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Ilya thinks the NHL is very stupid- officially bans submissives from competition in men’s league, but also is homophobic and homo-dynamic averse.
You throw a bunch of male athlete dominants and adynamics together, have them play and shower and be very hot, and you don’t expect some to hook up with each other?
Very stupid.
Ilya has his eye on fellow dom Shane Hollander from the first moment, when they're both still only seventeen, and Hollander spouts off a bunch of English Ilya only half-follows and then sticks out his hand, smile crinkling his eyes and making his freckles crease while Ilya stands there stupidly with his cigarette he can’t fucking light.
In the years to come, Ilya knows it would be better, safer, considering Russia's anti “deviant propaganda” laws to stick to picking up people outside of hockey, ideally beautiful sub women the motherland would approve of…
But Shane Hollander…
Ilya has a sense, early on, that Shane Hollander would be very very fun to play with. It’s not that Ilya has a particular thing for making other doms let him lead, exactly… Ilya would be willing, has been willing, historically, specifically for Svetlana, to take a more submissive role for an encounter…
But Hollander, for all that he is clearly a dom… Ilya has seen him in control before… has seen him out-posture other doms on the ice…
Hollander just lets Ilya.
Ilya didn’t even really notice, at first, the time after the draft, how unusually willing Hollander was to go along with Ilya’s suggestions- we sit here, you drink water, you drink more water. But he knew the other dom was checking him out, just as he was checking Hollander out, had been, anytime they were at the same events.
And when Hollander had finally allowed Ilya to come up to his room, after the commercial shoot, and Ilya had realized… had realized he was the first, the only man Hollander had ever been intimate with… let alone a male dom… the push and pull was delicious: every time Hollander obeyed all the sweeter for every time he redirected, or asserted himself, or took control back.
And Ilya was helpless about it.
Oh he told himself it was just sex, just hooking up, two doms playing out their competitive nature off the ice as well…
But any triumph he might have felt for things like making Hollander cum hands-free would be swallowed up in… in tenderness, the desire to tend, to take Hollander all bundled up in his sweatshirt sitting on the stairs, soft and vulnerable and sweet, and pet him and-
(at the time, all Ilya did was kiss him and then force himself to leave, and not look too closely at how shitty he felt later, wondering if Shane Hollander was warm enough, and comfortable enough, and if he had something nice to eat after, and if he had clean sheets, since he disliked messy ones…)
Vegas is different.
Ilya meant it to be different, after a shit time in Russia during the Olympics, and on the verge of heading back for a fucking shit summer in Russia, with a big fancy hard-won cup that still somehow wasn’t enough…
Even if he and Hollander hooked up again, Ilya had meant to keep his distance.
Hollander was pissed when Ilya showed up not-quite-late for the award, and he stormed away after, but Ilya… okay, it was completely stupid, but even if Ilya shouldn’t and even if Ilya had been the one to make it silent between them, after the last time, and even if it was Ilya who (safely! For safety! Fuck…) ran Hollander off in Sochi…
Ilya was going back to Russia. In a week.
He wanted something to take with him, something that made him feel secure and alive and in control and wanted, before he endured the frost (even in summer, Christ, he was not going to become a poet about this, he wasn’t) of home.
So he followed Hollander.
And found… well he wasn’t quite sure at first what he’d found, in that bathroom.
Hollander was pissed, reasonable, yes, was upset, concerning, but understandable…
But he let Ilya take him by the chin. He said what Ilya said to say, and he let Ilya touch him, move him, and he… he just kind of melted.
Barely any fight to him at all, for all that something burned in his eyes.
Ilya thought… he thought he knew, on reflection, what Hollander was doing. Hollander was the one who had been texting. Hollander was the angry one. Hollander wanted him. And evidently, he wanted it very badly. Badly enough to beg, to play submissive for Ilya, more than he ever had.
It was manipulative, in a way Hollander really hadn’t ever been, Ilya thought, but then again, he’d apparently made Hollander madder than he’d ever done before too, so it kind of made sense.
And Ilya was helpless to it.
So he made the deal, and left the bathroom (immediately feeling half-sick about that, in a way he did not understand), and sat through the bare minimum of that party after he won MVP, and then escaped.
Vodka. That was how he was going to get through the next hour. Vodka, and not letting himself do anything else, outside of the sex.
So Ilya was eh, a little drunk maybe, when Shane found him in his penthouse.
And if Shane Hollander was gonna let him have what he wanted on his special night, well, Ilya would take it. He wouldn’t do anything else, he wouldn’t scene. There would be no tender. Hollander would not win. Ilya knew what this was. He would not be that… vulnerable.
But. as hot as it was to have Hollander strip when he asked, and sit where he asked, and try to bargain back but ultimately get off how he said to…
(and say you. I need you. English language never sounded so good)
And as good as it always was, every time, to fuck Hollander…
It did not feel good after.
There was a bad that hung in the air, as Hollander had his (well earned) vodka, and Ilya ignored that Hollander always hated it and lit a cigarette, trying to keep himself from sinking into the pit he sometimes found…
Hollander asked more stupid questions, and Ilya couldn’t answer them (and didn’t want to answer them) so he said he had to sleep (which he did) and Hollander (so polite, Christ) took the hint.
Ilya didn’t move- not when Hollander left the bed, left the room, got dressed. Left the suite.
He sat there, smoking, feeling the yawning edge of the pit inside himself closer than normal. Teetering.
Maybe it was the vodka. American vodka was so shit, maybe Ilya had lost his tolerance for the good stuff.
It wasn’t fair. It was his night and he had Russian vodka and a penthouse suite and he’d had Shane fucking Hollander willing to let Ilya be in charge, and Ilya should be high high high-
Some time after midnight, when Ilya is still sitting there, naked, mostly sober again, in desperate need of a shower…
He gets a text from Shane.
Jane: We didn't even
What?
Ilya’s English is very much not perfect, as Hollander has frequently noticed, but he doesn’t think that’s a complete sentence. Doesn’t know what that means.
They didn’t… what, it wasn’t balanced this time? “Even”? But it usually isn’t balanced. Usually, one of them wins, and usually, when it’s sex, Hollander lets that be him…
No, Ilya’s pretty sure there’s a verb missing from that text, and he doesn’t think it’s an idiom.
So, against better judgement, he texts back:
Lily: what does that mean
But “Jane” does not respond.
After a minute, Ilya texts again.
Lily: what does it mean “we didn’t even”
Lily: You are bad at English. You have lost a verb, I think.
But still Shane does not respond, and then Ilya really starts to feel bad.
Lily: Answer me.
Lily: answer me now
Lily: answer
Lily: answer
Lily: answer
Lily: Is my special night. You must answer.
Lily: answer
Lily: answer
Something is wrong. It’s not just on Ilya’s side- Ilya getting too close, or the other thing that goes wrong for Ilya sometimes. Something is wrong with Shane.
Ilya calls.
It rings, and rings, and goes to voicemail.
Ilya calls again.
And again.
Shane answers on the fourth call.
“What.”
“What you mean ‘what.’ You text me, and then you don’t answer. You what, Hollander. What is wrong?”
There are muffled sounds, tapping, clacking, Shane checking the text thread?
“Sorry. Didn’t mean… to send that. I thought… I deleted it.”
Shane sounds bad. Tired, scratchy voice.
“What you meant to send, then?”
“... nothing. It’s fine.”
“Hollander.”
But Shane is quiet.
“Hollander. Hollander Hollander-”
“It’s fine. Like…. I said.”
“Is not fine, clearly. That is not fine voice. Tone of voice.”
Shane sighs so heavily, Ilya would ache with it if he wasn’t so tense.
“I’m just… having a bad night.”
Ilya feels the creep of the pit. That scares him too, enough to answer-
“Da, me too. But what… what is…”
Was he having a bad night before llya? Probably yes. Did Ilya make it worse? … probably yes.
“I’m…”
Ilya strains to hear.
“You are what.”
Shane sighs, almost too quiet to catch, like the phone is no longer close to him.
“I’m in drop. I think.”
In drop? What-
“But you did not dom, tonight.”
Too bold, fuck, Hollander could have gone anywhere after he left Ilya’s suite, and it’s been hours, maybe, plenty of time to go get what he actually wanted from someone else-
“... sub drop.”
Sub drop. But Shane was- that would- wasn’t he a-
“I’m a switch.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t tell anybody.”
Of course.
“Because NHL.”
“Yes.”
How… how does he scene, then? He must, if-
“When did you last scene? As submissive?”
“... tonight.”
Ilya feels cold, freezing, all the way through.
“But, no, not really, I know. Uh-” Shane coughs, like he’s sick, clears his throat, “sorry, uh, I don’t… It’s been awhile. I guess. But I’m usually… fine.”
“Give me your room number.”
“... what are you gonna do?”
What is he going to do?
“Give me. Your room number.”
Shane gives him his room number.
-
Shane knew, in the bathroom after the presentation, that it was going to be too hard.
He was too desperate for it, and he knew it, to risk doing anything with Rosanov. Rosanov who always pushed back, if he didn't push first, so Shane could never reliably get into a domspace with him.
Rosanov, who was so good at shoving Shane towards subspace.
Shane knew he was too close to the edge already, should turn Rosanov down…
But the moment Rosanov grabbed his chin, Shane’s ears started to ring and he felt himself go light light light.
He held on by the skin of his teeth, wiped his eyes when Rosanov left, got ready to put on a good show.
If he got the award, he would have to go on stage and would have to look like the composed dominant athlete everyone thought he must be all the time.
But he didn’t get the award, small mercies, so instead, he just had to sit there, and then mingle, all the time thinking-
And then, when you have been waiting all night, you’ll come back to my hotel room and maybe…
The hookup was good, mostly, they mostly always were, but Shane had to work at it the whole time, to pull himself up when he started to slip. He’d start to slide, and then catch himself, again and again, have to tell himself that his compliance was about mutual benefit, not submission.
After the sex part, came the cool-down part, which usually Shane really liked, until Rosanov would be done and pull away (never mind that Shane had maybe done that first, the first couple of times.)
Tonight, that felt even more dangerous than the sex had, in a lot of ways, and Shane tried to focus on the burn of vodka, and benign questions about summer plans, to keep himself from simply toppling sideways into the other man. He didn’t even really mind the cigarette Ilya was smoking, because after months of no texts and no contact, at least that smelled like Ilya. Made the whole thing feel familiar. (maybe he’d be able to smell it on himself, after, when it was okay to- never mind.)
Be cool be cool be cool
And then Rosanov said he wanted to sleep, and that was clearly that.
Shane kept himself together, locked down, casual, even though Ilya didn’t come out to see him out. He made it to the elevator, before it all started crashing in, waves of hot and cold down his body. He didn’t even kiss me, Shane thought, and started to text we didn’t even kiss but that wasn’t…
The fact that Shane was desperate for more, didn’t have to mean anything to Rosanov. Because they were hooking up, just two Doms playing around, testing each other’s boundaries. And nine times out of ten (try seven times, actually, or five, or less) that was so.
Shane started tapping delete, but his ears were ringing now in a bad way, and some kind of nausea had started. Great.
He put his phone in his pocket, and tried not to throw up in the elevator. He made it all the way back to his own room, thankfully, and to the bathroom, before all the vodka came back up (followed by everything else he’d managed at the stupid awards party).
He was cold, but his face was hot, and he was shaking.
Food poisoning?
He pulled off his shirt, didn't know where the tie went, and had to pause for a minute to throw up nothing. Fuck.
He flushed the toilet, tipped the lid down closed, and then took a deep breath before forcing himself up, just enough to sit. The room spun, but steadied, and Shane shoved his pants down.
He didn’t want to take off his underwear. The toilet seat was SO cold, and anyway… and anyway… Shane didn’t remember what anyway.
After a moment of shaking in the cold bathroom, he managed to get himself to his feet again, holding onto the bar of the shower door, didn’t immediately barf again.
The shower was a tub/shower combination- nice enough to have broad sides and corners, so Shane was pretty sure he’d be able to sit, instead of falling over and concussing himself. He stepped into it, wobbly wobbly, and shoved the faucet as hot as it would go.
-
After the shower stops improving things, Shane forces himself out.
He’ll drink water (if he doesn’t throw it up) and he’ll go to bed, and hopefully it’ll all be over by morning.
Or he’ll be dead, and won’t care.
He doesn’t really mean that.
He recognizes even through how shaky and fucked up and hollow he feels, that if he really does end up with something besides food poisoning, like a go-to-the-hospital thing, he doesn’t actually want to die. So on his way out of the bathroom (wrapped in not enough towels), he grabs his pants (which, bending over is almost his undoing and immediately makes him gag again).
From his pants, he pulls out his phone, screen lighting up as he touches it, and tosses it roughly in the direction of the bed.
He stumbles to the closet, and pulls out the shitty hotel robe, because he doesn’t have to open his suitcase for that and it’s dry, and pulls it on.
He’s immediately warmer, even if it feels like sandpaper on his skin, and he drops the towels and continues his stumble to the bed.
He pulls down the covers, and lets himself fall
And fall
And fall
-
His phone rings, and wakes him, and he wishes it hadn’t.
He can’t have been asleep long- he still feels like shit, and the room is still swaying gently.
But the phone rings again. And again.
He fumbles for it, answers with his eyes closed.
“What.”
And Ilya Rosanov snaps back-
“What you mean ‘what.’ You text me, and then you don’t answer. You what, Hollander. What is wrong?”
Why the fuck-
Shane clocked most of that, remembers standing in the elevator as it started down, remembers deciding not to text Ilya. Rosanov.
He doesn’t know where his glasses are, doesn’t want to sit up or turn on lights to find them, either, so he just squints as he tries to scroll up and see what the fuck he supposedly sent the guy.
Oh. well. Could be worse. He must have… must have only started to delete it, and then it got left as a draft or something. Whatever.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean” ooooh, his throat is rough, “to send that. I thought…” no, stay focused, focus, focus, “I deleted it.”
“What you meant to send, then?”
“... nothing. It’s fine.”
“Hollander.”
Rosanov sounds pretty rough too. Like maybe he also needs water. Did Shane leave himself a bottle or something on the bedside table?
“Hollander. Hollander Hollander-”
Right. Ilya. Rosanov. Phone.
“It’s fine. Like…. I said.”
“Is not fine, clearly. That is not fine voice. Tone of voice.”
Shane sighs, because he does not have the bandwidth for whatever this is. Fuck he feels so shitty.
“I’m just… having a bad night.”
And the truth of that makes him think for a moment, even as he’s fumbling for the bottle he can see, barely, in reach on the table.
“Da, me too. But what… what is…”
“I’m…”
What? Sick, but not… not sick-sick. Actually probably not food poisoning either, though he’s still a little nauseous. But it’s definitely been long enough since he ate anything, and since the vomiting, that he’d probably have diarrhea too, if it was actually food poisoning…
“You are what.”
Shane sighs again, disappointed in himself, as he puts it together, comes to the only likely conclusion.
“I’m in drop. I think.”
Fuck.
“But you did not dom, tonight.”
Fuck. Well. Rosanov was bound to figure it out now, and it wasn’t like he was bad at keeping secrets…
“... sub drop.”
“But…”
“I’m a switch.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
No shit, Rosanov.
“I don’t tell anybody.”
“Because NHL.”
“Yes.”
Shane twists the cap off the water bottle, hallelujah, and takes a small, awkward drink, from his mostly-reclined and still spinning position. His hands are unsteady, and he spills some, but his face is still hot, so he doesn’t mind.
“When did you last scene? As submissive?”
“... tonight,” Shane answers instinctively, honestly… but no, that’s not really fair. He’d tried hard not to scene, and they hadn’t really. His nausea spikes again. “But, no, not really, I know. Uh-” Shane coughs, slamming his eyes closed, trying not to be sick. Fuck. What’s he saying? “sorry, uh, I don’t… It’s been awhile. I guess. But I’m usually… fine.”
He’s fine. He’s fine.
“Give me your room number.”
Why would he do that? They’d already fucked for the night.
“... what are you gonna do?”
“Give me. Your room number.”
Shane gives him his room number. And the door code. And then scrambles for the bathroom again.
-
Ilya knocks gently, but firmly, and then lets himself in.
That’s probably a good thing, because what Ilya finds inside is Shane Hollander, white as snow, so white there’s a green-gray cast to skin, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, wedged between the toilet and the wall to stay upright.
“Hollander,” he says, fighting for composure, “Hollander, you-”
What, is he okay? Clearly not.
Clearly not, because Ilya didn’t notice his unusually-submissive-for-a-dom partner was in fact submissive at least some of the time, and Ilya had practically ordered him into a scene, given him nothing but vodka and second-hand smoke afterwards, and then kicked him out.
Fuck.
Shane squints his eyes open, head tilted back against the wall.
“Hey,” he clears his throat, “Hey Roz- Rosanov.”
Fuck. fuck fuck.
Ilya goes to him, crouches down.
“What is bad. You are sick? Do you hurt?”
Shane closes his eyes.
“Cold. Dizzy. Threw up the water. Sorry.”
Ugh, don’t apologize.
“What sorry you don’t- don’t say sorry. I am sorry for-”
Is it presumptuous to take credit for this? To assume it was, in fact, their shitty not-a-scene that left Shane like this when the hormones and endorphins crashed?
Shane hums.
“Mmm, not your-” he swallows, heavily, and Ilya looks around, grabs the little plastic wastebin in case Shane has more to throw up, “Not your fault. I knew… earlier” he swallows again, “knew I shouldn’t, hmmm, risk it.”
In the bathroom, after the award. Shane must have known by then, if he was… if it was going to be hard to… to not sub?
It had certainly been hard for Ilya to not try to fully dom Shane, and Ilya had had partners (though none he liked as well as Shane). Many. And recently. He was not… not deprived… fuck.
“What can- Can I move you? You get back in bed?”
Shane takes a deep breath, and nods, reaching an arm up for Ilya.
The moment they touch, Ilya feels it like a spark, and Shane lets out a little pain noise.
“Sorry. Is okay?” Ilya says, grasping his forearm.
“Uh-huh.” Shane manages, so Ilya pulls him up part way, steps in close, braces him against the wall. Shane grabs at Ilya with both hands, fingers digging in to steady himself. After a moment, Shane nods, still with his eyes closed, and Ilya pulls him the rest of the way upright, starts to help him towards the bedroom again.
Shane wobbles, and would have gone down, if not for the hold they have on each other, so Ilya pulls him close, only then noticing that Shane’s wet. Damp, from the waist down.
Oh no, did he piss himself? But it doesn’t smell like that… oh, his hair is damp too.
“Shane,” Ilya asks quietly, “did you take bath with your pants on?”
“Huh?” Shane asks, eyes blinking open in confusion. He looks down at himself, and wobbles. “Oh shit. That’s why I’m cold. Is that why I’m cold?”
Ilya walks him to the bed, sits him down, and starts to step back, planning on looking through Shane’s luggage for…. Really anything that’s better than wet underwear and a damp robe.
But when Ilya pulls away, Shane tips towards him with a pitiful noise.
“Hey,” Ilya says, “Shane. Hollander. I’m not- I’m just getting you dry pants, okay?”
“Okay,” Shane says, but makes no move to lean back, be safe from falling.
“Can I do that?”
“Uh-huh,” Shane says, still not moving.
Okay. new plan.
Ilya takes his own shirt off, navigating around Shane’s arms, and starts to slip the hotel robe from Shane’s shoulders, letting it fall to Shane’s waist, planning to put his own shirt on Shane, maybe his own pants, too.
That is apparently a miscalculation, though, because Shane just sort of flops forward, like a fish or something, and he’s practically sliding off the bed but-
But their chests are pressed together, and Shane slides his arms up behind Ilya and clings with more strength than he’s demonstrated up until this point.
Oh. Of course. Skin. Fuck, Ilya’s so stupid. It’s a drop. Ilya’s an idiot.
“Shane, Shane, can we take off your pants?”
“Mmmm sorry. Don’t, uh, don’t think I can get, um, into it? But if you want-”
“No. Fuck no. Just, wet, Shane. Let me take wet things off.”
“Oh. Okay.”
And Shane leans back enough that he isn’t going to fall, and lets Ilya strip him, and, upon reflection, discard his own pants.
He leaves his own underwear on, though.
“Okay, get under blankets, okay?”
Shane sighs, and mostly cooperates, and Ilya gets him to turn, even, so he’s facing the edge of the bed, and Ilya braces himself over Shane and tugs the other wastebin a little closer on the floor, just in case.
And then Ilya drags the blankets over them. Shane is still cold to the touch, and trembling occasionally, so Ilya gets up behind him like stacking spoons, pressing his chest all along Shane's back, wrapping his arms around Shane's front. As much skin contact as he can manage.
Shane sighs, finally a good sounding one, and passes out.
It takes Ilya a long time to do the same.
-
Shane wakes several times, in the night.
Once, someone is putting something cold to his lips, asking him to drink, which maybe he shouldn’t, but he does.
Another time, it’s pretzels. He thinks briefly that he needs to brush his teeth before he sleeps again, but then he’s asleep again.
Finally, he wakes, and stays awake.
He holds still, as consciousness returns, because he immediately knows he’s not alone.
He always wakes alone.
Rosanov. Ilya.
The night comes flooding back.
Rosanov. The penthouse. Jerking off for him. Getting fucked by him.
Shane getting into that elevator, and, apparently, his body freaking out like it got dommed and dropped, (even though it hadn’t. Really.)
Rosanov’s call.
Rosanov coming over.
And it’s Rosanov’s chest he is currently cuddled up to, head tucked in, breathing his smell, legs entwined.
Oh. Shane is naked. He half-remembers that he was cold and damp, and, right, okay, no, that’s how it went, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t leave Rosanov alone long enough to get into different clothes.
Oh god.
Rosanov’s breathing changes, and only then does Shane realize he’s tensed up, and Rosanov must have noticed.
Fuck, he’s a good dom, isn’t he?
Even though they’d never really played like that, never fully scened, Shane had suspected he was good- looking for boundaries, checking in, planning ahead, all the while keeping this cocky fucking attitude that said he knew he was hot shit and so did you, so obviously you were gonna give him what he wanted, right? It’s what you both wanted, right?
And it was deeply fun to push back, to tease back, to make him work a little to take that upper hand.
Only trouble was, of course, that Shane wasn’t another dom.
For years, Shane had been telling himself he was lucky that he wasn’t an outright sub or dom- to Need to do something, like that? That much, that regularly? Couldn’t be him. Hell, for a while he thought maybe the hormone tests he’d gotten as a teen were wrong- actually, he was adynamic, but, like, observant enough and like a good enough guy to be able to give a girlfriend or friend what they needed, right?
And he would tell himself this right up until he started having trouble sleeping and regulating his mood and temperature, and had to give in, and hire a professional.
He’d done it four times.
Possible, to find an outlet, a girlfriend, a one night stand, something, to let him dom a little, scratch that itch.
But if people knew he subbed…
If there were any other switches in the league, Shane sure as hell didn’t know about them, and he was certain everyone would, if anyone did.
He could not get caught subbing. Couldn’t have some press leak, or, or photo from some club…
But he didn’t need it, not that much, right?
So he saw professionals.
The first time was rookie year- that winter, he was… he was struggling. It was a lot, to make that step up, and while he was playing the best Hockey he’d ever gotten the opportunity to play, he was exhausted. And then the team doctor had made a comment- Well. Shane had finally guessed that, maybe, possibly, he was neglecting Certain Things.
Happily, in the reams of information and resources players were provided, there had been a number for a discrete, confidential service for hiring a discrete, confidential professional to dom for (or, as it turned out, sub for).
Shane didn’t love it, felt kind of uncomfortable with the woman for most of the time, even though he hardly had to do anything other than kneel, and let her talk to him.
But he had floated a little, and really did feel better afterwards, and the doc stopped saying cryptic things.
It was months before he began to feel that way again, not until the season ended (and he met Rosonov on a rooftop and-)
So he added the service to his normal annual schedule. Usually in the fall, as the season is ramping up, Shane calls that discrete little number and has himself discretely maintained. And over the years, he’s figured out how to get the most out of that- how to make himself let them take him where he needs to go, just for a little while. Just long enough.
(which makes it a lot easier for any times in the fall or winter where he and Rozanov DO have an opportunity to get together- He’s usually in pretty good shape, and able to put that part of himself in a little box and tuck it away, so that if Ilya says to get on his knees, Shane can do it because he wants to, not because he needs to.)
Only this time, after this year? After the way it was at his apartment that time, and then the way it wasn’t in Sochi, and the hard season that followed, and falling out of the playoffs, and watching fucking Boston win, and then tonight…
Ilya is watching him, Shane can feel it, so he peeks up, pulling back from his comfortable tuck, facing him.
“Thank you,” he says, figuring he owes the guy that much, even if he hadn’t asked him to come do that.
Rosanov just kind of hums, a deep noise, and doesn’t say anything right away, but he starts moving his thumb back and forth where his arm is tucked under them, rubbing at the base of Shane’s shoulder blade, and Shane doesn’t want to ask, feels bad about it, but the anxiety is only building, so he says-
“And you’re not gonna tell anyone about this, right?”
Rosanov frowns. His thumb stills.
“Hollander. Your brain was hurt last night? We already discuss this three years ago- same secret. And I am not- You think- why…?”
If Rosanov hasn’t put it together, Shane probably shouldn’t tell him, but-
“It’s not, though.” Shane looks away, “Your career would probably be okay- they’d all just say I was a sub and lying. You might even get a better-”
But Rosanov is shaking his head, disturbing the pillows.
“What, being sub makes you woman?”
Shane looks up sharply, opens his mouth in anger-
“No, Joke, I know it does not. Hollander, Russia does not care. You are man, I am man, that is enough. They would…” Ilya trails off.
Ilya takes Shane’s chin in his hand again, with the arm that is free, and tilts Shane’s face up to him. They are inches apart.
“Same secret, for me, and I would not do that to you.”
Shane closes his eyes in relief.
-
Of course Ilya wouldn’t do that to Shane, and the fact that Hollander even asked, even thought he could-
But, no, probably Ilya deserved that, and worse, for sending him into a drop last night.
But, no, he hadn’t known. Should he have?
“Hollander,” Ilya says, “I am sorry. For last night.”
Shane sighs, but squirms just a little closer. Ilya’s trapped arm feels pretty uncomfortable but he has no desire to move it.
“I don’t know why. None of it was your fault, and you didn’t have to come down here-”
“Yes. I did.”
“No, you didn’t. No one asked you to.”
Ilya wants to have the fight, to ask Hollander what the fuck the plan was- because it didn’t look so good from where he was standing-
But he also still feels kind of… untethered, himself, and he doesn’t want the moment to end like that. Doesn’t know how he does want it to end, but not in a fight. Not after…. Not after all of that.
After a moment, Hollander relaxes a little, so Ilya instead asks-
“How you feel now? Drop over?”
Hollander wiggles- moves his hands, his feet, stretches his back a little.
“I think so. Not dizzy, not cold, I feel okay, other than-” and his stomach practically interrupts his sentence, it growls so loud.
“Okay.” Ilya says, a little bit pleased that he could pull Hollander out so fast.
No, he hadn’t known that Hollander switched, and yes, he should have probably known that any encounter like they had, take clothes off, sit, touch yourself for me to watch- could be a big thing even for nondynamic or Dominant people. And yes, he was deliberately kind of an asshole after. But when he found his mistake, he fixed it, and now his sub Hollander was good, if hungry.
Ilya makes himself free his arm, god, it will never move right again, and roll over Shane, dropping to the floor.
“What-” Shane laughs, and Ilya crouches in front of the minifridge and pops the seal.
There isn’t much in there, and even less that Shane would probably find acceptable, but Ilya thought he’d seen- yep.
Two bags of peanuts, a bag of dried apricots, and club soda.
Ilya turns back to the bed knowing he’s smiling too wide, and tries to moderate his facial expression.
Shane lifts the covers in invitation, and then pauses.
“We shouldn't," he says frowning, “We’ll get crumbs-”
“Fuck. Crumbs.” Ilya says, already diving back in, careful not to bump the soda.
They eat their snacks mostly in silence, a lot like after sex usually is. Now, Ilya did feel the urge to go shower, to put an end to the encounter, get them back to the normal routine…. But at the same time, if they were going to keep seeing each other (and fuck Ilya did really want them to, even if he shouldn’t), then they were going to have to actually, painful as it was, talk about this.
Ilya didn’t want a repeat of the previous night, ever.
“You want to Scene with me? On purpose? As sub.”
Shane blinked at him with big wet brown eyes.
“What, now?”
“Yes. Your crumbs. They are very sexy.”
“Fuck you?” Shane does not sound confident about this declaration.
“Fuck you, is what I am asking.” Ilya says, “No, I mean you want to, anytime? You did not say you- you did not say. Is because you do not want me to be a dom to you?”
Shane frowns, but looks thoughtful, so Ilya doesn’t panic. He is learning, with Hollander, that sometimes he needs time to figure out stuff, especially feelings stuff.
“I told you- I didn’t say I was a switch, because I don’t tell anyone that.”
“Yes,” Ilya says, “But now I can know, you still want… do you want to be Submissive. With me.”
“I’m a switch, not a sub. I also dom.”
“Oh really? News I never heard-” Shane looks pissed, “No. I know. Very aware you can dom. You have tried on me, many times.”
Shane blushes.
“So?” Ilya prompts.
“Nothing has to change,” Shane says, “This was- I’m usually fine. It’s just been some time since- but I’m fine, I would have been fine.”
“How much is time? ‘Some time?’ “
“Fuck off, none of your business.”
“IS my business!” and Ilya says it louder than he meant to, and Shane looks ready to fight him but- “is my business if I do that to you.”
“I fucked up, alright? Is that what you want-”
“Hollander-
“No, alright, I did, I fucked up, I get that, and I tried so hard-”
Shane cuts himself off, and Ilya is- Shane is almost crying, there are tears in his eyes and-
“Hollander. I don’t care.”
Shane looks surprised, and… hurt? Maybe bad word choice.
“I don’t mean. I mean- fuck, English, fuck, You, me, simple, you don’t- I don’t want to do that to you second time, so you must say why it happened first time, so I don’t do, okay?”
Shane was glaring at him, but had stopped trying to get away, so Ilya continues.
“That happen before? Ever? Drop after we fuck?”
“No.”
“Why this time.”
Shane takes a moment, and looks away, and Ilya sees his face do something complicated.
He looks back at Ilya, and then at the ceiling.
“It’s been nine months, since I subbed, until last night.”
Nine.
Nine Months.
What the fuck was Hollander doing.
“That is… a long time.”
“It’s normal, for me.”
That cannot possibly be correct.
“You only sub once in nine month.”
“... a year.”
What.
“A. Year.”
Shane brings his arms across his chest, like he’s hugging himself.
“Once a year, in September, is enough… usually.”
“You… have hookup you only hook up one time in September?”
Shane glares some more.
“There is a private service I hire once every September, which is why no one knew I subbed. Because I am private and discrete about it..”
Ilya was reeling from this, but slowly putting together the pieces.
“This… we have not done this in June before.”
Shane doesn’t say anything.
“So this longest I have seen you without-”
“Yes.” Shane agrees, “Yes. This is the longest I’ve gone without, before we started… this. And I thought I could keep myself up, like I always do, but I couldn’t. And you didn’t know, so you didn’t know what could happen.”
Shane takes a deep breath
“So in the future, if we- we just can’t, um, can’t get together after the season ends, I think.”
“Or ,” Ilya says, because his dick moves faster than his mouth sometimes, “Or you could scene once in six month, or four.”
Shane looks at him sharply.
“New partners for that outside of-”
“Me.” Ilya clarifies, “I know, and I can be dom, so me.”
Shane stares, with his mouth open. Ilya would like to put something in it. Or kiss him.
“It would be big sacrifice,” Ilya says, trying to look bored, “Because it will make your game better in playoffs, and then maybe I have to work to get next cup-”
“You asshole!” Shane says, throwing his empty wrappers at Ilya, and then rolling over to pin Ilya, and knee him in the ribs.
“Ow, Hollander, this is bad way to treat favor-”
“Fuck! You! Oh my god you’re such an asshole.” But Shane is laughing as he says it, so Ilya thinks maybe it will be okay again.
-
The next time they get together, Ilya asks, “You want to be Submissive?”
And Shane just shoves him into the wall, so Ilya has his answer.
Time after that, Ilya offers again, and Shane says “fuck you come here”, and Ilya has an answer.
Neither time, does Shane give any indication that he had any trouble at all, not going in subspace or something, even while Ilya frequently gave instruction, and Shane frequently followed it.
The third time... Shane says yes.