Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first warning sign had been the exhaustion. Bone deep, unbearable exhaustion, utterly unabated by any amount of sleep or healthy eating or other methods that Shane had used to try and be rid of it.

Shane is handling it the only way he knows how—by gritting his teeth and white knuckling his way through, skating until his legs threaten to give out. It’s easy enough to ignore it when his schedule is so fucking busy during the season that he, frankly, doesn’t have enough time to be exhausted.

So he’d kept putting it off, chalking it up to the start of the season. The C on his jersey is still fresh, still jarring in the mirror. His responsibilities have doubled, and so have the amount of eyes on him. He has a team to captain and a commercials to shoot and endless, endless lunches with his mother where she talks his ear off and he pretends that he’s processing anything she’s saying at all. Shane doesn’t have time for something as simple as exhaustion.

It had started as simply as that. He’d been exhausted, and then he’d been nauseous, and then he’d been lightheaded, and then— and then— and then—

Rozanov makes him a tuna melt. It’s the first time in months that his head feels clear. The ache in his bones dissipates and Rozanov’s hand in his hair makes his ears stop ringing. Rozanov presses a kiss to his hair and Shane—

Shane doesn’t understand. Shane runs.

His scent glands are inflamed for weeks. He goes over to the Pike’s for dinner one night without scent patches, to some of the very few people in Montreal who know, and Hayden takes one whiff of him and asks Are you okay? You smell… unsettled.

A rude statement, generally, but Shane had only shaken his head and made some offhand comment about the game they’d just lost. Hayden had accepted it with only a skeptical squint.

It can’t be about his status. His mysterious illness can’t have anything to do with his secondary gender. If it does, he has to go see his doctor, and then he has to inform the Metros’ medical team, and then— and then— and then—

Shane doesn’t remember much of dinner after that. He barely remembers practice the next day, or the one the day after that. His footsteps echo every day as he walks into his cold and empty condo, looking more like a showroom than a place inhabited by any human being—much less an omega. His ears start to ring.

He knows, in an abstract sort of way, that he’s depriving himself of something that his instincts crave. Shane has read enough pamphlets and talked to enough doctors to understand that his cocktail of suppressants, although technically legal, are meant to be an extraordinarily temporary solution. He knows, in an abstract sort of way, that his once-a-year heats are not enough to regulate his hormones, and that what he’s been taking and the choices he’s been making aren’t good for him in the long term.

Shane also knows that, without his cocktail of suppressants, he won’t be able to play in the MLH. The rest of it doesn’t really matter in the face of that.

So what if his condo is lifeless? So what if his hands are shaking as he grabs the decorative throw off his beige couch on the way to his bedroom?

He’d pushed himself hard at practice today. It’s impossible not to feel the weight of his teammates’ and coaches’ eyes, watching him so much more closely than they usually bother to. They need him, everyone knows it, so they’ve been all too happy to ignore whatever the fuck is going on with him as long as he doesn’t bring it up, but the horizon is about to pass. Shane just knows that he’s going to get called into the coaches’ offices before they play Boston this week.

His limbs move without permission, collecting the few soft things that he does have sporadically around the condo. The throw pillows on his bed that he hadn’t been able to get rid of become arranged in an open-sided rectangle; the various hoodies he can’t seem to stop buying get laid over the scratchy surfaces; the fluffy throw from the couch barely covers all of it, a ridiculously soft texture that had nearly made him forget himself as soon as the interior designer had left.

The closet in the hall holds the thicker comforter that he sleeps with in the winter. Shane doesn’t recognize his own hands as he yanks it out from the top shelf, watching it tumble onto the floor and trail behind him as he hefts it into his bedroom, laying down on his bed and pulling it over him.

He ducks his head underneath, blanketing his own sight in blue-tinted darkness. The ringing in his ears lessens, the ache behind his eyes softens. Shane knows what he’s done, but maybe if he just doesn’t think the word, it doesn’t have to be true. Maybe he can ignore all of these implications and keep doing what he’s been doing for so long, avoiding the change that looms over him like an executioner’s blade.

The nest is still wrong.

The realization makes his breath catch in his throat. Panic collapses like a dying star in his chest—not an outward explosion, loud and impossible to ignore, but a quiet implosion, the integrity of his choices quickly falling away in the face of instincts he’s been suppressing like this for five years.

Shane tries to take a deep breath. The only thing he can smell is himself—his usual mint and citrus scent is soured with distress, pungent to his own nose and barely recognizable given how sparingly he can actually smell himself. He can only imagine how bad it would be to someone else.

The sourness makes it worse, an endless feedback loop. His scent is sour, so he panics; so his scent sours even more, and on and on it goes. His breaths are short, wheezing, barely moving past his throat as Shane tries to calm himself down. He curls his legs towards his chest and wraps his arms around his shins, tucks his face into the cradle of his body and wishes, wishes, wishes—

-

Someone is shaking him.

The scent is wrong. It’s wrong and it’s touching him, it’s in his nest and Shane still can’t fucking breathe—

“—calling 911—”

A noise trills from his throat, unbidden and unwelcome. Pure omega distress, a warning sign to get the fuck away from his nest—

The hand on his shoulder immediately disappears. The scent lessens, though it doesn’t disappear. It no longer looms over him, clean linen and gentle floral backing away in clear deference.

Now that he’s begun, Shane can’t stop. That same awful, awful noise escapes without his permission over and over again as every instinct in his fucking body screams in misery. A horrible symphony of wrong rattles through his entire nervous system, replacing the marrow in his bones and the blood in his veins.

“Shane, Shane, it’s going to be okay, help is on the way—” The voice is light, feminine; wrought with fear and worry that Shane doesn’t deserve.

“Please—” The word falls past cracked, dry lips, a half forgotten sentence and a wish he’d never dared to finish even within the recesses of his own mind. “—please.”

A face blurs into his vision—blue eyes and red hair. The name escapes him. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Shane passes out before he can figure out what he was going to ask for.

-

“Have you ever heard of a spontaneous bond, Mr. Hollander?”

Shane’s mouth is dry. The monitor hooked up to his heart rate drones on in the background, incessant and unending. His parents had just left, dismissed by the doctor despite the pleading look his mom had been giving him. His head hurts, but he’s figured out how to ignore that one. He’s been ignoring it for months. The lingering sense of worry and fear that lingers in the back of his mind is new.

The doctor had introduced herself as a specialist in irregular bondings, whatever that has to do with him. Shane hasn’t really looked at her, already forgot her name. She’s an older woman, based on the sound of her voice—soft-spoken but sure, smelling the same sort of odd sterile as every other person he’s interacted with thus far in this damn room. Medical grade scent blockers and all that.

Shane doesn’t remember how he ended up here.

His instinct to please makes him want to try and wrack his brain for the answer to her question, but the throbbing behind his temples hasn’t ceased since he woke up and he just can’t do it.

“Maybe?” He mumbles, tapping his pointer finger repetitively against his thigh. “Maybe in school?”

In his periphery, he sees her nod. “Spontaneous bonds can occur for a multitude of reasons, but the most common one is repeated physical contact between a highly compatible alpha and omega over a time period of at least twenty-four months. The touching in question doesn’t have to be sexual in nature, only repeated, though that does tend to speed up the process. Simple skin-to-skin contact can be enough to cause a spontaneous bond.”

Shane shakes his head, adamant. That worry he can’t seem to shake intensifies. “I’m not bonded.”

The doctor pauses. The weight of it is deliberate between them. “Spontaneous bonds don’t require a bite, reciprocated or otherwise. The only thing they require is physical and emotional connection.”

“I don’t have anyone like that,” he insists, screwing his eyes shut as his head throbs again, fear that doesn’t feel like his laps in the back of his mind. “And—I’m on suppressants.”

She clicks her tongue. It’s clearly disapproving. A small part of him shrivels up and dies. “The specific combination of suppressants that you’ve been prescribed for five years is only meant to be taken for six months, maximum, in the event of a distressing life event in which an omega suffers through an unwilling bond break and their hormones need medical intervention to regulate. None of which applies to you, though correct me if I’m wrong. Frankly, your doctor should be sued for medical malpractice.”

The information hurts. It’s too much all at once, medical speak that jumbles up in his brain until the consonants and vowels become nearly unrecognizable. “The season is long. I have to get through the season.” He mumbles, near nonsensically, under his breath. It’s the same justification that he whispers at his ceiling at night, counting the number of breaths he takes until he can settle enough to actually sleep.

A little, frustrated huff. “Mr. Hollander, I don’t think you understand. The combination of the extended use of your suppressants and the negligence of this spontaneous bond have sent your hormones into complete chaos. Your bloodwork is quite honestly appalling. You should’ve been in a hospital bed weeks ago.”

The doctor’s frustration is palpable. It settles on his skin like a grimy film, makes him slide his thumb and pointer finger together back and forth like he can physically rub them off.

Shane shakes his head, insistent. “I have to play. I can’t—I can’t miss more than a game. Maybe two. They need me.”

“What they need doesn’t matter until you get what you need—which is to come off suppressants and let your hormones level out. There is not a doctor in the country that will write you another prescription after this. The presence of the alpha you’ve bonded to will help immensely with the process.”

The heart rate monitor beside him speeds up, ever so slightly. “No.”

A long, unnecessary pause. “You may not get a choice, Mr. Hollander. Your suppressants are already being flushed from your system as we speak. Even one more dose runs too high a risk of causing total organ failure. As that occurs, the bond that they’ve been suppressing will reveal itself. Your bond sickness only progressed to its current level of severity because of the suppressants hiding it from your bondmate. If the alpha you’ve bonded to doesn’t find you solely through the bond’s reemergence—well, it’s highly unlikely you would’ve spontaneously bonded together in the first place. They’ve likely been suffering similar though not as severe symptoms.”

Oh. The worry—it’s not his. That’s why it feels so strange.

The realization is… a lot. Shane shoves it as far down as he possibly can. He takes every piece of information she’s given him and throws it into a small box in the corner of his mind, shuts the lid, and latches it shut.

There’s a million questions on his tongue. Shane doesn’t ask any of them.

“When can I leave?”

Chapter Text

Ilya is agitated.

Ilya has been agitated. The thing in his chest paces back and forth and back and forth, rolling its wrists in irritation and huffing in frustration. It’s not necessarily something new. Sometimes, he clings to it, digs his nails in deep and tries to force the feeling back into place so he can avoid the nothingness it will leave in its wake.

This time, it refuses to. There are alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind and Ilya doesn’t know why, can’t seem to pinpoint what has him so on edge. It’s something basic, instinctual. Even he’s not dumb enough to try and delude himself otherwise. His instincts are on edge, and Ilya is at a loss.

Though that’s a lie, at least partially. Ilya can take a wild guess. That wild guess exists in the visage of wide, blown-out brown eyes; shaking hands and a stuttering excuse. It lingers in the memory of wilted mint and overripe lemon, quickly blanketing what had once been content.

Ilya is well aware of the fact that Hollander makes his instincts go completely fucking haywire. Ilya is also well aware of the fact that he doesn’t do the same to Hollander.

They’ve never spoken about it—Ilya has never been dumb enough to ask—but it’s clear to his sensitive nose that whatever suppressants Hollander is on have buried the omega’s instincts down so deep that nothing Ilya does can make them resurface.

Not that it’s any of his concern what Hollander’s instincts are doing. Ilya shouldn’t care about the medical cocktail that Hollander probably takes every morning, or about the look in Hollander’s eyes every time Ilya touches him. It shouldn’t concern him how Hollander had collapsed onto his chest on that couch, that Ilya could nearly feel the threatening beginnings of an omega purr he’s been dying to hear, to hoard into the file of memories that are full of Shane, Shane, Shane, his most coveted secret.

So Ilya is agitated. Ilya knows why he’s agitated. It just doesn’t matter.

But—it would be nice if it didn’t keep putting him in the penalty box. Not that Ilya is unfamiliar with it, regardless, but it’s gotten to the point where even he’s finding it hard to ignore his coaches’ dirty looks.

He can’t fucking help it. Hockey is his only outlet for his instincts now, even if it’s the wrong one. Ilya doesn’t want to be an aggressive alpha asshole—well, not in this context—but it’s not his fucking fault that Shane Hollander drives him insane. Every single one of his instincts is screaming for the omega, aching just to scent him, and Ilya can’t. He fucking can’t. Hollander has a beautiful, omega, movie star girlfriend who probably thinks he’s a beta. Hollander left Ilya’s house—Ilya’s den—wearing Ilya’s fucking clothes, bathed in Ilya’s scent, and refused to accept his comfort.

Ilya spends two months in a state of limbo, pins and needles crawling through his veins in his every waking moment. Ilya spends two months biting off the heads of anyone who looks at him wrong, unwilling to admit even to himself what he needs.

It comes to a head when he’s packing for their next series of games in Montreal.

Hollander’s hoodie, the one he’d left in his haste to get away from Ilya, no longer smells like him, distressed or otherwise. The fabric is deceptively soft, plush on the inside in a way that makes an unbidden smile tug on the corner of Ilya’s lips. Logically, he shouldn’t even bother packing it. He’s not going to see Hollander—not when Rose fucking Landry is going to be in his bed instead. It’s just a waste of space in his bag, an unnecessary reminder when the real thing, close enough to throw a punch or kiss on the mouth, will be right in front of him.

The aglets on the end of the laces through the hood are chewed through. It’s endearing, something that still identifies it as Hollander’s even when it no longer smells of lemon and mint. It’s something for Ilya’s primitive alpha brain to latch onto, trying to anchor itself in the sense memory to settle these ridiculous instincts.

There’s been a throbbing in the back of his mind. The agitation and irritation aren’t new, but the feeling of eyes on his back is. Ilya can’t seem to shake the feeling that he’s missing something precious, stolen out from underneath him before he’d even known it was there; only recognizable in the absence.

It’s not as dramatic as the earth ending, nor as life changing as the first time he’d gotten a hint of Hollander’s true scent. It washes over him in waves, increasing in intensity until it makes him gasp for air, a drowning that occurs slowly and all at once.

One moment, Ilya’s standing in the doorway of his hotel room in Montreal. And the next— the next—

His omega is in danger.

Ilya’s omega is in danger and he’s not there. Ilya’s omega needs him and he’s not there.

A floodgate somewhere in his mind cracks open, water beginning to seep through in a sudden rush that he can’t hope to stop.

Ilya becomes nothing but instinct. Shaky hands pick up his phone and tremble as they hit a contact he’s refused to even look at for months.

It goes to voicemail once, then twice, then three times in a row. It doesn’t even ring. At least it goes through.

Someone calls his name as he runs down the hall to the stairwell. Ilya doesn’t slow down.

-

It pulls like a thread in Ilya’s chest. It’s cloudy, muted, clearly still underneath the effects of Shane’s suppressants. Every minute it becomes brighter, sunlight peeking out behind a slowly drawn curtain.

It brings Ilya to the omega specific wing of the hospital. It makes fear stop cold in his chest. He turns heads as he struts through the sliding doors, long stride eating up the distance from the entrance to the desk.

The man behind the desk glances up from his screen, raising a brow at Ilya’s disheveled state. Ilya doesn’t want to think about what kind of awful scent must be coming off of his skin right now, a bastardization of the leather and hickory smoke that it usually gives.

“I am looking for Shane Hollander. I know he is here.”

If it were up to Ilya, he’d walk right past the desk and towards the stairwell, follow the beckoning in the back of his mind until it leads him to his omega. He also knows he won’t get far if he tries.

The receptionist pulls something up on his screen; types for a short moment. “It looks like Mr. Hollander isn’t taking visitors currently.”

Ilya grips the edge of the desk hard, listens to the wood creak underneath his hand. The man’s eyes flick down at the source of the sound. “He is— I am—” Ilya huffs in frustration, looks away for a moment to recompose himself.

“My name is Ilya Rozanov. Tell him, and I will be able to see him.”

The receptionist doesn’t bother to respond, simply picks up the phone and dials. “I have an Ilya Rozanov requesting to see Shane Hollander. He is insisting. Yes, I’ll hold.”

There’s a brief pause as, presumably, the nurse on the other end goes off to ask. Ilya peels his fingers off of the desk, slides his hands into his pockets, and looks anywhere else.

Trepidation slides down the edges of the fragile bond connecting him to Shane. Ilya wraps that golden thread around his wrist, clutches it tight between his fingers, and pulls.

He’ll be damned if he lets Hollander deny him.

Ilya can hear a female voice through the receiver in the receptionist’s phone. The man flicks his eyes back up to Ilya’s face, scrutinizing and judgmental. It’s irritating, but Ilya doesn’t fucking care right now. His omega needs him.

“I think so, “ the receptionist drawls. Apparently, Ilya has passed the test he’d been unaware he was taking. “I’ll let him know.”

He sets the phone down. “Mr. Hollander has given permission for you to see him. However, medical personnel would like me to advise you against… agitating him in his current state. If you’re unable to do so, you will be escorted off the premises.”

“Yes, yes, I will be nice.” Ilya waves his hand in the air, impatient. “Where is he?”

Ilya takes the stairs two at a time, too impatient for the slow pace of the elevator as he climbs four flights without stopping. He’s stopped briefly at the nurse’s station, but they’re expecting him. Clearly, he must look as distressed as he feels. The nurse beckons him to follow after her without even asking for his name.

Ilya could find the room deaf and blind—he doesn’t need to be shown, nearly overtaking her in his haste. She grips the handle tight, puts her opposite hand up in a firm but placating gesture to stop him before he can barge in.

“Mr. Rozanov, do not agitate him. If he appears to worsen in any way due to your presence, you will be escorted out and not allowed on hospital grounds until Mr. Hollander is off the premises. Is that clear?” Her voice is sharp, the words spoken easily. It’s a warning she’s clearly given many times in many iterations, unafraid of the possible reaction from a visibly rattled alpha to something that could be perceived as a threat. If Ilya had the capacity, he’d be impressed. As it stands, he needs her to get out of his fucking way.

His hands shake. He barely resists the urge to push her out of his way. “Yes. I understand.”

She looks him up and down, sighs, and turns the handle, entering the room first. “Shane? I have Mr. Rozanov here to see you, if that’s still okay?”

“...Yeah, that’s okay.”

Ilya can’t resist it anymore. He pushes past her statuelike stance, tries to do it as subtly as possible.

Looking at Shane is the same as last time—it breaks his fucking heart.

The door shutting behind him doesn’t even register. His ears are ringing, his vision tinting red as he runs to Shane’s side. He doesn’t think before he grabs the omega’s hand, ever so gently brushing his thumb across his wrist where his pulse—and scent—is strongest.

Shane’s scent is… sickly. It’s different from the one or two times he’s had the sniffles, the bright lemon in his scent turned rotten rather than too acidic. The soft hint of mint, usually like a pleasant aftertaste, is burnt beyond recognition, completely overtaken by ash and rot. It’s not right, not at all, and every part of Ilya has to fix it. He’ll do anything.

“Sweetheart—”

Shane flinches. Shane pulls his hand back.

Ilya looks at him; really looks at him, with his eyes and not his nose, with his eyes and not his head. Ilya doesn’t try to follow that line of gold that connects them, forcing himself to not try to dissect it through the swell of Shane’s scent. He makes himself look, and shudders at what he finds.

Shane’s eyes are glassy with unshed tears, hazy with the unspoken weight of how they’d left their last meeting. His face is gaunt, cheekbones sharply carved in, brows drawn in to showcase the distress that paints across his features. God, he looks as though he’s been wasting away, though Ilya supposes that’s too accurate.

Omegas are not delicate creatures—coveted and cherished, yes, but not delicate. Omegas can be vicious protectors, the first to show teeth to protect what they’ve claimed as theirs. There is nothing stronger than an omega’s instincts, no nose sharper than that of an omega scenting distress on their loved one. Omegas are the last to trust and the first to lay claim, evolved to be incredibly selective on who they allow into their vulnerability.

Somewhere, they’d gotten lost in translation. Shane’s instincts had laid claim to Ilya, with or without either of their permission, and Ilya had chalked up his own response to his pathetic pining. Ilya had ignored the alarm bells in the back of his head, the ones telling him that something was wrong, so horrifically wrong.

So Shane had wasted away, in need of his alpha’s presence to stabilize the bond, and Ilya had been too busy being jealous about his girlfriend.

Shane doesn’t say a word—but his breath hitches, caught grossly behind the tears that swell in his eyes and begin to trickle down his cheeks. Ilya’s eyes flick up to the heart monitor, watching as the number on the screen ticks up. Shit.

“You are okay,” he murmurs, reaching for the chair a few feet away and pulling it as close as he can, sitting down so his knees are pressed against the edge of the mattress. He twists his fingers into the fabric of his pants to keep himself from reaching out again. “You are okay, Hollander. I am here now. I will not leave.”

“You… you know?” Shane’s voice cracks as he speaks. His eyes are aimed towards the ceiling. “They told you?”

No one has told Ilya anything. Not that they should—Ilya doesn’t have any right to know, even though every instinct in his body screams in protest of that notion. This bond between them, however it came to be, is not a signal of ownership.

“No—” Ilya shakes his head. “—but I can feel it.” He reaches for it, his touch delicate, and sends down a single, barely-there caress. Watching Shane relax is intoxicating, tense shoulders beginning to fall as Ilya dares to send down another pulse of comfort.

Except this time Shane turns his head away, shoulders rising back up even higher. Ilya shuts down the instinct to reach out for him again, to ask whywhywhy in the way that his body demands. There is no bite on Shane’s neck, no bite on Ilya’s, and so there was no exchange. There is no permission.

“They called it a ‘spontaneous bond’,” he starts slow, voice trembling. “Something about… high compatibility and repeated touch? I’m so sorry, Rozanov, I never meant to—”

“Shane.” It’s both a statement and a question, a plea dripping from his lips. He’ll get on his knees if that’s what it takes. “Shane, let me touch you. It will help.”

Shane’s eyes close, lashes fluttering delicately over pale skin. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, tugging it back and forth with indecision. Ilya thinks of a blue hoodie at the bottom of the bag he’d left on his hotel room floor, the ends of the strings chewed up. An unbearable surge of fondness strikes through him, echoing down his side of the bond without permission.

Brown eyes pop open in confusion. Shane turns his head towards Ilya—finally, finally looks him fully in the eyes. Pure bewilderment etches itself across Shane’s features, confusion settling into the furrow of his brow and the wrinkle of his nose. Ilya knows his own face betrays nothing, tries to stamp down the panic that threatens to arise.

Shane is already so overwhelmed. If Ilya can keep a hold of his own emotions, keep them steadied until Shane has recovered, his mate can focus on his own recuperation. Ilya doesn’t want Shane to concern himself with the emotions rolling around and around in his chest, threatening to overtake his breath and come spilling out of his mouth at any moment.

“You…” Shane trails off, shakes his head, and restarts. “No, let me touch you.”

In another circumstance, Ilya might’ve insisted. He might’ve beckoned Shane closer with an upwards tick of his lips, addicted to the lilt of the omega’s hips as he moves to take what he wants. In another circumstance, this would be easy banter, a harmless back and forth of snark that leads where it always does.

This time, he acquiesces without question. Ilya nods, tries to pause before, tries to not to come off as too eager. Shane lifts that same frail hand that Ilya had just been holding, reaching ever so slowly over the space between them.

His touch sends lightning through Ilya’s skin. It satiates the thing that has been pacing in his chest for months, however temporarily, and Ilya clenches his jaw to suppress the pleased rumble that tries to escape. Shane doesn’t need his alpha posturing, regardless of its intent.

Shane curls his fingers around Ilya’s wrist, settles two fingers against the groove where his pulse beats. Can he tell that Ilya’s heart beats in time with his own breath? Can he sense the desire that cuts through Ilya? Not carnal or primitive but pathetic and longing, aching for something that he’s never been granted before.

The number on the heart rate monitor slows. Some of the rot in Shane’s scent lessens, just a bit, as the omega closes his eyes.

For now—for now, Ilya lets this be enough.

Chapter Text

When Rozanov is happy, his scent carries the slightest hint of vanilla.

On the surface, he smells like hickory and leather. Any player that’s been checked by him will say that he smells like a fucking asshole, which isn’t wrong. The hickory can be overpowering, the leather cloying and lingering. On the ice, the cold air seems to sharpen every note, just enough that it leaks past the league mandated scent patches.

But Shane has tucked his nose directly into the crook of Rozanov’s neck, pressed his lips into the dip of his collarbone, and tasted his scent oil on his tongue; all of it unbearably intimate, far too familiar for what they’d actually been. When Rozanov is happy, pure and undiluted, he smells like American bourbon. It’s funny, had nearly made Shane laugh the first time he’d made the connection, but now he’s addicted to the soft hints of liquor and vanilla, caressed rather than taken over by the usual woodiness of Rozanov’s alpha scent.

Rozanov also smells like American bourbon when he’s being a pain in Shane’s ass.

There is a logical half of Shane’s brain that understands what he’s been taught in school. Rozanov is happiest when he’s providing for Shane, his instincts evolved to try and anticipate Shane’s needs before he has to voice them. It’s supposed to be cute, it’s supposed to make him appreciate him more, it’s supposed to make their relationship balanced, or whatever.

It’s not supposed to give Rozanov the right to his medical information, or the ability to stay past visiting hours. It’s not supposed to make the hospital staff charmed by Rozanov, willing to turn a blind eye when they catch him half curled up onto Shane’s bed. It’s not supposed to make him a family emergency to Rozanov, which had been the excuse he’d fed some staff member of the Raiders over the phone.

It shouldn’t make Shane want to panic every time he gets up to leave the room. It shouldn’t make Rozanov so in tune with Shane that he notices every fucking time. So he stays, as much as he can, and now Shane’s hospital room reeks of proud alpha American bourbon. Fucking ridiculous.

“Shane—”

God, the sound of his voice is going to send Shane up the fucking wall. Even if his instincts seem to think otherwise.

He’s about to snap back something irritable, turning his head away from the ceiling to do so. The nurse that had been speaking is fixing him with a concerned but mostly exasperated look.

Right. Right. She’d been speaking to him. The brain fog is the worst part of all of this, not an effect of what’s happening between him and Rozanov but of coming off his suppressants. Brain fog, chills, and mild nausea, just to start. At least Shane’s gotten used to ignoring the way his head is still pounding.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, “I was…”

Shane’s voice trails off. He doesn’t really have an excuse that she doesn’t already know from looking at his chart. He hasn’t seen the clipboard, wouldn’t really be able to read it anyway, but he’s sure it’s a hot fucking mess.

“It’s alright,” she starts, far too kindly. “Mr. Rozanov can fill you in on the smaller bits. The most important part is that you’ll be discharged in the morning.”

Bright, fresh lemon bursts into the air. Shane completely misses the longing look on Rozanov’s face. “Really?”

She nods. “You’ve shown significant improvement in the last couple of days, and what we can do for you here is limited. Mr. Rozanov’s continued presence is going to be far more effective than anything we can give you. Omegas are possessive—we like to think of that in the context of mating, but it also applies to material things. Your instincts will only really start to settle in your own territory, so it’s important that you nest and give your body a chance to recalibrate. Ideally for a couple of months, but at least four weeks.”

Shane’s vision goes blurry. “Four weeks?”

Next to him, Rozanov rumbles. It only lasts a second, just long enough that the part of Shane that needs him catches it. The nurse speaks before he can decide how he feels about it.

“I know, it seems long. If your instincts settle before then you can experiment with trying to reintegrate some of your routines, but I would advise against any extended amount of time away from Mr. Rozanov or your nest. It may cause you to backslide, which would put you right back in this bed.” The nurse is blunt but kind, expression firm but understanding.

Shane sighs, tries to let go of his irritation even as upset swells in his chest. “Okay. I understand.”

The nurse takes her leave shortly thereafter, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. It’s just him and Rozanov now, like it’s been for most of the last few days, and Shane doesn’t know where to start. He’s managed to avoid having any real kind of conversation with him. It helps that, for once in his fucking life, Rozanov seems okay with letting the quiet settle between them.

“You don’t have to—” Shane waves his hand in the air, trying to encompass all of it with a simple gesture. “—if you don’t want to. I’ll be fine.”

Rozanov raises a brow, incredulous. It’s the most he’s looked like himself since he walked through the door the first time. “You did not hear her?”

“It’s the middle of the season. I don’t even know what I’m going to tell the team, but I don’t have a choice. You do.” Shane looks away again. He doesn’t really want to see the look of relief on Rozanov’s face when he realizes that he doesn’t actually have to trap himself with Shane for a month.

“So I will tell them the truth. There is an omega, and I am needed. They will do what? Tell me no?”

“That’s insane.” Something hysterical begins to rise in Shane’s chest, the incredulity of this entire experience starting to make him lightheaded. “That’ll be the end of the Raiders’ season. You don’t care?”

Rozanov moves. The side of Shane’s bed dips. He leans over, blue eyes now searching for his own as he rests a hand over the blanket on the other side of Shane’s hip. So, so close, and yet he doesn’t touch him.

“Shane,” Rozanov starts, slow and imploring. The way he says it doesn’t feel like his name—it feels like something else entirely. It makes the animal in his chest want to roll over and show its belly. “If you do not want me here, I do not have to stay. But I would like to take care of you.”

Rozanov looks away, shrugs his shoulders. “And Montreal is not so bad. Boring, but I have beaten you here many times. Good memories.”

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Shane scoffs, happy to let the tense moment dissipate. This is much more familiar territory, a conversation between the two of them that he knows how to navigate.

Shane thinks of his condo in the city—considers the state it must’ve been left in, reeking of omega distress and existing in only lifeless beige. It’s the perfect territory for the blase beta he’d been portraying, nothing to be concerned about in the way that an alpha or omega would be. A beta wouldn’t be bothered by the lack of other scents, or the lack of areas to relax in. A beta wouldn’t care that the flooring is tile instead of carpet or that the fabric of the throw pillows his designer had picked is scratchy.

Of course, he thinks of the cottage instead. His little oasis in Ottawa where he doesn’t have to pretend to be anything but what he is, where he has his once-a-year heats in a room that stays shut the rest of the year. His softest blankets are there, and his parents' scents always linger from them coming in and out during the summer. When he allows himself to think of territory, what he conjures in his mind is not his condo, but that sliver of paradise that he allows himself for two months out of the year.

It’s really not a question where he’ll spend these next four weeks. Even Shane isn’t stupid enough to try and convince himself to stay in Montreal.

“It… wouldn’t be here,” Shane starts, slow and stilted. “I have a cottage in Ottawa where I spend the summer. I think I need to be there.”

Rozanov shrugs again, unbothered and ridiculously accommodating. “If that is what you need.”

Stupid, ridiculous provider alpha. Shane lets out an exasperated huff instead of rolling his eyes.

Strong hands pick up his phone; fingers that have been in Shane’s mouth move rapidly across the keyboard. “Svetlana will send clothes and things for me. You can add to your nest.”

Shane snarls.

It’s not a sound he’s ever made before, rattling uncomfortably through his larynx. He’s not sure that he could’ve if he’d wanted to on his suppressants. The noise is ugly and vicious and possessive, three things that Shane would’ve never described himself as just last week. For a brief second, Rozanov looks as shocked as Shane feels. It quickly falls away in exchange for pure, unadulterated alpha asshole smugness.

“Don’t say a word,” Shane snips, closing his eyes and digging the heels of his palms into them. Maybe giving himself brain damage will undo the last thirty seconds. “I’m so fucking serious, Rozanov. Keep it to yourself.”

A snarky, little laugh. “It is okay, omega. I like your teeth.”

Even sarcastically, it makes Shane’s breath catch in his throat.

Don’t call me that, he wants to say. I’m not your fucking omega.

Say it again, he wants to say. Please, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.

Self-hatred swells up from the depths that Shane shoves it into during the season. He doesn’t usually have time for self-flagellation this time of year, too busy trying to prove over and over again that he’s good at hockey. That, he saves for the summer, for the brutal week long heat he forces himself to have. It’s the one week out of the year where all of the instincts he’s suppressed surge forward, leaving him a pathetic heap of sweaty, slicked misery in a half-assed nest.

Usually, the heat is distracting enough to keep him from spiralling too much into it. The doctor had been very, very clear to not expect a heat for at least six months—with his hormones so completely disrupted, a heat could kill him. Unhappy, dying omegas with severe hormone imbalances don’t have heats. Shane hadn’t been surprised.

“Relax,” Rozanov laughs at him a little, pulling Shane’s hands from his face one at a time. Nope, Shane would actually like his brain damage back, please. “Svetlana is a beta, and she will wear patches. It will be impossible to tell.”

Rozanov doesn’t let go of his hand, instead wrapping calloused fingers around Shane’s wrist. They cover half of his forearm. Shane presses his thumb into Rozanov’s pulse point, letting the thrum beneath the skin settle him.

What his omega really wants is to yank Rozanov into bed with him, to make the alpha drape himself over Shane’s body. His omega wants to run his hands and wrists over Rozanov’s shoulders and neck, to tangle his fingers in blond curls, and lay a claim that can’t be denied. Rozanov would let him. Rozanov would probably like it, actually. He’d probably rumble again, and Shane would be able to feel it against his chest, and now he could answer with a purr of his own. It would be—

Shane pulls his hand away.

“I’m tired,” he murmurs, turning his head away from the alpha. “Can you turn down the lights?”

There’s a long pause. It’s long enough that Shane knows it’s not because Rozanov is trying to translate. Besides, his English is far too advanced now to be struggling with a simple sentence like that. That thing in Shane’s chest whimpers.

“Of course.” Rozanov barely breathes the words. “Whatever you want.”

-

Someone had shut the door to Shane’s bedroom.

Probably to keep his distress from stinking up the rest of the condo, if he had to guess. It means that he doesn’t know if the haphazard nest he’d tried to construct is still there, a crumbled heap of mismatched fabrics on top of his comforter. Shane doesn’t know if someone had gone in and taken it apart, remade his bed and put the throw pillows back in the right place. Is his winter comforter lying folded up at the foot of the bed? Is it back at the top of the closet? Did someone wash all of the hoodies and open the windows, wave away the evidence of one of the worst moments of Shane’s life?

There are hands on his waist.

“Hey.” Rozanov steps in front of him, between Shane and that damn door. Blue eyes are far too perceptive as he ducks his head to meet Shane’s. “What is wrong?”

He’d only been discharged from the hospital less than two hours ago. The car ride with his mom had been less awkward than he’d thought it would be. Stilted and uncomfortable, sure, but it seems that Rozanov and his mom must’ve talked once or twice while Shane was unconscious.

The plan now is a quick stop at Shane’s condo to pack a bag. It doesn’t have to be much—his dad has spent the last day or so in Ottawa, airing out the cottage and stocking it with four weeks’ worth of supplies. Even so, there are some things that Shane just knows that he needs, instinctual in a way he hasn’t felt in years.

Shane has his arms wrapped around himself, fingers clenched tight around his own biceps. He flicks his eyes away from Rozanov’s focused gaze. “I was… nesting when they found me.” The word is uncomfortable in his mouth, rarely used. “I don’t know if it’s still there.”

Rozanov hums thoughtfully, caressing his thumbs back and forth along Shane’s ribs. The absentminded touch is grounding, almost as good as the drip of painkillers that he’d had the first day in the hospital. “I can look? If you want.”

It’s a testament to how much Rozanov influences him that Shane is relieved rather than irritated by the offer. He nods his head, leaning into him ever so slightly to catch a little more of that smoky scent. “That’s probably a better idea.”

Even so, Rozanov doesn’t move immediately. He doesn’t move until Shane rights himself again, letting his own arms fall to his side. Only after Shane looks at him in question does Rozanov move away from him, carefully cracking the door open just enough to poke his head inside.

“It is still there,” Rozanov hums. “What do you want?”

What does Shane want? Fuck if he knows. Shane wants to be left alone, but every time Rozanov leaves for longer than fifteen minutes he thinks he might die. Shane wants to play hockey, but he’s been told that he’s done for the season. Shane wants to be a beta, but he’s not. He’s just not.

“I— I—”

“Shane.”

It’s his name, but it doesn’t feel like his name. It feels like something else entirely, something that makes him want to offer his neck and beg. Shane is full of wantwantwant, and isn’t that the fucking problem? Want is what had landed them here in the first place, Shane’s instincts reaching out for something that doesn’t belong to him. Want is the reason that Shane almost died, his body making demands that he can’t meet.

There’s a hand on the nape of his neck, too high to press against his scent glands. It pulls him forward, leading him towards that warm scent of hickory and leather and vanilla, potent and straight from the source. Rozanov folds him into his embrace, pressing his lips into Shane’s hair. It’s not a kiss, barely even a caress. Shane could escape easily, slide out from Rozanov’s loose grip with ease.

Shane’s knees buckle instead, a pathetic little whimper escaping him. Rozanov rumbles in answer, holding him a little tighter in response. “You are okay, Shane. It is just fabric. It will not hurt you.”

“Help me take it down?” Shane asks, lips brushing over the collar of Rozanov’s shirt. “Please?”

The hand on his nape inches lower, slow and careful and warning, before Rozanov gently brushes a single fingertip over Shane’s scent gland. It takes everything in him not to lean into the touch. “Of course. Anything you want.”

Chapter Text

“Give me your shirt.”

Ilya has barely closed the door behind him. His shoes are still on.

“You are not going to give me tour? Turn on light?” He quips instead of doing as he’s told, toeing off his sneakers and nudging them haphazardly onto the mat next to the front door. He glances back at Shane, takes in the way that his brow is twitching, and leans down to line the shoes up neatly instead. Best not to test his omega too much right now, especially not in his territory. Still, Shane makes it so fun. Ilya can’t help it most of the time.

Shane waves his hand around. “Living room. Kitchen. Rooms are that way. Now give me your shirt.”

From the entryway, Ilya can already tell that the cottage is more Shane’s than the condo could ever hope to be. A scent that must belong to his father lingers near the kitchen, but the scent of fresh lemon is baked into the walls. It’s a little sugary too, smelling less of mint and more like a lemon tart. It’s a more traditionally omega scent, leaning towards Shane’s designation more than the usual lemon and mint that, while a little potent for a beta, isn’t entirely out of place. Ilya has never scented Shane as sugary before. Now, he needs it like oxygen.

Ilya glances down at himself. “You want hoodie, too?”

Shane glares at him. It says, Yes, you fucking idiot.

Ilya does as he’s been told, unabashed as he strips off the hoodie he’s been wearing for the past few days and the shirt underneath. He barely gets a chance to offer them to Shane before the omega is burying his nose in the fabric.

Ilya watches as the muscles in Shane’s upper body start to relax. That animal in the back of his mind preens—Ilya’s scent makes his mate feel safe. Isn’t that all that he can ask for?

Shane looks up at him from under long lashes, turning away quickly with both pieces of clothing in his hands. The omega mutters something snarky under his breath about a cocktail bar, which makes no sense to Ilya, before stalking off in the vague direction of the “rooms” he’d pointed out a few minutes ago.

“Bring your bag!” Shane calls behind him, voice sharp and demanding.

Ilya picks up both of their bags, because he’s a good alpha who knows when to listen, and scurries after him.

Watching Shane bloom into his omega instincts has been endlessly entertaining. Shane Hollander had snarled at him yesterday at the offhand mention of Svetlana. It had lit up something in Ilya’s chest, a writhing thing that wants to lay itself at Shane’s feet and beg the omega to lay his claim. He won’t, because it would give Shane a heart attack, but Ilya’s thinking about it. He would do it if he thought it would get him what he wants.

Ilya’s nose leads him to the last room on the right in the hallway upstairs, the only one with the door ajar. Ilya pokes his head in to find Shane in the adjoining walk-in closet, elbows deep in the shelving as he yanks pillows and blankets down from where they’ve been delicately folded. The stolen hoodie is now draped over the omega’s torso, one of the strings clenched between pearly white teeth. In the center of the room is an indulgently large king-sized circular bed, covered only with what must be a custom fitted sheet.

Oh. Got it.

He moves tentatively as he sets the bags just inside what is clearly Shane’s nesting room. Ilya is careful to enter the room as little as possible.

“Jesus fucking Christ, just get in here.”

Ilya, because he values his life, does as he’s told.

Shane is muttering under his breath as he shoves a pile of fabric in Ilya’s arms. He’s never seen Shane like this, nearly manic with instinct as he steers the alpha back into the main room, unstacking and placing the collection that Ilya is holding with a meticulous vigor that Ilya knows better than to interrupt.

Once his arms are empty, Shane moves towards the bags by the door. He shuts it absentmindedly, letting both of their scents fill the room as he yanks on the zipper of Ilya’s bag and begins rifling through it, unashamed.

Ilya hadn’t had a chance to send his clothing to his hotel’s laundry service before they’d left Montreal, given that he’d spent most of his time glued to Shane’s side. It’d been on his short list of things to do when they’d arrived at the cottage—do his laundry, double check the kitchen is stocked, carefully scent mark the entire place so Shane can move around it without actually needing Ilya to be within five feet of him. Simple things.

His alpha is still itching to do all of that. This may be Shane’s territory, certainly not Ilya’s den, but the bond has all of that jumbled up in his instincts. As far as his alpha is concerned, Shane’s territory is Ilya’s territory. He needs to secure it, needs to make sure that it’s safe for his vulnerable omega. The only thing that can override that instinct is, well, Shane himself.

Shane has upended most of Ilya’s bag onto the beginnings of his nest, starting to tuck and fold the various t-shirts and sweatpants around the pillows and sheets that Ilya had just been holding. All Ilya can do is watch—the windows of the room are facing westward, the curtains only half closed. It bathes Shane in the golden light of the sunset outside, painting the entire room a warm orange that Ilya can’t drag his eyes away from.

Shane isn’t really his. Ilya knows that, somewhere in the modern part of his brain that exists in the current century. The acknowledgment isn’t successful in silencing the part of Ilya that wants to walk over to the omega and coat him in his scent, to drag his wrists along the scents glands on the back of Shane’s neck and set his teeth against the ones on his inner thighs. Ilya wants to hold him close and call him mine, pretty and perfect and all mine.

If he tried, Shane would probably try to rip his jugular out. Ilya isn’t sure how he’s meant to survive four weeks of this.

There is a hand around his wrist. Shane is pulling him further into the room, placing Ilya in front of the newly built nest. Ilya hadn’t been paying attention to the actual construction, too wrapped up with resisting the urge to reach out and touch.

Half of the nest is a wall of pillows, stacked at least a foot high with blankets tucked over them. Ilya can see various lumps of clothing underneath the soft periwinkle blanket that covers the majority of the nest, undoubtedly sacrifices from his bag that were soaked in his scent but deemed the wrong texture by Shane’s omega. A few of his t-shirts, soft and worn from use, have been given the coveted position of existing on top of the blanket, folded and framing the right side of the nest where Shane would lay his head. The one Ilya had just been wearing has become a pillowcase.

Ilya can’t stop himself from cataloguing it, taking notes of which textures Shane seems to like for his nest and how closed off he prefers it, trying to figure out what kind of nesting materials he should order for his den. Some omegas like cotton or satin, as opposed to the soft, plush fabrics that Shane seems to prefer.

Cashmere. Ilya needs to buy his omega cashmere.

Nimble fingers slip into the waistband of Ilya’s sweatpants and tug. “No pants in my nest,” Shane announces. His voice is still distracted, eyes a little glassy as he makes his demands. Not concerningly so, but Ilya recognizes that he’s still running more on instinct than reason.

“I like this rule,” Ilya grins, stepping out of his sweatpants and leaning down to tug off his socks. Shane is doing the same beside him, shucking off everything but his boxers and the stolen hoodie. Part of him wants to be offended—Shane doesn’t need to get his scent from a piece of fabric. Ilya is right here.

Shane crawls into the nest, setting his head on the pillow covered in Ilya’s shirt. The omega takes a deep breath, trying to decide if his nest is acceptable. The moment that Shane sighs happily, going completely boneless, Ilya lets himself relax.

Brown eyes half open, zeroing in on where Ilya is still standing on the periphery. Shane rolls his eyes, reaching a hand out. “C’mere.”

Ilya’s instincts start to freak. It hits him like a fucking truck.

Did he lock the front door behind him? He can’t remember. There are so many windows in this place, and he hasn’t had a chance to inspect the lock on the patio door. Locks on patio doors are always awful, but Shane doesn’t seem the type to wedge something in the sliding doorway. Shane needs to eat something, and they could both use some electrolytes. Ilya should get him a ginger ale—yes, his omega needs ginger ale, needs something refreshing and familiar. Ilya needs to figure out what’s in the kitchen and start planning their meals for the next week, at least. Neither of them are really into cooking, and Shane’s still trying to stick to that ridiculous diet of his, but Ilya thinks he can get his omega to indulge in something sweet if he asks nicely. Maybe if he pumps out some of his scent. It’s a little manipulative, but Ilya just wants what’s best—

“—zanov. Ilya.”

The sound of his given name on Shane’s tongue is a siren’s call.

His omega is half sitting up in his nest now, a look of utter annoyance fixed on his beautiful face. “Spiral later, Rozanov. Scent me now.”

How is Ilya supposed to do anything other than what he’s told?

He tentatively steps into the nest, careful not to disturb anything even as Shane warns him to be careful around the edges. The omega reaches for him as soon as he’s close enough to touch. Ilya lets him rearrange them however he pleases. It ends up with Shane draped nearly sideways over his lap, Ilya sitting upright as Shane buries his entire face into the alpha’s neck, both arms wrapped around Ilya’s shoulders. Ilya slowly, mindfully, wraps his own arms around Shane’s waist, pulling him in and holding him close enough that he can tuck his nose into dark hair, flooding his senses with that perfect scent.

Shane reaches behind without looking, fumbling for one of Ilya’s hands. He brings it up to the back of his neck, nudging Ilya’s fingers underneath the collar of the hoodie. “You can touch. Gently.”

Ilya does his best to bury his shock. He’s never attempted to touch Shane’s scent glands, besides just a few short hours ago as the omega had begun to spiral at the condo. Even that had hardly counted as a touch. Now Ilya is in Shane’s nest, and the omega is asking him to touch. Not brush, not scent, but touch.

“You are sure?” He can’t help but ask, knowing that Shane’s logical half has taken a backseat to his inner omega. “It will be… hard to get rid of.”

A hysterical little laugh bumbles out of Shane’s mouth. “Maybe I’m trying to speed up the process.”

Right. Right. The part of the process in which Shane needs Ilya, because the two of them had bonded and then Ilya had let him walk out the door. Their bond needs nurturing, stabilization. That’s all it is. Ilya is not in Shane’s nest because he is wanted but because he is needed, because Shane’s health depends on it.

Ilya carefully—so carefully—presses his thumb and forefinger over the matching set of glands on either side of Shane’s neck, right in front of his upper trapeziuses.

The room floods with sugary sweet lemon as a distinctly omega whimper escapes Shane, a noise of utter submission that Ilya shouldn’t covet as much as he does. Shane’s arms return to their place around Ilya’s shoulders, nails digging into his back as the omega collapses completely against him, letting the alpha bear his weight.

Ilya inhales greedy mouthfuls of him, of sweet lemon tart dusted with powdered sugar. Some of his own scent bleeds into the air, less smoky than it usually is. The woodiness persists, but there’s a hint of something honeyed that melts perfectly into Shane’s delectable scent. Indulgent, he slips his opposite hand up the back of the hoodie, splaying possessive fingers across the expanse of Shane’s back, running his thumb back and forth along the knobs of his spine.

“Perfect,” he murmurs, unable to contain the praise or the content alpha rumble that begins to rise from his chest. “So good, sweetheart.”

An unsteady, stuttered purr fumbles from Shane’s throat. It takes a few tries for it to settle, to roll over the pitch of Ilya’s rumble in beautiful, perfect harmony.

Highly compatible, the doctor had called them. Spontaneous bonds aren’t unheard of, but they’re extremely rare. Very specific parameters have to be met in order for one to manifest. They’re always mutual. One of you reached out first, and the other responded. Spontaneous bonds are by no means random, despite the title leading most to think so.

Yeah. Ilya hadn’t been all that surprised.

-

Shane mentions being hungry. Ilya nearly throws himself out of the nest to get him something to eat.

It’s dark outside now, forcing Ilya to turn on lights as he heads down the stairs and into the kitchen. Absentmindedly, he rubs his wrist over the high touch surfaces—cabinet handles, the sink faucet, even the knobs on the stove. Shane’s father’s scent lingers ever so slightly and it’s not bad, just paternal, but Ilya’s alpha still doesn’t like it. Their den should smell like them; only them. Especially now, when his omega is still sick and vulnerable.

There are footsteps on the stairs.

Ilya whips around, eyes widening in disbelief and incredulity as he watches Shane come down. “What are you doing?”

The omega’s hair is mussed, flattened on one side from being pressed against Ilya’s chest. He’s still wearing only the hoodie and his boxers, long legs tantalizing in their smooth descent. His hands are tucked underneath the ends of the sleeves, only the fingertips peeking out.

Shane rolls his eyes, walking right past Ilya to open the fridge and grab a can of ginger ale. “You were taking too long. And I can do it myself.”

“No,” Ilya mutters, herding him towards the living room. Silly, stupid omega. “No, nye. You sit down, I will handle food.”

He doesn’t miss the annoyed oh my god that Shane mumbles under his breath, even as he does as he’s told and sits down on the couch. Ilya grabs the throw draped over the back and lays it over Shane’s lap, deliberately rubbing his wrists over the fabric as he does.

Without thinking, Ilya smacks an annoying, wet kiss on Shane’s cheek before beelining back into the kitchen. “Sit and look pretty, Hollander. You are very good at that.”

“I want fruit!” Shane snarks back. “And it better be washed!”

It’s domestic and simple, everything that he hasn’t allowed himself to want. Shane Hollander is bonded to him—wearing Ilya’s clothes, bathed in Ilya’s scent, allowing Ilya to provide for him. This little pocket of a life he can’t have is intoxicating, threatening to drag him under into the fantasy.

They’re not talking about it. Shane doesn’t even really seem able to comprehend the word mate, at least not in relation to them. The two of them can play at this facsimile all they want. It doesn’t change the fact that, in four weeks, Ilya will head back to Boston and Shane will stay here without him—because he won’t need the alpha anymore, and he certainly doesn’t want him, so why keep him around?

Ilya takes a steadying, deep breath. All it does is flood his sense with the perfection that is their intertwined scents. Instead of banging his head against the wall, Ilya opens the produce drawer in the fridge and grabs two oranges, opening and closing cabinets until he finds a small bowl for the peel.

He takes his spoils back with him into the living room, where Ilya walks in right as Shane is answering the phone.

His assumption is that it’s one of his parents. They’re the only people that know the breadth of what’s happened, besides the hospital staff and probably someone on the Metros. Ilya had fed the Raiders the vague excuse of an omega in distress and dodged all of the followup questions. It’s fine. What are they going to do, trade him? Hah, Ilya would like to see them try. He smirks a little just at the idea.

“Hey, Rose.”

A growl rattles out of Ilya’s chest before he can shut it down. It’s nowhere near as vicious as Shane’s snarl had been, more tempered by the fact that they’d just been curled up in the nest together, still reeking of each other’s scents, but the sound slips out before he can catch it.

Shane whips his head over the back of the couch with glare, mouths a very clear Stop it in Ilya’s direction before speaking in the microphone again. “Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to call. I, uh, figured you deserved an explanation. If you have time.”

Rose Landry is not the one that’s here. Rose Landry is not the one that sits down on the couch and tucks Shane under her arm. Rose Landry is not the one who’s carefully peeling an orange, picking off all the pith so she can present Shane the perfect wedge.

There’s nothing wrong with an omega-omega pairing—he might be an alpha but he’s not a fucking knothead—but Ilya’s instincts don’t really care. All his inner alpha knows is that his mate is talking to someone who’d once been where he is right now, had probably scented him before, cared for him when Ilya had abandoned him.

Ilya is still grumbling under his breath when he offers the first wedge of the orange to Shane, raising it towards his lips. Pearly white teeth bite one half of it right off of his fingertips, gently catching. Ilya resists the urge to press him into the couch by eating the remaining half instead.

Shane goes quiet on the phone, ignoring Ilya’s next offering as he listens to whatever the fuck Rose Landry has to say. “Yeah, I am.” Shane tilts his head towards the ceiling, revealing that perfect neck of his, and sighs. “No, I know.”

Sugary sweet lemon dims in the air. Shane’s scent sharpens, more like a lemon-scented cleaning product than the perfect, perfect dessert it had been moments. before. It’s not bad, not a sign of genuine distress or anguish, but Ilya doesn’t like it. He knows what his omega smells like when he’s happy now; his instincts won’t settle for anything less.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says into the receiver. “And I’m sorry you had to find out that way.”

Ilya slides his hands underneath the hoodie, fingers spread wide over Shane’s heart with a possessiveness he has no right to. The omega goes willingly as Ilya gently pushes him to lie down on the couch, crawling between Shane’s legs to nuzzle at the sliver of revealed skin above his waistband.

Shane shudders, but doesn’t push him away. “Yeah, I’m doing better. Or, well, I will be. Apparently, my hormone panel was a hot mess. I’ve been prescribed nesting until further notice—but properly, not that mess that you saw. Yeah, yeah. I know. I took it down.”

It’s not a surprise that Ilya isn’t mentioned; in fact, he’d been expecting it, but he still grumbles a little at being excluded from Shane’s tale. How is he supposed to stake his claim when Rose Landry doesn’t even know she has competition?

Ilya noses down the fabric of his boxers, dragging his nose over his thigh as fingers tangle in his blond curls. Shane doesn’t pull or tug, just holds, and Ilya can only interpret that as implicit permission.

Even so, Ilya glances upwards as he nears the glands on the inside of his omega’s thighs, raising an eyebrow in clear question. Shane’s eyes are blown wide, lips parted with arousal as Rose Landry babbles on about something or another on the line. Clearly, Shane isn’t listening. Ilya isn’t even ashamed of the pride bubbling in his chest.

“Rose, I have to go.” Shane’s voice is breathy, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Ilya wants to sink his teeth into the motion. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll call you back later—uh, tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow, for sure. Okay, bye—”

“You have somewhere to be, Hollander?” He rumbles, hovering close enough to Shane’s scent gland that the omega shudders at the feeling of his breath, even through the fabric of his boxers.

Shane’s eyes flash, the beginning of a snarl beginning to form behind curled lips. He yanks Ilya’s head back, making his neck strain in a way that he revels in. “Nest. Now.”

Ilya grins, all teeth, as he slides back up Shane’s body so they’re face-to-face. “You did not finish your fruit.”

“I’ll show you finishing,” Shane bites back, nearly nonsensical as he pretends to nip at the tip of Ilya’s nose. “Nest, Rozanov. Or I’ll go take care of myself and lock the door.”

Ilya can’t contain his laugh as he taps twice on the outside of the omega’s thigh, Shane wrapping his legs around his waist obediently. “You can not resist me.”

“Yeah, that’s the fucking problem,” he mutters, plastering himself to Ilya’s front as he starts to ascend the stairs. “Aren’t you supposed to take care of me? What happened to that?”

“Does not work like that.” Ilya shakes his head, toeing open the door to the nesting room. “This is want, not need. You want to come. You need to eat. I did not forget.”

Shane rolls his eyes, the motion practiced and familiar in Ilya’s presence, as the alpha sets him down on the edge of the nest. He keeps his hands on the back of Ilya’s neck, pulling him down back into the nest with him. “What’s the difference?” He asks against his lips, grabbing Ilya’s hand and guiding it under the waistband of his boxers.

The question makes Ilya ache, right in the spot behind his lungs that Shane always seems to aim for, somehow so careless with his words and his actions when it matters most.

He doesn’t answer. Nothing he has to say will be what Shane wants to hear, anyway.

Chapter Text

There’s a humming underneath Shane’s skin.

His hands aren’t shaking; his lip isn’t trembling. Shane has all of his fingers and all of his toes. When he traces his tongue over the expanse of his mouth, every tooth is where it’s supposed to be.

And yet. And yet.

Shane barely comes out of the nest. The first night is the worst—as soon as his body realizes that it’s safe, surrounded by a nest and alpha, what’s left of its meager defenses falls away.

It’s terrifying not to recognize his own body, to not be able to control the noises of distress coming out of his mouth or the clench of his hands that refuse to let go of Rozanov. Shane looks in the mirror and doesn’t know the person who looks back, has no idea who the omega that matches his every movement in the reflection is.

The brief euphoria of Rozanov’s presence again hadn’t lasted long past his second orgasm, though Shane’s accustomed to that. Someone might’ve warned him how bad it was going to be. Or, well, they’d probably warned Rozanov while Shane was unconscious or staring listlessly at the ceiling, because apparently the alpha has become his authority.

That’s unfair. Shane had been in no place to really take in any of that information; he would’ve rather died than had his parents in the room for half of the scolding he’d gotten from the doctors. It’s not Rozanov’s fault that Shane’s stupid fucking instincts had latched onto him, dragging him into Shane’s mess. He’s still not entirely sure how this could’ve happened while on his suppressants.

Sure, maybe the regimen hadn’t been healthy, and Shane’s probably fucked up his own fertility permanently, but it’s his body, not the body of the whimpering omega curled up in his chest. Shane had considered children down the line, maybe, in quieter moments like when he’s with Hayden’s kids or tossing a kid a puck during warmups. The vague notion of it in the future had never mattered as much as hockey now.

Hockey is everything to him; it’s Shane’s entire life, the thing that gets him out of bed every morning. Hockey is what he’s sacrificed everything for. The bits and pieces of himself he’s chipped into the fire are gone now, never to be recovered, and what does Shane even have to show for it?

Two Stanley Cups. A C on his jersey. A million sponsorships and brand deals. An empty condo in Montreal that doesn’t smell like him. A team that knows nothing about him except for his stats. A fucked up, irrevocably damaged body that’s finally revolted against him to demand what it needs.

On the morning of the third day, Shane doesn’t let Rozanov back into the nest.

Shane doesn’t realize he’s snarling until he registers Rozanov stopped in the doorway. The alpha had only stepped out to do… something—check the locks again, probably, or grab another water bottle to make Shane drink. It doesn’t matter.

His face is still buried in the various fabrics of the nest. Shane doesn’t want to see the look on Rozanov’s face. It's a relief, probably, that he doesn’t have a limpet of an omega attaching himself to his side anymore.

“Hollander?”

They’d gone back to last names at some point in the haze. Probably as soon as Rozanov had realized that the worst of Shane’s brain fog had started to fade, that Shane wasn’t relying on the facsimile of intimacy to hold him together. The animal in Shane’s chest whimpers at the formality, the distancing, but Shane is not an animal, and these instincts aren’t his. Not really. They don’t feel like his.

Shane only feels like this because his hormones are so violently out of control. He’d been fine on the car ride after taking down the stress nest, had apparently felt good enough that he’d let Rozanov fuck him in the nest twice. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understands that he’s thinking and acting irrationally.

Maybe he deserves to. Every day of Shane’s life is planned out in meticulous detail—carefully slotting together his various obligations into a tight tapestry that paints the picture of the beta captain of the Montreal Metros, often photographed with his beautiful movie star omega. Maybe, for once in his life, Shane should lash out. Rozanov just so happens to be in his line of fire.

Shane’s snarl increases in volume. The room fills with sour lemon, like the candies that Shane used to eat as a kid. It makes him shudder. It’s no wonder that Rozanov starts to back out of the room. His socked feet shuffle against the carpet; the door hinge creaks as he closes it shut again.

It’s not Rozanov’s fault—the logical half of Shane’s brain knows that. Neither of them had really asked for this to happen, could’ve never predicted it. It’s not even really Shane’s fault. It’s just a maelstrom of extraordinary circumstances, an endless number of dominoes knocking over in perfect sequence while both of their backs were turned.

Shane’s omega doesn’t really believe that.

Time passes, syrupy slow. The sour lemon scent doesn’t dissipate, seeping into the fabrics in his nest and ruining the perfect cocktail of bourbon, fresh lemon, and mint that had been baked in.

Shane knows how to fix that. The little thread in the back of his head that he’s been violently ignoring since he woke up in that hospital bed tells him that Rozanov has spent most of the time camped outside the door of the nesting room, close enough that Shane wouldn’t even have to raise his voice for the alpha to hear him. All Shane has to do is invite Rozanov inside, let the alpha crawl back into the nest, and tuck his nose into the dip of his collarbone.

But Rozanov’s half of their… connection has been dead silent. There hasn’t been a whisper of emotion from him since that brief moment in the hospital, and why would Rozanov bother to hide it? Only if he knew it would upset Shane’s instincts, forcing him to stay longer in Ottawa.

Shane tracks the passage of time through the moving shadows of the curtains. He tucks his nose in the spot where Rozanov had been resting his head, closes his eyes, and wills sleep to come.

-

The door opens again. Light from the hallway spills into the nesting room, interrupted only by Rozanov’s shadow as he leans in the doorway. The alpha doesn’t inch one centimeter over the doorway.

“You need to eat.”

Shane doesn’t snarl, doesn’t give enough of a fuck to even try. His chest feels hollow now, dipping low, low, low, in a way that he doesn’t recognize. It’s just another facet of himself that he doesn’t know, shoved in the dark for so long that the light blinds it.

“Shane.” The way that Rozanov caresses his name should be illegal, somehow managing to turn the single syllable into so much more than that. “Please eat.”

That makes Shane lift his head.

Rozanov looks… disheveled, mussed even. His curls are frizzy, like he’s been tugging at them. The look in his eyes is firm, his grip around the door frame tight. Shane knows, instantly, that the alpha isn’t leaving until he’s accomplished what he set out to do. His instincts are demanding that he provide, the same way that Shane’s thrum with the need to protect. It’s too bad that Rozanov has already barreled through all of his defenses.

One foot tentatively steps into the room, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction from Shane. When the omega stays silent, Rozanov continues his path, gently shutting the door behind him. There’s a plate in his other hand, and Shane can make out the familiar shape of a water bottle tucked between his arm and chest.

“Tell me what is wrong,” Rozanov starts, voice low. “I will fix it.”

“I don’t know,” Shane whines, distress leaking into his voice. He’s not sure entirely where it came from. “I just…”

Rozanov stands at the edge of the nest. The top layer is a mess, the blankets that had been carefully smoothed out every morning by Shane’s instinct driven hands now wrinkled from his day of tossing and turning. Sour lemon lingers in the air, no longer quite as potent but still present enough that Rozanov’s brow furrows slightly in displeasure.

Slowly, so slowly, Rozanov sets one knee on the edge of the nest, placing down the plate and water bottle. The action should set him on edge, make him snarl in warning. His instincts light up instead—yes, yes, please. Shane doesn’t understand, feels even more like an outsider in his own body as his scent brightens in response to Rozanov’s transgression.

A warm, broad hand wraps around the nape of his neck. A calloused thumb sweeps back and forth along his jaw. Rozanov tilts his head back, and Shane lets him. Rozanov’s face reveals nothing, though whatever he seems to find in Shane’s face is deemed acceptable.

“I know what is wrong,” the alpha murmurs. “You are sick of… needing. I understand.”

Rozanov climbs the rest of the way into the nest, more confident than he’d been sixty seconds ago. He wraps an arm over Shane’s shoulders and pulls him close, twisting his torso to fit him into the cradle of his body. The other hand reaches for the plate that he’d brought in with him, setting it within Shane’s view in the lowlight.

Shane knows that there hadn’t been chocolate covered strawberries in the fridge yesterday. Shane didn’t even know that there was chocolate in the cottage.

Distantly, he knows that he should say no. He has a diet that he cares about, though it doesn’t really matter if he’s not going to be playing for the next couple of months. It doesn’t help that his instincts don’t want him to deny Rozanov, the alpha who had clearly put in actual effort to listen and provide.

Alphas provide, omegas protect, and betas balance. It’s one of the few lessons from the most awkward section of school that Shane actually remembers. Rozanov may be the one who keeps checking the locks every day, but he only does because Shane’s omega allows it, both their instincts deciding that he’s too weakened to do it himself. If he were in good health, it would be Shane doing it.

Though, if he were in good health, none of this would be happening at all.

Rozanov lifts a strawberry to Shane’s lips in offering, the same way he had with the orange just a few days ago. The fruit is ripe, bursting on his tongue with the added sweetness of the chocolate. An approving rumble leaves Rozanov as he finishes off the other half, setting the stem back down on the plate.

Shane goes boneless against his chest; only resists the urge to bury his nose in Rozanov’s neck so he can accept another proffered bite instead. His lips brush against the alpha’s fingertips. Mine, that thing inside of him claims, all, all mine.

God, if Shane could crawl inside his fucking ribs, he thinks he would. It’s a lightning bolt of a realization, a disentangling of the haze of instincts he’s been caught in for over a week now. The utterly desperate needneedneed that’s been thrumming through him is slowly going quiet, trading its place to a syrupy sweet sort of satisfaction instead. Shane doesn’t have to want, because Rozanov will give him what he needs regardless; so he doesn’t have to need either.

They finish off the plate of six strawberries in silence. Shane lets Rozanov uncap the water bottle and press it to his lips, tipping his head back and drinking half the bottle in one go. The alpha finishes off the other half, disentangling from Shane only long enough to lean over the edge and set both the plate and bottle outside of the nest, the same way that Shane had demanded the first time they’d eaten in the nest two days ago.

Up until now, it’s been Rozanov scenting Shane—running his wrists over the omega’s shoulders, gently pressing down on the scent glands on his throat when explicitly asked. His instincts had needed to know that the alpha is here again after being left alone for so long. His instincts hadn’t wanted to lay a claim on an alpha that had already left him once.

But now—Rozanov has proven that he’ll stay, even when Shane tells him to go, and the omega part of him needs to know that the alpha belongs to him.

Rozanov is barely upright again before Shane is climbing on top of him, setting himself in his lap and pushing him back into the sheets. Rozanov goes all too willingly; Shane delights in the brief look of shock that flits across his strong features. He reaches for where Rozanov’s hands are at his sides, pressing both in the sliver of space above blond curls. It’s instinct to make sure their wrists press together, the perfect cocktail of their scents starting to perfume the room again.

“Hello,” Rozanov greets from below, staring up with a bemused expression. “You like chocolate this much?”

Shane doesn’t answer verbally; he leans down and noses at Rozanov’s strong jaw, tracing along the defined shadow indulgently. Rozanov tilts his head back, exposing his throat without a second thought.

A pleased omega purr rips through the air.

“You can take,” Rozanov murmurs, the words low and only for the space between them. “Go ahead, omega.”

If Rozanov had tried that twenty minutes ago, Shane would’ve smacked him, or kicked him out of the nest. Instead, sugary sweet citrus floods the air, like lemon scented frosting. With his lips trailing down his throat, he feels the gasp that Rozanov traps in his throat before it can escape.

Shane feels fucking possessed, logic taking a backseat to the thrum of instinct and need that runs through him. It’s not arousal driving him, at least that’s not the important part, even though Rozanov’s scent is getting smokier with every drag of Shane’s lips. Rozanov will fuck him whenever Shane wants; that’s one of the few things he knows, indelibly etched into this mess that they’ve let bloom between them for so many years.

No, Shane needs the reassurance that Rozanov belongs to him, written somewhere in blood that neither of them will ever forget again. Shane needs Rozanov to go back to Boston reeking of the two of them—bourbon and lemon and vanilla and citrus, tangled together so thoroughly that there’s no hope of blocking it out on the ice.

Shane sets his teeth against Ilya’s scent gland.

Ilya swears, low and filthy and Russian, nearly throwing Shane off of him in surprise. Shane presses more of his weight into their hands; nips at the sensitive skin under his teeth in warning. God, it would be so easy. Ilya would let him, Shane thinks. Ilya is hardwired to give; Shane is designed to take.

There are certain truths about their designations that can’t be ignored, only brushed aside or turned away from. Ilya had handed him a water bottle in a hotel gym nearly a decade ago now and Shane’s instincts had never forgotten, even shoved so deep down inside of him.

Alphas usually bite first. The bite is an alpha’s final offering, the most important thing that they can give to an omega. It’s a finite declaration of fidelity, not ownership. Saying yes is the hardest thing an omega will do, neatly giftwrapping a piece of their soul and declaring what’s mine is yours, combating their own possessive nature to share the most intimate parts of themselves with their mate.

It would be nontraditional for Shane to bite first. Isn’t everything about them already nontraditional? When does it stop mattering anymore?

Shane laves his tongue over Ilya’s scent gland, reveling in the way that Ilya doesn’t attempt to stop him for the transgression. The alpha moans, the sound rumbling low in his throat, and Shane abandons his prize to nose along the collar of Ilya’s shirt searching for the source.

He drags his lips back upwards, scent marking with little kitten licks against pale skin along his path to the gland on the opposite side of Ilya’s neck. A shaky little sigh slips through Ilya’s lips, unfamiliar. Shane immediately needs to hear it again.

Shane’s mind goes hazy. It’s different from the medication induced brain fog he’d only just finally shaken off. This headspace is all satisfaction, the animal in his chest has rolled over to show its belly, claws put away for the first time since Shane had finally looked at it in the mirror.

“Omega—” Ilya is murmuring beneath him, trying to draw Shane back from the lull, to keep him from jumping into uncharted waters. “Give me a kiss, omega.”

Shane hums happily at the request, leaning upwards to do as he’s been asked. Ilya gentles it immediately, keeps the kisses closed mouth and sweet even as Shane tries to sink his teeth into the alpha’s lower lip.

“Come back now, Shane,” Ilya asks, soft but unwavering. Shane clings to the steadiness, even as he whines in protest. Can’t he stay here forever?

“I know, I know.” Ilya is laughing at him but it’s indulgent instead of mocking. He tilts his head to rub their cheeks together, flooding Shane’s senses again with hickory and vanilla. It’s fucking perfect. “You are so good for me, sweetheart—but I need Shane back now.”

Shane recognizes the change in Ilya’s posture only a few seconds before the alpha gently flips them over, rolling them towards the edge of the nest. Ilya disentangles their hands, pressing his thumb deliberately into the glands on both of Shane’s wrists when he grumbles unhappily.

Ilya shifts so he’s no longer on top of Shane, sitting beside him instead. He’s so much fucking farther now. Shane rolls half onto his stomach, burying his nose in the alpha’s hip and slinging an arm over his lap. A calloused hand sinks into his hair, fingers gently combing through the short, coarse strands with a familiarity that Shane isn’t sure he deserves.

“Sorry,” Shane mumbles into the fabric of Ilya’s boxers, time syrupy slow. He’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, only that the vanilla in the air has slowly begun to fade. He shifts as though to sit up; Ilya shushes him, keeps him pressed against his hip.

“Rest now, talk later.” Ilya’s hand in his hair slides down, wrapping around his shoulder instead so he can press his thumb into Shane’s scent gland. Shane melts back into a puddle of happy omega goo. “You need rest, omega.”

A stumbly little purr leaves Shane’s lips. “I like when you call me that.”

“I know,” Ilya barely whispers. “I know.”

Sleep is beckoning him. For the first time since leaving Ilya’s house, his instincts have gone utterly quiet. Exhaustion is just around the corner; Shane knows resistance is useless. He fists the hem of the soft, nest-approved shirt that Ilya is wearing. “Don’t leave.”

Ilya chokes on a laugh, a sharpened bitterness to it that puts Shane on edge. “How could I?”

Shane doesn’t get to respond before unconsciousness pulls him under.

-

For a solid two minutes, Shane thinks he’s hungover.

His head is pounding; every muscle in his body screams in pain. His mouth is so fucking dry that he nearly throws himself out of bed to go immediately brush his teeth, if only his limbs would cooperate.

For a solid two minutes, Shane thinks he’s hungover. Then he realizes that he’s alone. He shoots upwards, despite the way it makes his vision spin, turning his head to search the room like he doesn’t already know.

There’s a bottle of over the counter painkillers and a water bottle just over the side of the nest, within reaching distance. A folded piece of paper is tucked underneath the former. All of it rests on top of a neatly folded t-shirt.

The shirt reeks of Ilya—it’s the same one he’d just been wearing. Shane drags it over his head before anything else, pretends that he doesn’t pull the collar over his nose for half a second to indulge in the still-fresh scent. The painkillers and water are next. He chugs the entire bottle before finally reading the note, tilting it towards where the moonlight peeks between the curtains.

Ilya’s handwriting is atrocious. Shane can’t help but be endeared, imagining Ilya searching through the drawers in the kitchen when he could’ve just as easily texted Shane instead.

I am nearby, it starts. Text if you need me.

It’s short, prompt, impersonal; it has none of the usual wit or personality that Shane is accustomed to. The confusion only lasts a second.

It hits Shane like an illegal check—he can nearly feel the way his body hits the boards, the sharp shooting pain as his head smacks into the ice. Shane bolts out of the nest, nearly tripping in his haste as he slams open the door of the nesting room and then the bathroom. His knees bang against the tile as he throws up the meager contents of his stomach.

God, he hadn’t even asked. The worst part is that Ilya had almost let him do it anyway.

In the aftermath, the cottage is silent. Shane waits for the sound of footsteps, the opening and closing of a door. Shane waits for the alpha to notice, because Ilya always notices, and nearly throws up again when nothing happens. The cottage doesn’t make a single sound, the four walls having nothing to offer him that he wants. Wherever Ilya is, it isn't inside the cottage. He'd left.

The thing in his chest wants to whine in distress, to scream whywhywhy until Ilya’s forced to come back. For the first time in weeks, Shane is clear-headed enough to deny it what it wants. So instead, Shane lies on his dark bathroom floor and pushes it down. He doesn’t reach out across the thread between them, and he doesn’t find wherever he’d thrown his phone a few days ago to text.

When he’d been newly presented and still trying to work out the correct regimen of suppressants, Shane hadn’t gotten used to shoving down his instincts. He’d figured out quickly how to cope, to press it down just long enough to last three periods on the ice. It’s an old skill, one he hasn’t needed since he’d gone on a prescription so high that it had shut down that half of him entirely.

It’s easy to close his eyes and imagine the weight on his chest, to visualize the way it would press his ribcage in and restrict the air in his lungs. In the early days, he’d use a real plate, selecting a weight based on how bad his urges had been. Shane takes a deep breath, then another, and compresses all of the inconvenient parts of himself on the exhale.

A familiar, comforting numbness settles over his bones. It makes his physical pain increase tenfold, penance for his actions. Shane thinks of the painkillers he just threw up. He could go take more, probably, after eating something small. It’s unlikely that he’d throw up again.

Shane hauls himself off of the floor. He walks down the hallway, memorized in the dark, and shuts the wide open door to the nesting room as he passes it.

The master bedroom barely smells like anything. No one has been in it since last summer, after all. Shane likes it—it’s comfortable enough, full of furniture that he’d taken the time to pick out himself. Everything is that modern shade of greige and light blue that every summer home has, tasteful but devoid of any real personality. The sheets on the bed are luxurious, textures that Shane only lets himself indulge in during the off season, but they’re still stiff with newness.

Shane knows he should go back to the nest. Instead, he crawls into the master bed, pulls the sheets over his head, and falls back into restless sleep.

Chapter Text

Ilya always has a pack of cigarettes in the bottom of his travel bag.

He smokes one before a game, and one after if they lose. It’s his only indulgence now, his days of chainsmoking pushed behind him. The pack of cigarettes lasts long enough that he only replaces it in Boston, not needing to run out during a string of road games to find his preferred brand.

Shane falls asleep against his hip, hand curled in Ilya’s shirt, and the only thing on his mind is the fresh pack of cigarettes he knows he has. He raises a hand to his own neck, pressing his thumb against the inflamed gland on the left side. If he closes his eyes, he can still feel the points of Shane’s teeth threatening to sink in.

Ilya disentangles himself from Shane, caressing the back of his knuckles over the high planes of his cheekbones to smooth out the wrinkles that form as he leaves the nest. Shame washes over him in droves as he heads downstairs, instinct screaming at him for doing the one thing Shane had asked him not to do—leave.

Except, Ilya thinks he might die if he has to stay in that room, knowing that Shane will wake and try to apologize for nearly giving Ilya the only thing he’s ever fucking wanted. Shane will be distraught about it, actually, because he’s a good man who would never consider doing something so egregious without the force of his repressed omega demanding it. Ilya doesn’t want to hear it.

So Ilya leaves, even though he said he wouldn’t. He stands in front of the back door, staring at the dock, and wills himself to open it. He raises his hand to the lock and tries to force himself to turn it, knowing that his—but not really his, not in any way that matters—omega is alone and vulnerable and not okay just a few dozen feet above him. He stands there for an indeterminable amount of time, hand shaking and staring into his own frenzied eyes in the glass reflection.

“Fuck,” he hisses under his breath, pivoting harshly away and into the kitchen. “Fuck me,” he says again, yanking open the fridge and retrieving a water bottle, slamming open drawers to scribble out a note. Ilya is still cussing himself out under his breath as he inspects every bottle in the medicine cabinet to make sure they haven’t expired.

Ilya changes his shirt, leaves his offerings beside the nest, double checks every single lock in the building, and finally leaves the fucking cottage.

Briefly, he considers going on a run, but it’s easier to sit on the edge of the dock and pull the plastic tab on his pack of cigarettes. It’s easier to hold the filter between his lips and curl a hand around the end to block out the wind, the same lighter he’s had since rookie year lighting as though he’d bought it yesterday.

Ilya is all too aware that his instincts wouldn’t actually let him go on a run, anyway. They’ve barely been assuaged by the items he’d left on the side of the nest. Shane has always made them run wild, leading him to tuna melts and the breakdowns and growling every time he hears Rose fucking Landry’s name, but now the omega owns them. Every part of Ilya Rozanov has been redirected to seek out every part of Shane Hollander, and there’s nothing that either of them can ever do to reverse it.

There’s not even a physical bond to try and break. Chemical dissolution is painful and long and severely restricted, saved for extraordinary circumstances. The process of ridding a scent gland of a bite—bleaching the most sensitive spot on an alpha or omega’s body—is something Ilya wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Even if Shane were entertaining the idea, it wouldn’t be possible. He hopes that it had never even crossed Shane’s mind.

Ilya puts out his cigarette, smoked down to the filter, and lights another.

The doctors had pulled him aside in the hospital, once they’d been able to confirm what he had become to Shane. They’d rained down information upon him, enough medical jargon tangled in between their condescending words that he’d briefly wished for a translator for the first time in over a decade. The doctors had made it clear that they weren’t impressed by him. Ilya had made it worse by asking if there was any way to break the bond.

The answer had been no. Not without affirming it first with a bite to try it the medical way. Both of their bodies would reject any other alpha or omega now, the same way that any mated pair would. Ilya had known that, anyway, had taken to fucking betas while Shane pranced around with Rose fucking Landry after he’d nearly ripped out the throat of an omega who’d gotten too close.

Eventually, Shane will stabilize. Eventually, his mood swings and mental lapses will start to ease. Eventually, they’ll be able to go back to their own lives. Separated bonded pairs exist, although they’re incredibly rare. No one will ever have to know that the two of them have bonded—there are no bite marks to display, and time away from each other will diminish the amount of each other’s scent that they carry until it disappears entirely.

It sounds like Ilya’s own personal hell.

But it’s not about what Ilya wants, really, not that anything ever is. Everything is about Shane—about whatever decision he makes in four weeks when his hormone panel comes back stable. Ilya’s hopes aren’t particularly high in that regard. They’ve been doing this back and forth for eight years. What’s four measly weeks in the face of that?

Shane will make a decision, and Ilya will listen. That’s how it’s always been between them.

It’s nearly dark out now. The sun is clinging to the horizon by a thread, leaving the wilderness beyond Shane’s cottage to be lit only by moonlight and the few lights left on inside. The end of Ilya’s cigarette glows an angry red, the color stark in contrast to the tranquility that surrounds him.

Ilya taps his cigarette. The ashes float away, falling into the water. He should’ve grabbed something to use as an ash tray and just washed it before Shane woke up. That would’ve been the considerate thing to do. But if ashes in the water are the only mark he leaves on this place, on Shane’s life, Ilya supposes that’s better than nothing.

His second cigarette burns down to the filter. Briefly, the thought of snuffing it out on the dock flits through his mind. Shane would come out to this dock and see the mark that Ilya had left on his territory. Ilya leans back on his free hand and reaches back into his pack, picking up his lighter from where he’d set it on the dock beside him.

When he finally heads inside, moon bright and high in the sky, Ilya stops in the kitchen to bury the empty pack at the bottom of the trash. He doesn't bother turning on a light.

-

Ilya spends the night staring at the ceiling of Shane’s living room.

What he should do is head upstairs, crawl back into the nest, and hope that Shane doesn’t remember what he’d nearly done. The omega’s lucidity varies from moment to moment, vacillating between the serious, funny Shane that Ilya recognizes and the neglected, terrified omega that he doesn’t.

Ilya knows it’s a false hope. Shane had been too focused, too deliberate in what he’d done to forget. In his hysterics, in those two days that he’d spent writhing and crying, nothing Ilya had said or done had been able to calm him. Watching Shane flit between restless unconsciousness and excruciating awareness, knowing that Ilya had been the cause—inadvertent or not—had been torturous.

The omega who’d almost bitten him, who’d pinned Ilya into his nest and nearly finished what they’d started, had been clear-minded. There had been no hesitation in the way he’d set his teeth over the gland. Somewhere deep down, beyond what he will truthfully acknowledge in his right mind, Shane knows that Ilya would let him bite him. Ilya’s known this since the first time he’d caught Shane’s scent.

His hand wanders up to his own neck again. Ilya hasn’t been able to stop the motion, catching himself ghosting his own fingertips across the sensitive gland over and over again.

Three days ago, Shane had been snarky and coherent as he’d dragged Ilya into his nest built out of their combined scents. The doctors had told him to expect the rapid changes as Shane’s hormones slowly began to level out, certain ones spiking heavily in response to others rising back to baseline. The technicalities of it had gone over Ilya’s head; he’s an MLH captain, not an omega specialist.

What he does know is that being away from Shane—even just downstairs in the living room, where he’s been all night—is the one thing he can do to make Shane’s recovery worse, not better. They’d stressed that nothing else Ilya could do would be more distressing to his system. So why is he still down here?

The birds outside start to chirp. Ilya hasn’t heard a single noise from upstairs.

Ilya finally rises as the first tiny leaks of light begin to brighten the room, filtering in through the many windows. His instincts are tugging at him, demanding that he go check on the omega. It’s odd that Shane hadn’t woken up at least once or twice in the night. Despite himself, Ilya had been listening for it, waiting for the creak of feet on the upstairs floorboards.

All of the doors upstairs are closed, which doesn’t alarm Ilya. Shane hates when doors are left ajar. It’s only as he walks past the bathroom that he scents it—rotten citrus and burnt mint, not as intense as it’d been in the hospital but no less of an indicator of a sick omega.

Ilya nearly slams open the door of the nesting room, trying to figure out how the fuck he could’ve missed Shane getting sick. He wouldn’t have missed the movement of the doors or the sound of the plumbing. He might not have assumed it was Shane getting sick, but he would’ve heard something in the otherwise dead silence of the cottage. The only way he could’ve missed it is if he’d not been in the cottage at all. Which—

The nest is empty.

The nest is empty, and Ilya doesn’t know where his sick omega is.

His vision blacks out; a hand shoots out to grip the trim of the doorway so he doesn’t collapse. The nesting room reeks of omega misery, though Ilya had gotten used to that. The scent of it is harsh and fresh, clearly having overtaken any of the sweetness that Shane had been putting out when he’d nearly bitten Ilya.

Shane had woken up at some point. Shane had woken up while Ilya was being a miserable, self-flagelleting piece of fucking shit on his dock. Shane had woken up, made himself sick, and never returned to his nest. So where is he?

Ilya stumbles over his own feet as he pivots back out of the doorway, opening the door of every room in the hall as he makes his way down the hall. Most of the rooms are unfamiliar to him, given that Shane had skipped the tour to build his nest and drag Ilya into it.

The guest rooms all start to blur together. The only thing that matters is that they’re all empty, devoid of a sick omega that Ilya had promised to take care of. Shane will never remember it, but Ilya can’t forget the reassurances he’d whispered into the omega’s ear as he’d cried tears of pain in the nest, nails digging hard enough into Ilya’s shoulders that he’d left marks.

There’s one more door left at the end of the hall. Ilya thinks he might pass out if Shane isn’t behind it. The door doesn’t open more than two inches before Ilya knows.

True omega distress isn’t scent unique. It doesn’t morph around an omega’s natural scent like other emotions do, brightening or sweetening or souring the notes already present. True omega distress is nearly indescribable, potent and unmistakable in a way that forces nearly any person close enough to scent it to their knees.

By the time Ilya had found him in the hospital, the worst of it had already faded away. Shane was still sick, but the scent was his, at least, and that had been the most minor of comforts to Ilya’s rattled alpha. When the two of them had taken down the stress nest in Shane’s Montreal condo together, someone had already opened the windows to air out the lingering scent.

True omega distress is an omega’s body putting out one final warning before it shuts down completely. Ilya has only scented it once before—in Russia, a measly twelve years old. He’s been trying to block it out of his memories ever since.

The room is completely flooded with it. It’s a wonder that Ilya hadn’t been able to scent it in the hall. There’s a human shaped lump shivering underneath the sheets on the bed, presumably Ilya’s missing omega.

Ilya pulls back the sheets, ready to shake Shane into awareness. He’s not prepared to be met with glassy eyes, a perfect face puffy and red with the aftermath of tears. They still roll down Shane’s cheeks one after another, endless as they soak the pillowcase beneath his cheek.

Despite it all, Shane is dead silent. Ilya’s not sure he’s even breathing.

“I’m sorry.” The apology tumbles out of Ilya’s mouth as he reaches for Shane, pulls his trembling form into his arms. Once he starts, he can’t stop. “I’m so sorry. Your stupid alpha is sorry, I will never do it again.”

Ilya tucks Shane’s against his torso, gently guiding his nose to sit against his scent gland as he carries him out of the bedroom. He can’t close the door behind him with Shane’s limp form in his arms. The scent of distress leaks out into the hallway as he beelines for the nesting room, slipping inside and shutting the door behind him as quickly as possible so as not to let the scent slip into their nest.

Shane doesn’t come back until the sun has fully risen, morning light soft and hazy. One moment, he’s lying still in Ilya’s arms. The next, Ilya is on his back, held down by his trembling omega as Shane desperately scents him, drawing deep lungfuls of air into his lungs.

I am here, I am sorry, I love you, please forgive me. Ilya mutters it under his breath in an endless loop of muffled Russian, too lost in relief to bother with English as he places a hand on the back of Shane’s neck and presses down on those delicate scent glands.

Shane flinches away from the touch. Ilya wants to set his hand on fire.

“No, no,” the omega murmurs, shaking his head as he sits up, straddling Ilya’s lap. Shane rakes a hand through his own hair, pulling harshly at the dark strands in a way that makes Ilya twitch. “I can’t feel you, Ilya. Why can’t I feel you?”

“I am right here,” Ilya tries, rising up to pull Shane close. He leans down, drags the tip of his nose along Shane’s cheek. “I am right here, solnyshko.”

“You’re not,” Shane cries out, trying to get away. Ilya lets him go; he can never deny Shane anything, even when it hurts him. “You keep— And I can’t—”

“Calm down,” Ilya tries again, reaching out in a half-aborted motion as Shane curls into the opposite half of the nest. “You will faint again.”

“How am I supposed to calm down when I can’t fucking—” Shane cuts himself again, sucking in too deep of a breath. “You left and I couldn’t feel you.”

“I am sorry, I am sorry, please. Please.”

“You’re inside me and I can't get rid of you. Every part of me has a piece of you and now I don’t know where you end and I start. I feel like I’m not even in my own fucking body. Do you feel half of this, Ilya? I don’t— I don’t understand how you could feel this and still fucking leave. Is it me? Am I so fucking awful to you that—”

Ilya reaches out, grasps onto the glimmering little thread he’s been ignoring in his periphery, and yanks on the bond between them. He floods it with steadiness, unable to keep out the adoration or the love he’s been pushing down for months now. Or years, maybe. Ilya no longer knows when this casual thing between them had turned into so much more, spiraling out of his careful control until their instincts had forced them together.

Shane goes silent, a strangled gasp captured in his throat. Ilya waits a beat, then two. He lets the bond sink back into stillness even as he reaches across the nest, taking Shane’s jaw in his grip. He tilts the omega’s head so their eyes meet, staring intently into frenzied brown eyes.

“Take a breath, omega. Slow.” Shane does as he’s told. Ilya listens to the breath tremble as it leaves Shane’s lungs. His eyes clear up just enough. “Another.”

“Come back,” Shane whispers, even as he does as he’s told. “Come back, alpha, please. I need you.”

Ilya’s heart stops. He used to fantasize about a moment like this, running on the treadmill and trying to imagine how the call of his designation would taste from Shane’s tongue. It would be said softly, in the aftermath of Ilya sending him into that floaty omega headspace that Shane needs but will never ask for. It would be said reverently, when Ilya finally worked up the courage to maybe, maybe, one day present Shane with a courting gift and ask for permission.

He’d never imagined it desperate. He’d never imagined it as a last resort, a final plea for something that Ilya doesn’t really even understand. Elation sours quickly into heartbreak. Each of Ilya’s ribs fracture and fall apart in torturous succession, until there’s nothing left to hold in the spill of emotions he’s been holding onto for eight years.

“Who is asking? Shane Hollander, captain of the Montreal Metros, back-to-back Cup winner; or Shane Hollander, the omega you have pushed away and suppressed for ten years?” Ilya can’t keep the bitterness from his voice, pulling back his hand even as Shane tries to chase after it. “Do you know?”

Shane whimpers—distinctly omega and completely involuntary. Ilya knows his answer. “That’s mean, Ilya.” The words are barely a whisper, nearly lost in the wide breadth of space between them. “You’re being cruel.”

Ilya shakes his head. “You do not understand what you are asking.”

“I think I’ve been pretty fucking clear—”

Ilya nearly stands. He twitches with the need to pace; doing so would send Shane into another omega spiral, delicate as he is. He stays where he is. “You think you know everything, Hollander. Here, in this cottage, in your territory, you think this is what you want. You will not want this when you leave.”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me what I want?”

“I have tried to give you everything you want for eight years!”

Shane goes silent. So, utterly silent.

Ilya takes a deep breath, then another. He lets his anger wash away, replaced only by quiet devastation. God, only Shane knows how to do this to him. Only Shane could ever do this to him.

“You have never seen it? I cannot stop. I tried.”

Shane averts his eyes. Ilya knows he’s won, though it doesn’t feel like much of a victory. Every moment that Ilya has spent in this cottage has felt like a loss, an endless cycle of giving pieces of himself to Shane that he will never get back. Shane calls to him, in the way that only an omega can call to an alpha. Ilya knows that he calls to Shane’s omega; it doesn’t matter, because Shane does not indulge his omega in anything. It doesn’t matter, because Ilya’s alpha will always, always give, and Shane’s omega will always take.

It’s written into their biology. Ilya has never hated it more.

“I’m sorry.” Shane’s voice shakes terribly. “I never— I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Ilya chokes, feeling his eyes wet with unwelcome tears. “I know, Shane. That is the worst part.”

Shane slowly lies back down in the nest, drawing his knees to his chest. Ilya sinks back against the edges. “You ask so much of me. I will never tell you no.”

“But I keep hurting you,” Shane whispers.

“Only because you are hurting yourself.” Ilya watches his own hand reach out for Shane, brushing gently through his hair. Shane leans into his touch; Ilya does it again. “When you hurt, I hurt with you. It is how we were designed.”

“I think—” Shane stops. Ilya waits, like he always does. “I think I was designed for you.”

“No.” Ilya shakes his head.

Shane has never been incomplete. He was created wholely, stunning in his vivacity and even in his awkwardness. Shane is the brightest thing in every room, whether he’s watching tape with the end of a drawstring in his mouth or celebrating winning the Stanley Cup. Shane has never been able to fade into the background, to be anything other than the best. Ilya knows the truth.

“I was designed for you, omega.”

It’s not forgiveness, or even acceptance. Shane has no response; he only reaches up for the hand that Ilya has tangled in his hair and brings the back of his fingers down to his mouth instead. Chapped lips press a lingering kiss into the back of Ilya’s hand, then another to his knuckles.

Shane closes his eyes. Ilya counts his slow, steady exhales against the back of his hand. This is the first time the silence has not weighed down on them. Hope, pesky and undying, sprouts up from the patch of dirt in Ilya’s heart that he’s been watering for eight years, neatly labelled Shane Hollander.

For the first time, it does not fill Ilya with dread.

Chapter Text

For the first time in weeks, Shane is clear-headed.

The two of them have been existing in slow, comfortable silence for hours, close enough to touch but only just so. It’s the first time they’ve sat in the nest in peace since that luxurious first day, before Shane’s traitorous body had finished its breakdown and fallen apart.

Shane dozes in and out, exhausted from his terrible night and morning. Every time he rises from sleep, Ilya is still there, staring down at his phone. At one point, he awakens to Ilya’s low voice murmuring Russian into his receiver, a frown marring his otherwise beautiful face. Without thought, Shane shifts to put his head in Ilya’s lap, tilts his head all sweet and pretty in a way he never would’ve consciously allowed himself to do even just a week ago.

Ilya’s entire face softens, lips turning up indulgently even as he continues to speak in firm Russian on the phone. Ilya sets his hand in the curve of Shane’s exposed neck, pinky brushing against the omega’s scent gland. Shane shakes his head, bringing Ilya’s hand up to his mouth instead to hold his lips against his knuckles again. Shane falls back asleep like that, fingers intertwined through Ilya’s and his nose pressed against the fabric of the alpha’s shirt.

He lazily wakes again to calloused fingers delicately tracing the shape of his face, beginning at his hairline and trailing down over the high point of his cheekbone, curling featherlight against the cut of his jaw. When Shane opens his eyes, Ilya stares down at him with an expression that can be described as nothing but wonder.

“Hello again.” Ilya’s lips quirk up in amusement. “You should eat.”

“If I had a dollar for every time you’ve told me that…” Shane snarks, rolling his eyes. He shifts to lie on his back, reaching up to brush back some of Ilya’s curls. Without hesitation, Ilya ducks his head to kiss the scent gland on Shane’s wrist; he can’t contain the shiver that runs down his spine at the casual affection.

Ilya makes it seem so easy; he offers his care without thought, a well of endless understanding and patience. It’s not as though he’s become a different person now that they’ve become what they are. Even in the beginning, when this had been nothing more than sneaking in and out of hotel rooms, Ilya has always handled Shane carefully, keeping pace and looking back to make sure Shane is still in step with him. Shane only recognizes it now.

This newer version of Ilya is softer and more affectionate, a gentler reflection in the water than the harsh facade he wears on the ice. This version of Ilya does things like scent Shane without a second thought; this version of Ilya does things like hand feed him chocolate covered strawberries.

Is it real or is it just Ilya’s biology reacting to Shane’s? Can he even help it? Is it just the bond that neither of them had asked for? Shane knows that Ilya does care for him, he does, but does he really care this much? Without the bond, would Ilya have gone back to Boston instead of coming to the cottage?

Shane doesn’t know. He’s too scared to ask.

“You think too much,” Ilya rumbles, pressing a kiss to Shane’s palm. “It does not hurt?”

“You’re such an asshole,” Shane scoffs, pulling his hand back and sitting up.

The separation doesn’t rattle down his spine. Before this, every time that Ilya had pulled away, Shane could’ve sworn that someone had driven a dagger into his lungs. Now, he rises out of the nest to begin fussing with it, taking off sheets that reek of his misery and Ilya’s various shirts that have become scent stale after a few days.

Ilya doesn’t move for a moment, even as Shane attempts to yank out the sheet that he’s sitting atop of. “Excuse me, Rozanov—” Shane starts, something snarky on the tip of his tongue.

It dies quickly at the look on Ilya’s face. His strong brow is pulled in tight, eyes stormy with conflict that hadn’t been there just a few moments ago. Ilya shakes his head once before getting out of the nest. Shane grabs the sheet and sets it in a different pile from the ones going in the wash—that one is getting placed on Shane’s side now that it scents of pure Ilya.

“You will be okay if I go downstairs?” Ilya asks, voice kinder than Shane needs.

Shane is no longer a whimpering omega puddle in the nest, completely out of his mind. He’s not baseline yet, even he’s not quite delusional enough to think that, but the idea of Ilya leaving the room doesn’t make his heart begin to race in fear. But—

“Give me your shirt.”

—best not to tempt fate.

Ilya laughs but does as he’s told, pulling the fabric over his head in one smooth motion to offer it to Shane. “I am going to need more clothes.”

Shane raises the scent-soaked shirt to his nose, breathing in the fresh hickory and leather and vanilla, almost straight from the source. It gives him a headrush as he strips off the shirt he’s wearing—also Ilya’s—and replaces it with the new offering.

“It’s fine, I’m going to run these through the wash.” Shane gestures vaguely at his slowly growing pile of nesting materials. At least a third of it is just Ilya’s clothing. “They’re not… right.”

A stony look flits across Ilya’s face. They both know what Shane means—half of the nest smells of alpha fear and omega distress, the scent still lingering despite the hours they’ve now spent in relative peace. There’s an unspoken hum in the air, the quiet mutual acknowledgment of something left unsaid, but it’s not urgent. There are still three weeks left in this cottage together before Ilya leaves.

They’ll talk about it between now and then. They have to. Shane’s not sure his omega will let Ilya leave still in this stalemate.

It’s funny, because Shane has always told himself that the stalemate is enough. The numerous unspoken agreements between them throughout the years that they’ve done this have always been enough, even if not necessarily fulfilling. Shane knows now that his omega has simply spent the years riling up to get back at him for it.

Shane’s omega needs Ilya in a way that’s absolutely fucking terrifying. How much of that need is Shane? How much of that need is the thing writhing in his chest that demands to no longer be ignored? How long can Shane pretend they don’t want the same thing?

Ilya begins to reach for him in a half-aborted gesture. Shane finds himself wishing he would’ve finished it. “Okay.” Ilya nods to himself. “I am going to open windows and then I will go downstairs.”

“Okay,” Shane repeats, unmoving as Ilya opens the door. The alpha glances back, just once, to smile reassuringly before he ducks out of the room, careful to preserve the scents within the room and keep what must be left of his distress from leaking into the nesting room.

The room seems to still in Ilya’s absence, leeched of the quiet reassurance that the alpha always brings with him. Shane shakes his arms out and continues to fuss with the nest, heading into the walk-in to grab new sheets and relayer.

His omega is ridiculously happy about it. The initial nest had been necessary, not perfect, and now Shane has enough of his own sensibilities to take the time to fuss with every corner and layer. The luxury of a well-made nest is one that Shane has never allowed himself, trying to abate the want by squirreling away with a single scented piece of material and cradling it until the scent fades.

He doesn’t have to do that now—his alpha is downstairs making food, taking care of their territory. Ilya wants to be near him and scent him and take care of him, in the way that only an alpha takes care of an omega. Shane’s not sure how much he’s allowed to luxuriate in it.

Shane bundles the old sheets into his arms and drags them to the machines, setting the cycle absentmindedly. On his way back upstairs, he detours to the living to grab the phone he’s neglected for three days.

The first notification is a text from his mom asking if he needs anything for his nest. Awkward. All he’d told his parents is that he was having issues with his suppressants and needed some time alone, uninterrupted. He quickly replies to her with a negative response and continues down.

He has multiple texts from Rose. Shit, he’d promised to call her back two days ago. Shane hits the call button and takes the stairs back up two at a time, putting the phone on speaker as he heads back to the nesting room to finish fussing.

“Shane!” She answers, voice light and bright. “I’m so glad you called, you have great timing. I’ve been stuck in this makeup trailer for three hours and I’ll be here for another two at least. I’ve been dreading this night shoot all week.”

“Sorry, I said I’d call a couple days ago.” He laughs awkwardly, circling his nest to figure out if he wants the plush blanket on top. Will it be too warm? “I got, uh, busy.”

“It’s okay.” Rose waves off his apology. “I completely understand.”

“How’s filming?” Shane puts new pillowcases on and fluffs the pillows, stacking them carefully along the back of the nest. He swaps their positions twice to make sure both scents are completely intertwined before he moves on. “I know it’s all hush-hush.”

“This movie doesn’t make any sense,” Rose sighs, forlorn. “But, well, what can you do?”

“Mmhm,” Shane hums along, staring down at his finished nest. All it’s missing is a blonde Russian alpha for him to curl up against. The silence stretches a moment too long. Shane feels the tension grow, snap, and break in the span of a few seconds.

“Hey Shane,” Rose begins, “can we talk about it now?” Her voice is undeservedly kind, the question asked with a hint of omega softness that Shane wishes he had.

Oh, Shane’s omega is possessive and protective, teeth gnashing at the thought of anyone else thinking they can own any part of what’s his. The one omega quality he’s never embodied is the softness—below the protectiveness is the careful vulnerability, the exposed underbelly. Omegas are incredibly selective about who they reveal it to, or so he’s been told. Rose seems to embody it in every moment.

“I’m so sorry,” Shane says again, a smudged record looping around the same line. “I lied to you, over and over again, and you didn’t deserve that.”

“But you’re going to be okay? When I found you, you were alone and—” Her voice hitches, her next breath ugly and rattled. Shane wishes they could have this conversation in person. It would’ve been god awful and awkward and he would’ve wanted to crawl underneath the floor straight into the dirt, but at least he would’ve been able to try and read the look on her face. He wouldn’t have succeeded, but he could’ve tried.

Shane crawls back into the nest, laying his head down on the pillow soaked in Ilya’s scent. His heart rate slows, the tension leaving his body as he starts to settle. “I’m going to be okay,” he tells her, the utter contentness flowing through him loosening his tongue. “I’m not alone, don’t worry about me.”

There’s a pause before Rose’s response, just long enough that Shane realizes what he’s said before she responds. “You’re not alone?”

It’s not a prying question, only a restatement of what Shane had already said. He could deflect and she would let him; Rose is kind like that, giving him an easy out.

He has nothing to lose by telling her—Rose already knows his biggest secret, the one he’s held close to his chest for a decade. Ilya can’t be a bigger bombshell than hiding his own designation, right? He doesn’t even have to share that it’s Ilya, really, he can omit the name. She won’t dig for information if he doesn’t offer it.

“Have you ever heard of a spontaneous bond?” Shane asks, turning his head further into the pillow. It muffles his voice.

“Yes! I read a script about it once, but that was… really Hollywood.”

That makes him laugh. “Yeah, living it feels really Hollywood, too.”

“Wait, seriously? Holy shit, Shane, that’s…”

“Yeah,” Shane laughs nervously, “I know.”

“But how did that lead to…” Rose trails off. In his mind’s eye, Shane can see the little hand gesture she would make to try and encompass the entirety of the frankly absurd situation they’ve found themselves in.

Shane should be freaking out. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he knows that this conversation should be sending him running for the hills. Two weeks ago, it would’ve. His life has changed so drastically that this doesn’t even set off alarms anymore.

“I’ve been on suppressants for a long time, so, uh, I really didn’t realize what had happened? And you know how fresh bonds are unstable? Still applies. But neither of us realized it, so it never stabilized.” Shane’s hazy on the details, frankly, since they’d given him most of them while he’d been in a hospital bed. Ilya would know more—the alpha probably took notes. He should ask him.

“Oh my God, that sounds terrifying. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I had noticed that you were kind of… tired, but I never would’ve thought it was anything like that.”

“I didn’t really want you to.” Shane rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. His fingers twitch where they’re draped over his stomach. “That’s not your fault.”

“So you’re with that alpha, now? To stabilize the bond?”

“Yeah, we’re at my cottage.” God, Shane wishes Ilya were beside him. It’s funny—he’s had hours of Ilya’s undivided attention now, something he hadn’t been able to handle the last time he was in Boston. The alpha is only downstairs, but Shane wants him here. How much of that is him? How much of that is the instincts that he can’t control?

“And they’re taking good care of you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shane reassures, breathing in hickory and leather. “I’ve been a hot mess. And we’re… what we are. He can’t really help it.”

Rose hums thoughtfully. “What do you mean by that?”

That makes Shane pause. “Huh?”

“When you say that he ‘can’t help it,’ what does that mean?”

“Well, you know—” Shane waves his hand in the air as if Rose can see it. “I was in distress and he’s an alpha.”

“That’s not really how bonds work, Shane,” Rose starts patiently. “You can’t force them. I mean, you can try, but it’ll just reject. Even spontaneous ones. I’m not an expert on it or anything, but bonds have to be very, very mutual. Especially if yours is actually starting to stabilize; it’s because he wants to return it. You can’t fake that.”

There’s a loose thread on the top sheet of the nest. Shane starts to pick at it. “I guess. It’s more complicated than that.”

“I mean,” Rose sighs, “It is and it isn’t. Some things are… simple. He wants the bond; so it’s stabilizing. It wouldn’t have even happened if the both of you hadn’t wanted it. That’s simple.”

I was designed for you, Ilya had said only this morning, heartbreak refracting in his eyes. Shane knows, indelibly, that the reciprocal is true. It’s not a truth he can ignore any longer. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are two halves of the same whole, endlessly intertwined in a way that is unentanglable. Every part of him matches every part of Ilya: all of the fallacies and strengths, the fears and hopes. Ilya matches him at every turn. What is Shane even waiting for?

“But I can’t feel him,” he whispers into the receiver, turning on his side to pull his knees to his chest and curl into the nest. “I thought I was supposed to. So if I can’t…”

There’s a stillness in the back of Shane’s mind that he knows isn’t his, a closed door that he’s too scared to try the lock on. It’s not malicious, just there. Sometimes Shane finds himself reaching out for the shape of it, undecided in whether he wants to grasp it or not. He hasn’t been brave enough to try.

He hadn’t known what was behind it until this morning—waking in hysterics, desperate for Ilya to be as closecloseclose as possible. Shane hadn’t known that Ilya had been doing it deliberately.

“Have you talked to him about it?”

It’s too logical of a question. Shane doesn’t have a good defense. “No.”

“Maybe start there. See what he says.”

His skin itches; his heart starts to race. The nest isn’t a substitute for Ilya's presence. Shane needs to be downstairs. It’s funny, in some ways, that the one thing he needs is Ilya; and yet, the one thing he can’t fucking have is Ilya.

Spontaneous bond or not, Shane needs hockey. His designation has never stopped him from playing before, only hindered it, and he’s determinedly overcome every obstacle for years. Why should he stop now? Ilya will go back to Boston at the end of this, anyway, and Shane will go back to Montreal. Nothing that happens in these weeks will change that.

“I have to go,” Shane blurts out, rising out of the nest. “I’m so sorry, Rose, I’ll text you, but I— I have to—”

“It’s okay,” Rose reassures him, voice pitched soothingly. “Don’t apologize to me. Feel better, Shane.”

“Bye,” he whispers, right as the call cuts out. His feet carry him out of the nesting room and down the hall, taking the stairs quickly as he beelines for the kitchen.

Ilya is standing over the stove, cooking… something that Shane isn’t paying attention to. It doesn’t matter. The alpha turns his head towards the stairs before Shane is even halfway down, a frown on his perfect, ridiculous face. “What are you doing? Nest is still wrong?”

I was designed for you, he’d said this morning, staring at Shane as if he’d die if he had to look away. He’d taken to calling Shane by his first name, calling him omega. Ilya has doted on Shane for years now, with a hand on his back or a kiss to his shoulder..

Shane stops on the edge of the kitchen, beside the counter. Ilya raises a brow. The words tumble out of his mouth in quick succession, nearly incoherent.

“I can’t feel you,” Shane whispers, pressing a hand over his sternum. He flicks his eyes over Ilya’s shoulder, staring at the handle of the cabinet behind him instead. “I thought—I thought maybe it was me. But this morning, you… Why?”

Ilya turns his head, shuttering down the emotion on his face into careful blankness. Shane hates it. “It was not necessary.”

“Why?”

“You were sick and scared. When I reach for you, you move away.” Ilya opens the cabinet where Shane keeps his plates, the movement familiar in a way that makes his chest ache. Have they really been here that long? “I do not want to… overwhelm you.”

Shane has no counterargument to that, at least not one that isn’t utterly untrue. Shane was sick and he was scared; he’s not sure he remembers moving away, but it would make sense. So much of the past week, of the past month, is an utter blur to him—rare, vivid moments, a sharp pain in between endless hours of fighting to stay upright. Every single one of those moments is Ilya.

“I think—” Shane stops. Ilya looks at him; his own eyes are still focused on the brass cabinet handle. “I think that you’re the only thing that doesn’t overwhelm me.”

The plates in Ilya’s hand clatter as they hit the countertop. “Hollander—”

“Please don’t call me that.” Traitorous tears well in Shane’s eyes. God, he’s so sick of crying. “Not when I can’t—”

Ilya’s face fills his vision. Shane hadn’t realized that he’d moved. He turns his head to dodge Ilya’s searching eyes, takes a deep breath before he can tell him to.

“Shane—” Ilya begins, absolution and damnation all at once, rolled into the tambre of his name.

“I’m sorry,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry that I freaked out and ran away, and I’m sorry that I did this to you. I’m sorry that you’re stuck here with me instead of playing hockey and, fuck, the Metros were supposed to go for three this year and I—”

Two hands cradle his jaw. Ilya sweeps his thumbs over the hollows of his cheeks. “Silly omega, you think I care about any of that?”

Shane wraps both of his hands around Ilya’s wrists. His eyes have closed. “Don’t be mean.”

“You like it when I am mean,” Ilya retorts, stealing a gentle, reassuring kiss. It softens the snark. “You understand that a bond is chosen, yes? Gifted?”

“I think I’m starting to.”

Ilya kisses his cheek, then his forehead, then his other cheek. Shane greedily takes his offerings of leather and hickory and vanilla. “Good. Take your time, omega. I will wait.”

“I’m sorry that you have to.” Shane presses his thumb into the scent gland on Ilya’s wrist. “I just— Will you—”

Soft, pure affection trickles through, like light leaking hazily through a drawn curtain. He’s only felt it once before, just this morning, and the sheer force of it makes his knees weaken. A happy little sigh escapes from him; a purr begins to stutter from his throat.

“There you go,” Ilya murmurs. “Will you eat now? Please?”

Shane’s purr stops. “Seriously?”

“I will not be able to think if you do not eat.” Ilya is unrepentant, a stone wall in his insistence. It makes the omega part of Shane all gooey and warm. The human half of him wants to throw his hands up in frustration. They were having a moment.

“Silly alpha,” Shane parrots, all snark. Ilya’s affection in the back of his mind turns to amusement. Good.

“I have been called worse.” Ilya kisses his cheek one more time, then lets go. Shane reluctantly releases his wrists. “Sit down.”

Ilya handfeeds Shane every bite. When their plates are empty, Shane drags him back into the nest.

He sleeps peacefully for the first time since he left Ilya in Boston.