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“You look very... fine tonight,” Ilya said, the words sliding out with the same cool amusement he always used when he wanted to wound gently.
Shane drew a breath and he dragged his hand through his hair as if that could smooth whatever had knotted inside him. “I am nervous, alright? He’s...” He searched for the right word and failed. “He is actually a really nice guy.”
Ilya watched him from the couch, one leg over the armrest, white socked foot tapping the black leather. The lamp beside him, a house warming gift from Yuna, cast a warm pool of light that softened the apartment.
A nice guy? Was that all it took nowadays? He resisted an eye-roll.
“That is tragic,” Ilya said with the small, dry inflection that always made Shane glare.
“You are insufferable,” Shane said.
“Mm,” Ilya answered, pleased by the reflexive irritation. “I am not doing anything.”
“Do not do anything,” Shane begged, grabbing his jacket off the back of a chair. “Tonight, please.”
Ilya cocked his head and considered him for a long moment, measuring not what Shane wanted him to be but what he would choose to be. “I shall try,” he said. “Maybe."
“You do not have to try,” Shane muttered, half to himself and half to Ilya. “You only have to do, and it is a problem when you dont.”
The smallest laugh breathed out of Ilya because it was true and beautifully simple.
The apartment around them was quiet in the way of places that have been lived in by two people for two years; the hum of the refrigerator their landlord wouldnt break, the sound of a Russian soap opera Ilya remembered watching with his mom as a child glowing on the tv with the volume low. Each little domestic trace belonged to both of them and to no one else.
“You will be late,” Ilya said, the observation obvious.
“I know,” Shane snapped, checking his phone as if the device could hold him to time. “I am going.”
Shane moved toward the door, probably thinking perhaps he could leave without more interference, and Ilya let him come close in a way that let the other man relax for a breath.
Until he stood quickly and reached the four steps to the door. And reached forward and caught Shane’s wrist.
Shane halted. His protest was minor, as it always was when they played games like this.
The kiss Ilya gave him was not hurried at all; it was a small claim, deliberate enough to make Shane’s leaving feel less tidy. When Ilya pulled back, he was careful to make his face unreadable.
“For luck,” he said, his accent this on his 'k.'
Shane laughed once, a short, disbelieving sound. “Right. Because that is what you care about.”
“Sometimes,” Ilya replied with a shrug.
Shane shoved past him to the door, a quick movement that was almost anger and almost longing, and then he was gone. The apartment sighed with the absence of him.
Ilya sat for a long time, staring at the door until the sight blurred, until nothing in the room had edges.
He allowed himself a slow exhale and dropped back onto the couch. The place still smelled faintly of Shane’s cologne, that stubborn trace that lodged itself in fabric and memory. He told himself it irritated him.
They had been doing this for two years, after all--sharing a space, a routine that had been convenient and then inconvenient and then messy. There had been six months of careful boundaries before the line between them blurred and then bled. And it kept bleeding.
So the arrangement was complicated.
So it did not have a name.
So that did not change anything, he repeated like a private prayer.
Shane would leave in the evening, or in the afternoon for coffee, or in the morning for a stupid weekend brunch. He probably offered charm like Smarties at a table across from someone who would not know they were being shorted on how many blue they got. Shane came home, after, with stories truncated at the parts that mattered, with jokes that read differently depending on who listened.
Sometimes Ilya reacted. Sometimes he did not. Tonight, he told himself he would not.
He told himself many things though and broke most of them.
He found his phone, thumbed at it to get it unlocked, and then he called. The ring went on and on. No answer. So he tried again. The same result. Either Shane’s phone was on silent, or he had chosen not to pick up.
He switched to texting, because texts were subtle and precise in the way he liked.
Ilya:
i hope the lighting is flattering in restaurant.
i should have done more than kiss you before you left
He tossed the phone aside and pretended nonchalance, and then the phone buzzed in five minutes anyway.
When he picked up, Shane sounded tight and small. There was someone in the background; laughter somewhere not far off. Ilya listened to Shane’s breath and savoured the sound of private attention that still belonged to him.
“You are the worst,” Shane said, voice low and ragged.
“You were not saying that last night,” Ilya replied lightly, letting the memory sit just where he wanted it. A gentle and unkind reminder that the line between them had been crossed and remade and then crossed again.
“I am on a date,” Shane reminded him as if it needed to be said again. “So please, do not start.”
Ilya let his reply be slow, as if each word had weight. “You could ignore me.”
There was a gap on the line long enough for both of them to consider whether ignoring was the same as absence. When Shane admitted, almost reluctantly, that he could, Ilya smiled into the quiet as if that small victory warmed him.
“And yet you do not,” he said. "You will not."
The line went quiet again; Shane’s breath tightened in his ear. “God, Ilya, you are impossible, I never have words for you,” he muttered, an accusation that was halfway between anger and amusement.
“You were not saying that last night,” Ilya said again, because the truth of it had teeth. "You had many naughty words for me last night, Hollander."
Shane’s inhale was involuntary. The conversation ended the same way their arguments always ended. Half finished and full of unresolved want.
The line went dead.
The restaurant was loud.
Cutlery chimed on plates and laughter rose high into the vaulted ceilings. Shane hated everything about it but slid into the booth anyways, and checked his phone with hesitation, and then turned his attention outward as if that could steady him.
He ordered a drink, a Tom Collins because thats what his father always got and he really didnt know the name of anything else. He listened to his date talk, answered with the practised smile that had always worked to keep small talk buoyant, and for the first hour he managed not to look at his screen.
The guy was nice, a friend of Rose's who she had worked with last year on some documentary. He appreciated the friendship and the fact that she was always scouting for him. Even if his mind was often elsewhere.
When the check came and was pushed aside, Shane told himself he would stay another twenty minutes. He would allow the evening to unfold in polite increments. He would do his best to be a man with options and without mess.
He would let the flirtation be what it pretended to be.
He also checked his phone again now. Messages stacked up on the lock screen like little hands knocking at the door that wanted his attention. Ilya’s name flashed like a provocation.
Ilya had been predictable and unpredictable at once.
Predictable in the rhythm of his texts, short, punctuated oddly sometimes, maybe even the completely wrong use of an emoji that made no sense. But unpredictable in the content, which could veer from casual observation to brutal tenderness that made Shane feel both protected and cornered.
The first one was almost a courtesy. It read: I hope the lighting is flattering in the restaurant. Shane read it and smiled despite himself.
The second one was far less so.
Shane:
youre an asshole
and the lights suck here. theyre too loud
Ilya answered almost immediately.
Something about the lighting being great at home and some other nonsense about fucking him under the light of the lamp his mother gifted him.
Shane:
that was a gift from my nana you know
Ilya:
Hollander why are you so bad at sexting omg
you will be back by midnight, yes?
The man at the table laughed at something Shane said and he laughed louder to match his tempo. He felt like an actor moving through a scene that had a hidden audience. The servers came and went; someone at a nearby table celebrated a birthday with too many candles that made his body tingle with over stimulation.
The room folded itself around him.
The next text was a single sentence, a small challenge.
Ilya:
i know you will be,
Shane stabbed at the phone with a thumb that suddenly felt clumsy. He did not send anything else for several minutes because he needed to keep the night from collapsing into the private gravity of his apartment.
He needed to see himself as the man who could be somewhere else and still be whole.
If they couldnt figure out what they were, he had to figure out who he was.
The messages continued to arrive in their light, inexorable way.
Ilya:
did you eat enough?
does he have a accent too>
i bet he does not play better hockey than me
or will fuck you better than me
or hold you after
For a moment Shane’s hands shook with the impulse to stand up and walk out, to end the performance and return to the only truth he could recognize as his. He tucked the phone into his pocket and tried to finish the conversation with the same composure he had started with. He attempted to be the kind of man who could stay and laugh and be, but the tenderness threaded through Ilya’s last message had unpicked an important seam.
He kept texting, sending small, indolent provocations that were casual on the surface and not at all casual underneath.
He did not pretend he was not trying to unsettle Shane; he did not deny that some part of him wanted to make the other man look up from the leisure of someone else and remember where he belonged.
It was petty and precise and very, very Russian in the way it was stubborn and possessive, like a winter that refuses to melt. He hated that about himself and cherished it in equal measure.
Time passed slow and thin until keys turned in the lock and broke the quiet. The sound tore through the apartment like a church ringing its bell. Ilya sat up immediately, every part of him honing toward the doorway, and when the door opened and Shane stepped back into the room, he was struck by the sight of him again.
Shane was glaring daggers at him when he shut the door behind him, gaze full of heat and directed right at Ilya. "You--"
“You are home early,” Ilya observed, voice steady though his heart was not.
“So you do not like my punctuality now,” Shane said stopping in his tracks, and the answer was half joke.
“I do not know if I dislike it,” Ilya said. “I only know that it is convenient when you return to where you belong.”
"Well that is--"
Ilya didn't let him finish, gliding over to him and pulling him by his collar into a bruising kiss.
Shane yelped, hands grasping at his hoodie as he was pushed against the door. Ilya could feel him melt against his body, immediately giving in, and it made him feel hot with arousal. God. How could Shane think he could ever belong to somebody else, when he was this easy for Ilya?
"You were saying?" Ilya whispered once they'd pulled away, pressing his hard cock into Shane through his sweatpants.
Shane was panting, his eyes wide and mouth pink. "God, you're such an, uncivilised dick," but he wasn't glaring anymore, instead looking at him with big dough eyes and waiting for his next move. Ilya knew him too well, knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it.
And he'd give it to him. Always.
"Im going to fuck you right here, against this door," he palmed Shane's cock through his stupid jeans for the few seconds he could stand the layers between them. When Shane whimpered he pulled them down his legs. "Yeah? You want that?"
Shane shivered, nodding. His jeans were on the floor in a second and he was stepping out of them.
His cock too was hard in his boxers too, straining against the white fabric and wet with precum. Ilya leaned in close, his breath hot against Shane's ear. "Твоя попа уже мокрая и ждет моего члена. Я собираюсь трахнуть тебя так сильно, что ты будешь хромать неделю," he growled, the Russian words filthy and possessive. Shane whimpered at the dirty talk, not needing to know at all what it meant, his cock twitching in response.
He was desperately grasping onto Ilya's shoulder for support as his leg was hitched up against his hip, thighs spread for Ilya to reach a hand into his underwear to grab his cock. He was still open from the night before, and Ilya made him spit onto his fingers (he thought he could make Shane walk the plank no questions asked when he was in this state, too submissive and obedient for his own good.)
Shane whimpered again, head thrown back against the door as Ilya fucked two fingers in and out of him.
"Enjoy your date?"
Shane frowned, too out of it to concentrate. "Huh?"
Ilya smiled. "Your date," he curled his fingers, angling them so they hit that spot that made Shane's toes curl, made him tear up and squeal his name. "How was it? Good?"
"I can't--believe--you," he choked out. There was sweat gathering on his forehead, his pretty mouth open around a sweet moan of Ilya's name.
He was perfect, and Ilya wished he could snap a photo of him right now. "Fuck, take my boxers off."
"Can't believe what?" He slipped his fingers out one by one, not complying with the request.
"Fuck, Ilya please," and Shane struggled free from his grasp and hurled his boxers to the floor. Ilya licked his lips at the sight. And then he was pinning him to the door with a hand to his shoulder and took out his own cock from his grey sweat pants. He rubbed a hand along the shaft and made sure it was slick with enough precum before resting it against Shane's entrance. Shane's legs were up on either side of him, one arm around Ilya's shoulder and the other up against the wall.
He gasped, other hand flying over to his shoulder as Ilya pushed himself all the way inside, "Good fucking God, Ilya,"
"Hm? " Ilya wasted no time, fucked him against the door, pace fast and unforgiving.
He let himself bask in Shane's high pitched moans, and the way he tried to keep his voice down for how close they were to their neighbours doors just outside their own, and failing miserably. The angle and the fact that they were standing up meant it was difficult, but it was so, so good, and Ilya couldn't get enough. Shane was tight and hot and so fucking perfect, the most incoherent, nonsensical shit leaving his mouth.
"Tell me how your date went," Ilya panted into the space between them.
"Did you think about me? Think about coming home and letting me fuck you against this door? Did you tell your date how much you love it when your roommate bends you over and pounds into you, makes you come so fucking hard?"
Shane shook his head, face burning red.
"You always go on those stupid little dates," Ilya hissed. "Even though you know you belong to me. Don't you?"
"Yours," Shane choked out. "I am. I'm yours."
"That's fucking right."
He was close, that much was clear, whines getting more and more high pitched. He clawed at his shoulders, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. And he was so fucking beautiful it made Ilya's chest squeeze. 3 words on the tip of his tongue threatened to spill.
He kept his eyes locked on Shane's, slowing his pace but making sure his thrusts were hard, and deep, watching Shane's eyes roll into the back of his head.
"I'm close, I'm close. Ilya," he gasped, "you're gonna make me come--"
Ilya held onto his thighs, kept fucking him until his whole body was spasming, head thrown back against the door and neck on complete display for Ilya to suck a mark into as he came. He was shaking, a long, drawn out call of Ilya's name leaving his mouth, and Ilya never wanted to hear him say his name any other way. It took no time at all for him to follow suit, making a mess of Shane's insides before pulling out and gently setting him back down on the floor.
He almost lost balance, hands reaching out to grab hold of Ilya's arms before his legs could give way underneath him, sending him toppling to the floor. Ilya simpers, knowing he did that. He hoped Shane would wake up limping tomorrow, a friendly reminder of this night.
And yesterday's.
"God." Shane whimpered, and leant back against the door now. "We didn't even--fuck, make it all the way into the apartment."
Ilya snorted. They were both still relatively out of breath, coming down from it all.
It was a comfortable silence that followed, Ilya watching as Shane trailed to his room to put a new pair of boxers back on. They shared a little smile, and all of Shane's anger from earlier had completely dissipated, nowhere to be found on his face. His cheeks were Ilya's favourite shade of pink.
"He was nice, you know," he said, quietly. "And the date was alright, until..."
Ilya gave him a lopsided smile. "Till I called?"
Shane returned his smile, "Pretty much," he exhaled a laugh. "But I'm glad. Glad you did," he said, this time even quieter, eyes no longer looking up to meet his own as he leaned over the back of the couch.
Ilya didn't ask what he meant by that. He was already droopy eyed, beyond sleepy like he always was after sex.