at so many hard cocks.”
“Jealous?” Shane looks up and meets his eyes, clearly excited at the idea.
“No, of course not. Look at all the hard cocks you want. I do not care,” Ilya puts his hands up. He slowly makes his way to Shane and pulls the other man’s pants down, then moves his mouth over his half-hard dick through his boxers.
“Cheater,” Shane says, not pulling away. “Trying to distract me.”
“Maybe you need a reminder of what you’re looking for,” Ilya says, standing up and taking his own clothing off.
Shane’s jaw drops. “Come here,” he says, putting the phone on the nightstand.
Ilya straddles him and pushes their hardening cocks together. He pulls Shane’s boxers down and off so both of them are naked on the bed together, then starts kissing Shane hungrily, opening his entire mouth to take Shane’s in.
