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Ilya hung up on Alexei’s voicemail, trembling with fury and anxiety. He had been having such a perfect day - the best day he could remember having - and then his father's phone call had shattered it, reminding him that while he was here in America, rich and successful and free, his father was deteriorating back in Russia. All the guilt that Ilya felt for not being there, guilt that all the money he sent home could not assuage and which his asshole brother took every opportunity to play on, hit him in a wave that was all the more devastating for catching him off his guard.
The sound of the TV volume turning up slightly pulled him back into the room. Hollander. He was still there, waiting for Ilya, eating the food Ilya had made, drinking his fucking ginger ale. The thought settled Ilya's pounding pulse a little. He hadn't quite believed it when he'd managed to persuade Hollander to stay the night. He'd always wanted more of him than he could get; now, finally, he had the chance, and he wasn't going to let his family fuck it up. He couldn't do anything more for his father right now than he had done. But he could go back into that room, take Hollander in his arms, and forget. Hollander was the only thing he knew without a doubt could make him forget, forget his family, forget hockey, forget what a fucking terrible idea this madness was.
When he was with Hollander, none of that seemed to matter. Ilya had planned to ask Shane to stay with him overnight, but what he hadn't planned on was for how it would feel to fall asleep with him after sex, the warm weight of happy exhaustion pushing them both under, the satisfying fullness of the moment stretching out instead of being cut off by an “I should go.” He hadn't even thought about waking up with Hollander in his bed. The Canadian had been sound asleep, wrapped in Ilya's arms, and Ilya had taken the opportunity to stare at him the way he had always wanted to do, taking in every line and curve of that impossible face slack in sleep, tracking the path of the beautiful freckles that dusted his nose and cheekbones, finding a few more he hadn't suspected the existence of on the back of his neck. Ilya had looked, and looked, and only once caught his reflection in the bedroom mirror and flushed with embarrassment at the sappy fucking expression on his face. Then Hollander had stirred, smiling before he had opened his eyes. And Ilya, like a fucking coward, had pretended that he had been asleep.
Now Ilya shook the tension out of his shoulders, not wanting to take it back into the room with him.
Hollander was sitting forward on the edge of the couch, knees together, back straight, like a schoolboy. Ilya smiled tightly, still a little wound up, but charmed by how his rival was always on his best behaviour. Until Ilya took him apart with sex, of course. Then Hollander forgot to be the golden boy.
Ilya sat back down beside Hollander, who looked at him cautiously.
“Are you still hungry?” he asked. Hollander shook his head.
“No that was great,” he replied politely. Ilya nodded.
“Good.” He rubbed his ear, his neck, reflexively, trying to work off the last of the stress in his hands from the phone call.
“How’s your father?” Hollander enquired unexpectedly. Ilya double took.
“Ah, you speak Russian now?” he asked archly, trying not to show how discomfited he was by the thought that Hollander might have understood his conversation with his father, his message for Alexei. Hollander ducked his head and blushed.
“I know the word for father.”
Ilya felt his face split into a slow smile. Hollander was so… cute. There was no other word for it. Ilya patted him firmly on the back, then reached for the remote behind him, slumped back on the sofa. On a sudden impulse, he reached out and hooked an arm around Hollander, pulling him into his chest with a soft laugh. Hollander froze for a split second - and then the tension left his body and he flowed into Ilya’s side, settling his head on Ilya's chest like he was made to be there. Ilya's breath hitched slightly in surprise. Hollander always did surprise him with how suddenly he would surrender, that stiff facade falling away without warning. It never failed to disarm Ilya.
Relaxing into the warm, welcome weight of Hollander on his chest, Ilya fixed his eyes on the game now, idling his fingers through the other man's silky hair. When he pushed a little more firmly, following the grain of the hair from Hollander's crown to his temple, he was unexpectedly rewarded with a soft, needy murmur. Ilya shot a quick glance down, then experimentally repeated the motion - and again Hollander gave a quiet sort of mewl that did something strange in Ilya's chest. He pushed his fingers luxuriantly against Hollander's scalp, and before he could think about it pressed a soft kiss to the crown of his head. Hollander gave a whimper of pleasure.
Fuck.
Ilya felt his dick starting to stir, and as if he just knew Hollander's beautiful long fingers started to pluck tentatively at Ilya's joggers, slipping over his thigh and stroking delicately at Ilya through the fabric. Ilya cupped his whole palm possessively around Hollander's skull and squeezed; Hollander turned his head into the hold with a whine, his face ending up against Ilya's pec as Ilya's other hand of its own accord disappeared into the neck of Shane's shirt - well, actually it was Ilya's shirt, a fact which all of a sudden seemed incredibly hot. Ilya felt Shane's soft mouth opening against his skin, pressing generous, slow kisses down his chest to his stomach, following the trail of hair down to the waistband of Ilya's pants and then lower, mouthing at his growing hardness through the fabric, warm and wet and desperate.
Ilya's jaw dropped. This wasn't like Hollander at all. He was always eager for Ilya; but usually he was too shy to initiate anything beyond kissing, waiting for Ilya to take the lead, to escalate - which Ilya was more than happy to do and which Shane has seemed to find extremely hot. And when Ilya commanded him to his knees, he always went obediently, and set about sucking Ilya off with the diligent determination that was his signature in bed as well as on the ice. But now he was laying his head in Ilya's lap, his hands running across Ilya's abs hungrily as he buried his face in Ilya's crotch, rubbing his cheek against him and humming desperately as Ilya stroked his hair.
Ilya was so stunned that for a moment he didn't do anything at all, just allowed the overwhelming sensation of Hollander taking care of him to undo him. Then Shane looked up at him, and there was something in his eyes that made Ilya's heart contract sharply, something tender and pleading that Ilya had never seen there before. His hands went to Hollander's shoulders to pull him up, to get him closer, but Hollander was already moving to straddle Ilya's thighs, settling on him and then claiming his mouth in one fluid motion that left Ilya breathless.
As Hollander broke the kiss and sat back on his lap, Ilya looked up at him, feeling strangely defenceless. God he's fucking beautiful, he thought helplessly. Hollander - Shane - was looking at him like he was the only thing in the world, dark eyes soft and somehow pained as he tore off his shirt, lunged forward and captured Ilya's mouth again. The kiss was messy, deep, their chests and noses squished together, Shane pushing into Ilya as if he could never get close enough, breathing him in. Ilya responded hungrily but was still too thrown to take charge of this - whatever ‘this’ was.
Shane sat back again and reached for Ilya's cock, which was pressing obviously into him through their pants. He pulled away the waistband of Ilya's sweats and began stroking him, firm and fast, his breath quickening as if it was him getting jerked off. Ilya let out a heady moan and Shane's face crashed back into his, the Canadian seeming to drink the sound out of Ilya's mouth as he kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, urgent and panting but so soft that Ilya's own lips began to tremble. Shane had never been so soft with Ilya. Never dared, probably. And it was unravelling all Ilya's carefully crafted masks - the sexy seducer, the teasing rival, the dismissive dilettante - leaving him with nothing but his desperately aroused body in Shane's urgent hands, and the single thought that would coalesce into comprehensibility in his head - oh fuck, I love him. Oh no. Oh no. I love him. Yes, yes, yes.
How could he have been so stupid not to see it before, not to notice how far gone he was? After that terrifying moment years ago in Hollander's apartment, when Hollander had kissed Ilya's forehead so tenderly, so gratefully, and Ilya had felt the world tilt dangerously on its axis, he had done everything he could to pull himself back, to re-establish the borderline around the thing they were. He had fooled himself that Shane was just a challenge, a diversion, just a fuck. But now he was here, in Ilya's house, in Ilya's clothes, taking Ilya apart with his hands and his kisses and those fucking soft eyes and Ilya knew that he was fucked. Completely fucked. And he didn't even care. He ran his hands covetously over Hollander's glutes, the smooth skin of his flanks. Mine, mine.
Shane bit his breath and leaned back enough to work his own beautiful cock out of his pants. “Yes,” Ilya breathed encouragingly without meaning to, and was reaching for him when Shane leaned forward and pressed their dicks together, wrapping them both in one large hand. Ilya gasped at the electric sensation of their slick heads rubbing together, and the impossibly arousing sound of Shane's answering gasp told him he was feeling the exact same thing. He looked up at Shane, bewildered, fucked out, helpless. How Shane usually looked at him. Was this how it was for Shane, every time? How did he have the courage to let Ilya take him apart like this, make him nothing but need?
Their throbbing cocks ground together in a delicious, almost painful friction, then suddenly Shane held his hand palm up under Ilya's chin. On instinct, he spit into Shane's hand, and Shane wrapped his wet fingers round them both again, using the slick of Ilya's spit to smooth his way. Ilya could feel the shudder passing through them both, and had no idea if it started in his body or in Shane's. The distinction was starting to seem irrelevant.
Hollander was beginning to lose control, Ilya could see. His face was twisted in a grimace of painful pleasure, his chest was heaving and he couldn't seem to stop kissing Ilya, smearing messy kisses across his forehead, his cheekbones, his mouth, his chin, his neck. Soft whimpers broke from him with every stroke his trembling hand dragged along their dicks. Ilya could hear his own high, shaky noises of pleasure breaking loose; his hands were touching Hollander everywhere he could reach.
“Fuck, Hollander!” Ilya burst out as Hollander swiped his thumb over both their heads, mixing their slickness. Hollander tensed in his lap, pressed closer.
“You gonna come for me, Rozanov?” he breathed, and what could have sounded like a challenge came out like an entreaty. Ilya's cock twitched.
“Mmm, fucking make me,” he bit back, and then let out a deep groan as Shane squeezed them tighter, faster, threw his head back with a rasping breath. Ilya had the strangest feeling that he was going to cry; it was all too much, happening much too fast. He was falling headlong towards his orgasm, towards Hollander, towards this swollen feeling in his chest that was threatening to engulf him whole.
And then Shane was panting into his mouth, breathing so hard his lips couldn't even form kisses as he pressed them into Ilya, and suddenly Ilya didn't care; he wanted it to take him, to be gone.
“Fuuuuck, Shane!” he cried out as his orgasm rocked through him, closing his throat and blowing out his vision as he breathed a high, helpless whimper. He felt Shane coming at the same moment with a choking gasp - and then freeze.
“Ilya.”
Barely a whisper. And suddenly Ilya realised what he had said.
I said his name. Oh fuck, I said his name, his real name. And he said mine.
With difficulty, he opened his eyes, and found Hollander's - Shane's - centimetres away, pupils blown, looking fucked out and terrified and -
Oh God.
Ilya could see it shining out of Hollander, the love unguarded on his face. His heart dropped like a stone inside his chest, then burst with warmth. He arched up towards what he could see in Hollander's wide eyes. He wanted it; he wanted all of it.
“Da,” he murmured blissfully, a stupid smile stretching out the word. He ran his fingers soothingly up Shane's arms, hoping his own eyes were saying everything he was feeling as clearly as Shane's were. For a moment, it seemed that they must have. Shane let Ilya take his mouth and kissed him back with aching tenderness. It made Ilya crazy, desperate for more. But suddenly Shane was drawing away, holding back, glancing off when Ilya tried again and again to recapture his mouth. Ilya's mind and body wouldn't take it in, kept reaching after Shane as he jerked backwards.
No.
As if in slow motion, he watched Shane pull his pants back on, push back, get up, away. He felt his absence like a check against the boards, a sharp jolt that knocked the breath from his lungs.
“I… I should go. I shouldn't-”
No.
“Go?”
Ilya desperately tried to pull himself together. Shane was stuttering out some lie about a team meeting he had forgotten, pulling on his clothes, desperate to get away. But why? What had Ilya done? Could he have read this wrong? No. He knew what he had seen on Hollander's face. He knew what Hollander had seen in his eyes. And he was running.
The realisation hit Ilya slowly, in pieces, seeping into him like a cold trickle of ice water. He felt everything soft and real that Shane had just blown open inside him curl inwards. He felt his mouth turn down in pain, twisted it into a sneer.
“OK. You forgot team meeting?” He could hear the scorn dripping from his voice, and it wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to jump up from the sofa, wrap Hollander back up against his chest, kiss his stupid fucking hair and his stupid fucking soft mouth and not let him go. But his heart was hammering against his ribs, twinging as if they were made of barbed wire. He'd fucked it up. He'd really fucked it up, and it was all happening so fast he didn't know how to unfuck it again.
He could see something like panic in Shane's face as he fumbled with his -with Ilya's - t shirt, as he took refuge in the meaningless politeness he'd been schooled into his entire life.
“Thank you for the, uh, tuna melt,” he said, and Ilya made a small disbelieving noise in his nose. Fuck the fucking tuna melt! The stupidity seemed to hit Shane at the same moment and he stood straight, like he was braced to take a blow. “I'm sorry. This - I can't -” his lips moved but no further words came out.
Can't what? Ilya wanted to ask. Can't love me? I know. I can't love you either. But I do. He looked up at Shane stuttering in front of him, trying so hard to find the words, and his heart clenched with pity, with need. He held his hand out almost beseechingly.
“Hollander.” See? I can undo it. I can pretend I never called you Shane. Just please don't go.
Just that one word seemed to cause Shane almost physical pain. He winced, locked his own hands behind his back as if he was afraid of Ilya's.
“I just, I uh - I can't do this.”
Ilya's heart cracked. No. He shook his head. He kept his hand out.
“Hollander.”
He heard his voice break on the name, heard the plea in it. He didn't care. Why couldn't he get up? His legs seemed to have turned to ice, the chill creeping up to his guts. Shane's face went soft again, just for a second - then went blank.
“I- I’m sorry,” he stuttered at last, then bolted from the room. Ilya sat frozen in his seat, listening to the rustling in his bedroom as Hollander gathered his things.
Get up, get up, get up.
He tried to move, tried to open his mouth and call out even, but he couldn't.
Get up, get up, get-
The door slammed.