"We want you to create a FanMail account," said the new PR manager for the Voyageurs. "It's part of our new fan engagement initiative."
The silence stretched between them as Shane stared at her, part of him hoping this was a joke. But her expression remained perfectly serious.
Shane had never gotten into social media even in the early days when a lot of his peers had been sharing every intimate detail of their lives online. Part of it had probably been that the idea just inherently didn't appeal to him, but part of it had been that by the time social media had become a thing, he'd known he was headed for the NHL. And he'd known that the last thing he needed was some scandal in his personal life to affect his career. Which had become doubly true when he'd realized that he was absolutely, definitely gay.
Triply true when he'd accepted that he was absolutely, definitely gay for Ilya Rozanov.
His Instagram was mostly him sharing official posts from the team or the foundation, but even if he'd wanted to start posting about his personal life, he wasn't sure where he'd start. His life was mostly hockey and Ilya. He couldn't post about the latter, and as to the former, he presumed fans would get bored if he just posted about the results of every game. There were dozens of websites for that kind of thing. He could share photos of his meals, he guessed, but he was fairly certain that trend had died years ago, and besides, Ilya already gave him enough shit about his diet even when he hadn't made it his whole personality.
So Shane didn't really post on Instagram or Twitter or anywhere else for that matter. He sometimes talked to fans in person when he ran into them in the street or after a game, and he was…awkward, he knew that. He appreciated that fans were passionate about hockey and the team, but it was always weird to get ambushed when he was just trying to buy his groceries. He made an effort to be polite, of course, but he'd never been naturally outgoing or comfortable with that kind of attention. Small talk with strangers had never been his strong suit.
Shane had never asked Ilya what he did when he ran into a fan in public. He was probably delightfully charming and gregarious and took selfies with them. Shane was abruptly certain that if he searched, he'd find thousands of selfies fans had taken with Ilya, the other man grinning widely or winking at the camera.
Thinking about Ilya smiling made something go gooey in Shane's chest, so he determined he had to stop before the PR manager thought that he had positive feelings about joining FanMail.
"May I ask the reason why?" Shane asked delicately. A very diplomatic response, he thought, when what he wanted to do was scream and run from the room. He kept his expression neutral, though his fingers twitched against his thigh.
"Hayden Pike's videos have generated significant positive engagement," she explained, her tone all business. "It makes fans feel more invested in the team when they get a personalized message from one of its players."
When she said invested, Shane suspected she meant in the monetary and not the emotional sense, but his first thought was whether it was actually wise to blur the lines between players and fans like that. Shane appreciated the fans, but he also appreciated some distance between them and his personal life, and he was sure he'd have felt that way even if Ilya hadn't been in the picture.
"Why me?" Shane asked, though he already knew the answer. She gave him a look that suggested she thought he was being deliberately obtuse.
"You're the captain," she said with the patience of a teacher talking to a particularly stupid child. Which Shane maybe deserved because he certainly wanted to whine like one.
"I could post more on Instagram," he suggested instead. He didn't love it, but it was better than having to awkwardly figure out how to tell individual fans happy birthday over and over again. The beauty of social media was supposed to be reaching everyone at once, wasn't it?
She shook her head. "It's the personal touch we're looking for," she said. "Fans can't get that from an Instagram post." She paused and looked him straight in the eye. "It will be good for the team."
Shane suppressed a groan. This wasn't his absolute worst nightmare—that honor was reserved for far more catastrophic scenarios—but it ranked uncomfortably high on the list. At least they weren't live videos, so Shane could watch them back and rerecord them if he sounded like an idiot on the first take.
"Okay," Shane agreed at last. "If it's good for the team."
Ilya's laughter rang through the phone when Shane told him the news.
"You will be so terrible at this," Ilya told Shane, ever the supportive boyfriend. "Fans will ask for a birthday message, and you will record five takes because you think the first one sounds too weird, and the second one you will stumble over your words, and the third one—"
"Okay, all right," Shane interrupted, not terribly keen to know what horribly embarrassing things Ilya imagined he could do while trying to record a simple birthday message. Unfortunately for his flimsy veneer of anger, he was laughing even as he protested, because Ilya's mirth was contagious and despite himself, Shane's chest felt warm at how well his boyfriend knew him, even the high-strung, obsessive part of him. Maybe especially that part, because Ilya knew all the worst things about him and loved him anyway. "Anyway, I don't have to answer every request. I can skip it if it's something embarrassing."
Ilya dissolved into laughter again. "Then you will skip every request!" he protested, and even on the relatively small screen of his phone, Shane could see the way Ilya's eyes sparkled. Shane knew that people sometimes posted the private videos they received on FanMail; he could suddenly imagine Ilya finding and watching every one and sending him a critique of his performance. Weirdly enough, that thought actually eased some of his anxiety.
"I'm glad my shame is so enjoyable for you," Shane said dryly, sure he was blushing.
"No, no, sweetheart," Ilya started to backtrack, maybe afraid that he was actually upsetting Shane. It was sometimes difficult to tell these things over the phone, even now that they had the advantage of video. "Let me help. Let's see...you can pretend you are playing that children's game, what is it called? Truth or...action?" Ilya repeated the word in Russian, but it wasn't one Shane had managed to commit to memory yet. Still, it was clear enough from context.
"Truth or dare?" Shane suggested.
"Yes, that one. If someone asks you to sing—"
Suddenly, Shane imagined that scenario. "Oh god," he said, burying his face in his hand.
"—just pretend you are a child, and it is a game of truth or dare."
Shane wasn't sure if it was annoying or funny that Ilya had been more helpful before he'd actually tried to make supportive suggestions.
"I always chose 'truth' when I played truth or dare," Shane confessed. "Dares...they were way too embarrassing. Even watching other people's dares...the secondhand embarrassment was almost too much."
Ilya's expression turned sympathetic, though Shane could see that he was holding in laughter at the same time. "Oh, moy pomidor...how do you survive in a locker room if you are so easily embarrassed?"
Shane rolled his eyes, but...fair question, honestly. "Why tomato?" he asked instead of attempting to answer Ilya's question.
"Because you are so red right now," Ilya told him, giving in to his laughter.
As it turned out, joining FanMail wasn't nearly as terrible as Shane had anticipated. He had indeed had to turn down some singing requests (and those people should thank him, honestly, for saving their ears). But it was, as expected, mostly birthday and anniversary messages, which were easy enough, if a bit repetitive. He'd also been asked to record a gender reveal and a short message for the annual meeting at a local Montreal company. One woman had asked him to tell her boyfriend that he was going to do a great job on a test, and giving a thirty-second pep-talk actually came second nature to Shane after years of captaining a hockey team. (Shane wondered if the guy had passed his test, but he had resigned himself to not getting closure on that one).
So it was actually...fine. Better than posting more on Instagram, actually, because Shane didn't have to share anything else about his personal life. It was always a little embarrassing when people posted the videos publicly, and Shane always cringed when one of his teammates pulled one up in the locker room. He wasn't sure how recording a short video was different than giving an interview or a speech, both of which he'd always been more than comfortable with. He did occasionally watch one of his interviews and wish he'd articulated himself a bit better, but he didn't feel the sort of visceral embarrassment he felt when watching back one of the FanMail videos.
Perhaps it was because most of his interviews were entirely impersonal, about the results of a hockey game or an event for the Irina Foundation, something that involved him but wasn't entirely about him. Even the documentary that had ostensibly been about his rivalry with Ilya had been about their careers and not about them personally.
These videos, though, were supposed to be personal and sincere, or at least give the appearance of being so. Maybe it was just an unspoken agreement where both parties understood he wasn't genuinely invested in a stranger's birthday, but they all played along and mutually agreed to pretend. Shane should be good at that, considering he'd spent so many years of his life pretending about several very pivotal things, but he absolutely was not.
It was impossible to relax when he knew he had to be very careful about everything he did when he filmed these videos. It was easy enough when he was home, but when he was at Ilya's, he tried to find a plain white wall to stand in front of—except sometimes, a very excitable dog was in the same room as the only unadorned white wall, and Shane felt awful locking Anya in another room just so he could film a video.
And anyway, he one time he'd tried shutting Anya in the bedroom with Ilya, hoping to film before Ilya woke up and spare himself the mortification of being perceived while doing so, it had backfired spectacularly. The dog had woken Ilya up, and Ilya had been a little shit that morning, making increasingly ridiculous faces to make Shane laugh, which had been...well, it had been charming, but it had also been very annoying, because it had taken Shane nearly an hour to film three very simple one minute videos.
Of course, Ilya had spent the next twenty minutes very diligently sucking Shane's cock, and by the end of it, Shane had forgotten why he'd been angry at Ilya, if he'd ever been angry at Ilya in the first place.
So from then on, Shane had taken to filming his videos in the gym in Ilya's basement, because he had the same weight rack and bench as Ilya did, and if he angled the camera just so, almost nothing else was in frame. It wasn't quite a blank wall, but it served its purpose well enough.
So yeah, FanMail was...not his favorite thing, but there were quite a lot of small inconveniences—and much bigger inconveniences—that came with playing professional hockey, and most of them he'd come to accept a long time before. Most of it was a relatively minor trade-off for getting paid extremely well to play what was, at its core, an entertaining (if admittedly dangerous) game. Shane was acutely aware of how many people would give anything to have the career he had, the life he'd built through hockey.
Shane hated the position he and Ilya had been put in due to their careers, hated that he couldn't scream from the rooftops that Ilya Rozanov was the man that he loved. That was the one thing, the one trade-off that all but flayed him of his skin. But FanMail...he didn't hate that quite so much. It was a mild annoyance at best, and maybe it actually was a little nice to think that a few minutes of his time might brighten someone's day.
It was an absolutely ordinary day. That was what Shane had been thinking, at least, right up until he walked into the locker room and heard, "So, Captain, are you fucking Ilya Rozanov?"
Shane stopped in his tracks. His blood froze in his veins. His heart somehow both stopped and pounded so loudly that he could hear it thundering in his ears. He forgot to breathe. He felt hot, then cold, then hot again.
"...what?" he managed at last, the single word coming out a desperate squeak. The whole locker room was laughing uproariously, Drapeau legitimately rolling on the floor. Hayden wasn't laughing, but his eyes were huge, staring at Shane with an intensity that suggested he was desperately trying to convey something to Shane telepathically. The problem was that Shane had no idea what it was Hayden was trying to communicate.
"He's joking!" Hayden said quickly, his gaze not turning any less intense. "It's just some weirdos online. It's literally just conspiracy theories."
Shane's heart slowed a little bit, and he could finally breathe. Okay, whatever this was, it wasn't a disaster, then. His relationship with Ilya hadn't been exposed to the world against his will. But he didn't know what it was then.
"I don't know..." J.J. began, barely able to speak through his laughter. "hollanovtruther on Tumblr does have some...compelling evidence..."
It was then that Shane noticed that everyone in the locker room had their phones out. "Tumblr?" Shane echoed stupidly.
"We have a thirty-year-old grandpa right here!" Drapeau exclaimed, still on the floor in near-hysterics. "He doesn't know what Tumblr is!"
"I know what Tumblr is," Shane protested, and he did...mostly. Everyone ignored him.
"'If you look in the background of this FanMail video recorded by Shane, you can see this blue exercise ball. It's the same exercise ball Ilya posted on his Instagram,'" Comeau read aloud.
"Reblog: hollandersgirl1989: 'Or...newsflash...maybe two professional hockey players who both live in Canada bought exercise balls from the same chain store?'" J.J. read out in an exaggerated falsetto.
"Re:reblog: hollanovtruther," Comeau continued, like they were a two-man comedy act, "'No, you can see here that they have the same black scuff on them. I've circled it in both images for your reference. It's definitely the same ball.'"
Shane was getting sweaty again, clammy and uncomfortable, and he stared back at Hayden with what he assumed were even wider eyes than Hayden had attempted to stare at him with earlier. Hayden seemed to understand what Shane was trying to communicate, because he handed over his phone, and...yep, there was a screenshot of a video he had taken, and in the very corner, there was the blue exercise ball, visible in the reflection in the mirror. Fuck.
How had they even noticed this? Shane literally had no idea. He had been trying to be so careful, and even he hadn't noticed anything was visible in the frame except for the weight bench. Except there it was, with a little black scuffmark circled in red, and beside it was a screencap of Ilya's Instagram with the same tiny imperfection circled.
Jesus, maybe Shane and Ilya's relationship had been outed. By an exercise ball.
Drapeau had finally recovered enough from his fit of giggles to prop himself up and read from his own phone. "Voyagegrrrrrl says: 'So what? They're friends. They created a foundation together. Why can't two men be friends anymore? Why do you RPF weirdos always have to make everything gay?'"
Drapeau wailed the word gay in the most exaggerated way, and it was then that Shane realized...his team didn't take this seriously at all. Not a single one of them thought it was true. Shane forced himself to relax, in increments.
"Hilarious," Shane deadpanned, as if he hadn't been exactly one breath away from having a panic attack just seconds before.
"They probably sensed the gay vibes from you, captain, because...you know," Comeau said, waving his hand in the direction of Shane's person as if it required no further explanation. Which...Shane was gay, and he had disclosed that to his team, but there was something about the way Comeau said it that rubbed him the wrong way. "A guy like Rozanov, though...no way. Where do they get these ideas? Delusional."
Hayden swallowed thickly, looking nearly as on-edge as Shane felt. "What, uh...what is RPF anyway?" he asked tentatively, as if he was worried the others would notice he wasn't adequately participating in the conversation. Or maybe he didn't want Shane to have to sit through his whole team waxing on about how impossible it was that Ilya Rozanov might want to fuck him. Shane appreciated Hayden more than ever.
"It's 'real person fiction,' man, it's...never mind, it's probably best you don't know. You'll want to stay away from it anyway."
"Nah, I love it," J.J. argued. "So funny to read sometimes. They think I have a big dick."
Comeau rolled his eyes. "That's why it's called 'fiction'!"
J.J. glared at him, "Hey!"
"Did you see it?" Shane asked frantically on the phone to Ilya later that evening. Shane would have gotten in his car and driven immediately to Ottawa as soon as he'd left the Voyageurs' facility, except Ilya was on the road and wouldn't have been there even if Shane had. Some part of Shane wanted to get in his car anyway and drive and drive and drive until he was exactly where Ilya was right now.
"I did see it," Ilya remarked calmly. "Someone from your team texted someone who texted someone who texted Hazy."
"And?" Shane asked impatiently. The silence stretched between them, and Shane's frustration mounted. Ilya still hadn't offered any indication of how he actually felt about all this. Shane loved Ilya, but sometimes talking to him could be like pulling teeth.
"No one takes it seriously," Ilya assured Shane. "Everyone is laughing about it. Is no big deal."
Funny, because to Shane it felt like a very fucking big deal. "But what if someone does take it seriously?" he pressed, tugging at a loose thread on his shirt. "What if we both get kicked off our teams and our careers are over?"
Ilya sighed. "We will not be kicked off our teams," he said with gentle certainty. Shane was not calmed.
"Crowell made it very clear to me that he doesn't want distractions," Shane reminded Ilya, unable to keep from rolling his eyes at the memory of their conversation. "This could be a big distraction."
"No one will listen to speculation from strange Tumblr blog," Ilya said. "No real news will cover it. Best thing is to ignore."
Shane worried his lip with his teeth, unable to stop himself from thinking of worst-case scenarios. "But if it does, and something happens...Ilya, what about your visa? And if you have to go back to Russia and they know—"
Shane had nightmares about it, sometimes, vivid, terrible visions where Ilya was expelled from the league, his visa revoked, sent back to Russia where Shane couldn't protect him. Shane had deliberately avoided researching how plausible any of this actually was, caught between the fear that knowing might ease his anxiety or that it might confirm his worst fears and ensure he never slept soundly again.
"Then we get married and I will get spousal visa and stay with you," Ilya reassured him with absurd confidence. "I will not leave you, sweetheart. I will not go back to Russia."
Shane doubted that Ilya was quite as sanguine about it as he seemed. For one thing, when Ilya was worried, he tended to start losing his grip on the finer points of English grammar, and he'd been dropping an awful lot of articles.
Ilya's instinct was always to shield Shane, to shoulder everything himself, and while Shane loved him fiercely for it, it could also drive him absolutely crazy. It was the same reason Ilya had waited so long to tell Shane that he was depressed, that he was seeing a therapist. Ilya never wanted to burden Shane, but sometimes Shane wished Ilya would burden him with everything. He wished Ilya would pour out his every fear and worry until Shane was completely buried by them.
And Ilya never said it, but one of the reasons that Ilya never dumped his worries onto Shane was that Shane was the high-strung one, the one who panicked about things big and small, and Ilya had to be the calm one. Shane was working on it in his own therapy, though he hadn't admitted as much to Ilya. He knew it annoyed Ilya, how he found ways to overthink everything, though Ilya wouldn't say that to his face. Or if he did, he'd say it in the sweetest, most romantic way, because implausibly, that was who Ilya Rozanov was.
Shane took a deep breath, determined to calm himself down. If he stayed calm, then maybe he'd leave enough room for Ilya to freak out, if he needed to. Whatever Ilya said, the blowback from this could be much worse for Ilya than it could for Shane. Shane had spent so many years fearing what would happen to him if this got out, but after all Ilya had sacrificed for their relationship, it was certainly well past time to allow Ilya his own breakdown, if he needed one.
"Okay," Shane said, blowing a breath out slowly. "You know I love you, right? I wish I could scream at the top of my lungs that I love you."
The line went quiet for a long moment, and Shane could hear his own pulse in the silence, wondering if he'd said the right thing or if somehow he'd made it worse.
"I know," Ilya said, his voice absurdly gentle, although part of Shane couldn't help but worry that maybe Ilya hadn't known. That Shane had spent so long worrying aloud what might happen if the truth came to light that some part of Ilya might have thought that Shane was ashamed of Ilya, and of his love for him. He'd never have thought so before, but apparently Shane had missed a lot over the years, and he'd spent too much time taking Ilya's love for granted. "This will be okay. Will blow over."
It did not blow over.
"What the fuck is a geo guesser?" Ilya asked, squinting at his phone. Shane was starting to wonder if maybe Ilya was the one who needed glasses, but the squinting was probably more confusion than blindness. Probably.
"I think it's someone who tries to guess where in the world a photo was taken," Shane explained, doing his best to tamp down his instinct to panic. Shane had been pacing back and forth in Ilya's house while waiting for Ilya to get back from picking up Anya on the return trip from the airport. Shane had wanted to pick up Anya himself, but...well, considering the circumstances, it seemed like a bad idea if Shane Hollander was seen picking up Ilya Rozanov's dog from the dog hotel. But now that Ilya and Anya were back home, Shane was trying his very best notto pace, because he was learning to leave space for Ilya to have big panicky feelings too.
"And this geo guesser..." Ilya paused, squinting again at the text and images on his phone "...knows I took this picture of geese at your cottage."
"They don't know anything," Shane said slowly. Ilya raised an eyebrow at him, and Shane sagged. "They think they matched the little bit of the ridge you can see here," Shane pointed, "to a location about two hours from Ottawa. Where they know I have a cottage. Because of that interview I gave years ago."
"'Exact location redacted for their privacy,'" Ilya read out, very carefully enunciating every word. "So that means we will not expect photographers with long lenses to shoot photos through our bedroom window."
Shane bit his bottom lip, because that had been pretty much his precise reaction. Ilya shook his head at the photo in annoyance.
"Ridge, what ridge?" he demanded to no one in particular. "Photo is mostly sky, and geese. You can barely see the ridge."
That had been Shane's reaction as well. It was unnerving, honestly, the level of scrutiny people were capable of. "The internet is full of very determined people."
Ilya sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face. He looked worn down in a way Shane didn't see often, shoulders slightly slumped, exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes. "I'm sorry, Shane. I should not have posted that picture."
Shane caught Ilya by the arm then pulled the other man's phone from between his fingers. He set it face down on the table.
"It was a picture of geese," Shane reassured him softly. "You had no reason to think it was anything other than a perfectly harmless photo."
Ilya's arm was tense in his gentle grip, but through what seemed like sheer force of will, the other man slowly relaxed. His exhale was long and shaky.
"Is disaster," Ilya said softly, and Shane could not have been more grateful to hear his boyfriend catastrophizing, because at least if he was catastrophizing, he probably wasn't holding anything inside. Or maybe he was. Ilya Rozanov, Shane had learned, contained multitudes. Ilya felt things deeply, sometimes too deeply, and kept most of it locked away where no one could see.
But this made Shane feel paradoxically very calm, perhaps more settled than he ever had in his life. Ilya had been strong for Shane enough times, had soothed him through a thousand different kinds of worry and anxiety. It always felt nice when Ilya let him in and allowed him to return the favor.
"It's not a disaster," Shane reassured him. "But we'll schedule a call with Farah to see what our best move will be going forward, okay?"
Ilya sighed softly, the last of the tension melting from him. He leaned down and rested his forehead against Shane's, letting their breathing sync until they were one singular being.
"Da, yes. Okay," Ilya breathed against Shane's lips. "We will ask Farah for our best move."
"Your best move going forward will be to ignore this entirely," Farah said, and it was precisely what Shane had expected her to say, and yet some part of him still somehow wished she had said something else, though he wasn't quite ready to acknowledge what. "It's unsubstantiated speculation from fan blogs and Twitter. Any denial we issue will only bring them more attention."
"So we say...nothing? Do nothing?" Ilya asked, clearly annoyed. Shane was not surprised. Ilya was the sort of man who wanted to take action, to fix things, and there was no way for him to do that here.
"I know it's frustrating," Farah said. "But engaging with these theories only legitimizes them. Silence is actually your strongest position right now."
Ilya exhaled roughly.
"They are matching dog hair on Shane's jacket to my dog!" Ilya huffed. "Does Shane have to avoid my dog now so no one suspects?"
"Most people would acknowledge that Shane could have more than one friend or acquaintance with a pet," Farah said patiently. "The majority of people will not take posts like this seriously. The majority of people won't even see these posts."
Ilya rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, as if the prospect of keeping Anya and Shane separate was one of the worst things that could possibly happen to him. The idea definitely was pretty terrible, and for Shane, too. Shane loved that dog, but Ilya somehow loved her more. When Ilya loved, he did it deeply, unwaveringly.
Farah hesitated, her expression shifting. Shane had a feeling he wasn't going to like what she would say next.
"The other option is to come out and face it head on," Farah suggested tentatively. "Acknowledge your relationship openly."
"No," Shane replied immediately, in the same moment Ilya said, "Well—"
Ilya stopped speaking so quickly it was as though he had never opened his mouth at all. The air in the room was suddenly heavy, and Shane wished he could take the word back. He knew Ilya wouldn't begrudge him this, but he could see the hurt in his boyfriend's eyes, and he hated it. And he hated himself for the fact that shooting the idea down was always his knee-jerk reaction.
Shane cursed himself internally. This was not how he'd intended this call to go. He was better than this.
"What about a third possibility?" he ventured tentatively. It felt like every inch of his skin was tingling, and it was very, very difficult to breathe. He hadn't brought this up with Ilya because...well, because maybe he was a coward, but also because part of him wanted Farah to shoot him down and part of him wanted Farah to cheer him on, and it was anyone's guess which part of him would win that battle. And he hadn't wanted to get Ilya's hopes up too early.
"I'm listening," Farah said, sounding intrigued. Shane could feel Ilya's eyes boring into him from the side, but he couldn't look at Ilya, not yet. Not until he got out what he wanted to say.
"What if we didn't deny it," Shane began, "but we didn't confirm it either? What if we just...fanned the flames a bit?"
Ilya was staring at Shane in shock, and Shane wasn't surprised. This was a very Ilya suggestion, and not a very Shane suggestion. The sort of suggestion that Ilya would make half-jokingly, in a deadpan drawl that made it impossible to tell whether there was an edge of seriousness beneath it.
"Tell me more," Farah pressed. Shane finally glanced toward Ilya, and the other man's eyes were wide and filled with so many things, and Shane could only identify a handful of them. Confusion and awe and love and amusement and a thousand other things Ilya probably couldn't put into words in English. Shane really needed to dedicate more time to learning Russian, but Russian was impossible, and every time Shane read words like genitive case, his brain started to turn itself off. French had been so much easier to wrap his head around. Not that Shane would give up; he would keep reading Russian grammar books until he died if that was what it took.
"Well, it gives us time to feel out everyone around us before we eventually confirm it," Shane said. His palms were sweating, but he wasn't going to stop there. He'd made this decision, and he was going to stick with it—at least with proposing it, because if Ilya shot it down, Shane would drop it in a second. But Ilya wasn't going to shoot it down. "See who would be on our side, hypothetically, and who is an asshole about it. And yeah, you're right—most people will never see a random Tumblr post, but if they keep getting more and more ammunition, eventually it will start to reach critical mass. People will talk about it. It will create buzz."
Farah's face had turned thoughtful. "The 'all publicity is good publicity' approach," she mused aloud. "I can't say that I expected that from you, Shane, but if that's how you want to play it, I can write you up a game plan."
Shane shrugged, and he would probably have a heart attack before this was all over, but he wasn't changing his mind now. "If anything, this has proven that we're living on borrowed time," Shane said. His ears were ringing. His voice sounded confident, but it also felt like the words were coming out of someone else's mouth, some alien that had replaced Shane Hollander with someone braver. "We should be able to do this on our own terms, as much as possible."
Farah nodded her understanding. She turned her gaze to Ilya. "Ilya?" she prodded. It had been a long time since Ilya had last spoken. His face hadn't moved from that strange amalgamation of awe-confusion. He blinked as if he'd just woken from a dream.
"I...yes. I support Shane's idea. We will fan the flames."
Ilya was on Shane the moment they got off the call with Farah, mouth attached so firmly to Shane's that it was almost like he needed Shane more than he needed oxygen, or like Shane was his oxygen. He pushed Shane back until he was pressed firmly to the sofa, and it was like Ilya was some vicious animal, and somehow at the same time, he was tender and soft and gentle. When he pulled away, his pupils were blown and he had that same loopy, drunk on love (probably actually serotonin) expression he had when Shane made a dedicated attempt to suck Ilya's soul out through his dick.
Ilya's lips were swollen and red and Shane doubted that he looked any better. "I love you," Ilya said, first in Russian, then in English for good measure. He peppered kisses across Shane's cheeks, his eyelids, his jaw. Shane understood that just then I love you also meant thank you, because although Ilya had always been the one with more to lose, Shane had always been the one who had been more scared. Of everything, really. Ilya understood what a big step Shane had just made.
Ilya's fingers were fumbling with Shane's belt, and it was always heady, having Ilya Rozanov's full attention focused on him. So heady that Shane almost forgot how fucking dangerous this was. Despite every instinct in his body, and especially his dick, telling him not to, he caught Ilya's hand and stopped him.
"Wait," Shane said, fighting through the fog to remember what was so important. Ilya pulled back, blinking owlishly at him. "Ilya, I don't know if you were serious when you talked about marriage, but if we're going to do this...we need to get married. Like now. At least have the first steps in place just in case—"
Shane didn't say what the 'just in case' was, but they both knew. Ilya probably knew better than he did, because Shane had only barely heard the details of the gay propaganda law in Russia, but if there was anything that was gay propaganda, it was teasing the public with your gay relationship on social media. Ilya definitely knew and understood the possible consequences in a way Shane couldn't.
Ilya didn't say anything, and suddenly Shane was panicking, because Ilya had been the one to broach the topic of marriage multiple times, but several of those had been jokes about visas and citizenship. And Shane knew that Ilya wanted to marry him for more than that—or at least he thought he did, but now Ilya was silent and Shane wasn't certain of anything anymore.
"We could...I mean, we could have a real ceremony later, after everything is out." Shane was babbling, and he knew he was, but he couldn't make himself stop. "I'm sorry if this wasn't more romantic, but Ilya...I can't lose you. I can't."
A huge grin split across Ilya's face. "Would be more romantic if you proposed when my mouth is on your dick," he said cheekily. Shane released a strangled laugh, and in the same moment, he almost started crying in relief. Not that he'd really believed that he could have read the signals quite so wrong, but still.
"You do not know what romance is," Shane huffed, which was a complete lie, because Ilya was somehow the most romantic person Shane had ever met or even heard of. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but Ilya could absolutely bowl him over with the most romantic shit Shane had ever heard, and in his second language.
"Is fitting you propose to me when my hand is on your dick," Ilya mused aloud, beginning to massage Shane through his pants. And yep, sometimes Ilya said the most romantic shit that Shane had ever heard, and sometimes he said...that. Shane released a noise that was halfway between a snort and a groan. "No, is true. Sex is our love language."
That time, Shane did snort, though he didn't protest when Ilya unfastened his pants. "Sex isn't one of the love languages," Shane protested, if half-heartedly.
"Is so," Ilya argued. "One is, what? 'Physical touch.'" Ilya wrapped his hand around Shane's dick as if to punctuate his point. Shane groaned, unable to stop himself from bucking up into Ilya's grasp.
"I think they mean like...handholding, cuddling."
Ilya rolled his eyes. "And sex," he said confidently, and Shane had nothing left in him to argue about it. He wasn't sure why he had started arguing with Ilya in the first place. "I have changed my mind. Propose to me again when I am inside you. Is more romantic."
Shane laughed, then rolled his eyes too, then began tearing off his clothes when Ilya stood up to give him the space to do so. Somehow, Ilya was quicker at getting undressed, and by the time Shane had removed all his clothes, Ilya had already produced a bottle of lube and a condom from between the couch cushions. Shane grabbed the condom from Ilya's hand and tossed it aside.
Ilya raised an eyebrow. "No?" he confirmed.
"It's more romantic if you come inside me while I propose," Shane declared, and his face felt like it was on fire as soon as the words were out of his mouth. God, Ilya made him crazy.
He seemed to make Ilya crazy too, because Ilya cursed beneath his breath in Russian and pushed him back onto the sofa. They'd had sex on this sofa probably a hundred times. It was not the ideal space for fucking in quite this configuration, but neither of them cared. Ilya's fingers were impatient as they pressed inside him, but it was exactly what Shane wanted; he didn't want soft or slow or gentle. He wanted to know that Ilya was burning alive the way he was.
"Fuck me," Shane pleaded before Ilya managed to press a third finger into him. Shane wanted it, wanted to feel the burn of the stretch as his body accommodated Ilya's girth. Ilya groaned and slicked himself up.
"You will propose to me again, yes?" Ilya confirmed. "While I fuck you."
Shane was about ready to do anything that Ilya asked of him. It should have been embarrassing, the way that night in Vegas had been embarrassing, at least to start. He should have balked at it, even though he'd been the one to egg Ilya on. But he liked when Ilya challenged him, and Ilya liked when he pushed Shane out of his comfort zone and Shane loved it. Maybe sex was their love language.
"Yes," Shane promised. "Fuck me. Please."
Begging nearly always got to Ilya, and this time was no different; Ilya pressed inside of him in one swift, smooth motion, folding Shane nearly in half, his legs pressed against his chest. Even with all the lube Ilya had used, it burned, and Shane welcomed it. He hoped he'd feel it tomorrow, that very physical reminder of what they'd done together, while he signed their marriage certificate.
Ilya didn't need Shane to tell him when he was ready; they'd been together long enough that Ilya sometimes seemed to know Shane better than he knew himself, at least here, with Ilya buried inside him. Ilya started moving just before Shane was really ready for him to, and that was exactly what Shane had been craving, even if he wouldn't have been able to articulate it in quite so many words. The first few thrusts were painful, and Shane could not suppress his whimpers or his squirms, and then Ilya angled himself just right, and the pain transformed into an intoxicating combination of painpleasure that was better than either one ever could be alone. Shane cried out helplessly.
"Ask me again," Ilya ordered, already speeding his thrusts, like he couldn't quite help himself. Shane loved that, too, to take a man who was usually so controlled and break that control into tiny pieces. Shane met Ilya's eyes, and they were hooded and piercing straight into his soul.
"Marry me," Shane begged, and there were tears pricking his eyes from the intensity of everything, Ilya's expression and the press of Ilya inside of him. "Marry me. Be my husband."
Something in that shattered whatever was left of Ilya's control. He buried his face in Shane's neck and thrust impatiently. "Touch yourself," he demanded, and the words were gruff, throaty and barely in control. Shane was helpless to resist, not that he wanted to; he circled his fingers around his straining cock and wrapped his legs around Ilya's back, and Ilya was whining in his ear, feral and desperate and that was what pushed Shane over the edge, the sound of Ilya's unrestrained pleasure. It was only a minute later that Ilya collapsed on top of him, breathless and sated.
It took a few minutes for Shane to regain his bearings. When he did, he could barely breathe, a behemoth of a man pressing him down onto the sofa cushions, his skin uncomfortably clammy where it stuck to the leather. The slick mess of his release was smeared between their bodies, and when Ilya pulled out, Shane knew he'd have to deal with the slick mess of Ilya's release, too.
It was perfect. Shane had no desire to move, possibly ever again. Eventually, Ilya began peppering small kisses along the side of Shane's head and neck, beside his ear. "Yes," Ilya said quietly. "My answer is yes."
Shane shivered at the whispered words. He hadn't doubted it, not really, except Ilya hadn't actually said the words until then, so there had remained some tiny part of Shane that had worried. Because there was always some tiny part of Shane that would worry. He carded his fingers through Ilya's sweat-slicked hair and took a long, slow breath. After a long pause, Ilya pulled back and looked Shane in the eye.
"Was it more romantic that I came inside you when you proposed?" he asked with a wild, carefree grin. All Shane could do was laugh.