Chapter Text
Irina Rozanova is a technicolor shadow in the shifting gradients of Ilya’s mind.
Her laugh, secret and coveted, rings starkly in his ears. Her hands are terribly soft in his faded memory, so warm and gentle. Golden-blonde curls and smile lines, fuzzy gaps around the edges where recollection has become bleeding watercolor, her lips at the crown of his head in a lingering kiss.
“My darling, Ilyushenka,” she would whisper, meeting him with open arms and easy affection. She had been so kind, so lovely.
But sometimes she would look so sad that it suffocated something inside of him. A flicker of flame in his chest, a heat that seemed so intrinsically tied to her, would go damp. Her fingers would shake, his eyes mirrored on her face, fathomless ocean waves.
“Mama, what’s wrong?” He would climb in her lap even if he was getting too big for that, pillowing his head against her shoulder. As if she could share in his warmth, and he could fix whatever was cracking apart inside of her.
“Oh, my sweet boy. Nothing is wrong.” She had kissed his head and held him, tender fingers running through gold-spun curls. He would never dream of receiving anything even remotely similar from his father. Grigori Rozanov would sooner peel his own skin from bone than hold him.
“Then why do you look so sad?”
And then she had gone quiet. Ilya could count the measures of her breaths, the steady thud of her heart beneath his ear. He sought it out—a reminder and comfort that she was still there with him.
“When did you get so smart?” She was smiling against the top of his head, but her voice was wet. Ilya wanted to look but her hold tightened against him, his hands curling into the layers of her dress, something going uncomfortable and thick at the base of his throat.
It had been fear, bone deep and instinctive.
She was the one who had brought him out on the ice, watching from the barrier and cheering him on. She fixed his scarf when it went crooked, she was the one who put the band aids on his knees when he fell. She tucked him in on cold nights, she read to him on days that he could not sleep. His mama was the best that she could be, a warmth that never burned. His father called it coddling, and he did not care if Ilya could hear it.
“You are ruining that boy. You are going to make him just like you.”
Ilya Rozanov loved his mama. He did not mind being like her, even if his father spat it out as if it were a curse. He had her curls and her eyes, the same map of moles that she kissed until he was giggling. She was sunlight, bright and beautiful.
He lost her barely a few months after his twelfth birthday. He saw her casket lowered into the ground, cold winds nipping at his face, and wondered if some part of him was forever stuck with her. Buried beneath the soil, lost to him now.
It was the first time that he wondered if maybe he had her sadness, too.
He had loved her, and it hadn't saved her. It wasn’t enough, not for anyone, because Ilya Rozanov never would be.
_______
Hockey becomes Ilya’s everything
He is good at it, the best at it. He’s flying on the ice, a burst of energy that he’s sure he could burn through for ages. The ache in his body is an accomplishment, the sting in his lungs feels like winning, the cheers make his head go light. His teammates clap him on the back, his coaches offer praise in between the shouting, and there are crowds of people who come to watch him play. It is a good distraction, something he can throw himself into so thoroughly that he does not have to think about anything else.
And when Ilya is playing hockey, he does not have to be in Russia. For the first time in his life, Grigori Rozanov is not a looming shadow in his peripheral, a haunting vision of disapproval. It feels breathtakingly close to freedom, even if Ilya knows that it will not last long. Even if he will always come crawling back home, there are moments where it is only him and the ice and the whistling of his breaths.
He wonders if his mama would be proud. If she would see him down in the rink and smile, if she would clap for him high up in the stands. This is not his dream in the same way that it is his father’s to excel, but maybe he could make it one for his mama. If it would make her happy.
But when he is not playing, he finds other distractions. He would not know any other way to live if he did not.
Sex and alcohol and smoking and partying. Parties in America are fun, the people are loud, even if their English is too fast for him to keep up with. But he loves the mind-numbing speed of it all anyway, a new sight or smell or experience to be had around every corner. Bodies and flashing lights and girls he does not know the name of. He drinks when he is given a glass, he kisses back when a mouth finds his lips, he dances when someone takes his wrist and drags him to the floor.
His family is a dark impression at the back of his skull, a barb that only catches in moments, sinking away for snapshots of numbness where he can blissfully think of something else.
Then Shane Hollander comes into his life, hunched shoulders and freckled cheeks in the dim light, looking at Ilya like he wanted something and had no idea how to ask for it.
Shane Hollander becomes another little piece of that everything. The biggest distraction of them all. The one he wants to fall back on the most, no matter how hard he tries to pretend that he does not.
Hollander is boring. He is stiff and straight-laced, with all his self-imposed rules and regulations that he follows without wavering. With his diet that he refuses to break and his sweet, goody-two-shoes image that is only somewhat an act. A polite Canadian boy on camera that became something of a firecracker when he was with Ilya.
He bitches at him about his smoking habit. He doesn't go out to drink with friends, he doesn't party. He doesn't talk about girls, or guys either for that matter. There are no scandals, no delicious rumors of something more salacious.
He plays well on the ice. He plays so well that Ilya doesn't really want to look away, his eyes riveted to the blades of his skates, the flush on his face from exertion. They're going to be playing against each other, and Ilya finds himself anticipating it, something that he refuses to call excitement taking root.
He has good parents who are there for every practice, every home game. Hollander and his pretty eyes and perfect family and stupid, nice Canadian boy persona. Ilya thinks about him more than he should. He shouldn’t be having any thoughts of Hollander at all, he knows that he shouldn’t, but Shane Hollander is a magnet in a crowd that draws Ilya’s gaze with no feasible effort.
And Hollander looks back, sometimes. It is the only invitation that Ilya’s fraying control needs.
Shane Hollander smiles too much when they see each other, stepping into a hotel room with eyes that shine and a flush behind those pretty freckles. Like they were more than just two bodies that found each other in the night, hidden away from a slew of prying eyes. Like he trusted Ilya, or like he was looking for something he wasn't sure he could ever give.
Hollander is dangerous. He’s going to become one of the best players in the league, right next to Ilya. They’re already pitting them against each other, a narrative in the hockey world that surely they must hate one another, neck and neck for a perceived golden star of best rookie.
Right now, Ilya isn’t thinking much about that.
Shane is warm in a hotel bed, soft beneath his hands, grinning sweetly when he thinks that Ilya can’t see him. He makes breathless, gasping sounds that have Ilya going hot all over, finding himself wanting to draw more of them out. Hollander's hands are gentle and nervous, eyes glossy from where he looks up at him, sprawled out on the sheets. Every kiss is one that Ilya doesn’t want to break, like a star bursting in his mouth. Ilya wants to see him in the daylight, wants to count the smattering of freckles that dot his nose and cheeks. Shane smells like his shampoo and cologne, and Ilya must smell like him too, now.
He pulls away, always away, his fingers finding the glinting gold of his mother’s necklace.
Shane Hollander is boring, and he is way too good for Ilya.
And yet Ilya nips at his heels like a dog starved for affection, begging for scraps from a feast that he has never tasted.
_______
After the death of his mother, Ilya had become a nightmare for his father.
He had spiraled the moment he hit his teenage years, drinking and fucking at an age far too young. He argued with Alexei more than ever, he smarted back to his father until he was left dizzy and his face stinging with an imprint of Grigori’s ring in his cheek. But that hadn’t stopped him—this tantrum, as his father had dubbed it, only ever escalated to greater heights.
Parties and bodies and late nights sneaking out. Girls that he did not know and who did not know him, rounds and rounds of shots that burned when they went down. His grades had slipped for one semester and his father had yelled himself hoarse, cuffing him so hard over the ear that it rang for days afterwards. Ilya was left crawling into the house during the wee hours of the morning so drunk that he could barely walk, choking on his own bile and waking up on the living room floor, Alexei jabbing his foot into his ribs.
And his father did not want to speak of her.
It was as if she had disappeared in the night, never to be acknowledged or thought of again. Alexei was always quiet, following their father’s lead to avoid his ire, a pale impression of a person in the wake of their mother’s death. They call it an accident.
Ilya would scream her name from the rooftops if he could. But it would not bring her back to him.
He had known his mother would not be proud of him. He couldn’t imagine the disappointment that would write itself across her face without growing breathless, seeing her blank stare on the back of his eyelids every night that he fell asleep.
He had wondered, sleepless and furious with his father, if he could have shouldered more for her. That if she would still be here if he had been braver. Stronger, a better son, someone who could take her sadness away. Wondered if he could have drawn his father’s attention from her, if he could have braced himself a little more, maybe his father would not have been so terrible to her.
He had wondered that if he had been anything else, someone that amounted to more than Ilya Rozanov, she would have stayed for him. But he couldn’t root out whatever it was that was inside of him that his father hated so badly. He could not make Alexei think of him with anything more than abject disdain. He could not save his mother.
So he had stopped trying.
He had been fifteen when he slept with Sasha. Fifteen when he first realized that there was an entirely new world for him to explore—a dangerous one that would never, ever end well. But they had shared the same secret, and they knew what kind of men their fathers were. He could not take it back, so Ilya did not waste his time pretending that he was anything other than what he was.
He had been sixteen when his father had nearly hospitalized him. Ilya had been skipping practices and sneaking his father’s personal vodka from his fridges for the sole purpose to spite him. He had been furious—Ilya can remember his face, twisted tightly with anger, eyes wide and bright. Ilya had known, at that moment, maybe his father wanted to do more than just hurt him. And then he had thrown the glass, practically screaming with rage, and it had shattered in Ilya’s face—hitting the wall in an explosion of shards, a stray piece cutting through his cheek, pricking the shell of his ear.
It had missed his eye, but it had left stitches at least two inches long through the line of his cheekbone. They had to pick small pieces of glass from his ear and neck. His father hadn’t spoken to him for a week, after that. He hadn’t apologized, hadn’t even acknowledged it, but he never did it again. It would be the closest that Ilya would ever get, the same as the mercy of being allowed in his father’s home at all.
He thinks the thing that his father hated more than he did Ilya was his inability to control him.
But even as the colossal fuck-up that his father saw him as—he was brilliant at hockey. The best that his coaches had ever seen. He thinks it is the only semi-reedamable quality that his father sees in him. But even that had not made Grigori Rozanov want to look at him.
Ilya could easily imagine it was his mother watching him in his stead. It was his redemption to her, to do something so well, to make up for whatever rotten thing that was inside of him that made him so difficult to love.
_______
Ilya stares down at his screen, thumbing over a wall of texts from Alexei. He shouldn’t even bother reading them, but he always finds himself eventually giving in. Whether it be a morbid sort of curiosity or self-flagellation—or Ilya was just plain stupid—he scrolls up and he reads through them.
It starts off almost coy, even if Ilya knows that his brother is anything but. Maybe it's a consequence of his pride, maybe it makes it easier to spit that he doesn’t need Ilya if they can both pretend—you haven't talked to me in a while. The bills are piling up, little brother. I need another round Ilya, god, I’m getting fucking tired. Your niece is starting school soon.
Alexei only ever claims his daughter’s relation to Ilya when he wants something from him. As if it pained him to acknowledge they had any shared blood at all otherwise. He wonders how many of these messages were sent during the height of withdrawals or when he was high off his ass, characters barely comprehensible enough to even read.
But the nagging never stays at just that, not when Alexei’s patience quickly begins to wear thin and his temper flares the longer Ilya does not acknowledge him. Sometimes Alexei forgoes any pretense at all, because they both know what the only thing they speak to each other is about.
And he’ll say it as nasty as he can, slurs and curses and a rapid fire torrent that floods through Ilya’s messages. Ilya, you whiny fucking bitch, I know you’re reading these. He wonders about all the things that Alexei doesn’t say, wonders how quickly I hate you could fall from his lips. Maybe Ilya can already hear it—maybe it would be easier if he could just say the same back.
And it will cycle, again and again, because it has been years and Ilya is powerless to end it. He will tell Alexei that it will be the last time he gives in, but it never is.
His thumb hovers over the texts, starting a message that he won’t ever send, backspacing and typing and backspacing again.
And then his phone buzzes in his hand, his next breath catching in the quiet of his own room.
Jane: They want us to do a commercial together in advance. Sometime before the Olympics start. My mom was just telling me about it.
Ilya clicks on the notification with the barest hint of a thought, Alexei’s bullshit catapulting itself to the back of his head. It’s not long before Hollander is typing again.
Jane: Thought maybe you’d want a heads up.
Lily: Oh, were you hoping for something after filming together?
Jane: You wish.
Jane: How’s Russia?
Ilya’s jaw tics. He thinks of Alexei’s texts sitting unanswered and festering in his inbox.
Lily: Cold. What’s the commercial for?
Jane: Some new sports drink they want us to do promotions for.
Jane: Are you staying warm?
Ilya doesn’t want to think of the bubbly, all too silly feeling that blooms to life inside of his chest.
Lily: I would be warmer if I was inside you.
Bubbles pop up on the screen before disappearing. The cycle continues for several minutes and Ilya wishes he could see the rosy blush that is surely on Hollander’s freckled cheeks, smiling crookedly to himself.
Finally, a message comes through.
Jane: Maybe. If you’re nice.
Lily: I am always nice, Hollander.
Jane: I think I’ll be the judge of that, asshole.
_______
They are spritzing Hollander with water again for the tenth time in the past hour. His shirt is clinging to his chest by now, his dark hair soaked and pushed back from his face. Ilya has been staring unabashedly and pretending as if he hasn’t every time Hollander turns to look at him. His freckled cheeks are flushed red from the sun, sweat running down the line of his throat, and Ilya’s tongue has gone a little dry in his mouth.
They’re called back together to start filming again, hands fixing the curls over Ilya’s head, dabbing away sweat and giving him another bottle to drink and pose with. They put him and Hollander back to back, shirts artfully riding up, heads knocking together. He’s half-listening to the instructions being thrown at him, spouting lines that he just almost remembers, more distracted by the heat of Hollander’s skin tauntingly close.
“Look at each other in this one,” someone calls out and Ilya turns his head, catching Hollander’s eyes.
His tongue darts out, touching the rim of the bottle, lips pursing against the nozzle. Hollander blinks hard, sniffling as he takes a far less seductive drink, much to the chagrin of the directors. Ilya hides a smile into his shoulder as they’re called off onto another break. They should likely be finishing up filming soon, and Ilya finds a shaded area closer to the surrounding buildings.
Surprisingly, Hollander follows after him. He leans against the brick wall, a tasteful distance away.
Hollander offers him a granola bar, not looking at him as Ilya takes it, a small smile to his lips. He looks down at Hollander’s chest, a steady rise and fall, pinkened skin visible through the white fabric.
“You think you are wet enough?”
Hollander makes a quiet, choking noise. He fidgets with his shirt, tugging it away from his skin just for it to cling wrap right back onto his pecs and stomach. “Shut up. It’s, um, I’m used to it. It’s for ratings, I guess.”
“Oh, is it?”
Hollander glares at him, nibbling at the edge of his own granola bar. Ilya very purposefully lets his eyes slide down Hollander’s torso, catching on the way his shirt sticks somewhere above his hip bone, his briefs visible over the waistline of his pants. Hollander has no idea how pretty he is, and Ilya is stuck between wanting to tease and trying to convince him of just how beautiful Ilya finds him. Maybe starting with his mouth and working his way down.
“Fuck off,” Hollander says weakly, rolling his eyes as he shoves his shirt down as far as it will go—which is not very far at all. “What are you doing after this?”
Ilya raises a brow, a curve to his mouth that has Hollander scoffing again.
“I didn’t mean it like that, shut up.” Hollander takes another bite, squinting at the sun as he watches the crew mill about their break. “I’m getting brunch with my mom and some of her girls. She’s pretty passionate about a new sub place that’s opened up around here, and her friends are excited to see me for the first time in a while.”
Ilya glances at Hollander’s side profile, eyes tracing the line of his nose and the pout of his lips. He feels that strange, distant twinge writhe somewhere deep inside of him—the same itch he always feels in the brief moments that Hollander talks about his parents. “A sub?”
Hollander glances at him. “Oh, uh, it’s like a sandwich. A long one?” Shane makes a vague gesture with his hand that has Ilya laughing, head tilting back against the wall.
“Have fun with your long sandwich, Hollander.” The crew are trying to get their attention again, calling for one last round of filming. “I think I will find club. Big one with lots and lots of alcohol.”
Ilya winks back at him and Hollander huffs, the barest hint of a smile on his face.
_______
Shane Hollander is too forgiving.
Ilya barks and bites and goes too quiet—pushes and pulls and self-sabotages, a hissing in his ear that says this is it, Hollander is going to get tired of you. This is the last time, and you are going to deserve that. He can see Hollander’s eyes wide in that bathroom in Vegas, shining wetly, bottom lip trembling with anger.
But then it never really is the end, because Hollander always comes back. Soft and pliant, the height of his anger sliding into desire and then something—aching. A tenderness that Ilya likes to pretend that he doesn’t see, a bruise that Ilya pretends is not reflected on himself.
Shane does not leave, even when he should. Coming back with a concerned text or a worried look, a hiss that is marked by Ilya’s facade of indifference, but a hand still extended that Ilya never takes. But he can see it all the same, even if it is never said, a silence between them that can never be broken. They can’t speak it aloud, something already so fragile, thread-thin. It is only physicality that keeps them coming back to each other, and that is easy, always easier.
But Ilya sits in his penthouse bed, cold with a biting numbness, cigarette burning down to the tips of his fingers. And he is alone, because he had told Shane to leave, and he only sits and stares at the far wall in the ensuing silence.
He has missed calls from both his father and Alexei, buzzing and left unanswered on his bedside. He doesn’t even bother looking, stubbing out his cigarette when his skin begins to sting, irritated red. He’s still a little breathless, a little achy, and he can smell Shane in his sheets.
He wants to ask him to come back, more than anything, but he knows that it’s a terrible idea. Everything about this night has been one huge fucking mistake after another, from finding Shane in the bathroom to inviting him back to his penthouse. He had been desperate, spiraling, and he had wanted to push boundaries to the point of breaking. He wanted Hollander just as badly as he knew that he should push him away, pulling a rubber band close to snapping. But Shane never broke, even when the pressure seemed like it might become too much.
He was getting too close—the texting and teasing and banter that came so easily to them. Strangers that were familiar with every dip in the other’s body, every breathy sigh and soft sound of pleasure. Shane should have walked out of that bathroom and never turned back, severing the mess that had tangled itself between them.
Selfishly, Ilya knows that he is nauseatingly grateful that Shane had stayed.
Because the loneliness is worse, a sudden and stark cold that makes his ribs go tight, a thundering thump coming to life in his chest. Shane had been good, so good, even after Ilya had treated him like shit. Obedient and soft and searching for approval that Ilya would be stupid not to give him, awestruck praise so easily finding itself on the tip of his tongue. And he didn’t deserve it—Shane’s trust and his pleading eyes and the tears that clung to his lashes and refused to fall—but Ilya still allowed himself to take.
He should have apologized. He should have told Shane that he had thought of him every single day for those six months that he hadn’t even said a word. That he had sat there, thumbing over his contact for hours and never texting, because he was a coward. And like a coward, he did not say sorry.
He wants to kiss Shane Hollander back down into the mattress. Wants to have him sweet and warm and pliant, so warm that it was overwhelming. He wants him to stay until the first few rays of sunlight hit his face, slack in sleep, with Ilya's arms around him.
He screwed Shane and kicked him out of his penthouse instead. And Shane went, not even an argument given towards the contrary, hair still mussed and a hickey blooming beneath his collarbone. He had left him to get dressed on his own, and hadn't even looked at him to say goodbye.
Ilya rubs at his eyes until he sees stars, stiff against the headboard and nauseous, the cigarette smoke suddenly stifling rather than comforting.
He was going to hurt Shane Hollander one day. Likely, he already has, teary-eyed and angry and so frustrated that Ilya thought he would leave for good. But it could only get worse—Ilya only ever got worse.
This was supposed to be simple, and Ilya told himself that same platitude again and again until he was dizzy, but it couldn’t seem to stick. Hollander was a fun time, a good distraction, the prettiest fuck he’s ever had—but nothing more than that. It felt emptier every time he tried to convince himself of it, a childish tantrum that he was throwing against the inevitable, a denial that he knew better than to believe.
Shane is gone, and it is Ilya’s doing, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip.
They hadn’t even kissed. Ilya had been afraid that if they did, he would have begged him to stay.
_______
Svetlana knows something. Or, at least, she suspects.
Ilya likes to pretend that he’s surprised, but she likely knows him more than any other person in this world. She knows what makes him tic, more familiar with his inner workings than he’d even like her to be. Of course she has had her suspicions over the years.
And once she has sniffed something out, she never forgets the scent.
Ilya is ripping his coat off once they make it back to his place, just on the right side of a little too tipsy. Svetlana is watching him wrestle with the sleeves in irritation, her lips pursed and glossy.
A few years ago he wouldn’t have hesitated to kiss her. He would have probably found someone to take home from a nice club—someone pretty and easy to get lost in, until all of Ilya’s pesky thoughts slipped straight out of his head.
But, right now, all he is thinking about is Shane fucking Hollander.
Hollander and how much he’d rather be kissing him right now, tangled in the sheets and warm enough that the heat clung to him for days. He thinks of Hollander’s softening eyes, plush lips and the flex and pull of his abdomen beneath Ilya’s fingers. Shane’s voice going low and breathy, pliant and arching up against him.
He tugs out his phone and clicks on the contact for Jane. There’s nothing new, he had known there wouldn’t be, but he stares down at the screen as if he expects a different outcome each time.
“How is Jane?” Svetlana asks, her tone mild but curious, as if she can see something incriminating written across every inch of Ilya’s face. He pointedly looks away from her.
“What about her?” He puts his phone away and itches for a cigarette, taking the end between his teeth. He can hear Shane’s voice in his head chastising him already.
“Did you two have a fight?”
Yes. No. Maybe. They’ve been off and on since Vegas, varying degrees of charged messages sent back and forth over the course of a few months, a pendulum between irritated and amicable.
Shane is still a little pissed off about being ghosted. And Ilya feels like an asshole, because he knows he has been waspish and off-putting since even before the Sochi Olympics.
And of course Svetlana has noticed.
He looks back at her, her dark eyes expectant, waiting for him to respond.
Ilya turns away with a shrug, fiddling with his lighter. He’s supposed to be quitting and he is—sort of. “It’s nothing. Nothing happened.” He trails off towards his living room, distinctly aware of Svetlana’s proximity as she follows him.
He can hear the jostle of her jewelry, her fingers deftly pulling her hair down from an artful bun, curls spilling over the expanse of her shoulders. She’s beautiful, eyes glistening in the lamplight, her dress hugging the curve of her waist as she sinks down onto the couch beside him. It would be easier if he was in love with her. So much simpler, except—
“You didn’t bring anyone home.”
“What does that matter?”
She looks as if she wants to roll her eyes, brows twitching as she gives him a very patient look. “What is she like, then? This Jane? I’ve never seen someone keep your attention for so long.”
“You’ve kept my attention,” he says, because it’s easier to swallow than the idea of telling Svetlana about Shane.
Even if maybe she would understand, maybe she would listen without judgment. If anyone could see to the heart of him and only raise a brow, it would be her. But he thinks it might just kill him before it ever makes its way from his lips. Vulnerability is a weapon that he puts into the hands of others, and Ilya did not think himself capable of surviving the inevitable knife in his gut.
“That’s different,” She does roll her eyes this time, amused but fond. “Tell me about her.”
He chews on the inside of his cheek, his head reclined against the couch cushions. He exhales a plume of smoke, watching it dissipate in the air above him. Maybe he’s had a little too much to drink, maybe he’s just lonely—but he pauses. He thinks about Shane’s dark eyes shining in fluorescent lights, his mouth trembling and the way he let Ilya kiss him until the anger melted out of him. Hollander’s shaky hands, soft gasps and ragged breaths, fingers fisted tightly in his curls.
He thinks about the kiss they didn’t share in that Vegas hotel room. He thinks of the way Shane had left, a kicked puppy with its tail between his legs and the way Ilya had wanted to go after him.
“She has these cute freckles,” he says softly, quietly, and some part of him is shocked that he says it at all. He runs a finger over his cheek, across the bridge of his nose. “And big brown eyes. They always give her away.”
His mouth twitches, a smile that he won’t allow to take root. Svetlana is listening intently, her palm propped beneath her chin. Ilya looks away, that uncomfortable twist in his chest softening, chewing at the end of his cigarette.
“She’s boring. No alcohol, no parties. Books on a weekend night, terrible at sexting, all she drinks is Ginger Ale.” He huffs, arms crossed over his chest as he stares up at the ceiling. “But she is pretty. Very pretty.”
He wants to text Shane. He wants to shove him down onto a mattress that is maybe Shane’s bed, in Shane’s home, and maybe he would want to hold him for a little while rather than fuck him.
“She sounds good for you.”
Ilya’s eyes flicker over to her. He swallows thickly, nervously fidgeting with the material of his shirt, inhaling another long drag off his cigarette.
Shane is good. Ilya knew it the moment he saw him bundled in that coat that was a little too big for him, shivering from the cold and his skin bitten red from the wind. Ilya knew that he was undeserving the moment Shane let him kiss him in that bathroom in Vegas. The moment he let Ilya be the first man to ever have him in his bed.
Ilya did not deserve him. It was the only truth between them that Ilya had never tried to run from.
“I am not very good to her,” barely a whisper of breath, something like guilt or shame going tight and knotted behind his ribs.
Svetlana softens, a look in her eyes that makes Ilya feel flayed open and raw. She reaches out, pushing stray curls back from his face. Her touch is gentle, a sort of kindness that has always felt out of place in the biting cold of his home country.
“I want to meet her.” Her voice is knowing and careful and Ilya’s throat threatens to close, refusing to look at her.
“I don’t know.” He coughs, scrubbing at his face, blinking past the wave of dizziness that rocks through him. He’s had too much to drink. “Maybe. We’ll see, yeah?”
She looks strangely pitying, pressing her lips to his temple in a lingering kiss. “Alright. We’ll see.”
_______
Ilya meets with Shane at any opportunity that he can make excuses for, texting night and day during any off time that they can manage. Ilya is practically glued to his phone, waiting for the next message, so intently focused that nothing else around him even seems to matter.
Parties and drinking aren't the same anymore. Girls and sex aren't the same. The distractions he once had fallen back on all seem to pale in the face of Shane Hollander, forcing his way to the front of his mind the moment he tries to forget him.
He sits at the bar and wishes it was Shane vying for his attention, flushed beneath neon lights and a little tipsy. He lays in his bed on late nights, glaring at the empty space next to him, his rotation of eager partners dwindling when the experience only begins to leave him largely unsatisfied.
Because none of these people were Shane Hollander, and that was their fatal flaw.
They don’t talk when they inevitably find their way back to each other, not really, but they don’t need to. Sex is easier—sex is good. Shane is warm and pretty and he suffocates that freezing, lonely thing inside of him with his heat until Ilya can pretend that it is not there.
A sort of adrenaline that rushes through him after a win is matched only by Shane's lips against his own, exhaling in short, pitched gasps. They kiss until they’re both panting, breathing the same air, Ilya’s tongue in Shane’s mouth like he wanted to swallow him whole. And Shane is close, so close and perfect as he walks him backwards towards the bed—
Shane’s hand lands on Ilya’s ribs and he hisses before he can bite down around the noise, flinching back before he can stop it. Shane immediately pulls away, his eyes a little wide, soft around the edges with concern.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ilya sighs, leaning back in for a kiss. One that Shane only accepts for a moment before he is backing up, putting space between them again.
“Hollander—”
Shane is looking down at him, as if he could diagnose the problem if he stared for long enough, dark brows furrowed. Ilya would think it was adorable if he didn’t feel so itchy, a pervasive sort of discomfort that makes him want to demand Hollander to leave.
“Is it your ribs?”
Ilya steps away, looking off to the side so he doesn't have to see Shane’s face. “Is not a big deal, alright? Just a bit of bruising from old game.”
It's mostly true, because Ilya first injured himself about a week ago now, getting just a little too rough on the ice. Though what he leaves out is the fact that he had definitely made it worse over the course of their last game, aching and tender to the touch. But it was just a smattering of bruises—and a rolled ankle, a jammed wrist, and he had very nearly dislocated his shoulder.
Ilya had been checked out already, though, because he was fine.
Hollander looks entirely unconvinced, and the distance between them suddenly feels unbearable. Shane is looking away, a frown on his lips, brows furrowed. “Maybe I should leave.”
Ilya swallows thickly, a derisive huff falling from his lips so he can pretend that the thought of Shane leaving doesn’t make his heart thud harder in his chest.
“You don’t have to.” He moves closer to Shane again, an idea already forming in his head, a smirk on his mouth that always has Shane’s eyes following the curve of his lips. “Just be, ah, gentle. Yes?”
Shane’s eyes brighten even as he tries to temper his expression, Ilya’s hands finding the dip of his waist. “I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt you.”
The words are so earnest that Ilya feels a little light-headed, his thumbs tracing the jut of Shane’s hip bone. “You will not hurt me.”
Shane’s hands move up to rest on his shoulders, biting at his bottom lip, apprehensive still. Ilya is embarrassingly close to begging for it before Shane sighs.
“Can I get to see first, at least?” His voice is soft, dark brown eyes darting over Ilya’s face, that adorable furrow still deep between his brows.
Ilya takes a step back and tugs his shirt off, hoping that the wince caused by his ribs pulling is not noticeable. He puts his arms out, giving Hollander a full view of his bare torso. “See? Not so bad.”
Except Shane doesn’t seem to agree, a tight frown on his plush mouth. It is definitely not the sort of reaction Ilya wants to get to the sight of him getting shirtless.
“Hollander?”
Shane reaches out, fingers gently prodding at the mottled skin the pressure so light it almost tickles. Ilya’s breath catches, going tense beneath his touch, tender and feather-light. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Is not a big deal,” he insists, trying not to shiver against the tips of Shane’s fingers. “I can still fuck you.”
Shane makes a face that is not particularly agreeable, palms splayed over Ilya’s waist. He’s warm, the calluses on his hands a familiar pattern, thumbs tracing the swell of his hips.
“Why don’t you just… lay back? I can do a bit of the work this time.”
Ilya blinks back at him, jaw working.
“What, you want to fuck me?”
“No!” Shane’s nose scrunches and he shakes his head, his eyes darting around, flustered in that adorable way that Ilya likes to draw out of him. “Um, no, I mean—maybe sometime? But, ugh. Not really—just. Lay down.”
Ilya looks at Shane, reveling in the ruddy red that is seeping color into his entire face, before he finally takes mercy on him and sprawls out on the bed. Shane releases a breath and tugs off his shirt, likely trying to regain some amount of composure before he crawls onto the mattress, settling between Ilya’s thighs.
Ilya instinctively goes to sit up, chasing the purse of Shane’s lips, when a gentle hand plants itself right at the center of his chest.
“Let me, okay? I don’t want you to hurt yourself, either.”
Ilya huffs, muttering a petulant bossy under his breath. But he is curious, and Hollander is very pretty where he is kneeling in the gap of his legs, his hands resting over the dip of Ilya’s collarbones. One palm trails down slowly, finding the hem of Ilya’s sweatpants and carefully tugging them off. He takes Ilya’s briefs with them, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip.
Shane looks flushed and as if he were trying very hard to go slowly, that determined furrow between his brows when he’s presented with some sort of perceived challenge. Ilya bites back a smile, his heart thudding quick and hard in his chest and Shane hasn’t even touched him.
“You are overthinking it.”
“And you don’t think about anything,” Shane grumbles and any protest that Ilya might have dies when Shane’s mouth finds his lips. He sighs, holding the back of his head, keeping Shane as close as possible. He doesn’t let any of his weight lay over him, bracing both hands by Ilya’s waist, and some part of him is oddly disappointed by that.
Shane’s mouth finds his jaw, a string of kisses that follow to the curve of his throat, down to the dip of his sternum. A warm hand is on his hip, the other tentatively stroking Ilya’s cock, twisting in a way that makes his breath puff out of him. No one gets him hot quite like Shane does, buzzing beneath his skin, settling somewhere behind the crook of his ribs.
“I’m not going to break, Hollander.” Ilya’s fingers tighten at the base of his skull, buried into short dark hair.
Shane is looking down at him, bright-eyed and flushed. Ilya can see it go all the way down his chest, the way his freckles stand out, his fist stroking Ilya a little tighter.
“I know,” he murmurs and he’s looking at Ilya’s face—just looking, his eyes flickering no further down than his lips. He has a hand on Ilya’s chest, splayed over the skin, petting down the firm lines of his abdomen until the muscles go tense.
Ilya has never felt more flayed open in his life.
Shane looks away only to duck his head, kissing down Ilya’s sternum, nipping at the soft skin of his stomach and hips. They do not usually go this slow, they rarely have the time to even consider it. The thought makes Ilya swallow, twisting a bit against the sheets, as if he could out maneuver the ache that has settled deep in his chest.
And then Shane’s lips find the head of his cock and Ilya moans, fingers clenching into the muscles of his thighs, nails biting into tender flesh. His lips are soft, a tongue at the slit, and Ilya can barely move without his ribs twinging in discomfort. But it doesn’t stop him from reaching down, threading his fingers through Hollander’s short hair.
“Fuck, Hollander,” he hisses, his eyes fluttering shut as he takes more of him into his mouth. Shane makes a low, content noise that vibrates all the way up his spine.
Hollander has a firm grip on his hips that allows for minimal movement, sucking him down until Ilya bumps the back of his throat. He doesn’t even gag anymore, and the thought makes Ilya's whole body feel overheated, biting at his bottom lip to stifle the sound he wants to make. Shane’s head bobs, slow and practiced, tonguing along the length of him.
“God, you are so good.” Ilya groans, nails scraping over Shane’s nape and up over his scalp. He can feel Hollander moan around him, the warm drag of his mouth up the rigid line of his cock.
Ilya’s fingers tense in his hair, his mouth dropping open around a breathless noise. He doesn’t know how Shane manages to get him so dizzy so quickly, blood rushing south so fast that he goes light-headed. He can barely even feel the pain in his ribs, cursing into the open air, his thighs going tense. He can see the hollow of Shane’s cheeks when he looks down, flushed cherry red and freckled.
He’s already so close that he could be embarrassed, but mostly he just wants to see Shane sitting on his dick while he still can.
“Hollander,” he gasps, his grip tightening over dark strands. “Hollander, ah, stop.”
Shane immediately pulls away, his brown eyes glistening, his bottom lip already wet and puffy. Tears are clinging to the outer corners of his lash line, his hair mussed by Ilya’s fist.
“Are you—”
“Want to be inside you when I come.”
Shane blinks up at him, stuck somewhere between blindly agreeing and that incessant concern. “I don’t know—”
“You cannot be gentle while you are on top?”
Shane's face twitches in thought, nose scrunched prettily, kneeling between Ilya’s thighs and absently rubbing a thumb over his knee.
“I can be careful,” Shane eventually concedes, punctuated by a determined nod that has Ilya laughing. He shifts up and off the bed, retrieving condoms and lube from the bedside, yelping when Ilya smacks his ass in passing.
Ilya is chuckling when Shane climbs back onto the bed, looking petulant and pretty. Hollander’s cock is still mostly rigid between his legs and Ilya sucks his bottom lip under his teeth, watching as Shane slowly lubes up his own fingers.
“Don’t sit up,” Shane says when Ilya begins to shift up onto his elbows, and they both look at each other for one long moment, neither one breaking eye contact as Shane’s slick fingers find his hole.
“When did you get so bossy?” Ilya grumbles, but he obeys—for now. Unfortunately, his ribs do hurt enough to momentarily keep him in place. He watches as Shane works two fingers inside of himself, his face so red that it must be hot to the touch.
“Since you, ah, decided you wanted to be a uh—” a shuddering breath, Shane’s tip leaking already. “An idiot who thinks you can fuck me with bruised ribs.”
Ilya glares half-heartedly up at him, his cock still rock hard against his stomach, precome beading at the head. But he can’t be particularly annoyed as he watches Hollander fuck himself open, his teeth in his bottom lip, the way he can barely look at Ilya from beneath those dark lashes. His fingers are moving in slow, firm strokes—pressing deep and curling in the way Ilya knows that he likes. He's moaning, soft and trembling underneath his breath, the muscles in his thighs flexing. He can see the tense lines of Shane's abdomen, one hand reaching up to cup his own chest.
Ilya wants to reach out and touch. He always wants to touch him, suffocated so wholly by his proximity that he itches with it. He doesn’t let Shane make it to a third finger before his heel is hooking under his ass, jostling him forward.
“Come here,” he grits, Shane going unsteady on his knees with a shocked noise. “And hand me the lube.”
Shane huffs but obeys, placing the bottle in his hand and gingerly crawling over Ilya, bracing himself on arms that are already a little shaky. He can feel how hot Shane is, his thighs propped under Ilya’s own, his throat bobbing around a nervous swallow.
Ilya uncaps the bottle. “Keep going.”
“Huh?”
“Finger yourself, Hollander, come on.” He smirks up at Shane’s flushed face, his lips going thin as he presses them together.
Slowly, Hollander obeys, reaching back down to slip two fingers inside of himself. He can see every minute shift in his expression with him so close, the flutter of his lashes, the red of his ears. Shane can’t even seem to look him in the face, his eyes focused somewhere around the hollow of Ilya’s throat.
Ilya lubes up two of his own fingers, watching the tense lines around Shane’s eyes, the way his mouth falls open. And then he is reaching between their bodies, prodding at Hollander’s slick entrance, tracing the ring around the thrust of Shane’s fingers.
“Roz—” Shane gasps, his arm nearly giving out from under him when Ilya’s fingers join his own, shaking from the effort of holding himself up. There is an obscene squelch of lube, Shane’s pace faltering and his legs falling just a little further open, stretching him wider.
“Good?” Ilya murmurs and Hollander gives a frantic nod, his hand clenching desperately into a pillow next to Ilya’s head. He’s biting his lip so hard that he wonders if it hurts, eyes squeezing shut as Ilya’s fingers thrust between his own.
Ilya leans up, just enough to suck Shane’s bottom lip out from under his teeth and into his mouth, a thready gasp catching in Hollander’s throat. His eyes flicker open, wet and unfocused, darting over Ilya’s face like he wasn't sure where to look.
“Don’t stop. Let me see, Hollander.” His voice is a low coo, crooking his fingers in a way that has tears springing to Shane’s eyes.
“Fuck.” The word shakes but Hollander tries to match Ilya’s pace, pressing his fingers inside of himself, a whimper trembling out of him. “Ah, fuck, Roz.”
His brows are pinched and his arm is shaking, his thighs tensed and straining as open as they can go. Ilya can feel the hot puffs of Shane’s breaths against his face, hips rocking into the joint thrust of their fingers. Ilya is mesmerized, so hard that it hurts. He wishes he could get a picture, that he could capture the delightful red of Shane's cheeks and dewy eyes in a still image.
“Do you think you could take more than this?” Ilya looks up at him, noses brushing, Hollander’s head bowing like he can’t keep himself up.
He swallows another whimper, his fingers stuttering. “Ah, I don’t know. Mm—fuck—I don’t know—”
“You are doing very well so far,” Ilya purrs, teasing a third finger at his entrance, but he does not feel the need to push in. Just the idea seems to be enough to have Shane gasping. “We will have to see how much you can take next time, hm? I could work you open for hours.”
They do not have that sort of time, but Shane still moans, their foreheads resting together. Hollander is panting, wet and open, swallowing down around a whine that builds low in his chest. Ilya can feel his leaking cock brush against his own, Shane still desperately trying to support his own weight and failing. It makes Ilya groan, shoving his fingers as deep as he can, his lips catching on a stray tear that curves down over Shane’s chin.
“Stop,” He whispers and there is barely a moment that passes between the order and Shane’s hand stilling. His eyes slowly open again, lashes clumped, his breathing heavy and shuddering.
“Good boy.” Ilya groans, kissing the trembling line of Shane’s mouth, tasting the salty tang of tears. He licks past his lips, slack and wet, Shane murmuring content little sounds in the infinitesimal space that is between them.
“Want you to come on my cock.” He nips at Shane’s lip when they finally part, Hollander’s voice cracking around a breathless curse. His fingers slip out alongside Shane’s, his eyes going unfocused and fuzzy for one long moment.
“God, Rozanov.” He pushes himself up on trembling arms, lube dripping down the inside of his thigh.
Shane’s hand finds his cock in a loose grip, Ilya’s chest stuttering around a low moan as he slides on the condom. He holds Shane’s hips as he carefully positions himself on top of him, tentative even with the obvious need that makes his eyes go molten. Ilya tries not to think of the way that twists inside of him, achingly fond and raw.
Hollander’s head falls back the moment Ilya’s cock breaches his entrance, leaking and so warm that Ilya groans as his heat envelops him. Shane braces himself on the bed instead of Ilya’s chest, rocking gently as he gets settled, thighs flexing over Ilya’s hips.
“Okay?” Shane manages to get out, clawing at the sheets and already panting.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes, palms at the dip of Hollander’s waist, so far gone that he doesn’t care what comes out of his mouth. “Move, Hollander.”
Shane doesn’t hesitate to push himself up before he’s sinking back down, both gasping, Hollander’s back bowing into a sharp arch. His pace is slow, slower than they’ve ever been, the slick drag of his cock in and out of his entrance making Ilya feel dizzy. He can just barely see where their bodies join when he glances down, nails biting into the swell of Shane’s hips. He looks so beautiful, his lips swollen and parted around every moan and gasp, his thighs tightening with every upstroke. His face is slack and wet with tears, barely able to look at Ilya before his eyes are screwing shut again, his arms shaking beneath his weight.
"Are you close?" Ilya breathes, reaching up to tweak a nipple between a finger and thumb, Shane's whole body jerking as if he's been electrocuted.
He shakes his head but Ilya knows that he is, can see it in the scrunched lines of his face, the pitch of his voice. Ilya is close already too, feeling the way Hollander's thighs are trembling against him. Shane is working himself down onto his cock in slow circles, a sinuous roll of his hips that makes Ilya's gut feel tight, his blood going molten in his veins.
"Can you come without me even touching you?" He gasps, and he knows that it's possible, Hollander's mouth falling open around a throaty moan.
His eyes are bleary slits, tears in the seams of his lips, fingers clenching in the sheets. Ilya's hands grip at his ass, fingers finding where his cock presses into Shane's hole. Hollander whimpers, his head dropping forward with a heaving breath.
"Fuck. Fuck, Rozanov, please—" His voice catches on a whine when Ilya slips in a finger alongside his dick, stretching him just that much further.
Ilya grabs Shane's jaw in one hand, a firm grips that leaves them eye level. Shane is dangerously close to toppling over him, but Ilya finds that he does not care. His thumb hooks behind the bottom row of his teeth, awestruck by the flex of Shane's tongue, the warmth of his breath against his skin. "When did you get so greedy, Hollander?"
Hollander whimpers, his brows scrunching when Ilya fits two fingers inside of him, his arms finally giving out under him. He falls down onto his elbows, drooling around Ilya's thumb in his mouth and trying to keep himself propped up enough so not to crush him. Ilya feels like he could come just from the image of Hollander's face, tears wet on his ruddy cheeks and his lips slick with spit.
"I want you to come, Hollander." He kisses him, open-mouthed and wet and messy. "Be a good boy and come for me."
It barely takes Shane a full minute before he's spilling between them, panting into Ilya's mouth with a mewl, shaking so hard that Ilya can feel it. Hollander clenches down around him, their lips just barely pressed together, and Ilya follows behind him with a long groan.
Shane rolls over onto his side before he collapses, sweaty and satiated right next to Ilya. They're both gasping, Shane's hand curled over his stomach, nails scratching gently over the skin, his chin resting against Ilya's shoulder. He basks in the warm glow for several moments, watching Shane slowly blink back into coherency, his face soft and smushed against the bed sheets.
"Okay?" He murmurs, and Hollander nods, swallowing as Ilya watches the bob of his throat.
"Your ribs?" Shane's voice is delightfully raspy and wrecked, his lips red and puffy and kiss-bitten.
"Fine." Truthfully, they hurt enough that it smarts with the pull of every deep inhale, but it feels inconsequential after Shane's very lovely performance.
Hollander pushes himself up, his breaths soft as he leans in for a lingering kiss. Ilya closes his eyes with a contented sigh, tilting his head into the press of Shane's mouth. He could kiss Shane for hours—until his lips were numb and he was breathless, all tongues and teeth and sheer heat. He wanted to be as close as he could get, until Shane's fingertips were bruises in his skin, until his teeth left marks, until he could memorize every dip and curve of his body—
Shane pulls away, his eyes wet and soft.
"I should go," he whispers.
Ilya nods, slow and detached, cold ice water down the length of his spine.
"Okay."
"I have an early flight."
"Alright, Hollander."
Shane kisses his slack mouth one last time before awkwardly shuffling out of bed. Ilya tugs the blanket over himself and ignores the burn at the back of his throat.