Chapter Text
October, 2014
Ilya loved being on the ice. He always had, from the first time he balanced, wobbly in his child-sized skates, on a rink in Moscow, as part of a preschool group activity. For many years afterward, he would swear black and blue that he still remembered that moment, and how it had felt like coming home.
He was lucky. He knew he’d been lucky his whole life; that he’d had the good fortune to find the game that he loved, that he’d had the skill and the tenacity, even at that young age, to stand out from the crowd, and qualify for further training. He’d been lucky enough to keep standing out, to earn his place at the prospect cup playing for Team Russia, to be drafted first overall to Boston. He was lucky to have been able to move to America, lucky to have signed with a good team, lucky to have won the Cup last season.
He was lucky to have met Shane Hollander, in a cold Saskatchewan parking lot.
Ilya gritted his teeth as he put on a final burst of speed. It was just practice with the team, but tomorrow they would fly to Montreal for the first game of the regular season, and Ilya wasn’t letting himself slack off. He’d rested over the off season to get ready for the gruelling eighty-two games ahead (hopefully more, because they should make it to the play-offs), but despite that he’d been having a bit of trouble shaking off the rust. He was determined to power through, though, and beat Hollander tomorrow night. That thought spurred him on and he pushed himself and his team to the limit, right up until the head coach sent them off the ice to shower and change.
‘Good hustle today, Ilya,’ Coach Reilly said, as the team filed off the ice.
‘Is always good hustle,’ Ilya replied, injecting a bit of cockiness into his voice and smirk that he wasn’t really feeling. ‘Is what you have me for, da?’
Coach grinned. ‘Couldn’t do it without you, Cap. Speaking of, I wanted to talk to you about some of the line changes…’ He pulled out his tablet and began tapping the screen to bring up the video footage.
Ilya leaned on the boards at the mouth of the tunnel, stripped off his gloves, and peered over at the screen as Reilly brought up a clip from their last game of the pre-season. Ilya hadn’t been playing in that one - as a veteran, he was used to sitting out the early games in favour of giving the rookies some ice time - and he watched with interest as Reilly pointed out an issue with the team’s positioning.
Reilly began, ‘You can see that Dubek was pinned down here-’
Something slammed into Ilya from the side. He was caught unawares and flailed as his skates went out from under him. He fell in a tangle of limbs, lying half on the ice, and half on the giant, disgustingly smelly body of his teammate, Cliff Marleau.
‘Get off me!’ Ilya snapped, pushing him away fruitlessly.
Marleau was grinning unrepentantly. ‘Sorry, Cap,’ he said. ‘Lost control of my skates, you know how it is.’
‘You should still be on kiddie’s team,’ Ilya grumbled, finally managing to free himself from Marleau, who was already rising. Theatrically, Ilya put one bare hand on the boards to steady himself, and the other flat on the ice to push himself up.
The ice was warm.
He stopped. He moved his palm across the surface of the rink, utterly confused. How was the ice warm? It wasn’t melting. It wasn’t only one patch of ice. It was just… not cold. It didn’t seem possible.
‘Hey, buddy, you okay?’ Marleau asked. His joking expression was gone, replaced with a look of concern. ‘I didn’t hit you that hard, did I?’
Ilya forced a smile. ‘Is okay,’ he said. ‘I am fine. You could not hurt me with gentle tap like that, even if you tried.’ He pushed himself up, and Marleau caught his arm and heaved him the rest of the way upright.
Coach was glaring at them both. ‘Marleau, if you hurt my star player before the season even starts, I’ll bag skate you until you drop, and then I’ll have the Zamboni drag your body out.’
Marleau winced. ‘Yup. Got it, Coach. Sorry, Roz.’
‘Is okay,’ Ilya said again, flexing his left hand cautiously. It seemed to be working normally, despite whatever weirdness he’d just experienced.
Marleau started off down the tunnel, and Ilya bent again to look at the tablet, listened to the coach talk about the difficulty that their rookie had had disengaging for a line change, and hoped like hell that nothing was actually wrong with him.
Later, in his kitchen, Ilya treated himself to a can of coke. He knew that he was supposed to watch his sugar consumption during the season, and he’d been trying to follow the team nutritionist’s plan, but today he just didn’t care. He was more tired than he had any right to be without having gotten laid the night before, and his left hand was still being weird. He passed the can of coke back and forth from one hand to the other. Right hand; normal. The can was cold, fresh from the fridge, damp with condensation. Left hand: the can of coke was at room temperature, as if it had been sitting on his kitchen counter for hours.
He took a long swallow. It was cool and refreshing on his tongue.
Curious now, he went around his house, touching things first with his left hand, and then his right. The wall was the same temperature for both hands. A pane of window glass was cold to his right but warm to his left. He ran his hand under the cold faucet - lukewarm - and then under the hot - lukewarm, with a strangely unpleasant tingling sensation - but when he put his right hand under it made him yelp and jerk away. That was good to know. He could injure himself by accident if he touched something hot and didn’t realise.
His phone chimed with a text message, startling him from his exploration, so he dried his hands and swiped across the screen to unlock the device.
Jane: Ready to lose tomorrow night?
Ilya grinned. Boston had won six of their eight pre-season games, and Montreal had won seven. Like him, Shane hadn’t been playing for most of those, so the one-game advantage - which didn’t even carry over into the regular season - wasn’t anything for him to get cocky about.
Lily: Still trying to make yourself feel better about last year?
Jane: Fuck you. You got lucky, it won’t happen again.
Lily: We can both get lucky tomorrow night.
By now, Ilya knew how Hollander’s brain worked. Ilya himself liked to win. No one got to be a top-level athlete in one of the most demanding sports in the world without being determined, driven, and utterly self-confident in their own abilities. But Hollander took competitiveness to a whole different level. Ilya knew that it had been his hockey skills that had caught Hollander’s eye, back before they met, not anything else. And even now, he sometimes found himself wondering whether Hollander would be attracted to him at all, if it weren’t for his ability to challenge and push Shane further past his limits than anyone else ever had.
But here he was, fortunate in every way, confident that even if Hollander made him wait for an answer to his texts, neither of them would ever be able to resist the siren call of the other.
Shane knew that it was a bad idea to be fucking Rozanov, but after four years of clandestine meetings, he’d just about made peace with it. When it had all started, he’d been telling himself every time they met up that that would be the last time. Now he was older and wiser, and he’d fallen into a comfortable routine. It was nice to have a steady hook-up, and even nicer that his hook-up was someone who understood the demands of hockey. He still had the occasional girlfriend, although none of them had lit him up inside like Rozanov did, and they often didn’t understand how much of his time and energy hockey took, or how important it was for him to stick to his routines. That had been the cause of at least two of his break-ups. If he were being honest, though, his main feeling had been relief every time one of his relationships had ended.
So this thing he had with Rozanov… well, it was stressful having to keep it secret, and he was deliberately not thinking too deeply about why the sex with Rozanov was so good, but it was also a bright spot in his life. It was a place of safety and comfort and understanding.
And that was why, once again, he found himself waiting for Rozanov, standing in the doorway that opened into the alley behind his apartment building. The first time they’d met like this, Rozanov had made a show of finding the dark alleyway intimidating, which Shane thought was just stupid. The apartment building had security, and the shiny cars that parked in the alley never seemed to get vandalised or stolen.
A dark cab pulled up at the mouth of the alley, and a few seconds later, a tall man got out, wearing a dark jacket and beanie. Shane could see a little reddish-blond curl of hair escaping at the back of his neck, and he smiled fondly, then schooled his face back into neutrality before Rozanov could turn and catch his expression.
Rozanov waited for the cab to drive off before he made his way over.
‘Hi,’ Shane said, as Rozanov approached at last. He could smell Rozanov’s cologne, and see the flash of gold chain around his neck. In a pavlovian reaction, Shane’s dick was already half-hard.
‘Hi,’ Rozanov echoed. From anyone else, it could have felt mocking. Shane wasn’t always the most comfortable around people, which was fine, but it was relaxing not to have to keep his media face on with Rozanov. They’d already seen the worst of each other, and Shane had let himself be more vulnerable with Rozanov than he’d ever been with anyone else. And nothing bad had come of it so far.
‘Good game tonight,’ Shane said. ‘You played well.’ He grinned. ‘Just not quite well enough.’ Montreal had won 3-2. Shane had scored two goals, while Rozanov had only gotten an assist.
Rozanov dug an elbow into Shane’s ribs as he pushed past him into the stairwell. ‘We have to save some tricks for Cup final,’ he said. ‘This way you won’t see our strategies.’
‘You don’t have any strategies,’ Shane argued, but he didn’t really mind. The victory had been sweet, but what was waiting for them was even more appealing.
The two of them made their way up the stairs to Shane’s apartment. Rozanov shed his jacket near the door, hanging it on a hook in the entryway next to Shane’s. Shane tucked his shoes neatly on the rack, and Rozanov toed his own sneakers off. Neither of them could understand the American habit of leaving their shoes on inside, and it was something that Shane appreciated about Rozanov.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Shane couldn’t keep his gaze away from Rozanov’s lips.
Then they were kissing, deep and hard, every motion of Rozanov’s mouth sending fire straight to Shane’s cock. Rozanov’s tongue was everywhere, licking into Shane’s mouth like he wanted to devour him. Shane moaned, helpless, and let Rozanov guide him backwards into his bedroom. He tugged impatiently at Rozanov’s shirt, needing more, needing to feel his skin, and Rozanov broke the kiss long enough to let Shane strip his shirt over his head. Shane’s own shirt followed moments later, and he sighed in satisfaction at Rozanov’s warm golden chest pressing against his own. He loved the brush of Rozanov’s body hair, the dark snail trail that led down into the waist of his pants, the way his nipples, a light pink that secretly made Shane think of rose petals, crinkled and lifted at Shane’s touch. He could feel Rozanov’s cock against his thigh, already hard and fighting to be free of Rozanov’s jeans.
Shane could never resist it, and he’d stopped trying. He dropped to his knees, needing, wanting, in a way that only happened here, when they were like this. He fumbled frantically with Rozanov’s button, pushed his pants down, and let his cock spring free. Rozanov’s hands were in Shane’s hair, guiding him, as he mouthed at that cock, long and heavy and gorgeous. He loved the taste of skin, the tiny drops of salt-bitter fluid seeping from the head, the way the foreskin moved as he swirled his tongue under it. He heard the gentle thunk as Rozanov let his head fall back against the wall, enjoying the way Rozanov gasped and panted under Shane’s attention. Shane knew that it was only a matter of time before Rozanov lost patience and dragged Shane up again for more kisses, and he didn’t want to miss a second of this.
But when Rozanov pulled Shane off urgently - he was close, Shane realised smugly - instead of moving them to the bed, he joined Shane on the floor. There was a rug in front of the fireplace, and he tugged Shane so that they were lying on the soft woollen mat, with Shane on top, kissing and rubbing against each other. Shane managed to push his own trousers down to his knees, then kicked them off. Rozanov reached out blindly and jerked the comforter from the bed to the floor and rolled them onto it, putting himself on top of Shane.
Shane put up a token protest - he could probably have moved Rozanov if he’d really wanted to, or at least that’s what he told himself - then relaxed. He enjoyed Rozanov’s soft kisses as he worked his way down Shane’s neck and chest. Rozanov sucked on Shane’s right nipple, then his left. The first time Rozanov had done that, Shane had found it a strange sensation, but he’d come to crave the way it pulled at something deep inside him. He could feel his cock leaking against his stomach, sandwiched between their bodies, and he wriggled, restless, wanting more.
When Rozanov let him go he almost whined in protest, but Rozanov only went as far as the bedside table, and came back a moment later with the half-empty bottle of lube, and a condom in its foil packet.
‘Ready for me, Hollander?’ he asked.
He sounded so confident, and Shane hated it, but he also needed, desperately. He nodded, reaching to pull Rozanov back down on top of him.
Rozanov let Shane bring them back together. They kissed again, and this time it was a soft kiss that did something stupid inside Shane’s chest. He pushed Rozanov away impatiently. ‘Hurry up and fuck me, then,’ he said.
Rozanov grinned in triumph, but he complied, making his way down Shane’s body and sucking his cock into his mouth. He kept a steady pressure on Shane’s cock, and then a few moments later, Shane felt Rozanov’s slick fingers at his entrance. They probed expertly, as first one, then a second, slid inside. When they’d first started, Rozanov had always added each finger slowly, letting Shane get used to the stretch before giving him another. But Shane’s body had grown to crave the intrusion and the slight discomfort of it, and now Rozanov knew that he could get away with going straight to two.
It may also have helped that Shane hadn’t been able to resist fingering himself a little in the shower when he got home after the game, hard with the anticipation of what was to come. He hadn’t let himself finish, wanting to save it for this, but it had made him needy and achy and ready.
Shane both hated and loved that Ilya’s fingers always felt better than Shane’s own, as if Rozanov had some sort of magic touch. He seemed to know exactly where to find Shane’s prostate, and how firmly to rub, and how to crook his fingers, and it never took long before Shane couldn’t think any more, consumed by the pleasure inside him, building all through his body with inexorable pressure. It was too much already, because Rozanov was still sucking his dick like a machine, while those fingers lit him up perfectly. He bucked his hips, wanting more.
But then the fingers were gone and so was the warm, wet mouth on his dick, and Shane opened his eyes and glared at Rozanov, who looked far too pleased. ‘Yes, Hollander? You want something from me?’
Shane hated how easily he melted under those clear eyes. He could never quite decide if they were green or blue; in the firelight, they sparkled hazel, like some gemstone that Shane would find the name of later. He hated how easy it was to be vulnerable. He hated himself for not being able to keep hating Ilya.
‘I want you to fuck me already,’ he said, knowing his voice was too soft, knowing that his expression wasn’t harsh enough. But it didn’t seem to matter, because he could see that Rozanov needed just as badly as Shane did, that he was transfixed looking at Shane’s face, his torso, down to his dick and his balls and his hole. Shane wondered what it looked like - he didn’t really want to top, but he could imagine having a man exposed like that in front of him - and the thought made his cock jerk. He heard Rozanov groan.
‘Yes, Hollander, I will fuck you now,’ Rozanov breathed, and Shane nodded eagerly.
He felt the blunt head of Rozanov’s cock at his hole, softer than his fingers but much, much thicker. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, bracing himself against the first burn of Rozanov pushing inside.
There was a pause, then more cold lube drizzled around his entrance. When Rozanov pushed again, the pain was gone, and it was just a delicious slide and stretch. Shane knew that Rozanov’s cock was large; Shane’s was actually slightly larger, not that it was a competition. Even so, he felt a sense of triumph every time his body yielded and allowed Rozanov to bottom out inside him. He loved the feel of Rozanov’s balls against his taint or his ass. He loved knowing that he, Shane, was the best at this, just like he was the best at hockey.
He closed his eyes again as Rozanov began to move inside him. He wanted it to last, and if he keep looking at Ilya, towering over him like a god, every defined muscle flickering in the firelight, the warm glow turning his skin so golden, contrasting with the darker constellation of his moles and glinting off the gold chain and pendant around his neck, Shane would come far, far too quickly. He gritted his teeth against the waves of pleasure, and resisted the urge to move his hips to the rhythm. Instead he reached down to grip the base of his cock, hoping to stave off his orgasm a bit longer, so he could keep enjoying the sensations cascading through him.
It wasn’t fair that sex with Rozanov was this good.
Ilya slapped Shane’s hand away and replaced it with his own, slick with lube. His hips didn’t falter as he began running his closed fist up and down Shane’s cock, tight but slow, making obscenely wet noises as the lube squished against their skin. Shane gasped, tried to push Rozanov away. ‘No, don’t, I’m too close-’
He could feel Rozanov’s smirk. ‘Yes, Hollander, come for me, let me see it,’ Rozanov urged him, and Shane heard the edge to his voice that was half pleading, half commanding, and knew that Rozanov wouldn’t last much longer either.
Then Shane came, and he was washed along on the tide of pleasure that engulfed his own body. He was only dimly aware of Rozanov’s thrusts stuttering to a stop, of his body clenching around Rozanov’s dick. He spared a thought to wish they didn’t have to use a condom, that he could feel the warm spurt of Rozanov’s cum inside him, but only a thought. They weren’t exclusive, they didn’t owe each other more than a good time, and the condom was a sensible precaution that probably didn’t actually detract from the sex for either of them. A lot of guys were adamant that condoms ruined sex, but Shane didn’t really care. He was always careful to use one with women, and it was only in times like these, with Rozanov, carried away by the sensations of fucking like this, that he felt any pang of longing.
Rozanov pulled out carefully, and Shane could hear how heavy his breathing was. It made Shane grin, satisfied. He didn’t want to know how many other people Rozanov fucked, but he was willing to be that none of them gave Shane a run for his money.
He heard the splat as Rozanov threw the used condom onto the hardwood floor.
‘Gross,’ Shane said automatically.
Rozanov gave a small laugh. ‘I will clean up, promise,’ he murmured. ‘Soon.’
Shane was going to protest, but Rozanov lay down beside him, between Shane and the fireplace, and pillowed his head on Shane’s chest. Shane ran his fingers through Ilya’s soft curls, not sure if he was trying to set them back into place, or muss them further.
‘That was amazing,’ Shane said quietly. He could feel the hard floor beneath the comforter, and he knew that his back would hate him later, but for now, he was content to lie in the glow, with Rozanov’s warm body pressed against his side, accepting the little kisses that Rozanov kept pressing against his shoulder. For a short time, Shane was happy.
The cum drying on his stomach and in his pubes brought him back to reality a few minutes later. ‘We need to get clean,’ he said, pushing Rozanov off. Rozanov moved away obligingly, stretching out and yawning. One of his hands touched the grate of the fireplace, and he yanked it back quickly.
Shane grabbed for his arm. ‘Shit, Rozanov, you’ve burned yourself!’ There was a pink mark across Rozanov’s knuckle. ‘Does it hurt? You need to run that under cold water.’
Rozanov pulled out of Shane’s grip and looked at his hand with interest. ‘Is okay, Hollander,’ he said firmly. ‘Does not even hurt yet. My arm… is numb, yes? From how we were lying. Next will be… you know, little pricks?’
Shane wasn’t sure how lying on his right side would make Rozanov’s left arm fall asleep, but maybe he’d just pinched something from being on the floor. He stood and dragged a protesting Rozanov up too. ‘If it doesn’t hurt now, it will soon,’ he said firmly. ‘Go to the bathroom and run it under the tap, and I’ll get the first aid kit. There’s some burn cream in it.’
Ilya dutifully did as he was told, running his left hand under the cold water at the bathroom sink. ‘Yes, Hollander, I know,’ he grumbled to himself under his breath. ‘Twenty minutes, running water, blah blah blah.’ He couldn’t actually tell that the water was cold on his left hand, but he’d checked with his right to make sure he wasn’t accidentally running hot water on the burn.
He’d tried to play it off to Hollander, but Ilya was fighting against the fear that was starting to churn in his stomach. He hadn’t felt the heat of the grate when his hand had hit it, and he couldn’t feel the pain of the burn, even though it was starting to blister. He could feel that the water was wet over his skin, but not the temperature of it.
Maybe he could look it up, see if anything was actually wrong, or whether it was something that would go away on its own. But his phone was in his jeans pocket back in the bedroom, and he could hear Hollander’s footsteps approaching.
‘Normal person would keep first aid kit in bathroom,’ Ilya said, trying to seem casual.
Hollander didn’t look amused. ‘I’m more likely to hurt myself in the kitchen,’ he said seriously. ‘How does it feel now?’
‘Ah… is okay. Not too bad,’ Ilya said, lifting it from the water. Hollander smacked his hand back down.
‘Twenty minutes, remember?’
Ilya pouted. ‘But twenty minutes is so long, Hollander. I will be so bored.’
‘It’s already been ten,’ Hollander said, opening the first aid kit and rummaging through. ‘Do you have any allergies?’ He pulled out a shiny white tube, still sealed in plastic, and turned it over to look at the back.
‘No, no allergies. Is that the burn cream?’
‘Yeah, it should help,’ Hollander said, setting the tube aside and digging in the pouch again. ‘There’s some dressings in here too that’ll work.’
Ilya couldn’t help the burst of fondness for his rival. Being cared for like this, even by someone who was trying to be grouchy about it, did something to the soft bit inside that he worked so hard to hide. He watched Hollander carefully lay out three different sizes of sterile pads, and some sort of medical tape.
‘Is okay, da?’ Ilya said, trying to make his voice reassuring. ‘I have had worse than this and it has not killed me. I will keep my hand in water until you tell me is okay to stop.’
‘Good,’ Shane said. He huffed and zipped the first aid kit up again. ‘You’ve got another seven minutes. I’m going to go clean up the bedroom, and when I get back, I’ll put the dressing on for you.’
Ilya listened as Hollander made the bed and scrubbed the floor. He felt a twinge of guilt - he really had meant to dispose of the condom and wipe down the mess instead of leaving it for Hollander - but he knew that Hollander would be happier to have things clean again now, than to wait until Ilya could do it.
‘Can I move now?’ Ilya asked when Hollander came back into the bathroom.
Hollander checked his watch. ‘One more minute.’
‘I need to shower,’ Ilya told him softly. ‘Maybe before you fix me up, yes?’
‘Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.’ Hollander frowned. ‘Cold shower, though, and I should come in with you, make sure you can wash one handed.’
Ilya could have argued that he was perfectly capable of washing with one hand, as any number of hockey injuries had proven over the years, but he would never miss a chance to get Hollander’s hands on him. He waited until Hollander had turned the shower on and checked the temperature, before turning the faucet off and entering the glass cubicle. It was plenty big enough for two, and Ilya spent a moment reminiscing about the blowjobs they’d exchanged there.
Unfortunately, Hollander was focussed on the task in front of him. Ilya let Hollander wash his back, then bent so he could shampoo his hair. Somehow, a bottle of Ilya’s preferred curly hair product had made it into Shane’s shower, and it made Ilya grin.
He turned so that Hollander could scrub his front, and his cock perked up hopefully again as Shane’s hands slid the washcloth down towards his groin. Hollander ignored it and did a thorough but uninteresting job of washing the sticky lube and cum from his skin and hair.
‘Okay, out,’ Hollander said when he was done, giving Ilya’s butt a light slap. Ilya grinned at him, then obeyed. There was a clean towel on the rack and he grabbed it and dried off. When he was done, he inspected the mark on his hand. It wasn’t a bad burn, but it was weird that there was no pain. He poked it a little to make sure, but stopped when he heard the shower water turn off.
Ilya went through to the bedroom and dressed. Hollander followed and put on his own sweatpants and hoodie, cosy looking clothes that made Ilya want to curl up with him. When they were both done, Hollander shooed him back through to the bathroom and made him lean against the sink so that Hollander could doctor his hand. He did a tidy job of it, his motions quick and sure, but he kept glancing up to Ilya’s face, as if trying to judge whether he was hurting him.
The fourth or fifth time, Ilya reached out his other hand and smoothed the damp hair away from Shane’s forehead. ‘You do good job, Hollander,’ he said. ‘Is not hurting me at all. Thank you.’
Hollander’s cheeks flushed, and he bent back to his task. ‘There,’ he said a moment later, as he applied a bit of tape to the dressing. ‘All done.’
Ilya looked at the white square of bandage in approval. It was tidy, and it would stay on. ‘Perfect,’ he said, flexing his hand.
‘I can give you more dressings to replace this with,’ Hollander said. ‘You should take some in case this falls off.’
Ilya grinned, and lifted Hollander’s chin with his fingers. ‘I can ask team doctor to look if it is still a problem,’ he said, and kissed Hollander gently on the lips. ‘But now I should go. Is already getting late. We have early flight, my roommate will be wondering where I am.’
Ilya did see the trainers to show them his burn the next day. It was angry and red despite Hollander’s insistence on proper first aid and careful application of burn cream. When the trainers asked if it hurt, he said yes, even though he could barely feel it at all. He made himself a promise that, in a week, if he still couldn’t feel hot or cold or pain, he’d tell the doctors and ask them about it. But it was probably just one of those weird things. Ilya was getting older and his body had been put through a lot. He’d had pinched nerves before, he’d had bruises and swellings and sore joints and the odd concussion. Most things sorted themselves out with time, and he had every reason to believe that this would be the same.
By the time the week had passed, the burn had healed to a shiny brown scar, and his hand was entirely back to normal. Ilya patted the ice in gratitude, thankful that he had been lucky again, then proceeded to forget all about it.