Chapter Text
It was a warm, beautiful, sweltering day in New York City and Shane felt like a moon caught in the planetary gravitational pull that was Ilya Rozanov.
He checked his phone every 15 seconds. No texts from Lily.
They were both here—them, and about 8 other players—for some pre-season promo, some handshaking, some meet and greets with wealthy businessmen who wanted to get all their autographs without coming to the games, and some social videos, to be filmed in bulk and put out over the season.
Shane had been half checked out through the meetings with the MHL, the handshakes, the boring lunch in the boring restaurant. He was currently trying to tap back in for filming the videos. He did care about hockey fans and he knew that when he was a fan, he liked seeing little clips of his idols talking, making jokes. Nothing made him happier than a goal or a win, but a letter from a young fan that read “Dear Mr. Shane, you’re so AWESOMMMEEEEE” came pretty close.
Well, that and…
His eyes kept darting off, hyperaware of where Ilya was in every room.
He hadn’t texted Shane last night, when they presumably slept three rooms down in the same New York hotel. He hadn’t texted Shane this morning, when they saw each other briefly over the shitty free hotel breakfast that had nothing Shane could eat but coffee. Shane was starting to think the text wasn’t coming.
He ran his thumb over his phone screen in his pocket, wanting to break first.
Now Ilya was four chairs down, both of them being powdered and adjusted in makeup chairs, three other players between them Shane couldn’t even summon the energy to care who they were. Shane could see Rozanov in the mirror. He couldn’t help cataloging every scrap of him. He was tanner than usual. Shane had overheard him say at lunch that he had flown here directly from Moscow, so probably sunned and freckled from the summer. Shane wondered if he had new spots, the way Shane had new freckles. Then he very abruptly stopped thinking about the expanse of Ilya’s skin.
He hoped it was acting, being frosty to each other. Or he didn’t. He wasn’t sure. He never heard from Rozanov over the summer and the first time they saw each other back always felt the most tentative. Would he finally stop… whatever it was that they had? Would they have finally outgrown each other, like Shane’s teenage clothes? Maybe Ilya had found someone, something real or serious that would mean this was done. Some beautiful Russian wife that would move to Boston for him. Would Shane finally have the courage to end it?
No, his inner voice answered, for sure not.
Rozanov looked more tired than rested, after his vacation. He had been late this morning, he said it was jet lag. Shane couldn’t say why, but he wasn’t convinced. Russia seemed to take something from him, and it always took a game or two for him to seem like he really had it back.
He watched with a stab of jealousy as a pretty makeup artist adjusted Rozanov’s hair, brushed his curls off his forehead. He said something quietly to her that made her erupt in giggles that made Shane’s insides turn molten. Shane scowled in the mirror, and maybe jerked away from the hands on his face.
His makeup lady, a nice older woman who reminded him of his aunt (because he god forbid he even have a shot at making Rozanov jealous the way he did to Shane effortlessly) tsked at him as she was patting the sticky makeup on to his face.
“Careful,” She said wiping off a dab of makeup of where his flinch had made her over zealous with the flesh tone, “We wouldn’t want to cover your little freckles, Mr. Hollander.”
Shane sighed as he heard tittering laugher from his fellow players.
Great, that’s a chirp I’ll hear for the next two years, he thought bitterly.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Then again. A third time. Something in him knew. He tried to wait as long as he could to check it, but he broke in less than a minute.
Lily: You look pretty again
Lily: Room number?
Shane looked up from his phone to catch Rozanov’s eyes in the mirror, the heat of finally having his attention for the first time in two days nearly overwhelming him. He wondered if Rozanov knew he was referencing their first time, the CCM shoot. He had to, right? That’s the only reason to say again. Did Rozanov think about that day the way Shane did?
Shane should at least try to pretend he didn’t want this, but he just couldn’t.
Holding eye contact with Rozanov, Shane gave the tiniest nod he possibly could, and when Ilya’s lips quirked up in a tiny smile, Shane felt the heat of it radiating from every cell in his body.
—
In the hotel room approximately four hours later, Shane was grateful that his head was being shoved into the pillows because if Ilya could see the blissed-out expression he was making Shane was pretty sure he would die from the humiliation. He was choosing not to see the smear of mascara on the pillow case that he knew came from him, didn’t want to get that particular visual mixed up in how hot this all was.
Later, when they were done and Shane was cataloging every bit of this interaction—Ilya’s smile, the way his hands curved around Shane’s waist, this, the brutal slam of his hips—Shane would cringe at how often he was having to be grateful to hide his face away so that Ilya wouldn’t notice just how much he loved his dick. But that was later and now it was—fuck.
Ilya must not have had much time this summer to get laid, the way he’s fucking me like he’s starving for it, Shane thought. Surely he couldn’t be like this with every hookup, so insistent, breathing so ragged, so gone? Shane always convinced himself it was just ego talking but sometimes he could swear he could feel Rozanov’s hand tremble from… the desire to touch him?
His fingertips were going to leave bruises on Shane’s hip if he kept it up. Shane was pretty sure he could finish thinking only about the way Ilya was breathing now, the steady stream of Russian swears he could hear behind him.
He smacked Shane’s ass, and Shane was pretty sure he was saying something about how it was bigger. It was. Shane thought about being on his hands and knees for Rozanov every fucking squat, every fucking leg day, and it was working. Shane was thankful for the concept of a hockey ass, because otherwise he didn’t really have a lot of excuses for how much attention he showed to his glutes.
Ilya pressed in deep and hauled Shane’s chest up, Shane’s back against Rozanov’s chest, Shane’s head lolled helplessly back onto Rozanov’s shoulder. Rozanov’s eyes met his and Shane wanted to squirm away, knowing full well how much his desire and desperation was written all over his expression. He might even be drooling.
Rozanov said, “Want to look at you,” the fucker, and Shane was in no position to deny him anything he wanted. Also, his accent was thicker than usual, probably from his summer in Russia, and Shane couldn’t fucking deal with how much he loved that.
His only comfort was how gone Ilya looked too, as his (fuck, huge, rough) hand made its way down Shane’s chest to his dick. Fuck, and yes, and fuck again.
It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for Shane to come. Later, when he inevitably touched himself thinking about this, he would squirm, thinking about how his dick was wet enough to not need lube, how he still came so fast it was like he was 19. But strangely this time, Ilya was also coming quickly slamming into him at exactly the same time. It was too good, the building to the moment so perfectly synched that Shane’s vision blurred white and honey-comb dizzy. He didn’t even register flopping limply forward before he came-to face down in the pillow.
“Unnnfg,” Shane said, demonstrating his famous eloquence.
Ilya huffed out a laugh, and shifted. Then stilled.
“Oh,” he said, quietly, surprised.
Shane’s heart started racing.
“What?” Shane said, speed running humiliations at what Rozanov could have seen pulling out of him, already wanting to curl into himself and die. Blood, or worse—
“Um,” Rozanov said, “It, uh, broke.”
Shane’s cheeks were hot as he whipped around, “My ass broke?”
Ilya was looking confused and puzzled but the look on his face must have deeply amused him because suddenly he was fighting a smile.
“No, Hollander, your ass is safe. The condom broke.” He gripped one of Shane’s ass cheeks to illustrate the point and Shane did feel, to his horror, the trickle of something out of him.
“Probably you will have a baby now,” Ilya said, mock-serious, “Sorry.”
“Oh,” Shane couldn’t help a little relief from filtering into his voice, “Well, I don’t have, you know, anything. Just did my season physical.”
It was probably deeply, deeply irresponsible but frankly, this seemed much more appealing to Shane than the alternative. Watching Ilya clean Shane’s—well, anything—off his dick was probably inevitable but Shane didn’t think he could take it tonight. Well, except for the come, he’d made his peace with the come. He turned and watched Ilya roll what was left of the clearly busted condom (just the ring of the base) off himself.
“Me too, last test,” Ilya said seriously, “I’ll do another in two weeks, and send the results?” He seemed distracted but Shane couldn’t imagine why. He was having a hard time imagining anything, major concerns dismissed, sinking into the warm afterglow.
“Yeah, same, sure,” Shane said. He’d be worried, later, probably. Later he would google herpes and HIV and AIDS and convince himself he was dying and also that he should really be out and speaking up for a community before he died, he was doing everything wrong, somehow. But really, they were tested by team doctors all the time, and Ilya seemed deeply committed to safe sex with him in a way that led Shane to believe he was wrapping it up with his other partners.
He could have 20 more minutes while Ilya was still here, just to be at ease, before he had a panic attack. Hadn’t he earned that?
“Um, can I…?” Ilya met his eye, looking unchartistically tentative. It sounded to Shane’s ears like ‘you still want.’
It wasn’t like Ilya didn’t still check in, but now they had been doing this for years there were fewer times that Ilya seemed to really not know if Shane would allow something. He tended to say ‘Ah, Hollander, you love this,’ now.
Shane pulled his eyebrows in, not understanding.
“It’s still in you,” Ilya laid out, plainly, with a shrug. He made a lewd little motion with his fingers that indicated he intended to get it out.
Shane covered his face in his hands to cover the shade of bright red he was sure his face was, and groaned.
“Fine,” he choked out. He wanted to sink into the mattress, never to be seen again.
Ilya pushed him to lay on his stomach again, parting his thighs. This was somehow more intimate than the fucking, with neither of them hard, no heat of passion to blame.
Ilya’s fingers were as careful as ever, but their different mission was evident. He didn’t exactly grasp around to find Shane’s prostate now, he knew where it was, so this searching probe was new. But where ever the condom was seemed to be beyond him. Normally he wasn’t trying to go deep inside with his hand and Shane couldn’t muffle a whimper as Ilyas’s knuckles pressed hard against where he was sore.
“Sorry,” Ilya said, “Dick is longer than fingers, so.”
Shane huffed a little sound, all he could manage in his mortification.
It took him a full forty-five seconds where Shane couldn’t help but feel mildly turned on by the vulnerability, the feeling, Rozanov’s fingers, the soreness.
Something is wrong with you, his brain supplied, unhelpfully.
“Ah,” Ilya said finally, and there was a wet drag inside of him that indicated he found it, tossing it unceremoniously in the hotel trash can.
Shane propped himself up on one elbow and made eye contact with him. Ilya’s chest was still flushed, his necklace standing out against the white and red. He looked down at Shane with an intensity that Shane equated with faceoffs.
“What now?” Shane asked, taken aback.
“Are you done for the night?” Ilya gestured to Shane’s whole body, and Shane flushed. Sometimes they had another round, if there was time.
There was time tonight. They hadn’t even played each other, extra energy still tingling Shane’s at the base of Shane’s spine like, yeah, we could run another couple miles. They had wrapped after a boring dinner tonight and neither of them had to fly out till evening tomorrow. Shane didn’t know what Ilya would do during the day in New York, but he had no plans past the promise of getting fucked into the mattress tonight.
But either way, they didn’t normally talk about it. How many rounds. They just let it happen, lingering longer, shower blowjobs. Shane didn’t normally have to verbally lock in to wanting more.
“I mean—no, I guess, I just need like,” Shane was still trying to calculate his refractory period when Ilya dropped to his knees at the edge of the bed, pulling Shane’s ass off the edge, Shane’s legs on his shoulders. The way he did when, before they fucked and he—oh.
Oh, he wanted to—oh, god.
“Fuck,” Shane whispered, calculations thrown out as his dick was already stiffening at the fact Ilya wanting to eat his own come out of Shane’s ass. Fuck, Rozanov was filthy, egotistical, maybe a narcissist and fucking… hot.
“Yes?” Ilya asked, and not for the first time Shane resented having to give explicit consent for the filthiest fucking shit he never even knew he wanted.
“Get on with it if you want to, Rozanov,” Shane said, knowing it wasn’t convincing. Ilya had suggested it, but now Shane needed it, and if he backed off Shane was fairly sure he would cry.
Ilya started slow, and, fuck.
How had he never thought about this before? Ilya’s fucking mouth was so warm, wet, perfect on Shane’s sore ass. It was dirty, he felt fucked open, he felt like Ilya was kissing the only part of him Ilya truly wanted.
Shane gave a broken little whimper and caught Ilya looking up at him. He leaned back on his heels and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, giving Shane that crooked smile Shane had never learned to turn down. It was almost too much, and Shane’s cheeks heated, hoping he didn’t and couldn’t come from just this.
Ilya’s hand reached up to rub his thumb across his Shane’s nipple, also sore from being rubbed raw by Ilya and Shane’s compression shirts and Shane covered his mouth to stifle his moan.
“Ah, no.” Ilya said, pulling back, “I am doing good work, Hollander, that is my reward. No hands.”
“Fuck you,” Shane said, but he dropped his hand to grip the sheets instead. He was incapable of not whimpering as Rozanov’s tongue pressed warmly against him.
He was surprised at the patience Ilya seemed to display in sex. Sometimes they were both in a rush, and there was often a time crunch, but when things could be slower, like now, Shane never felt like Ilya was in any hurry to go faster. Wasn’t rushing Shane to come. Never seemed to be more interested in his own orgasm than Shane’s. Never even said, what, my jaw hurts? Not that Shane took all that long.
Shane had a dim memory of the last time he went down on a girl, the closest thing he could imagine to what Ilya’s tongue was doing now, and how desperate he was to be done, thinking about his jaw, his knees.
Ilya moaned a little into him, vibrations reverberating inside of him, and Shane couldn’t help but believe he didn’t share the sentiment. He seemed to be in no rush at all. He gripped the meat of Shane’s hip and pulled him closer until Shane was concerned for Rozanov’s nose.
Then he wasn’t concerned about anything at all. Whatever Ilya was doing was basically fucking heaven and his body didn’t seem to give a shit it hadn’t been long enough since he last came because his dick was twitching against his stomach and he needed, fuck, he needed—
“Rozanov,” He gasped, pouting down at him and begging him not to make Shane say it.
Ilya grinned. Fucker. He always made him say it.
“Fuck me,” Shane said, half demanding and half pleading.
“Not very polite of you, Canada,” Ilya said, placing a kiss on Shane’s inner thigh.
“Please,” Shane croaked out, knowing he sounded broken.
Ilya had to shut his eyes for a sec, swallowing dryly, and Shane was taking that as a win. He could see Ilya’s hand moving against himself below the edge of the bed, probably getting himself back to peak hardness because of Shane’s impatience. Shane watched him reach for the discarded strip of condoms on the floor, and his mouth moved faster than his brain.
“Uh, maybe, don’t?” Shane said, and Ilya’s eyebrows snapped together.
“Don’t what?” He said, sitting perfectly still, like Shane maybe meant breathing or blinking or something and he was trying to comply.
“I mean, the first one broke, so it’s the same if we…” Shane trailed off. He resented Ilya’s shocked face, as if it was dirtier for Shane to ask him to fuck him without a condom than him asking Shane to eat his ass after he came inside of him.
Ilya looked like he was frozen for once. Shane very rarely had the upper hand in these situations and he resented not knowing why he did this time. This wasn’t that weird, right? So what, he was a 20 something guy asking to have sex without a condom. That was basically a comedy cliché. He propped himself up on his elbow and squinted at Ilya.
Ilya’s face was flushed, his mouth hung open, and he was staring at Shane like he wanted to eat him. He didn’t look upset. He didn’t look like he did when he lost a game. He looked…
”Oh,” Shane said, happy to finally understand, “You have a thing, huh, Rozanov?”
Ilya glared at him, “What do you mean, a thing, you have the thing. I think you said it’s purple—”
Shane rolled his eyes.
“No, you have like a, kink thing or something. For this.”
Ilya climbed on the bed, pressing his knee between Shane’s spread legs, composure regained on his face, and started kissing the shell of Shane’s ear. Shane should find that gross, but he didn’t even a little, shivering at the touch.
“Oh, you know my things now?” Ilya whispered.
“I’m just saying, you wanted to—and then when I asked you look like you damn near came right then.” Shane was saying.
”Ok, tell me my things, Hollander. See how many you can list.”
Shane rolled his eyes, but Ilya beamed at him in a way that indicated he was serious.
“Five and I’ll fuck you without the condom,” Ilya offered, smacking Shane lightly on the cheek, and Shane groaned. How was it back to him pleading, again? But then Ilya lined his dick head up to brush against Shane’s ass and Shane had to hold himself back from slamming down on it.
Shane took a deep breath.
“You liked coming inside me, you liked seeing your come in me.” Shane said, barely more than a whisper.
Ilya nodded, eyes sharp, “Okay, fine. One.”
It was hard to think under these circumstances. All his blood was other places.
“Ah, I guess…” Shane was trying to think of a way to say it, “You like that we compete, that we’re the best, I think. Mocking me in your press conferences. Trying to fuck with my game.”
Ilya snorted, “We are not the best, I am the best. You are second best. But sure, two.”
Shane glared as much as he could until Ilya leaned down to bite his nipple then he moaned, insult forgotten.
“Fuck, I really don’t know Rozanov, it’s not like you’re telling me this shit—“
Ilya grinned at him, “You can do it,” and he promptly sucked Shane’s now weeping dick into his mouth.
Shane scrubbed his hand down his face, gasping, “Tits, I think you like tits, you’re always—and the girls you’re with have—“
Ilya didn’t stop sucking to hold up three fingers, and then a thumbs up. That fucker.
That fucker with a heavenly mouth, if he kept it up Shane would come again and then he wouldn’t get to get fucked which now he was desperate for, now he couldn’t stop thinking about, wondering what it would feel like to have Ilya inside him, just Ilya, nothing else—
“Trouble,” Shane gasped, “When we first hooked up, you said, you like—“
”Boring answer,” Ilya pulled off to say.
”Fuck you!” Shane whined, “I’m trying oh fuck, fuck, Rozanov, don’t, c’mon I can’t do it I—“
He scrubbed his brain for any thoughts of what Rozanov wanted, liked, did to him but it was all so fucking hot and he was thinking about sex with his mouth on him and everything was so Rozanov, brain swimming, it was all he could do to pull the last thing from his brain, gasping, knowing he sounded more pathetic than he liked.
“You like that you ‘ruined me for other people’, you said that, you like that you’re the only one that gets to see me like this, that I want this so much,” Shane said, pleading.
Ilya stilled his relentless attack, “And it’s true?”
”Please just fuck me, Rozanov, I can’t—“
Ilya looked at him, pulling his legs apart, back to where he was, deliciously close, so close and Shane needed—
“Fuck,” Shane whispered, “You know it’s fucking true, yes, I’m fucking ruined or—fuck—whatever, Rozanov, please—“
Ilya’s eyes were blown out by the time Shane saw them, more black than blue or green. He pushed inside Shane with ease, and Shane’s moan was shameless, keening into the soreness, the stretch, the delicious pressure and the feeling of just Ilya.
It was better, fuck, it really fucking good. Ilya looked like he was holding on for dear life trying not to come immediately, and Shane squeezed his dick inside of him in a way that made Ilya let out a deep, broken moan.
“Sha- Shit, Hollander, thought you wanted this.”
”I do,” Shane whined.
“So give me a second,” he gritted out, eyes slammed shut, knuckles white.
Shane grinned smugly, pleased to see Ilya out of control for once, although any advantage was quickly lost as Ilya dragged his hips backwards and Shane saw stars.
When Ilya started in earnest, Shane couldn’t breathe.
Shane wouldn’t exactly have risked his life and career if it wasn’t phenomenal normally. But this was something else, so much, with Ilya’s face and body so close, the man so wrecked for him. Shane felt like his whole body was a nerve ending, knew immediately that he would come untouched the way he hadn’t done since the first time, couldn’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed, couldn’t think of anything but ‘yes’ and ‘Rozanov’ and ‘more.’
Ilya pounded him through his orgasm and Shane watched in reverent awe at his face as he lost his composure and let out a string of Russian words. Shane wanted more than ever to know what he said, it was so many words, and Ilya seemed so spent after.
He rolled off Shane and threw his arm over his eyes.
“Fu-u-ck, Hollander.”
Shane laughed. He felt vulnerable, layering their bad idea with this somehow even worse idea. He impulsively pushed closer, resting his head on Ilya’s chest.
Ilya embraced him easily, his breath still ragged.
“Woo,” Ilya said half heartedly, an echo of their night on the gym floor years ago.
Sensations were filtering back in and Shane felt sticky, sweaty and gross.
“I’m gonna…” Shane gestured half-heartedly to the shower.
Ilya moved his arm from his face, slung his legs off the bed. Shane almost protested as Rozanov followed him in, surely they weren’t going to be able to go another round? Plus, Shane’s thighs were a new kind of sticky he kind of wanted privacy to fix. But on the other hand, was Shane really about to tell Rozanov no, end this now when hypnotically they could have another hour or two?
No, he wasn’t.
He was surprised by how much of a routine this was. Shane started the shower water while Ilya brushed his teeth, sliding Shane one of the pre-packaged hotel toothbrushes. Shane blinked at the vision of them both in the mirror, almost able to believe they had woken up here, together, instead of the debauchery it really signified.
Ilya tested the water with his hand, adjusted it hotter.
“Demon,” Shane chirped. Ilya smirked at him, reaching his hand out to Shane in.
“So,” Ilya said, running his hands down Shane’s shoulder’s, his back. He grabbed shampoo and started washing Shane’s hair, which would have been weird if it wasn’t so nice, Ilya’s fingernails scrubbing gently against his scalp. “What are your things?”
”I don’t have things, just you know, regular,” Shane said, tilting his head back, “I mean except for…”
”My dick, yes, I got that.”
“I guess,” Shane said, feeling his cheeks heat.
”What about with girls?” Ilya asked.
Shane shrugged. He didn’t want to think about that now, not here, not when Ilya was conditioning his hair, not while the shower was warm and no one had to rush to find their underwear in a hurry.
”I don’t know, just regular.”
“Regular,” Ilya said, like he was rolling the word around in his mouth, “Hm. Shame that you have to tell all your women I gave you crabs.”
Shane elbowed him in the ribs, just a light touch, “Fuck off, you don’t have crabs.”
”You didn’t check before you asked me to fuck you raw,” Ilya said.
Shane couldn’t help shiver at the phrasing.
“I believed you when you said you were clean like 10 minutes before that. We just had physicals like two days ago. How much damage could you have possibly done in two days?”
Ilya turned him around, and Shane went, pliant. He kissed him, and it was slow and warm and wet. He tasted like toothpaste, soap. Shane didn’t realize how much he had missed kissing him, Ilya must have stopped after he went down on Shane and—
Shane shivered again, moaning into the kiss.
“Mm, no. I always wear a condom. You, on the other hand…”
“You could have said no if you didn’t want to, Rozanov,”
“Maybe I wanted to,” Ilya said, and his face looked broken open, a look on his face Shane had never seen before. He looked sweet. He rested his forehead against Shane’s and kissed him so slow it made Shane’s heart race in the whole new way.
He was going to be the first professional athlete ever to have a heart attack at 24 just from gay sex alone.
Shane found the handle of the shower, shutting it off, stumbling over himself to do it.
“We should probably…”
Ilya shrugged, grabbing a towel, turned his face away from Shane that had Shane feeling like he should apologize.
He didn’t get a chance because the scariest thing that could possibly happen to Shane, his nightmare, happened instead.
Someone knocked.
Loudly.