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Shane Hollander can’t honestly recall a moment in his life when he has ever come close to being as happy as he is at this very moment. Not when he debuted, or when he scored his first big brand deal, or even when he won the cup. He has always thought of himself to be a relatively simple person who can find joy in seemingly mundane things, and he knows he’s definitely well-acquainted with the feeling before, just not like this. It was never this all-encompassing thing, teetering dangerously close towards something suffocating, yet simultaneously warm and welcoming and safe, and he thinks he might never get enough of this feeling. This unprecedented scale of happiness feels so much more real than just a feeling; it’s more akin to a physical thing lodged inside of his chest, periodically expanding in size, constricting his lungs and taking his breath away whenever he acknowledges it.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Shane reminds himself that he should approach their newly-established relationship carefully instead of diving in headfirst, and that both he and Ilya still have a mountain of well-buried fears and communication issues to talk through for this to work. But for the first time since everything began in 2008, Shane feels content. Before this, it was never enough; only fleeting moments and bursts of heat and a lot of anger, making him always yearn for more, more, more of the man. Now, Ilya is here with him, in his cottage, and his parents know and welcome both his identity and Ilya’s presence with open arms, so he can’t bring himself to seriously think about anything else beyond the sheer exhilaration of the moment.
Through his bubble, some fear still manages to creep in and cause a dull ache in his heart; now that he knows how life truly with Ilya feels like, he’s not sure if he would be able to survive should there be an “after Ilya” phase in his future. His brain can already come up with approximately six million different ways this can go wrong for both of their professional careers, and just for that, he unconsciously sucks in a deep breath. He’s acutely aware of how much is at stake, especially for his boyfriend (God, he’s really my boyfriend now), and wishes reality for them didn’t exist beyond the walls of the present at the cottage. But he also knows that Ilya is worth everything that is about to come their way, because every fight will bring them one step closer to the forever they both deserve. He desperately hopes his future self would constantly be brave enough to always choose Ilya with no hesitation whenever it boils down to the option. He knows, with conviction, that he would always be Ilya’s number one choice, but he also knows that his brain could be a fucking wreck sometimes. But for the man, he wants to be better—calmer, braver, stronger. May this fear of losing him always outweigh the fear of losing everything else.
An involuntary sigh coming from himself shocks him back to his senses, and he finally remembers what he’s supposed to be doing. They were both craving kebabs for dinner, and Ilya voluntarily worked on the meats while he decided to take care of the sauces and the salad they’re having on the side. He’s currently hunched over the counter of his kitchen island, with the garlic cloves still left untouched since he peeled them over 10 minutes ago. As he picks his knife up and moves to get started with chopping the garlic, he glanced outside the full glass windows, and was greeted with the ethereal sight of Ilya preparing the grill outside. His brown hair lightly glowed golden on the edges thanks to the contrasting sunset hues beginning to unfold in the background, and the light breeze made his loose curls flutter just enough to make him seem like a heavenly being. The sleeveless tee he’s wearing accentuates his shoulders and biceps in the most delicious way, and Shane feels an overwhelming urge to worship Ilya’s gorgeous body from head to toe. He plans to put that into action tonight, but for now, he settles for watching Ilya wrestle with the temperature gauge on the grill while he slices some garlic.
When the wind outside quiets down, he can hear Ilya softly singing a sweet melody through the small opening in the glass door. He vaguely recalls hearing Ilya humming the same song a few nights ago while wiping him down as he was coming down from the haze after what was probably the best orgasm he’s had in a good while, and that memory alone makes his cheeks heat up impossibly quickly. Shane recognises the lyrics being murmured by Ilya to be in Russian, and adds this moment to the extensive mental list of things Ilya does that he desperately needs to regularly witness for the rest of his days.
There’s just something about Ilya speaking so smoothly in his mother tongue with that unfairly enticing deep voice of his that makes Shane fall in love with him all over again. He would never surrender this information to Ilya, but there had been multiple instances over the years where he developed a semi hard-on while watching the interviews Ilya had with the Russian press. The tent formed in his sweatpants always made him feel so humiliated; they have gone months without so much as interacting and Ilya wasn’t even there in person, yet he still had so much power over his physical responses. It’s no different right now, especially with the effect being multiplied by the added melody, he can feel his whole body flushing, just from Ilya casually mumbling lyrics he can’t even understand.
Fuck, I’m so down bad for this man.
Stupid, muscular Ilya Rozanov with his stupidly cute ruffled curls humming his stupid Russian song. He thinks his younger self would be extremely disappointed at him for being so helplessly head over heels over his archrival, but at the same time he thinks younger Shane was always attracted to him since the very first time he laid his eyes on Ilya Rozanov. Ilya has always had that sort of fiery charisma that penetrates beyond the limits of screens, catching the eye of anyone who lays their eyes on him. Even when he was being such an asshole to him, flaunting his successes and wins to his face, he always ended up enticed by those hazel eyes, glinting with mischief. Shane chuckles to himself in embarrassment, channeling his energy into aggressively chopping the garlic instead of banging his forehead on the wall.
“Fuck! Fucking shit,” Shane hisses as he dropped his knife on the cutting board. Blood is slowly trickling out of the shallow but wide slit on his left index finger from where he misaimed his knife (his boyfriend was extremely distracting, thank you very much).
Shane faintly registers Ilya’s hurried footsteps through the sharp pain. “Are you okay? What happened, Shane?”
“Was a bit distracted, m’fine,” he mumbles back, not meeting Ilya’s eyes.
Calloused fingers hurriedly trail up his own, quickly turning into gentle strokes as he winced at the prickly feeling on his skin. The bleeding isn’t too bad, although he figures the inch-long cut would need to be cleaned and wrapped up at some point if he doesn’t want an unnecessary infection. He’s a hockey player, for God’s sake, this won’t even make it into the top fifty worst injuries he’s sustained in the past year. Obviously, Ilya doesn’t seem to believe so, judging from how his eyebrows are furrowed in concern as he lightly taps on the cut with a sheet of kitchen towel lying around.
“Go away, Ilya, I’m okay. I literally smell like garlic right now,” Shane says in an attempt to lighten the mood. His boyfriend just shakes his head, and moves in to examine the wound closer.
“You were distracted by me, I need to take responsibility.”
Before he could register his words and feel ashamed for getting caught, he felt his heart jolt in surprise as Ilya’s face approached impossibly close to his hand. In a way, he knew exactly what was going to happen, and yet his breath still stuttered when Ilya brought his bloodied finger up close and just sucked on it with no hesitation. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience; he sees and touches and feels Ilya in such a hyperfocused way that he genuinely feels numb to every other sensation. Christ, this has no business being this arousing. He thinks his heart might stop beating anytime now and he would collapse right then and there in the middle of the kitchen, and if he actually died then, he would have no regrets. A sudden onslaught of dizziness overcomes his entire being, and he thinks it’s likely a result of all the blood in his head rushing south upon the first contact of Ilya’s tongue on his skin. His menace of a boyfriend is still lapping at his open wound, occasionally stopping to check if any more blood oozes out upon applying pressure. He’s almost embarrassed at how much this whole experience is turning him on, but come on, Ilya “sex god” Rozanov is being so naturally hot while taking care of him, so the heat pooling deep in his stomach is justified.
Eventually, Ilya steps back and leaves a featherlight kiss on his knuckles. “I think you’ll live.”
“Jesus Christ, Ilya, you’re gonna make me die of a heart attack,” Shane whines, face still tinted a deep red, to which Ilya responded with his signature shit-eating grin.
“You are so cute, Hollander,” he whispers while pressing a fleeting kiss to his lips, causing Shane to bury his face in his neck to cover the fluster in his cheeks. “Do you have a bandage somewhere?”
“The first aid kit is in the ensuite in my bedroom,” Shane mumbles into Ilya’s neck. Ilya gently guides and deposits him on the couch and jogs to grab the supplies.
Ilya returns with a handful of cotton pads and waterproof bandages. He stops by the sink to slightly wet one of the cotton pads to gently clean the remaining spots of blood around the cut. Once the cut was all wrapped up, Ilya pressed a gentle kiss on top of it, and blew on it while mumbling something in Russian that had to mean something similar to the “healing spells” his mom whispered to his wounds as a kid. As Ilya leaned closer towards his space for a cuddle, Shane was internally panicking, because he’s still half hard, and he really doesn’t want to be humiliated further than this. So, he did the best thing he could think of: hold on tight to the cushion on top of his lap as Ilya tries to bend him into the right position. As his luck goes, this doesn’t go unnoticed by Ilya, who is too smart for his own good, because it takes him less than three seconds to make the connection between the deathly grip he has on the cushion to what might be hiding underneath it.
“Baby, are you hard?” Ilya asks with his signature lilt of smugness in his tone.
Shane groaned and turned away, turning his body away and burrowing his face in the couch cushions. This truly could not have gone any more embarrassing for him. “Oh my god, shut up, Rozanov.”
“What can I say, I’m very attractive,” Ilya shoots an eyebrow wiggle his way.
“You little shit,” Shane chuckles playfully, making no attempt to disagree with that statement. Ego be damned; his boyfriend is the most beautiful person he’s ever laid his eyes on, and he deserves to hear that every breathing moment, so he says exactly that to Ilya.
“I love you,” Ilya breathes, his eyes shining with nothing but pure adoration. He caresses Shane’s cheek with the level of gentleness typically used to handle fragile goods and oh, Shane Hollander is so in love.
“I love you too, Ilya,” Shane whispers back. “But if you’re not dirty talking to me in bed in Russian in the next 3 minutes, I might pass out from this boner.”
Ilya throws his head back in laughter, but immediately starts working on his sensitive neck while moving to straddle him on the couch. Their moans and pants fill the room as it gets progressively darker outside, with their dinner completely forgotten for now. In between his arousal-addled thoughts, Shane promises to himself to love this man with his whole soul for as long as Ilya allows him to.
For now, they have one more week of this. But eventually, Shane thinks he’ll have the rest of their life to enjoy mundane moments like this evening with the love of his life.
(And, if later in the day, he admits he has a thing for Ilya talking in his mother tongue while being trapped under him in bed, he thinks it’s justified by the intensity of the orgasm he has.)