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Ilya gets a lot of mail. His address is private, or supposed to be, but he suspects his agent has whored it out to a few publicists in exchange for favors about other talent-- he needs to get a new agent, someone who did not come so highly recommended by his coach in Moscow, who does not have his father's number in their contacts-- because there are always packages piled up against his door when he comes back from roadies.
They are all sponsored things, drinks and t-shirts and big boxes with tiny prizes inside that are a waste of so much cardboard. Ilya doesn't open them anymore.
That is a lie.
Ilya reads the addresses in the top right corners of all the labels, and if they have a recognizable brand of booze, sports car, or Adidas's Portland headquarters, he brings them inside. Everything else goes into the bin.
The kraft bubble mailer on top of the pile when Ilya flips through his keys after a string of games across the west coast does not have a company name above the address when he peeks over to see if it's worth dealing with before crashing inside until noon.
He picks it up to toss it away, something to throw after such an early flight home locked up his shoulders, and does a double take. No company, but he knows that address. Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. Montreal. Ilya has it memorized after so many times searching it up in his message history, but it is an experience outside his body to see it handwritten instead of sans-serif messenger font.
Shane slants the numbers on the side of his stick tape the same way. The thought bubbles up as Ilya stands on his own front doorstep, staring at the soft, padded mailer with a Canada Post logo in one corner, that he should ask Shane what the numbers are, anyway, that he writes on the inner side of his grip tape. 29.6.68.
He can ask later, maybe, after he asks what the hell Shane is doing sending anything to him through the mail.
Ilya is almost disappointed that it's the address he knows. If Hollander has sent him something, it should come with the address of his real home; he has Ilya's. Obviously. It's written right there under 'Ilya Rozanov' in square little letters that would fit perfectly inside the squished boxes of a calendar. Painfully legible.
The scramble to get inside is a burst of movement. Ilya fumbles his keys in his door and curses, but it opens for him and he drops his bag beside his shoes. He holds the corner of the mailer in his teeth so he can strip off his jacket, and Ilya presses his tongue to the sturdy paper, tipping the firm corner of it up into his hard palate.
It is the same spot that makes Shane keen when Ilya bumps his cockhead into the roof of his mouth over and over again. It makes Shane's dick weep precome onto Ilya's tongue where he can taste it properly before taking him further inside.
This is just wet paper, but Ilya feels that same swoop of exhilaration run through him. He rushes nowhere, the middle of his own living room, and opens his mouth like a dog dropping a ball into his own hands, glad for once, that he lives alone.
Ilya's eyes flick to the windows, and for a moment he considers tugging the curtains closed. He wonders just how many days Shane Hollander's fake, real enough to invite Ilya into, address sat right beside Ilya's front door and feels a terrible urge to protect him from prying eyes.
Ilya makes himself sit down.
His phone is in his pocket. Shane probably bought tracking on the mail, so he knows it's been delivered, and Shane knows Ilya's game schedule, he has no doubt about that, so Shane knows, too, that Ilya is getting home this morning to find the bubble mailer Shane sent without warning Ilya something was coming.
So, probably, Shane is expecting him to text now.
He wants Ilya to send him so many question marks so Shane can pretend to be coy and send him eye roll emojis like he doesn't want Ilya to tear open his present and tell Shane how boring the hockey book he's shipped over is because no American bookstore would possibly carry it in stock.
Ilya is pretty sure it's a book. There was a book sort of weight to it in his teeth, and it is hard edged on his coffee table, all four sides. He should give Shane what he wants.
Ilya wipes his palms on his pant legs and picks up the mailer instead of his phone. It is too quiet in his house. The kraft paper opens with the jagged edge of Ilya's house key tucked into the little space where Shane must have folded the adhesive strip too far over, leaving a gap. Ilya tips it so the book slides out onto the coffee table.
Not a book.
Ilya's mouth goes dry as he stares at the clear plastic case protecting a black VHS tape without any logos on it. For one wild moment, his brain pumps animal fear into his spine and Ilya is sure this is some sort of threat, a ransom demand for Alexei's gambling debts or blackmail from someone who knows everything, who must have followed Ilya to the condo one night and trained a camera through a window, or-- Ilya flips the mailer over to look at the numbers again. Shane's handwriting.
Not a threat then, but Ilya's heart is still beating too quick, and he wonders if he's been stupid, forgot whatever warning Shane sent after all. He picks the VHS up and turns it over in his hand.
On the other side, right below the window to the wound tape, there's a strip of the thick, fancy stick tape Hollander uses. Shane's handwriting, again, 13.3.16. The sight of it settles the worst of Ilya's fears, but there is a buzz under his skin that he can't quite shake as he sets the case back on the table and pulls out his phone.
Ilya scrolls through his message history with Jane-- there is much of it recently-- until there. He finds March 13th, a Sunday with no game on the schedule for either of them. He'd sent Shane a message, 'Are you busy rn?' hoping for an impossible no, but he'd gotten the expected Yes, of course, I am Shane Hollander with a million brand deals, 'I have a video shoot scheduled.'
Ilya taps his thumb against the screen and the message zooms in a little, and all at once, Ilya knows. He knows that video is in front of him now, and he knows that it has to be filthy. It cannot be anything but a sex tape, but if he texts Shane now to ask if it is a sex tape and it isn't, Hollander might actually have a real panic attack across the border that Ilya can't pull him down from.
He has to watch it.
He has no idea where the fuck he's supposed to find a VCR.
-
"Hello. I am here to buy the Panasonic Omni Vision VCR VHS tape player you advertised on Craigslist." It is a half hour drive in traffic to reach Taber, a man Chestnut Hill who is selling a VCR that he promises will work. To prove it, Ilya has him plug it into a television in Taber's garage and together, they watch the first ten minutes of a version of Pinocchio that almost looks like a dubbed over Soviet cartoon until Ilya is satisfied that he isn't paying one hundred dollars cash for trash.
Taber gives him the auxiliary cords, the original box with instructions, and throws in a rewinder for free.
By the time Ilya gets back home, he is starving, so he spends almost an hour making brunch and convincing himself that he isn't trying to live in the space where Shane has sent him a dirty movie and not something deeply innocuous and sweet like a highlight reel of Ilya's games in Russia. He knows how much tape Hollander watches. Ancient Russian Major League games are probably part of his vault.
It takes too much time to set up the VCR. Taber's instruction booklet is old, and Ilya sends up several curses over the fact that he's pretty sure his television doesn't actually have all the inputs the little cords are supposed to go to-- there shouldn't need to be four of them-- before he discovers that they're hiding on the underside of the screen instead of around the back or in the nice obvious line down the side like in the pictures.
Ilya has to crane his neck sideways and crouch to get everything plugged in to the right colors. The VCR is ugly. He doesn't know how he's going to hide it when people come over, but Ilya refuses to do that instillation nonsense ever again.
Then there is no more waiting around. No more delays.
Ilya shuts his curtains. He turns his television to Input 3, and, on impulse, turns off the light so it's just him in the darkness at noon, lit up by a blue screen. Ilya sits on the couch for almost a minute before he processes that he will have to get up to put the VHS in the player.
He almost drops it.
The case cracks open with a series of pops that hit a odd point of nostalgia he hasn't thought about in years, and Ilya just holds the tape for a moment. It's so light out of the case. Delicate. There is some protective instinct that makes him want to flip up the long guard panel and dig his fingers down into the shell to unspool it all onto his living room floor where there is no possible way anyone could ever see it.
Ilya wants to see it.
He stands up and presses the cassette into the mouth of the VCR until something catches and it feeds itself in the rest of the way.
Ilya does not sit back down. He holds his breath, and he presses play, and he is so ready for this to be terribly grainy rink footage from 2006 that he doesn't recognize the chest filling up his entire television screen until it takes two steps back and Shane Hollander leans down to look right into the camera lens.
"Blyat."
"Okay." The word is a mumble, whatever vintage camera microphone Shane has hooked up to this thing is shit, and Ilya walks backward, arm behind him until he can grab the tv remote without taking his eyes off the screen.
Shane walks out of frame while Ilya turns the volume up to max. He has no neighbors. There is no one who could possibly complain about his speakers, surround sound, filling his open concept house with the whir of a camera lens being zoomed in and out.
The picture, the bed, is familiar to Ilya as it comes into focus. He knows exactly where this camera Hollander has found is placed, just inside the bedroom door of Shane's secret condo.
If the lens moves one inch to the left, Ilya will be able to see the chair where Shane puts his folded clothes. He wants, all at once, to be able to call Shane up, direct him through this so he can tell him he didn't need to get undressed before turning the camera on.
It twists something in Ilya's chest to imagine Shane at the condo without him. Sometimes, he can imagine it as their space, alone together, but of course there are others.
Shane cannot keep an entire property maintained for two or three nights a year, so it makes sense for him to do this there too.
Ilya wonders, as Shane circles back into frame, if the camera was there somewhere, tucked away in some closet Ilya has never had a reason to explore, the last time he played in Montreal, if it will be there still the next time.
Shane stands in front of the bed, cut off at his knees and his nose. Ilya takes a step closer to his television, right hand raised in the air as if he might be able to tip the camera up a skosh. Get Shane's freckles in frame-- even if the video quality is no where near enough to show them properly, Ilya knows he would be able to pick them out.
The way Hollander looks on screen is something out of Ilya's most desperate imagination. It's what he thinks about, all the time, the reason so many directors of so many commercials have fallen over themselves to pin Shane under their lens. Ilya is no better than them.
Shane's hands are his sides, thumbs rubbing against his thighs like he's searching for pockets. The audio cannot catch the big breath Shane takes, but Ilya sees it rise and fall in his chest.
He is struck by an overwhelming desire to tell Shane just how good he is being. How very very brave.
"I wanted, um--" Shane lifts one hand to the back of his neck and turns his cheek, unable to make eye contact with the lens. Ilya wants to see his eyes, watch his gaze slide down to Ilya's nose, his lips, over Ilya's shoulder.
Shane does that. All the time. "You're not allowed to show this to anyone, okay?"
"Okay." Ilya nods. He would never, but it is important to Shane, to say it, he can tell. The long, pretty line of Shane's throat bobs when he swallows, and then he is taking a step back so his knees hit the edge of the bed. He sits down hard enough to bounce a little, and, oh, there they are.
Shane's eyes and the laugh that's been punched out of him, and the smudge of color over his cheeks.
"Do you remember that time," Shane looks back at the camera as Ilya nods-- he remembers everything, every time, "when you told me to touch myself?" Shane drags his palm over his chest, thumb catching on a nipple.
He braces himself back on one hand like he had on those pillows back in Vegas, breaks eye contact. "I think about it a lot."
A strip of video noise cuts across the screen, rising from the bottom to the top like a shutter, and when it clears, Shane's legs are open.
Ilya cannot tear his eyes away as he strips. He should have done this before putting the tape in. It would not have been his first time watching hockey while nude if things had gone the other way, and now he has to sacrifice frames of Hollander tipping his head back and squeezing his chest like he's trying to picture Ilya there with him while Ilya pulls his shirt off over his head.
He has never wanted to wear a button down more in his whole life.
He kicks his pants off to the side. His eyes hurt to be so near the flickering screen, but Ilya does not care. "Fuck." the sound of Hollander cursing fills the living room. Ilya spits in his own hand and holds his cock, not stroking yet, just wetting himself down while Shane scoots forward and pulls both his feet up to catch the edge of the bed frame.
What has he done to deserve this?
Later, maybe, he will pour over their texts, try to find some evidence of asking, but now there is another string of muttered curses as Hollander realizes he does not have the right support down here, and Shane lays down, reaching behind himself to grab at the pillows stacked four deep against the headboard.
He drags them down and has to twist his back, almost in a bridge pose as he arranges pillows into something he can lean against, and Ilya grins, wide and sort of breathless about it.
Shane's cock softened in the interim, but it bobs up into Shane's hand when he leans back and touches himself again. Both arms are free now, and Ilya finds himself unable to decide where to look when Shane reaches down to press two fingers against his hole.
He pets the skin there, where Ilya knows he is soft and yielding, and squeezes his chest, and even in the shitty quality of this ancient camera, Ilya can see the wet patch the tip of Shane's cock smears against his stomach when he scrunches up.
"I have a plan," Shane says, and of course he does, probably wrote out a little script for himself before setting the camera up, "but I sort of wish you were here to tell me what you want to see me do to myself."
Ilya fucks into his own hand at that. He could do that for Shane if he'd asked. He would have given him instructions, guidelines, anything if he'd known this was on offer.
He feels crazy.
Shane touches his prick with the same hand that's been circling his hole, just gathering up some of his own slickness to make it a little easier to press inside with a little sigh. Ilya swallows. He shouldn't, can't, but he wants to pull his phone out and set it to record the audio, wonders how many times it's possible to play back the same VHS tape before things start to grow fuzzy and unrecognizable.
He reaches up and holds down the rewind button for three seconds to watch that moment again, sighing along with Shane. Synced up.
There is a snap, the cap of a bottle of lube opening up, and Ilya drags his eyes up to see Shane pulling his hand back into frame. He works himself open on his fingers, slower now than he did in Vegas with different sort of eyes on him.
Hollander is always so impatient with Ilya when they're together, needy, like he's worried if they talk too much or take their time, he might remember how bad of an idea they are. This is more like those rare nights when Ilya gets to have him twice, and Shane lets him take the time to get him hard again. The thought of that matching the pace Shane takes with himself curls warm in Ilya's chest.
When Shane takes his hand away again, he lifts his legs up higher, pressing his knees toward his chest in a familiar way. Ilya's hands itch.
Shane's hand goes out of frame again and Ilya watches his chest rise and fall, would be able to hear him panting if they were in the same room.
"It's purple." Shane says, and Ilya is confused for a moment before the hand comes back and he sees the dildo, held firm, like this is something Shane does all the time. God, he probably does.
Almost certainly, this is not the best position to fuck himself in, but Shane is being so gracious about it, making sure the picture is nice for Ilya, that he can see every bit of the press and the pop of the silicon head inside.
"Fuck." Ilya says it at almost the same time as Shane echoes through his speakers.
Hollander does not give himself time to adjust, just cants his hips up to get a sweeter angle so he can fuck into himself with his eyes squeezed shut.
Ilya wants to touch him, wishes he could feel the sweat starting to sheen on Shane's stomach, wishes this flat screen was like the old tube television in Alexei's room when they were boys together so he could hold his palm toward the picture and feel the fuzz of real electricity on his skin instead of dull, cold pixels.
It is, objectively, maybe the tamest porn Ilya has ever seen, but it feels illicit. Dangerous.
Every time Shane's wrist twists and presses the dildo back into his hole, he gasps like it's the first time he's felt anything touch his prostate.
Shane's other hand should, by all rights, be on his cock, but instead, he has it pressed into the sheets beside him, fingers twisting at the fabric. He's trying so hard not to touch himself. Ilya has no such compulsion. His hand is too rough on the hot skin of his prick, but he wants it to hurt a little.
The head of Shane's cock hits his stomach over and over again, almost as purple as his dildo, he is so hard.
"Oh, sweetheart."
The pet name is safe in Ilya empty house where the only thing louder than the friction of his hand stripping over his cock is the sound of Shane Hollander crying out, "ah, ah, ah," as he fucks himself for Ilya.
"Sit up a little, dorogoy," Ilya whispers. "Sit up. Let me see you. Give me your face."
Shane's head tips back, falling out of sight over the piled pillows. "Shit." His hand untwists from the bed sheet and lifts up, settling for a moment on Shane's chest before, "Sorry, I--" he lifts it again, "sorry." Ilya doesn't know what Shane could possibly be apologizing for until that hand moves up out of sight as well, and the noises filling the room are cut off as Shane sticks his fingers in his mouth.
Ilya jolts and hisses out a sharp curse as he comes into his hand.
He feels like he's played another game, no more legs left in him, as he watches Shane shatter apart on screen. Hollander grinds down on to the dildo as he comes, cock untouched, all the way up his chest. He is so pretty.
Prettier, though, when Shane drops his hand and finally lifts his head so Ilya can see him again, flushed red with a spit slick grin. Shane's chest heaves. He giggles at the camera the way he does sometimes after sex, when he is a little bit stunned at how much he liked it. Ilya's favorite sound.
The dildo is gentled out of him and set off to the side, and for a few moments, Ilya just gets to watch Shane bask in the glow of his own pleasure.
"Um," Shane can't make eye contact with the lens again. "I hope that was good for you. Or whatever." Ilya nods where Hollander cannot see him. "Holy shit." He lays there for another minute before Ilya watches the discomfort of lube on the bed and the tackiness of jizz on his skin roll through Shane's body in a wave, right on schedule.
Hollander swings his legs to the side and rolls up and out of the bed in a display of athleticism that Ilya selfishly thinks Shane would not be capable of after orgasm if he was there with him, but it is a nice move to watch.
Shane's chest fills the screen again, then there is a click, and Ilya is thrust into real darkness. The tape is still whirring through the VCR, but there is nothing left on the film.
Ilya finds the stop button and presses it. Eject.
His hands are filthy. The screen flickers black to blue, Input 3, and Ilya leaves the tape half inside the VCR while he washes his hands and splashes water on his face. His mind is no clearer when he's done.