Work Text:
Ilia holds it together after the programme ends on the ice. He skates in a few circles, tears blossoming in his eyes, his cheeks already flushed a blotchy red. He reins it in again long enough to step off the ice, long enough to hug Rafeal, long enough to search for his dad and find no warmth waiting behind his eyes.
The smiles of mere moments ago had been replaced with the hollow shell of disappointment. Ilia feels physically ill at the gutting knowledge that he’s failed him so utterly.
The distress pops through again, unsavoury and unkind in the kiss and cry booth. His dad has no reaction to the comment, and Ilia understands that he is talking to a blank slate. There is no reason to continue speaking. He goes silent as his score is locked in, lips pressed tight, and his jaw shifting as he watches years of work collapse in on itself; his Olympic dreams plummeting to nothing before his very eyes.
He looks to his right and sees Mikhail Shaidorov leaping out of the leader's chair, hands flying to his head as he is declared the 2026 Olympic Men's Figure Skating Champion.
It should’ve been mine.
It flashes in his head, gross and ugly.
Not like that, it shouldn’t have been. He lost. Mikhail skated better. It was a fact.
He musters up his strength to go over to Mikhail and congratulate him.
Mikhail looks stunned, radiant and dazed. He’s in shock, Ilia can see, the same shock crashing through his system, turned in on itself, sharp elation more than devastation.
They embrace.
Ilia’s hand finds purchase on the back of Mikhail’s head without thinking, fingers briefly coursing through his hair as if the contact could anchor them both in the moment, maybe pull Mikhail back down and take him out.
All of a sudden, Mikhail is speaking rapidly at him in Russian, words falling over each other. There’s the beginnings of an apology, something else jumbled that Ilia can’t discern with all the sensory input. He responds in English on autopilot, cognisant of the cameras that might not hear him (although they certainly had heard him earlier). The words of his publicist echo distantly in his mind, the knowledge that he can’t speak back, only just managing to make its way to the forefront. He won’t make another mistake tonight. He can’t.
Mikhail barely seems to process the response, less fluent in English than Ilia is in Russian, and it wasn’t like Ilia had understood much of what Mikhail had said in the first place. He’s nodding and then already being pulled away by his coaches, swallowed in the excitement and celebration of being an Olympic champion. Ilia looks away and has the final glance of the Kazakh flag being draped over Mikhail’s shoulders.
He gets out of the spectator part of the arena, but the cameras follow him as the shock and the confusion and the adrenaline wear off, leaving nothing but cold dread and anxiety in their wake. Someone is telling him that NBC wants him for an interview.
He wants to scream instead.
He wants to tell them no, that he doesn’t want to speak to them.
It’s not up for debate, and he knows it.
They’d call him a sore loser.
They’d tear him to bits for that decision, too; he’d spent the whole cycle as their media darling and promotion prize piece, reaping the benefits of the brand deals that came to him through it. There’s no choice.
So, Andrea Joyce interviews him, and he can’t be as candid as he could be, but he can’t lie too much either. The free skate loops endlessly in his mind, the feeling of the ice bashing against his skin, the sight of the replay as he crashed and burned on live television. He barely knows what he’s saying, even though he tries to focus on it, too.
Something about how he was confident going in, because he knew they’d want to hear that. They wouldn’t want to hear that he walked into the skate filled with nerves and the overwhelming sense of dread.
“What were you feeling?”
The answer falls out before he can stop it.
“I blew it.”
The interview ends, and he ends up stuck in another, and another, and another. Each microphone chips at his self resolve, and every new mic changes his answers as they grow more raw, unpolished and uncomfortably real.
It’s practically midnight, he’s exhausted, humiliated, and there are cameras in his face that he just can’t get to leave.
Suddenly, it’s the last in a long sea of reporters, and they ask him about before he began the skate.
The truth falls out then, closer than he’d come to it before. That he’d thrown up his hands to begin his skate and instantly been transported to every horrific moment that had ever happened to him in life. That it was probably part of why he did so poorly. It ate him up inside before he’d even started the first element.
He’d already caved in instantly and admitted it was mental. What was the point in pretending now?
He wasn’t sure if the media would love it or hate it. If they’d praise him for being honest or tear him apart for giving excuses. It wasn’t one, or so he thought. It was an indictment of himself that he walked in there with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he couldn’t deliver. That he’d squandered it.
He managed to keep it a secret that he spent the entirety of the skate in a blur of a panic attack, vision tunnelled, heart pounding out of his chest. He doesn’t tell them that he skated around the rink relying solely on his failing muscle memory, feeling lost and nothing more than a pathetic shell pretending to be someone greater than he ever was.
He gets off the press line and heads back out into the arena, only to find that most of his stuff has already been gathered. His personal bookbag sits back, abandoned.
Across the rink, Ilia can see that Mikhail is surrounded by cameras, smiling wide and bright as he moves from one microphone to the next. At the other end, Yuma and Shota are with the Japanese press, speaking quickly and talking about their medalling experience, something that Ilia can’t understand in language, but doesn’t need a translation for.
A celebration.
That’s what tonight is for them.
Of course, the other athletes were probably sad that they didn’t place. But it was always a limited likelihood of them doing it, anyway. It was nothing like this. That wasn’t like missing a podium that was so surely supposed to be yours.
They surely weren’t being interviewed about how it felt to royally fuck up everything that had been built up for them.
They weren’t doing press runs where they had to gasp for air, hoping to just keep breathing and not break down again for it to be circulated. They aren’t being forced to remember every single one of their many, many missteps under the fluorescent lights of TV cameras. They weren’t blinking away tears, and they certainly weren’t listening to people say that they’d fucked up beyond anything that anyone could ever possibly conceive.
Just standing in the rink makes him overwhelmed again. Looking at Mikhail makes him dizzy because it’s everything that he should’ve wanted. He’d always wanted Mikhail to place. He wanted him to get second or third. He wanted to share the podium with him and with Kagiyama, but that dream that he had lived on without him to be in it.
Just like his free said, the two of them were something, but not nothing.
Not lovers. It was too formal, and they didn’t see each other enough for that. They weren’t just friends. It ran beyond that. It couldn’t be friends with benefits, even though there were enough benefits; the idea lacked too much emotion. Ilia couldn’t match it to a word, not in English and not in Russian either.
Maybe, they just were.
They spent plenty of time together, but on the night when they could’ve been together on the biggest stage of all time, Ilia imploded all alone.
Mikhail is glancing around, wide-eyed and bubbly, and he catches Ilia staring. They hold eye contact for a fraction too long, long enough for an emotional connection, short enough that the cameras don’t pan to check what Mikhail is glancing at. God forbid they caught him staring on like a jealous bitch.
It’s too much.
The nausea that was already bubbling at the surface explodes, and Ilia spins on his heel with his hand clamped over his mouth. He runs back behind the stage, and then realises that he’s so disoriented that he probably wouldn’t even be able to find a bathroom if he tried.
He can’t throw up all over the floor, either. That’s just one too many steps beyond mortifying.
He sags limply against the wall and bows his head, mouth still covered, chest heaving as he tries to breathe steadily out of his nose.
He can see the boots and shoes of people walking past, but at least he can’t see their faces. He doesn’t know what they’re saying, or if they’re paying attention, and if they can recognise the new signature hair, or the silhouette of the fallen “Quad God,” folded in half against a plaster wall as he tries not to vomit onto the Olympic carpeting.
God, if his dad saw him like this—
The thought sours in his head. His dad would kill him if he found out this was how he was acting. Good thing Ilia hadn’t seen him around since the moment he stepped out of the kiss and cry. Good thing they didn’t share a space in the village.
Ilia pushes himself upright and staggers toward the locker room to make sure there’s nothing else left. He keeps his gaze low and pretends not to notice how Junhwan watches him with an expression that isn’t pity but isn’t contentment, nor disappointment. It’s something that Ilia can’t read, and he doesn’t have the energy to think too hard about it or bridge the language barrier to confront.
He grabs the few items left that his trainers forgot and leaves without a word.
He makes it back to the village on complete autopilot, numbly entering his room and tossing his bag to the side. It was supposed to go in the chair sitting by the kitchenette. It smacks onto the legs and then falls on the floor. Ilia debates walking over to pick it up, but he can’t even be bothered to do so as he walks past it to root through the freezer instead.
There’s not much in there at all, even though he’d been staying there for the better part of the month. There’s a small pint of low-calorie vanilla gelato sitting lonely in one of the drawers. He’d saved it from when he went grocery shopping with his father, who suggested that it would be a small celebration for after the free.
Because he was supposed to win the free, not get fifteenth.
Ilia rarely lets himself indulge. Especially not close to something major, let alone the Olympics. Alcohol, sweets, junk food, all of it was a distraction from his training.
But none of that mattered anymore, did it?
What good had his restraint earned him tonight?
He plucked a spoon out of the cabinet and didn’t bother to wash it, either, even though it was probably not cleaned well by the crew, flopping down on the couch and taking out his phone instead.
He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself from opening up social media to see the complete and total fallout from his disastrous skate. It’s immediate. The interview clips are already circulating; slow-motion edits of his falls are already posted. Freeze frames of his face crumpling. People are posting their shocked and disappointed live reactions. A quick Google image search shows all his celebratory photos, even from the previous skates, completely wiped clean and pushed to the bottom under a sea of screenshots of his face in tears, his popped axel, and him sprawled across the ice.
He stares and stares, scrolling until he reaches the bottom of his feed and then refreshing again, on repeat, on any platform that he can. Which is most of them. It’s not hard to find them, and it’s certainly far more difficult to find any positive fans.
Even the fans that he had, from before this Olympic cycle, where he was strung up to be the best to ever do it…well, they all just seem disappointed, heartbroken, distressed.
He failed them, too. He let down everyone who has been online defending him over the past few weeks while his publicity grew, shooting down the people who called him cocky and overconfident and trying to breathe in some minor form of positivity into his skating career that wasn’t media-fabricated.
Who is he kidding? He let down the general audience. He let down the U.S.; he let down everyone from any other country who saw him and was rooting for him to do exactly what he promised them.
He’s failed them, his family, his friends and himself.
He doesn’t even know how much time has faded that he sits there, scrolling, unmoving.
There is a knock on his door.
His stomach lurches with nausea again. It’s most certainly his dad, likely here to lecture, or shout or console, and Ilia isn’t sure which one it would be, and which of them would be more unbearable. He doesn’t want to see his dad. He doesn’t want to see anyone at all.
For a moment, he considers not answering at all. But, if it is his father, silence will only manifest a worse mood, especially if he is in a positive one for the moment.
Right as he reaches the door, he catches sight of himself in the mirror attached to the sliding closet door. He looks like a fucking wreck. His hair is sticking out at random places from how many times he’s run his hands through it, his cheeks are still blotchy, and his eyes are all puffy.
He opens the door.
It isn’t his father.
It’s Mikhail.
Mikhail stands there with his hand still half-raised to the door, as if he’d been planning on knocking one more time before giving up. They meet at eye level.
“Fuck.” Ilia sighs. It comes out half-distressed and half hysterical, bordering on a state of bewildered amusement at how much of a joke the universe is pulling on him.
Mikhail’s hand drops, and he glances past him into the dimly lit room before looking back at him again. “I…uh, I wanted to see you.” He says, words hushed and hesitant.
“Why,” Ilia shoots back, bitterness sharp on his tongue. “Shouldn’t you be out partying?”
Mikhail’s brow creases. “Why would I be doing that?”
“Well, you’re the Olympic Gold Champion,” Ilia says, fighting not to make the words come out sneering. “You should be having fun, not coming over here.”
“It’d be fun,” Mikhail replies gently. “To see you.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Ilia mutters, swinging the door open wider. “Fine, come in. It’s a mess in here.”
He’s still talking in English, though he’s not sure why. There’s little threat of the media, no reason to keep up the glass wall he’s built around them. Maybe that’s the reason.
Mikhail steps in and pushes the door closed with a quiet click. He stops, bends over, and picks Ilia’s bag up from where it’s fallen, placing it onto the chair.
“It’s not that bad,” Mikhail says.
“You’re lying,” Ilia laughs, hollowly, “You’ve always kept your rooms cleaner than mine.”
Ilia turns around to look at him. He’s not wearing the medal. He must’ve taken it off before he came over. Still, Ilia can see it in his mind— imagine the look of the gold against Mikhail’s black shirt; how beautiful the contrast would look. He can’t stop thinking about how good he looked standing on the stage as the Kazakh anthem played.
He can’t stop thinking about how badly he wanted to be standing right beside him,
“What are you doing here, Misha?” Ilia asks, moving to the counter just to put more physical space between them.
“I told you, I wanted to see you.”
“I told you, I don’t understand why. I was a little busy throwing my own pity party before you arrived.”
“I didn’t want you to feel…alone.”
Ilia spins around to face him. Mikhail's eyebrows are drawn together, concern and confusion written plainly across his face.
“I need to feel alone.” Ilia insists. “I need to think about what I’ve done.”
“You haven’t done anything—”
“You’re right, I haven’t! I got on that ice, and I did nothing but a joke of a free skate.”
“Ilia, you’ve gotten a gold medal. You secured that gold for your team.” Mikhail insists, stepping closer to him.
“And I was supposed to have that one too!” Ilia snaps, finally breaking the barrier and switching to Russian subconsciously, brutal, raw and loud.
“It was supposed to be mine, and I fucking ruined it!”
His chest heaves. Mikhail just stares at him, mouth parted slightly, as if he were trying to choose the right words to say, and finding nothing that was suitable. He’s trying to appease and console, and defend because Ilia is rash and Mikhail is not.
For a few seconds, the only sound is the quiet hum of the ventilation fan coming from the conjoined seating area.
“I’m sorry,” Ilia cracks. “Misha. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. You earned it; you were amazing. I’m sorry,” he finally rushes, all at once.
“You can be upset about it. You can even be upset with me. But that's why I said I wanted to see you. There’s been so much pressure on you, and all the media coverage…I just can’t imagine. You deserve someone who would come to see you no matter what happened out there.”
Ilia clenches his eyes closed, ducts already beginning to well back up. “I’m not upset with you, Misha. Fuck, I can’t be upset with you. I really…it was so perfect. I can’t be upset with anyone but myself. I had it and then I just…” He shrugs, gestures helplessly. “I just let it fly away. Free is my best skate…fifteenth?”
It’s nothing more than a defeated whisper by the end, the number barely making it out of his lips.
There’s silence again, and then the quiet shuffling of shoes. Ilia feels Mikhail’s arms slide around him, the warmth of Misha’s face pressing warm against his own.
“I’m so happy for you.” Ilia chokes into his shoulder. “But it feels like a nightmare, too. I just want to forget what happened.”
Mikhail hums, and the vibrations reverberate into Ilia’s chest. “I know. It’s understandable.”
He doesn’t break the hug, but he does pull back, and Ilia opens his eyes again to look at him. “Please,” Ilia says, voice trembling. “Can you…?”
Mikhail bites his lip, “I don’t know, you don’t seem like you’re in a great state—”
“Misha,” Ilia pleads, and it’s almost a whimper, so pathetic and desperate that it makes him want to combust. “I want to. I just want something else to hurt instead. I want to forget, please.”
Mikhail’s eyes grow even wider. “Ilia, you want me—”
“Something,” Ilia chokes, “God, please, Misha. I know it’s not what we usually—I just…I can’t be strong enough for that tonight. To pretend.”
“Do you think it would make you feel better? What is it that you want?” Mikhail asks him, hesitantly.
“I don’t want to feel this weight.” Ilia rushes, “I don’t want to feel the pressure and the disappointment, and everyone always asks me for my opinions on these decisions, but I know they’ve already made them for me, and they don’t care at all—” He can feel his breath speeding up, the distress flaring again. Mikhail looks more and more alarmed, and Ilia deflates.
“I don’t want to think, or choose, or be the Quad God, or a figure skater or a Malinin or...I just want to be nothing for a while. I want to break. I want to be—”
“Just Ilia.” Mikhail finishes, so understanding even if it’s not the same thing he’s experienced.
“Yes. Just Ilia.”
Mikhail pauses for longer, seems to weigh the decision, gaze searches his face as he debates. Probably trying to figure out if Ilia is even sane enough to be making decisions of this nature at all.
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s fine if you don’t want to, either. But I just thought…” Ilia shrugs again. Words in Russian don’t take much more thought, but the language mellows him out. “I haven’t lost my mind. I really want it, Misha. I wouldn’t ask you to make it hurt if I didn’t think I could handle it.”
“I believe you, Ilia. That’s what the safe word is there for. I don’t doubt that you know what you want.” Mikhail assures, voice dipping as he gets secure in whether he’ll agree, “and I think…it might be helpful for me too.”
“Then kiss me,” Ilia replies, quick and desperate.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to make any decisions?” Mikhail teases back, equally as fast. But he indulges Ilia nonetheless, their teeth slotting together perfectly, just as they always have.
The faint press of metal from Mikhail’s braces changes the texture of the kiss, adding a subtle scrape against Ilia’s teeth and tongue that makes him shiver, almost undoing him instantly in such a heightened state.
Mikhail is the first to take the kiss further, and Ilia lets him. Normally, he’d be the one to push, to claim, to set the pace and demand more from Mikhail’s eagerly parted lips. Tonight, he yields, allowing the heat curling low in his stomach to boil up without any restraint or the self-imposed composure that he keeps when he takes control.
He gasps into the kiss when he feels Mikhail’s cold fingers slip underneath the hem of his hoodie and press against the bare skin of his waist. The chill makes him jolt, his hips twitching forward before he can stop himself. Mikhail surely feels it immediately, and Ilia can feel the slight curve of a smile against his mouth.
It isn’t the first time that they’ve tilted into this dynamic, although it’s very, very rare. The first ideas of control sit awkwardly on Mikhail, but Ilia can already feel the hesitation burning away as he remembers how good it feels to guide, instead of follow; to take control instead of respond.
Ilia’s hands slide up around Mikhail’s neck, not to pull him down, but to anchor himself. He leans back against the counter, spine curving, letting their contact increase without saying anything at all. Mikhail follows his movement, his hand sliding back to sprawl against his back, guiding him to push further back on the cool surface.
Ilia lets himself be moved, lets the decision fall from his hands as Mikhail decides what he wants from him, and whatever that is, it’s exactly what Ilia wants too.
“Come on,” Ilia gasps in the break of their lips, and Mikhail barely lets him get it out before their lips tangle back together with more speed, faster, because Mikhail knows what Ilia wants, and he wants it too. It’s not up to Ilia right now, but Mikhail would never do something that he knew Ilia wouldn’t want, and Ilia feels nothing but relief even as Mikhail changes the pace in a way only he could predict, and Ilia’s left reeling, gasping and whimpering in an effort to keep up.
Mikhail grins, pulling away just enough to tilt Ilia’s head to the side. He’s still catching his breath while Mikhail’s lips latch to the sensitive skin right beneath his ear.
“Misha!” Ilia chokes.
Mikhail hums, tongue tracing over a spot that Ilia has always carefully guarded from him. Exposed, the sensations tear through him, and his hand flies back to clutch at the edge of the counter, knees suddenly weak.
He wouldn’t let Mikhail get that chance to linger there before; he knew how it made him feel and how it could take him apart if too much time was spent on it. It was always embarrassing how sensitive his neck and ears would get, and he knew not to let Mikhail get around them.
“No—you can’t mark—” Ilia sputters, scrambling for a reason to get Mikhail away before Ilia dissolved to pieces before they’d even truly begun. It’s barely audible, choked and breathless.
“Well, of course not,” Mikhail murmurs against the skin. “What would the media think if they saw you all covered in hickeys? Some secret girlfriend waiting for you?”
The words aren’t erotic at all; they shouldn’t do anything to him at all, but somehow they spike something deep inside of Ilia. A quick flash of old interviews and careless jokes, the carefully constructed image of Ilia Malinin that’s been presented to the public this Olympic cycle. The thought of it all crumbling, of the media circus that would surround him if they found out about this…it sends a reckless thrill down his spine.
“Oh, that’s—” Ilia moans, hand curling harder underneath the granite’s sharp edge.
Mikhail’s laughter is soft and somehow still condescending. “Imagine if they knew the truth, hmm? Their perfect, straight, it boy isn’t who he says he is. He comes crawling to me every competition.”
His lips drag right back beside the spot he’d just been teasing before, suction light enough to vanish by the daylight, but deliberate enough to remind Ilia of where he is.
Ilia’s head tips back despite his efforts, lolling to the side to bear more of the same throat he'd insisted Mikhail couldn’t claim for himself.
“They’d—” Ilia whimpered, swallowed and tried again. “PR would kill me.”
“So fuck Ilia the brand.” Mikhail whispers, teeth grazing the shell of his ears, his braces cool and sharp against delicate cartilage. Ilia shudders at his touch. “It’s not like that version has protected you. It’s not like it’s stopped you from being in my arms.”
“Misha—”
“Do you want it?” Mikhail demands an answer, low and smooth.
Ilia is quick, nods fervently, and Mikhail huffs out another laugh.
“Say it, Iliushka. And keep it in Russian, why don’t you?” Mikhail purrs, cloying and sweet.
So then another thing was decided for him, and another weight lifted, to be replaced with something more tangible and more manageable. Mikhail wanted him to stay in their far more shared language, and Ilia would. He wouldn’t disappoint.
“I want you, Misha.”
“To?”
“Do whatever you want,” Ilia admits once more, with no performance left to put on. “Let me be your doll.”
Ilia’s words were a little clunky, but shockingly earnest, and revealing enough that it’s clear he wants to take this dynamic further than they have before.
Mikhail pulls back, and they make eye contact. Mikhail’s narrowed with want, and Ilia’s likely blown out with lust, their lips slightly flushed. “Good answer,” Mikhail smirks, slams their lips together and pulls Ilia clean off the counter, arms wrapping around his waist and guiding them back, Ilia moving blindly, trusting Mikhail as he is manoeuvred.
The pleasant feeling of lips on his lets the thoughts scatter slightly, stealing away the sharp edges of his spiralling thoughts and losing his grip on them. At least they don’t feel deathly suffocating. Mikhail’s mouth is warm and soft, and Ilia tries to focus on that, instead of the echo of his failed skate and the replay of his blades slipping against the ice.
It’s only a few steps back, but they are disorienting (and his brain flashes, tells him that his spatial awareness has been terrible all fucking day, and that was beyond clear in the free—)
The back of his knees hit the edge of the couch, thumping against the corner where the armrest connects. His body sways, his own muscle movement already second to external manipulation. Mikhail’s grip around his waist tightens, and his torso tips back just enough for their lips to lose contact.
Ilia gazes down, eyes fluttering to Mikhail’s lips on instinct, just in time to catch the way his tongue reflexively runs along his metal brackets.
Such a little movement, but Ilia loves it, glances back up at Mikhail’s eyes, twinkling with amusement and deep desire.
Mikhail lets go, long enough to reach down and unhook his own jeans. Ilia can see the Calvin Klein band of his boxer briefs underneath the material, glances at it for a little bit too long, because he can hear Mikhail’s small huff of amusement.
Then, all in one, abrupt movement, Ilia is turned. Mikhail catches his waist and twists him sideways, one final smile before he’s being pushed backwards. Caged in between Misha and the couch, he falls backwards and lands roughly against the cushions, lips parted and hair wild.
He and Mikhail are physically very similar in build and height, but like this, it feels so much different. Mikhail can stand over him, gazing down with darkness simmering beneath his calm expression, looking oh so composed while Ilia crumbles to dust.
The thought makes something hot coil in his stomach, spikes his nerves all at once.
Mikhail must think the same, must be considering Ilia’s ruined state, because his eyes rake down Ilia’s sprawled out figure, “Look at you,” he murmurs, “oh so pretty.”
“Misha,” Ilia sighs, half fond and half desperate, because this is nice, but it’s not what he needs, not what he’s craving.
(It’s not right, he shouldn’t get care, he needs to be broken, he needs Mikhail to—)
Mikhail steps closer, slots his thigh in between Ilia’s and kicks them open with his foot.
Suddenly, Mikhail is bending over him, one hand braced on the wall above the couch as he looks down over him. The other is tilting Ilia’s chin up, not gently, but not as harshly as he deserves.
“But such a mess and too fucking greedy.” Mikhail spits, low and electric.
The word punches deep into Ilia’s chest, tearing away a little part.
It’s an accusation, and one that Ilia can’t come up with a counter to, even though he wants to argue or plead his case.
“Misha—”
“Shut up.”
It’s quick and blunt, and Ilia clamps his mouth closed instantly, jaw shutting with an audible click.
Mikhail flashes him one of his beautiful smiles, a little condescending at the edges, but still too utterly earnest to be as devastating as he could make it. The hand on his chin moves up to tap at his lips.
“There you go,” Mikhail practically coos. “I think I’ve heard enough of your voice for right now.”
Ilia swallows hard, movement visible in the column of his throat as he shudders under the featherlight touch of Mikhail’s thumb, still lingering near his mouth.
Everything feels too intense, and his skin feels prickly under the gaze of Mikhail’s heavy stare.
“When I was interviewing,” Mikhail begins again, tone shifting back to something almost conversational, “almost all they wanted to do was ask about you, you know?”
Mikhail steps out of his jeans with casual ease, the type of movement that makes it look like he doesn’t have to try too hard to appear attractive and unbothered, unlike Ilia’s constant fumbling over himself for even a modicum of the same.
“It was all, ‘Ilia Malinin this,’ ‘Ilia Malinin that,’ ‘oh, Mikhail, do you think you only won because of Ilia Malinin’s terrible free skate?’”
“But Misha, you were—”
“Fantastic?” Mikhail interjects lightly, tone brimming with pride. He lifts his shirt over his head in one clean motion, the fabric barely catching on his shoulders before it pulls free, and Mikhail tosses it aside without looking at all.
The Calvin Klein underwear is still on, somehow even more attractive than it was before, now that Ilia can see Mikhail’s unclothed body, all toned and practical muscle that he keeps modestly concealed far more than Ilia ever does. It’s so underdone in its attractiveness, so much more muted compared to Ilia’s forced boldness.
“I know, wasn’t I?” Mikhail says, continuing.
He meets Ilia’s eyes again.
“I was great. And you weren’t.”
The bluntness steals all the air from Ilia’s lungs. He loves it. He hates it. There’s no malice or mockery in it, and that makes it worse. If it were an exaggeration or it sounded personal, then Ilia could pretend like it wasn’t what it was. Like it wasn’t just Mikhail giving a pure statement of fact.
His face burns with shame, and his stomach twists, humiliation and arousal entangling together so much so that they feel impossible to unweave. He chokes on nothing at all. He wasn’t expecting Misha to—
“But of course,” Mikhail continues, stepping closer, “you can’t tell the media that your main competitor sucked, can you? Even if it’s the truth.” Mikhail shrugs. Ilia ignores how he can see the subtle movements in Mikhail’s eyes, searching for a reaction, making sure he’s not going too far.
Maybe he is, maybe it’s salt in the wound, an intentional blow to Ilia’s feelings, but nothing that he hadn’t asked for—no, begged for. He knew how Mikhail would begin to press on his sore spots, knows that there’s a reason for the cruelty and that it would pay off.
“You think you need it all. You need all the press and the publicity and the accolades. You want worlds and nationals and grand prixs. You want everything.”
“And it’s because you’re greedy.”
Ilia clenches his eyes closed, as if it could make the words less true, or make Mikhail’s comments fade out.
“Guess what, Quad God.” Mikhail sneers out the nickname. “You got all of that. But how does it feel now? When you get what you want, whenever you want it…well, when you eventually can’t, suddenly it’s not fun anymore.”
Ilia feels breathless.
“When you fail.”
A whisper that rings in his ears.
“Even tonight, you come back here and you still fucking want. You want me, you want sex, you want me to take you—” Mikhail pauses for a second, eyes purposefully dragging down Ilia’s body, sprawled out however Mikhail had moved him. “You want it because you’re never satisfied.”
There’s something borderline nauseating about hearing his drive and his hunger, his constant push and reach for more, being reframed into something little more than selfish greed and conceited longing.
“But tonight,” Mikhail says, voice dropping lower. “I won. Tonight, I got what I wanted, and what you want? Well, that’s irrelevant.”
“So tonight, since you lost, I want you to remember your proper place, beneath me.”
“And maybe, if you’re good enough, I’ll even think about blessing you with my touch, Ilia.”
It’s no demand, but it is, all the same. Ilia blinks, breath shallow in his chest, eyes flicking from Mikhail’s face down to the floor. Misha is right, he won, he should take his place, and he should take him down even more pegs, break him into little pieces because that’s what—
“Are you going to keep staring,” Mikhail questions, voice smooth still, “or are you going to get on your knees? I could leave right now and find someone who wants a gold medalist.”
He pauses for a second, then smiles, sharp and mean. “The Olympic kind, of course.”
The idea alone strikes fear into Ilia, the kind that has him sitting up near instantly. The thought of losing Misha, too, to someone else, to be replaced in this regard, too…
He scrambles off the couch, practically falling over himself and dropping to his knees on the floor in front of Mikhail. The position feels humiliating, and somehow, Mikhail is more exposed than he is, but Ilia is the one who feels bare.
“Please don’t leave,” he whispers, pathetic and desperate.
Mikhail exhales through his nose, not quite amused, but not fully annoyed. His fingers slide through Ilia’s hair and tighten around blonde strands, just tight enough to tilt his head back.
“I told you, not everything is in your control.”
He pulls, and Ilia’s head wrenches back, a sharp flash of desire coiling with the sudden pressure.
“Stop acting like everything is up to you.”
Ilia clenches his eyes closed, can’t bear to look at Mikhail for a second.
He’s right, anyway. If Mikhail wanted to leave, who was Ilia to stop him? It was certainly true that he could’ve easily found a person who would eagerly sleep with him, and here he was, instead, to spend his night with Ilia, who certainly couldn’t say the same.
Nobody would want him tonight, not after the embarrassment he’d made of himself. And wasn’t he still embarrassing himself? Falling over at the chance to get to be Mikhail’s entertainment as if it would get him any closer to what he’d lost through his own failure, the one begging for scraps as if it was guaranteed—
“Ilia? Tell me the safe word.” Mikhail demands, instead, in English, yanking Ilia out of his thoughts.
“Lutz. It’s a lot. It’s okay. I need it to be.”
“If you want it to be a lot, Ilia,” Mikhail says, firm and controlled, “stop fucking around.”
It’s cold and intentional, wedging into his mind.
“I think you’ve done enough of that tonight, anyway.”
Shame flaring through him, Ilia resigns himself, accepting that it’s true. Mikhail is right; he had fucked up so badly already. But he could do something right; he could make sure that he did not waste Mikhail’s time. He’d certainly already wasted enough of other people’s. Ilia swallowed and leaned forward, lips pressing an open-mouthed kiss through the fabric, slow and reverent. That was what he would’ve expected, had he won. That was what Misha deserved for staying.
He glances up, searching for something in Mikhail’s face: a glimpse of approval, softness, pride, and not finding it. Instead, he finds a cool assessment, and he reaches up to tug down the cloth covering with careful fingers.
Mikhail was hard, at least. It sent a dizzying rush of reassurance through him, such a relief that he hadn’t ruined this too, that Ilia’s pathetic displays all night hadn’t repulsed Mikhail beyond any interest.
And Ilia knows, in the part of him that is consumed with shame and utterly fragile, that he should be out of chances to keep Misha around.
Ilia doesn’t do this. Or anything of any other matter. He doesn’t kneel, doesn’t surrender control. He listens to his coaches out of pure self-preservation, and spends the rest of his time with structure and repetition, relentless self-discipline. He was too high profile to be sleeping around, and sleeping around felt weirdly close to cheating, even if he and Mikhail weren’t exclusive or dating at all.
In their dynamic, it is typically Ilia standing, Mikhail beneath him.
Tonight, he is small, and he wants to be.
And he refused to disappoint. Not again. He leans forward, wrapping his lips around the head of Mikhail’s cock with perfect intentionality. He felt the faint twitch of Mikhail’s hip at the sensation, such a minor reaction, but without much from Mikhail so far, he took it and ran.
He felt his lips curl, perhaps a hint of a smile, but then he glanced up at Mikhail’s expression, met with deadpan unamusement, and suddenly nothing was funny at all.
“Don’t get cocky.” Mikhail snaps, voice low and cutting. “I think you’ve proven that won’t help you.”
And Ilia isn’t great at this, he knows, because he mostly makes Mikhail do it. He lets the humiliation seep in further, allows it to tangle with his arousal until they feel the same, and tries to take the initiative. This isn’t a performance, and there’s no one to watch. He’s here to serve Mikhail, to be good for him.
He tries to relax, let his body cave around Mikhail; his desires and his lead. He concentrates on his breathing and keeping himself steady, even with the tension he carries in his jaw and throat as he takes Mikhail further and further into his mouth.
He can taste the slight salt, the remnants of sweat and something so utterly Misha that suddenly everything feels so right. It’s overwhelming, and the action is uncomfortable; Ilia not really used to trying to deepthroat this suddenly.
His nostrils flare as he tries to remember what to do, to breathe through his nose and not choke. The effort it takes reminds him of the labour of figure skating, pushing his body to cooperation, and he’s not sure if he loves it or hates it, but it gives him something to latch onto.
“Yeah,” Mikhail sighs, hand tangling once again in Ilia’s hair, pressing him forward and down.
Ilia’s eyes sting, and suddenly everything feels too much for a moment; the fall and the media, the disappointment, the fear of letting Misha down here too. It's too much.
Ilia gags before he can tamper down the reflex, tear-filled eyes looking up out of instinct, lashes wet, and vision blurred. He can’t see Mikhail’s face, and he’s glad, doesn’t want to see the disillusioned gaze that would inevitably meet him.
“Tap me,” Mikhail says, immediately. If you need to stop.
Ilia whimpers something in understanding, but he doesn’t move to. He doesn’t want to stop. It’s overwhelming, but this is what he needs, and he wants it, wants to feel pressured and lost and utterly grounded by someone else for once, from the way that Mikhail holds him in place.
He wants to feel useful.
He swallows around Mikhail’s cock instead, and hears the sound of a gasp living Mikhail’s clenched teeth. He lets the feeling of doing something well rush over him and consume him with euphoria.
Mikhail wastes no time, doesn’t let him adjust or bask in the feeling. Instead, his fingers tighten again in Ilia’s hair, tugging on locs with another demand.
Don’t stop.
He pulls back just enough, trying to find a rhythm again, even if he’s not moving much. He hollows his cheeks and smooths his movement, pushing past his flaring gag reflex to feel the slightest drag of lips on skin.
He hates that he isn’t better at this, too.
He hates that the thought creeps in, that it’s just like skating, just like tonight, not even almost good enough—
But if he doesn’t look up, he doesn’t have to see it written all over Mikhail’s face that he’s bored. Disappointed. That he doesn’t care about Ilia’s embarrassing performance of a blowjob.
He’s still too tense; he knows it, despite his best efforts. His shoulders are tight, hands pressing into his thighs and if he’s bracing for something, trying to plan and think ahead for an outcome.
Even here, even now, he’s still trying to be in charge of something.
That’s the problem; he wants to give in, and maybe now, he doesn’t even know how to do that.
Mikhail is too attuned to miss the conflict, and Ilia is still trying to not glance up and catch his gaze. That won’t help him once Mikhail opens his mouth.
“You’d think you’d put more effort into this,” Mikhail says, voice still entirely unaffected because Ilia is bad and he is bored, “if you wanted me to stay.”
The words slice through Ilia like the narrow edge of his blade. He wrenches back, inhaling sharply.
“I’m trying,” he breathes, and the words crack. He keeps his head bowed, notices a tear dripping onto his pants and darkening the fabric.
Mikhail scoffs, “This is you trying?”
Ilia pretends like he doesn’t notice how his dick twitches with the words, because he’s sure Mikhail didn’t notice, but that doesn’t even matter because Ilia knows, and he knows that he shouldn’t get off on it.
“Misha,” Ilia pleads, small.
“Fine,” Mikhail says, after a second. “I didn’t tell you to stop, did I?”
“...No.” Ilia whispers.
“So get back to it. I’m trying to give you freedom here, but it’s seeming like you’re not…” Mikhail pauses, thinking of the right word. “Deserving of it.”
Ilia has no rebuttal. He nods and leans forward without another word. Of course, he isn’t deserving. Of course, he hadn’t earned that.
Tears continue to run down his face, and he feels utterly ridiculous. Crying during sex was embarrassing enough, but crying while giving oral when the blowjob was probably utterly abysmal is a new low for him. Let alone kneeling and failing this horrifically at something else he should’ve been good at.
He can’t even feasibly figure out why Mikhail is still there, instead of leaving him to spiral alone. Or why Mikhail is still hard, or Ilia is either. He doesn’t deserve patience, or praise, or any time from a man who was everything Ilia couldn’t be. He certainly didn’t deserve Mikhail’s touch after this. Maybe, if he was lucky, Mikhail would let him jerk off afterwards.
That seemed suitable, more than anything else.
He’s able to handle it better this time. His throat is more relaxed, not from any relief of tension but purely from the mechanical movement loosening it up some.
If he tries to stop comparing and analysing, then he can imagine the movement becoming a second nature, something that he doesn’t have to think about at all. If he could, then certainly, it would be good enough for Mikhail. Certainly, he’d do a better job of pleasing him if that was the case.
All he wants to do is be perfect.
No—that was gone. Perfect was Olympic. Perfect was gold medals.
He just wants to be good, for Misha.
Let Mikhail take what he wants, let him set the pace, let him use him
Was that greedy?
To want to give more?
To want to be taken further if it would please Mikhail?
Fuck, Ilia doesn’t even know anymore. Everything is tangled up together, desire and guilt and ego and need and devotion.
Overthinking is what destroyed him tonight.
Make me stop thinking. Take me until it doesn’t matter.
Without pulling away, Ilia lifts one hand up until it finds Mikhail’s wrist. He wraps his fingers around it gently and holds it for a brief second.
Mikhail chuckles, but doesn’t pull his hand away.
And, Ilia guides it back to his hair, letting his movement still and the gesture speak for itself.
He doesn’t want to control the pace anymore—selfish—he wants it torn from his hands.
Mikhail would enjoy it more, too, if he could set it himself. If he could break through Ilia’s reservations.
And he picks up on it immediately.
“What a good slut,” Mikhail laughs, fully earnest (and maybe Ilia loves that Mikhail is just laughing at him, not with him at all) and then his grip tightens before Ilia can register, and slams him down with pure authority.
Fuck.
It knocks his breath loose, makes him gag, scatters his thoughts instantly and breaks them into fragments.
For a brief second, there is nothing but command in his mind. Nothing of the outside world, the interviews and judging and lost medals and suffocating pressure.
More. More. MoreMoreMore.
The sheer relief must show in his face, somehow.
Mikhail notices, because he always does. “Oh wow,” he murmurs, voice practically a coo of mockery and delight, “you really are.”
Ilia shudders helplessly; he’s unable to nod with Mikhail fully down his throat, but he’s sure it’s obvious. All of it is obvious. He’s not one to be subtle, in victory, failure or in this.
Mikhail laughs as he tosses his head back, hair falling back into its natural, ungelled middle part. “Remember. Tap me.”
That’s his last warning, because Mikhail pulls him back and then fucks his head back down. “Oh, yeah.” He groans, deeper than usual and guttural.
So it was better this way. Ilia wasn’t good at giving head himself, but this was good for Mikhail. He was so relieved.
Take what you need, please, please, please.
“Stop thinking, Iliushka.” Mikhail moans. “You don’t need to think at all, you’re better like this.”
Ilia swallows, lets the comment sink in and overlays his thoughts.
If Misha thought he was better off like this, wasn’t that all that mattered? He could make Misha so happy if he would just stop being stubborn and give in.
He needed to just listen to Mikhail, surrender up his dignity, pride, control, hell, even his thoughts.
He didn’t need them, anyway. Not if they were only gonna lead him to a breakdown on the Olympic ice that he couldn’t forget, not if they were going to haunt him, not if they were going to stop them from accomplishing the one thing that he wants at this point.
He should just…sink.
He lets his jaw drop open, completely unhinged, and open for Mikhail to use to his desire, relinquishing the last illusion he had of control. He looks up through his wet lashes and meets Mikhail’s eyes, staring down at him with such a wide array of emotion that Ilia can’t identify a single one.
He must make a pretty picture, or so he hoped. Maybe he really did look like a slut instead, mouth wide open, on his knees, tear-streaked eyes.
If Misha were into it, and it would make him stay, Ilia thinks distantly that he could debase himself every night without hesitation.
Was that not what Mikhail had earned? Anything that Ilia could give him?
Was that not what they both could enjoy? Everything would be so much nicer that way; if Ilia didn’t have to worry about worlds or titles or being the Quad God and could just work to keep someone else satiated.
He distantly recognises that this sounds absurdly unlike him, and that maybe he’s reaching a state of delusion from the events of the night.
He pushes that out of his mind, too.
Focuses on the pleasant stabs of pain running through his body from how Mikhail is pulling him back and forth. He focuses on the joy of doing something right and the feeling of bliss, the contrast of the rough treatment triggering every instinct in him that says to fight, and the overpowering blissfulness that stops him from doing so.
“God, you’re such a—tease,” Mikhail gasps. “At least you’re good at shutting up, when you’re not fucking your interviews too.”
Ilia knows this, too, that he’s not eloquent or good at expressing himself in Russian and somehow even less so in English. That he’s said stuff that he meant positively, that it came out wrong and twisted, and he can’t really take it back—he’s done it to Mikhail plenty, even tonight.
But Misha is still here, and the outside world is not, and that was what mattered for right now.
Ilia’s hand drifts, almost unconsciously, absentminded and aroused. He craves touch he hasn’t received, and he takes it for himself on instinct, pressing his hand against himself through covered fabric, constrained by layers he hasn’t stripped off.
Even the slightest stimulation from his own fingers makes everything so much more overwhelming. His eyes slip closed for a second, brows furrowing together and smoothing out. Not to tamper the reaction out of concern Mikhail might notice, but just instinctually to the pure pleasure, to the way that Mikhail’s words and the situation and the context crash over him.
His fingers curl up to his waistband, threatening to slip under as Mikhail’s foot knocks his arm away sharply.
“Ilia, you’re so—” Mikhail chokes, hips slamming forward at him, cutting off his own phrasing to regain his control. “I’m not going to touch you if you do that.”
Even with his voice strained, Mikhail’s words pierced through layers of fuzz and pleasant blankness. Ilia recoils instantly, dropping his hand back down to his thighs, as if he’d been burned.
“So fucking desperate,” Mikhail breathes, borderline incredulous. “You want to jerk off from giving a blowjob? Isn’t it—” Mikhail breaks with another sharp gasp, “don’t you have shame?”
Ilia tries to nod, can’t and gargles something from his open mouth that only succeeds in making Mikhail slam his head down harder. Ilia’s hips buck at the sensation, and Mikhail’s laughter only makes him feel like he’s floating, constant shame just serving to make him harder at that point.
Suddenly, Mikhail pulls him off entirely, hand rapidly fisting his cock, glistening from pre and spit, as he gazes directly into Ilia’s eyes. And now, Ilia can see, without the franticness of his thoughts and with all of his attention on Mikhail, that he has not been unaffected. His cheeks are lightly dusted with pink, his chest heaving, his lip red from biting on it.
And yet somehow that changes very little, especially when Ilia is a wreck below him,
“Fuck, Iliushka—” Mikhail swears, and ropes of cum, milky white, shoot from his cock, coating Ilia’s mouth and cheeks.
And Mikhail, dick still twitching from his orgasm, is still not put off by Ilia’s debauched state, eyes glossed over and blown out with lust, hard and desperate and willing, with his face covered in cum.
Instead, Mikhail kneels down with him, leaning forward and licking his own semen off Ilia’s face, pulling him forward into a filthy open-mouth kiss.
It’s gross. Or, it should be. But all Ilia can taste is Misha, Misha, Misha. Misha’s mouth, his dick, his cum, all of it. He’s here, and despite how pathetic and awful Ilia could be at pleasing him, he still managed to get off, and that meant something went well.
“Ilia.” He feels Misha patting his cheek.
He hums.
“Do you have lube?”
Ilia blinks. “Huh?”
“You know what, nevermind. I’m sure you do.” Mikhail laughs, taps his cheek again, and then he’s gone.
The room is dim, illuminated by the overhead microwave light, barely casting throughout the rest of the area. Ilia’s knees ache faintly from where he’d been kneeling, and his skin buzzes with electricity.
Without Mikhail there to keep him anchored, want floods in. It’s beyond arousal, it’s a careening beyond any semblance of restraint. It’s an arduous desire to be touched that aches beneath his skin. The absence of Mikhail to touch him feels dreadful. Of course, he knows that Mikhail doesn’t have to touch him at all, but he’d certainly feel better if Mikhail would consume him in pleasure.
Mikhail called him selfish, and he was, he is. If Misha didn’t want to touch him, though, Ilia couldn’t blame him; at least he was happy to do something—
"Ilia. You’re worrying me.”
It’s tender and soft, yanking him out of the odd, fuzzy, insulated headspace. It’s also far closer than Ilia anticipated. When had Mikhail returned?
Now, he was kneeling in front of him, holding Ilia’s hand. Was he still overthinking? Probably. Maybe that was just a part of him, too. At least he wasn’t overthinking about the results anymore. He felt a little better, honestly.
"Ilia, I’m going to stop if you can’t—”
“I’m sorry! Don’t stop!” Ilia blurts, panic flashing before he can tamp it down.
He can see Mikhail’s expression, not amused or dominant, but dancing with concern. He stares at Ilia like he can see straight through him, into his soul, and discern exactly what he was thinking.
“Tell me the safeword again,” Mikhail demands.
“Lutz.” Ilia whispers.
Mikhail holds his gaze for several long seconds, searching for something, or debating, perhaps. If Ilia’s agreement was coherent.
Finally, he nods.
“That’s it. Now,” he says, softer and almost back to teasing. “I think I’m feeling generous. We’re going to the bed.”
Ilia is beyond grateful and doesn't give Mikhail the opportunity to change his mind before he’s climbing off his knees. They meet eye level, and it should change the dynamic, but somehow it doesn’t. Ilia feels so…low.
Maybe, if it were a different night, they’d still be like this, eye level, Mikhail naked and him not. But Ilia would lean forward and wrap his hands around Mikhail’s waist, pull him in and press their cocks together, drag gasps and muted whimpers clean out of Mikhail’s braced teeth. Ilia would drag him to the bed and push him down, climb on top and kiss him until Misha was a whining mess beneath him, hands running desperately over Ilia’s body just to get a touch.
Tonight is not any other night, and Ilia trails behind Mikhail as he beckons them over. Mikhail grabs the underside of Ilia’s shirt, tugging it up above his chest, slightly clumsy, and Ilia works his draining motor movement to push it the rest of the way off.
The fabric falls somewhere behind him, and neither one of them bothers to check where.
Mikhail doesn’t even address the change, doesn’t point out how much effort Ilia puts into his physical appearance. Nor does he comment on the way Ilia’s hands tremble when he helps. Whatever, it doesn’t bother him (though, he wishes Misha would praise him for one of those two facets, as if he hadn’t before.).
The mattress dips as Mikhail guides him back against it, the sheets cool against Ilia’s overheated skin. He lifts his hips automatically when Mikhail pulls at his pants, planting a foot against the mattress to help with this, too. There is something grounding and lowly about finally being as equally naked as Mikhail is, but so utterly different. His cock twitches against his pelvic bone, hard, untouched and dripping onto pale skin.
Mikhail tauntingly runs a finger featherlight down his length. “Fuck,” Ilia chokes, immediately. His cock bobs almost instantly upon touch, and he covers his face with his hands.
“You love this so much,” Mikhail laughs. “I mean, you’re so hard I don’t think you’d last a minute for a blowjob.”
It was probably true, too. Ilia really peers from between his fingers at Misha’s body and face, and he knows it wouldn’t go well.
“It’s a good thing that I wasn’t planning on it.” Mikhail tacks on, and Ilia hears the sound of his lube bottle cracking open.
Then, suddenly, the tangling of hands, grabbing his wrist instead, and the side of the bottle hits his hip as Mikhail abandons his task of getting lube to push Ilia’s hands above his head.
“Stop that. You’re not going to hide away. I’m going to watch you as you crumble again.”
Ilia nods, “Okay,” he moans, desperate for Mikhail to do something at all.
When Mikhail pulls his hand away, Ilia doesn't drop his arms, leaving them in the exact position that Mikhail had left them in.
Mikhail is finally looking at him the way he needs to. Scrutiny and coldness and desire all knotted together, enough trust in Ilia’s ability to evaluate his own limits to remove the concern from his eyes that leaves him remembering who he’s with and what he asked for.
“Next time we fuck, I’m going to do this again, and I’m going to bring a tie,” Mikhail says, almost absentmindedly, as if the idea was irrelevant or something that they’d ever discussed.
Somehow, Ilia loves it even if he hasn’t thought of it before, his hips bucking up at Mikhail.
“Yeah? You want me to fuck you with you tied down to the bed? Give it to you until you’re sobbing into sheets?” Mikhail laughs, as if he ever had.
"Yeah, that’d be so hot.” Ilia gasps, fights the urge flaring to reach down and touch himself. Mikhail has to let him, or do it.
More Mikhail sounds like a dream. More of this is what he needs. His emotions feel so close to the surface of his body that he could choke on them entirely, like they’d burst out and disrupt his time.
“What a fun dream, huh? I find you at Worlds,” Mikhail begins, leaning forward. “After you win—or, after I win. Take you back to our hotel.” His hand slides down toned thighs and rests on Ilia’s hip, fingers digging into the bone.
“And I could fuck you until you were a sputtering mess underneath me, loud enough to wake up the neighbouring rooms, loud enough for everyone there to know you’re such a slut you can’t even keep quiet.”
“Fuck, Mikhail!” Ilia chokes as Mikhail lifts one of his legs up to expose him.
“The next day you’d leave, and if people didn’t already know, they’d see the way you limped. Injury, maybe. But word would surely get around that the Quad God spent his victory night getting shown a good time by his competitor.”
The lubed finger traced his entrance for a second before dipping in and out. “I can’t fuck you tonight, and honestly, it’s such a shame, since you clearly want me to so badly, but I guess you still need those legs for the gala—if they let you do the gala, that is.”
“Fuck, Misha, I don’t even care, just—”
“It’s not up to you, remember? I could stop instead.” Mikhail shrugs. “I got what I wanted from you. I could just leave.”
“Sorry, sorry. Don’t go—if you want to—”
“And you’re already a mess, I don’t think it’d be hard to get you loud. Maybe you’re just made for this instead? And I’ve had you topping me this entire time?” Mikhail laughs.
Honestly, it wasn’t that unfair to mock him for it if Ilia was going to get underneath him like this and instantly crumble. There was plenty to insult him for, and Ilia felt dizzy with want and desire, like all the blood was zapped straight from his head.
All he can manage is to groan, let his eyes roll as Mikhail’s finger truly penetrates him, even if the feeling isn’t very extreme at all.
“I don’t even think I could actually get two in you before you came. It’s probably a good thing that you don’t sleep around. If the other figure skaters knew how much of a whore you are, they’d never take you seriously. Getting ready to cum and I haven’t even touched you?”
“I’m not—not that easy.” Ilia sputters in defence. He’s lying, probably. It’s feeling more like he’d orgasm the second that Mikhail decided to touch him.
“If it got to the media, wouldn’t they just explode?” Mikhail grins, tongue running over his teeth. “I can imagine the headlines in my head now. They’d rip you apart, and unlike this time, they wouldn’t be wrong.”
His finger curls inside of Ilia to emphasise the point, and Ilia glances away from Mikhail’s smug expression, from how much the words flare inside him and make him careen closer to the edge. It’s way too soon for that.
“All your little fangirls would freak out. They think you’re some straight guy bringing masculinity into the sport,” he giggles, the sound too contradictory to the words. “They couldn’t even handle that video of you in the club, and it was so tame. They’d lose their mind if they found out you spent tonight under me.”
It was true, everything Mikhail said tonight was true.
“The Quad God that they think you are is so wrong.” Mikhail murmurs, leaning close, so much so that they’re almost kissing. Ilia wishes that they would. “But that’s why they don’t matter. Because they’re not going to know about this to care. But I do, and I will.” he whispers, connecting their lips together.
Ilia moans into the kiss, hands finally moving again to clasp the back of Mikhail’s neck.
“Tell me what matters.” Mikhail demands, low, as they break away.
Ilia doesn’t even have to think for a second. “You. Us.”
“So sweet, you certainly have your priorities in order.” Mikhail smiles.
“Mhm,” Ilia affirms, wordless, pushing his hips forward.
Mikhail sighs, leans back and takes Ilia’s cock in his hand. Ilia’s eyes immediately clenched closed again.
“You want me to shove more fingers in you, like you aren’t going to practice tomorrow. But when I want to actually touch you…”
Ilia’s hand covers his face and then falls back to the bed, “Anything.”
Mikhail’s fingers are slender and long, perfect wherever they are. In his mouth, on him, in him, it didn’t matter. But Ilia loves them even more when they work so perfectly over his dick, jerking him off so well, even if it’s not how Ilia would do it himself.
It’s only maybe thirty seconds of Mikhail touching him in earnest before Ilia lifts his head off the bed, eyes landing on Mikhail’s plush lips, red from Ilia’s lips and bitten with concentration, and he can’t even hold the contact.
He throws his head back, too quickly, and for a second, he gets so dizzy that he thinks he’s going to black out entirely, and the idea of blacking out from a handjob and a single finger makes him so mortified—
“Oh fucking—” Ilia moans, back arching and even as his vision whites out and static fills his ears, he can hear that Mikhail is still laughing, something undoubtedly mocking in Russian that Ilia’s language processors fail to configure, and he doubts it would’ve been any better if it was in any other language.
Everything is explosive and intimate and perfect like it is with Mikhail every time because Mikhail is amazing, and it’s overwhelming.
As his vision comes back, blurry like he’d taken off his contacts, he promptly bursts into tears.
What a wreck he certainly is.
They aren’t loud or overdramatic, just wilted and running down the sides of his face, salt water touching his temples and blonde highlights. His voice closes around a strangled sound he doesn’t want to release.
“What—woah, hey.” Mikhail’s voice shifts instantly, all the dominance instantly sapped from it. He moves in close, pushing himself onto one of his elbows and covering Ilia. His other hand reaches up to Ilia’s cheek, fingers brushing just beside his eye.
“Iliushka, stay with me.”
Ilia nods, shaky, but tears keep slipping free nonetheless. He opens his mouth again, only to clamp it closed again.
Mikhail curses under his breath, and for a second, Ilia wonders if he’s upset Mikhail, too. Instead, Mikhail rolls over and drags the duvet cover from the bottom of the bed up to cover their bodies.
“Are you okay? Are you cold?”
Ilia shakes his head, then nods, then shrugs, defeated. He can’t even tell what his body is telling him.
Mikhail doesn’t argue, just presses an utterly, devastatingly chaste kiss to Ilia’s lips, pulling him in until they are facing each other and threading his hands gently into Ilia’s hair.
What had he ever done to deserve someone like Mikhail in his life?
“Iliushka,” Mikhail murmurs again. “You’re here. You did so well.”
Ilia nods, breath utterly uneven and the movement pure autopilot. Mikhail is still talking to him, reassurance that feels like gibberish, and Ilia feels completely shattered and wrung out, nerves overstimulated and fried.
“You’re not weak, or anything of the sort. Ilia, you did great.”
It drags a weak, shaky laugh out of him, dissolving into hitched breaths.
Mikhail presses a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and Ilia tries to get his mouth to work again, to ask Mikhail what on earth he could be sorry for, but he’s not even in the position to do that.
So, instead, they sit there in silence, the noise of the fan and faint sounds from the outside filtering in.
After a few minutes, or more than a few, Ilia wasn’t sure, Mikhail taps his jaw again.
“Are you with me?” Mikhail asks.
Ilia nods, eyes puffy. “I didn’t die,” he tries to joke.
It falls flat.
“But you dropped, though. I should’ve noticed earlier.”
“I told you I wanted it. I really did. I don’t know why I…ended up like this.” Ilia says quietly. He scratches at the fabric of the sheets.
“You’ve had an…overwhelming…night. It’s not surprising. I wish you had told me. I wish I had been more careful. We need more experience doing this.”
“But it was nice. It really was, Misha.” Ilia insists. He sees the light blush coating Mikhail’s cheeks.
“...Okay,”
And they still don’t get up, just lie there together, no urgency.
Finally, just as Ilia’s breathing begins to even out and sleep edges at the corners of his vision, Mikhail shifts beside him.
“You’re sticky,” he points out mildly, motioning around generally to the state of his body, as if it wasn’t obvious.
Ilia huffs a tired laugh, barely opening his peeled eyes. “I honestly do not care right now. I’m not getting up to shower.”
Mikhail is as awkward and endearing as ever, and he can at least appreciate the normalcy. “That’s…fair.” Misha concedes.
“You literally hate that.” Ilia snorts, exasperated at his own behaviour.
Mikhail reaches over him to grab the bottle of lube and move it properly to the table so it won’t spill all over the sheets.
“I don’t think I’d want to move either after that.” Mikhail appeases. They both don’t mention that he probably would’ve gotten up anyway, any other time, and that he had done so after sessions where Ilia was probably even meaner than Mikhail had just been.
“I’m sorry.” Ilia says quietly, staring up at the ceiling. “I drag you away on the day you win gold to yell at you, make you bully me and then have a breakdown in front of you.”
“I wanted to be here, Ilia, and I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t. I enjoy my time with you. No matter what.” He hesitates just slightly before adding, almost shyly, “And the sex is great too.”
Ilia smiles. “Awkward about sex, and you called me a slut fifteen minutes ago. Then you made me cry. And like, blew my fucking world.”
Mikhail makes a soft and embarrassed noise. “I don’t know what came over me, honestly.”
“Me either—well, that’s not very true, but it was sexy anyway.”
“I’m always happy to do things for you.” Mikhail replies, then more seriously, “Are you okay? Do you need anything else?”
It’s so earnest that it hits almost as hard as any of the mocking did earlier. It floods his chest with a rush of emotion, all at once. Happiness, relief, shame, love of some sort.
“Can you just stay? For the night. For a few hours. Forever. I don’t know.” Ilia laughs, pressing his palms to his eyes. “God, I’m such a mess. I don’t even know what I’m saying. I think I’m going to regret this soon.”
“Us?” Mikhail questions, carefully.
“No, not that.” Ilia corrects, “Misha, this is like—one of the best things that’s happened recently. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now if you weren’t here. I’m probably going to regret acting so…I don’t know.”
“Sub-like?” He tries.
“Pathetic.” Ilia corrects, humourless.
“Iliushka. It’s hard to hear right now, I get it. You’re not defined by your skating skills or by one night where you finally allow yourself to be free. And you’re still Ilia fucking Malinin. I don’t mean that in the way others see you, because I don’t care about anything any random person or commentator or skater could say about you. You’re never pathetic to me.”
Ilia swallows, tilting his head to the side to look at Mikhail. “When I leave tomorrow…”
“For now, you’re not out there. You’re with me, and you’re still the same Ilia I’ve known. And tomorrow, you’ll be around some other people who will see you the same.”
“It doesn’t feel like they will. They were all expecting more from me.”
“If the people you helped secure a gold for won’t look at you the same because you lost your free, well, then it sounds like they’re shitty people. And if the media won’t respect you, tell them to fuck off.”
“I don’t think that’d go well for me.” Ilia says, wistful part of him wishes that he could.
Misha smiles. “Probably not. But who cares what some journalist has to say about you? What matters is what the people who know you for real think. And I think that you’re incredible.”
“Are we dating?” Ilia blurts, quick and interruptive, clumsy with it like he’s always been.
“Did you want to?” Mikhail asks.
“I don’t know.” Ilia admits honestly.
Mikhail shrugs underneath the blanket. “Me either. We don’t have to date. We don’t have to label. I just know I’m not looking for other options.”
“Me either. We’re something,” Ilia begins.
“But not nothing?” Mikhail replies. “That’s fine with me.”