Chapter Text
The second night back in Boston, after Ilya’s woken from his jetlag-coma, he responds to Shane’s texts as he gets dressed for the club. Shane has taken to sending him speculative articles about Scott Hunter, and it delights Ilya to no end. It means Shane thinks of him every time he sees something about Hunter, which is hilarious.
Shane doesn’t get a reply to his texts. He expects this, given the hour, but he still has to wrestle down his disappointment.
When he leaves the house, he takes his Ferrari, blasting Russian rap with his windows down, belting out the lyrics at every stoplight. He wears sunglasses at 10pm like an asshole, and the muggy air has him shedding his jacket before he even gets in the club. He meets Cliff and Connor at the bar next to the dance floor.
“What’s up, man?” Cliff asks, reeling him in for a back-slap and shoulder-shake. “It’s good to see you. How was Mother Russia?”
“Russia was Russia,” Ilya says, shrugging. “Is home, is fine.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever the fuck that means. Hey, Roz, take this and tell me if it sucks ass or not. The bartender said it’s genuine Russian vodka, but you know how it is with places like this.” Connor says as he hands Ilya a tumbler of vodka with one single perfectly spherical ice cube in the middle. It’s probably meant to look sophisticated, or perhaps unique, but it honestly just makes drinking it a pain in the ass, because every time Ilya goes in for a sip the ball of ice keeps trying to smack him in the nose.
“Is less shitty than American vodka,” he decides as he smacks his lips. “Is more shitty than good Russian vodka, though.”
“Damn. I was sort of wishing it was totally shit.” Of course he did; Connor loves the faces Ilya makes when sipping on bad alcohol. “Anyway, I can’t believe we lost Dizzy-Duzzy last night. Got traded to fucking Dallas. Half the team helped him pack this morning even though we were all sour about it, including Duzzy. Did you read the group chat yet? When did you wake up, dude?”
“Ah,” Ilya says, a wash of shame making his chest constrict slightly. He’d not looked at any of the emails and texts people sent him yet, except Shane’s. He knew even as he’d avoided looking at his coach’s email an hour prior that he’d regret it.
Well, here he is, regretting it.
Ilya had liked Dukelen. He’d been the third line right wing, kept to himself mostly, but when he did show up to gatherings he was nice enough, if a bit of a lightweight. Two Bud Lites were all it took for him to end up passed out on the couch halfway through the party. He also had balance issues, but weirdly only off the ice, hence his nickname.
Ilya grins, leans against the bar, pretending he already knows the news. His shoes have found a long-dried spill of some sugary monstrosity the bartenders might try and call a drink, if the stickiness he feels as he lifts his foot to cross it over his ankle is anything to go by.
“Yes, is too bad. We will beat stupid Dallas like always, and he will feel like garbage for getting traded to bad team. Should I send condolences before or after game?”
Cliff barks out a laugh and shakes his head as Connor rolls his eyes.
“Good to know you’re the same as fucking ever,” Connor says, but the grin he gives says more than his bitingly sarcastic tone. They leave the area near the bar in favor of a booth when one of the staff asks them to move from their spot at the bar. Ilya apologizes, feeling a little bad for holding up the line. They find an open booth and settle down to catch up on each other’s lives and drink.
Connor doesn’t have much to report, besides the fact that he moved out of his apartment and into the new house he’d been circling like a hawk when Ilya had left for Russia. Cliff has bad news, though; he’d broken up with his girlfriend of six months because she accused him of cheating one too many times. Cliff is the most loyal man Ilya has ever met, so she must have been projecting. Connor agrees with Ilya’s speculation, and Cliff gives them both a heartbroken expression that has them reassuring him that he’ll find someone else, someone better.
“She fumbled you, bro,” Connor says, patting Cliff’s shoulder. He’s tipsy enough that the pats are a little forceful on their impact, but Cliff and Ilya are used to it. “I already told you like a bajillion times, but she obviously didn’t deserve you.”
“You will find beautiful woman who loves you very much,” Ilya proclaims, loudly. “Then have mini-Cliffs named Cliff Junior One and Cliff Junior Two, with big heads and full beards by age six.” Ilya’s grin has Cliff shoving him a little in faux annoyance as they all laugh.
An hour and a half in, they’ve drifted to different ends of the dance floor, chatting and dancing with strangers. A beautiful girl with dark brown hair and green eyes grinds up against him, and they steal away to an empty booth to make out. When faced with the choice of bringing her home or to a hotel, he opts for a hotel.
The knowing smirk from Cliff and eyeroll from Connor he gets when he points at the girl, sends them a thumbs up, and then waves goodbye are both familiar. He’s seen it more times than he can count.
The sex is… fine. Ilya’s still jetlagged, so he’s a little bit sloppy in his thrusts as he fucks her from behind. She tries to move to face him, and he stops her in one fluid, practiced motion, course-correcting with his hands on her hips and lower back to slide her forward. She gets the hint and grabs the headboard.
She’s very quiet, cumming with nearly soundless gasps, which Ilya isn’t all that excited by. He usually doesn’t mind it, but he does like having some sort of feedback, and this girl is giving him practically nothing even when she’s definitely enjoying it.
He keeps glancing down at the sheets, where he’d thrown his phone down close before getting on the bed to fuck her, keeping it within reach.
Shane doesn’t text or call him. But Ilya still wants to be available. Just in case.
In case of what, Ilya doesn’t really know. It’s not like he’s going to be Shane’s first person to call during an emergency. That would probably be either 911 or his mom, depending on the type of problem he was experiencing. Then his dad, and probably Hayden and Hayden’s wife, whose name escapes him at the moment. He thinks her name might start with a G or a J?
Ilya wouldn’t even make it into Shane’s top ten contacts, most likely. Ilya sort of wishes he could say the same.
But he can’t, so.
Later, when Ilya’s smoking a cigarette outside the hotel as his hookup bums a few drags and then kisses him goodbye, Ilya is both grateful that Shane hasn’t reached out tonight — answering his text while balls-deep in some random woman isn’t exactly the best idea — and disappointed.
No… disappointment doesn’t seem right.
Ilya wipes the side of his face as he slumps against the rough stone of the building, gazing at his phone, scrolling up and down his conversation with Shane aimlessly.
This emotion he has in his chest is familiar, though dulled. It crawls under his ribs, burrows deep and refuses to leave. He’s known it ever since he was a kid, this terrible feeling. It came from the shadows in his mother’s room as he opened the door when he was twelve. It’s lurked behind him, in him, every day since.
So he knows what it is.
He wipes his face again, blinking down at the concrete underneath his feet and scuffing his Nike’s on the loose dirt and gravel there. He stuffs his phone in his back pocket and takes a shaky drag from his cigarette.
He thinks, Fuck.
I miss him.
On the drive back home, all he feels is fucking pathetic.
—
Boston is better than Moscow.
This isn’t exactly news, given the fact that practically anywhere these days is better than Moscow, in Ilya’s not-so-humble opinion. But it is a distinction, one he feels is important.
Boston, where everything is just a little easier. Boston, where no-one who is related to him by blood lives. Boston, where his team resides. Boston, where his house is. Boston, where he lives for over half his year.
Boston, where he can breathe just fine.
Even though the air quality actually sucks, the drivers on the roads are assholes in unique ways that differ from Russia, the food is greasy even when it really shouldn’t be, and Americans are everywhere, because it’s fucking America.
It’s still better than Moscow.
Team meetings and practices are full of him trying to figure out what his approach is going to be now that he has the C on his jersey and the pressure from the coaches to perform well in a leadership role. He tries his best not to be lazy, to listen to what they want, to learn how to lead the team through observation and what the coaches have to offer him in terms of guidance. They encourage him; they tell him he’s going to do a good job.
He pretends to believe them. Pretending, he knows, is what he’s best at.
—
The third night back in Boston, he goes with Cliff to a sports bar.
He signs some girl’s cleavage when she and her friends recognize them, and she flirts her way into the seat next to his. She’s persistent, knows what she wants; an almost hilariously cliché puck bunny. Within five minutes, she’s all over him.
As he half-heartedly kisses her, his mind wanders to the pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia he has waiting for him in the freezer back home; the one he’s been saving for when he can finally watch Pawn Stars with Shane over the phone. They’d found out yesterday that Canada isn’t showing Pawn Stars on any of their usual channels. Ilya had tried to hide his disappointment — and he thinks he did a pretty good job of it — but then Shane, because he is smart where it counts, had an idea. He bought the DVD set of season one with express overnight shipping, and had Ilya DVR the two season-one airings set for tonight. They have plans to watch both episodes tomorrow.
Ilya is really looking forward to tomorrow.
When the girl continues to linger even after he politely moves on from macking on her to sipping his drink, he tries his best to act interested in what she has to say.
Whatever that is. Something about liquor tax in Washington? He’s not sure if she means Washington State or Washington D.C. Stupid Americans, naming major places of interest completely opposite each other on the map the same damn name. Tacking on some extra letters at the end does fuck all.
When he tunes back in, she’s rambling about some sort of American Football Twitter drama. Oh good fucking god, save me, he thinks, glancing around the bar as subtly as he can manage when faced with the horrible topic that is America’s favorite sport. He needs to find Cliff and signal that he needs a rescue. When he locates him, he’s too busy talking with a small group surrounding a pool table for him to notice Ilya’s distress. He decides to just suffer through it, because she is hot.
Even when she moves on to talking about other things, he doesn’t really offer much in regards to conversation, because he’s having a really hard time with focusing.
Well. At least he does until his phone vibrates and he whips it out of his pocket. He completely forgets about her existence in favor of reading and re-reading the incoming texts from Shane.
Jane: One of the elevators shut down in-between my floor and the one above. Apparently someone’s stuck in there. Lily reacted 😨
Jane: I was woken up by emergency responders being loud as fuck outside my door.
Jane: I hope the person’s okay obviously, but also, fuck. I’m not getting any decent sleep tonight, apparently
Jane: They’re yelling up at the person in the elevator to communicate with them, and whatever they’re doing in the elevator shaft is making all sorts of noise. I thought the intercom on the elevator was supposed to be for emergency situations like this, but whatever. 😒 Lily reacted 😂
Lily: Lol
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: Wait
(…Lily is typing…)
Jane: Don’t you dare
Lily: Lol. ‘Shaft’ Jane reacted 🙄
Jane: Fuck offfff
Lily: 😂😂
Jane: Shut up Lily reacted 🤐
Ilya knows that Shane gets pissy when there’s loud noises he’s not had time to prepare for. He’d learnt this when Shane spent nearly thirty minutes complaining about the construction site across from his rink’s arena a month ago.
“Another new Starbucks, Rozanov,” Shane had bitched over the phone as Ilya sat outside of a café in Moscow, partaking in the glorious pairing of hot tea and a cigarette. “As if we needed another fucking one. There’s three in downtown Montreal alone. Is that not enough? And right across from us. Fuck. Couldn’t they just start this shit when I was busy in Ottawa? Now I have to hear the fucking jackhammer every god damn morning.” Ilya had opened his mouth to say something, but Shane had kept going, and Ilya liked to hear him talk, so of course he shut his mouth back up and listened instead. “And once they open, Hayden is going to be there every afternoon, showing up to practice with one of his huge frappuccinos that’s like twenty-percent whipped cream and a hundred-percent sugar. He’s going to die before he’s forty, I swear.”
Ilya wonders if Shane gets cranky in the mornings before he has his coffee if he doesn’t get enough sleep during the night. Then he gets another text, and this one perks him right up.
Jane: What are you doing? Are you free to talk?
Lily: I thought you said to shut up, was just doing what I was told 🤐 Jane reacted 🖕
Jane: Fuck you, are you free or not?
Ilya suddenly wishes he was in bed and immediately available, instead of in a dingy sports club with some random girl who’d been trying to tickle his tonsils a few minutes prior.
Lily: Am getting mixed signal. You want me to shut up or answer question?
Jane: Nevermind I guess 🙄 goodnight 👋
(…Lily is typing…)
Lily: Noooo was joke only joking
Lily: Will be free in twenty
Lily: Is alright? Or you think police will give you silence for beauty sleep before then
He’s already getting up and turning to grab his coat from the back of his chair before Shane even responds.
Jane: They’re firefighters not police Lily reacted 🤷
(…Jane is typing…)
…
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: And yeah, okay Lily reacted 😘
Jane: I’ll wait even if they do. I’m too awake now. Lily reacted 💙
Oh thank god. Ilya sends a blue heart emoji and finally looks up from his phone.
The girl is gone, which is news to him, but honestly a relief — it means he doesn’t have to offer any bullshit excuses — and Cliff gives him a curious look from across the bar at Ilya as he pays his tab. He wanders over to the pool table and tells him he’s going home.
“With that girl, huh?” Cliff smirks. “I don’t know how you pull beauties every night, man.”
“Ah, no, I am going alone,” Ilya says, shifting on his feet. He doesn’t know why he’s telling the truth instead of just saying nothing, refusing to confirm or deny. But something within him, something confusing and awfully hungry for exactly what he can’t ever have, wants someone to know he’s not bringing a girl home tonight. “I am still tired from time difference.” He waves his hand vaguely dismissively. And totally casually. “You know how it is.”
Cliff’s eyebrows climb up to his hairline. “Riiiight.”
Fuck. He really should have just said yes. Ilya quickly turns tail and leaves the bar to slip into his Mercedes and gun it back the way he’d come.
Instead of having sex with a beautiful woman, Ilya goes home, changes into pajamas, and talks to Shane about the pros and cons of black granite countertops with or without unstained woodgrain cabinets.
Or more like argues; Ilya thinks sleek black stain would be best, but Shane tries to convince him that a “nice, natural wood” would offer some “visual contrast”, like he’s some fucking architect with a hard-on for color theory, to which Ilya doubles down on his own opinion if only to hear Shane huff and puff and get all indignant over his real estate fetish jerk-off material.
It turns Ilya on more than having that girl’s tongue down his throat, hearing Shane get all annoyed, which he knows says something deeply important about himself that he is steadfastly ignoring in favor of enjoying it in the moment instead of freaking the fuck out.
—
The fourth night back in Boston, he stays home after practice in anticipation for watching Pawn Stars with Shane, and spends most of the day going through the horribly complicated CCN contract-renewal paperwork his agent sends him — in fucking English, of course.
He spends several frustrated hours googling phrases and flipping through the English to Russian dictionary he always has on his office desk. He’s seconds away from partaking in some personal property damage by the time he texts Shane in a fit of irritation. He sends fifteen photos back-to-back of the contract, alongside enough questionmarks and angry emojis that he hopes will correctly convey his complete and utter disdain towards the English language.
Shane then calls him half an hour later, all professional-like, his tone completely level and without much infliction. He offers to explain everything the best he can, since his mom never shuts up about these things and he’s learnt through her rambling what the hell all this weird corporate mumbo-jumbo even means.
Ilya, caught off guard, has to then face what he later labels Businessman Shane, who is absolutely no fun and yet very hot to listen to talk about mind-numbingly boring shit like “contract stipulations” and “terms of employment” and “waivers of responsibility” and “non-disclosure agreements” and “employee codes of conduct”.
His explanations do help Ilya understand. It just also does something worse, later on.
“Are you free to watch show now?” Ilya asks him once he signs the paperwork and faxes it back to his agent. They’d planned for eight pm, and it was currently four.
“Well—” Shane pauses, then says, “Yeah, sure. Just give me a second.” After about a minute of silence, Shane comes back. Ilya wonders if he’d been on mute. “Alright, I’m going to go grab the DVD. I swear, Rozanov, if I have to watch anyone eat something that isn’t meant to be digested, I’m not going to talk to you for a whole day. Maybe two, if it’s some dude’s ashes again.”
“No ashes,” Ilya reassures him. Then, teasing, “You will miss me if you do, though, yes? So maybe just punish me in other way, if you dislike show. Like send me clothed picture instead of naked picture. Though both are nice in different ways.”
That’s an understatement of criminal proportions, but Shane does not need to know that.
“No I fucking won’t,” Shane says. His tone is sharp and harsh, which means he’s probably lying. Ilya’s heart beats irregularly for just a moment, like a traitor. “You’ll be the one who misses me, asshole.”
Yes, Ilya thinks, that’s unfortunately very true.
～
Later, Ilya — because he is fucking hopeless and probably more confused and fucked up than he once considered even possible — jerks off to the thought of Shane looking over his contracts with CCN, the NHL, and Nike.
Fantasy-Shane is telling him he needs to add stipulations for X, Y and Z so the experience when working for them is better for him, like some weird school-tutor-turned-businessman fantasy he did not know he had. He pulls up the Jockstrap picture to add some semblance of normalcy, but his mind drifts back to that stupid fucking fantasy. He thinks of Shane leaning over his shoulder, pressing half his front to half of Ilya’s back, pointing at the contract and murmuring some technical jargon in his ear.
He cums way too fast for something so fucking bland.
“What the hell was that,” Ilya says to himself in Russian, breath ragged and hitching, staring at the cum dripping onto his bedsheets from his dick gripped in his still-clenched fist. “Shit. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
—
Svetlana is busy fixing cars and learning the dealership side of the business she works at, so Ilya has free time that would otherwise be full of her being a pain in the ass. Ilya always has to get used to not having Svetlana around as much when they’re in Boston; it usually takes him a couple weeks to get over it. She promises to visit on weekends, at least.
Alexei keeps trying to call him to beg for money. He does this while attempting to instill a sense of duty within Ilya based on nothing but what Alexei believes Ilya’s shortcomings are, and what he should be ashamed of. Sometimes it even works, when Ilya is vulnerable and unsure of himself.
But mostly Ilya either sends him straight to voicemail or tells him to fuck right off.
His father calls, too, except Ilya actually picks up most of the time for him. Half of their conversations are lucid, which, depending on how you look at it, might honestly be worse than if they weren’t. The other half consists of confusion and his father thinking Ilya is supposed to be home. Either of these options always lead to the same fucking thing: Grigori berating his youngest son for being lazy and useless.
And yet, despite all of this, Ilya feels fucking fantastic — relatively speaking — because he is finally not in fucking Moscow.
There will be no banging on his front door as someone who once loved him demands money that isn’t his and calls him slurs. There will be no distressing visits to his father’s house that remind him of the past he’d rather forget and the hate his family harbors towards him, overshadowed only by the looming reality that everyone — even the man he once thought akin to God — will crumble and weaken and perish with age.
There will be no time to wallow in any of it, either, because he has practice and a whole team of people relying on him. In Boston, this tends to override the depression that nips at his heels when he’s back in Moscow, a lot of the time.
Not always. But it’s enough to sustain a somewhat stable existence.
So he will play hockey, go out clubbing, exercise, eat trash American cuisine, and pretend that the heaviness he feels once he gets home and has time to be alone is just the tiredness that’s indicative of his intensive training regimen before the preseason starts, instead of the same exact weight that has crushed him time and time again.
Because when he is in Boston, he feels fantastic.
He has to, if he wants to keep running and fetching like he always does.
—
A few nights later, he goes to a different bar — this time not sports-centric — with Connor, who keeps trying to get Ilya to drink shitty American bourbon so he can laugh at Ilya’s disgusted face whenever he takes a sip.
A girl named Heidy tries very hard to get into his pants while practically sitting in his lap, squeezed into his booth as Connor chats with her friend opposite them. Ilya knows her name after the fact only because she’d slipped a receipt from a 7-11 into his front left jean pocket sometime during their groping, which he finds as he starts undressing for a shower. A shower he is going to take alone, because he didn't bring anyone home tonight either. He’d not wanted to.
He’s tired, that’s all.
Her name, phone number, and Instagram handle is written in eyeliner on the back.
He stares at the receipt for several long minutes, leaning against the bathroom countertop, shirtless with his pants unzipped but still up over his hips. He always clears out his pockets before throwing his laundry in the hamper. He’s found torn pieces of paper and receipts that girls have slipped him countless times. The most memorable one had been written on a small strip of paper, with the fortune you will be very lucky tonight typed out on the back, alongside the Panda Express logo. He’d been amused enough to call her and meet her the next night to fuck again.
But right now, Ilya does not feel lucky at all.
He doesn’t want to text or call her. He doesn’t want to follow her on Instagram. He’d barely even wanted to talk to her when she was right in front of him, halfway in his lap, with her hands up his shirt.
She’d been hot, flirty, willing to put herself out there, probably funny— actually, he honestly can’t remember anything she said, so maybe she wasn’t funny at all. But she was attractive, and exactly the type he usually went for on nights like this.
Maybe it was because she was the wrong kind of boring. Maybe it was because when she looked him up and down, he only felt the smugness that came from knowing someone was attracted to him, and nothing else. Maybe it was because her hair was strawberry blonde, or that her skin had no freckles, or that her smile wasn’t amused and soft at the edges — or mildly annoyed, or full of humorous disbelief. Maybe her smile was too sharp, too predatory.
Maybe it was because only a few minutes before he’d made his way into the bar, Shane had texted Ilya, I might send you something later on tonight, wonder what it could be? 🤔 and Ilya had sent a flurry of texts back asking what “something” was, practically begging to know, but Shane had refused to elaborate.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Shane’s a sly bastard who’s beginning to understand how to lead Ilya along like the dog he is. He’d been distracted for the entire two hours he spent in the bar.
Who is he even kidding? He’s been fucking distracted every single time he’s set foot in a club or bar ever since he came back from Moscow.
Honestly, even before that.
He looks down at the receipt, brows furrowed as he sucks on his bottom lip. He envisions what it might be like to text her, follow her on Instagram. He imagines a world in which he wants to, because he thinks that perhaps he just needs to jumpstart his interest, like a shitty car that has a faulty battery dying on the way to its destination. She’s hot, she wants him, he could easily have her for a night.
Nothing. He feels absolutely nothing.
He just doesn’t fucking want to.
Even if it led to good sex. Or, well, the only kind of sex he’s been having lately — faced away, doggie or cowgirl, front half of the girl hidden from view, his eyes flicking to his phone over and over and over again.
So maybe it was because he wasn’t interested whatsoever. Maybe it was because what he was interested in was hours away, across the Canadian border, being a god damn tease.
Yeah. Okay.
It was probably because of all of what he just considered. Every single thing.
This spells out TROUBLE for Ilya, in big, bold, all-capital letters. It might as well be a neon fucking sign, pointing down to a ditch that looks awfully deep and almost impossible to get out of.
The last time he’d fucked a girl was two days ago, and he’d admittedly not felt very present. He’d been busy thinking about Shane Hollander, glancing at his phone that he didn’t put on the nightstand again, just to have it a few feet closer, within reach. And later, he’d driven home from the hotel and came to understand that he was even more pathetic than he’d once thought, because he still missed a man that he’d texted not even a few hours prior.
It was the second time that he’d done that within a week. At least this time didn’t include a cigarette. His team doctor would be proud of him.
Ilya’d known Shane had been asleep, because he’s hyperaware of his sleep schedule. He knows his nightly routine. He’s been on the phone with him when he was back in Moscow, listening to Shane get ready for bed as Ilya tapped a pencil to his lower lip and stared down at a half-solved Sudoku puzzle.
He doesn’t want to fuck some girl he doesn’t know. He wants to go home and listen to Shane brush his fucking teeth on the other end of the line.
His stomach clenches. His chest aches.
Oh, god.
“Shit,” Ilya says to the receipt. No, he can’t do this.
Not right now. Or probably ever.
He tears the paper in half and throws it in the vague direction of the trash. He starts the water for a hot shower, determined not to think about it any further.
Before he steps into the spray, Shane texts him. Ilya abandons the shower and practically dives for his phone on the counter.
He’d thought Shane had just fallen asleep without following up on his prior messages. But no, apparently he was up way past his bedtime, sending Ilya nudes.
There, in his messages, is a picture of Shane, mostly naked. He’s on his bed, with that same mirror he uses when Ilya asks him to send pictures of himself leaning on the wall opposite. He’s sitting with his back to the camera, the arm that’s not holding his phone aloft propping himself up. His bare ass is tilted just so, on full display, his legs pressed together. His head faces mostly away since he’s using the selfie camera, but from what Ilya can make out, he’s smiling.
The lighting from his bedside lamp is soft, and the shadows Shane’s form casts are dark. It looks like a modern-day renaissance painting.
He’s so fucking beautiful.
“Fuck,” Ilya breathes. “Jesus Christ, how are you real?”
The picture is gloriously sexy and very much appreciated — that goes without saying, really — yet most of Ilya’s rapt attention is set on the black thigh-high compression socks he’s wearing. The kind with a long zipper going up the side. It is one of the hottest fucking things he has ever seen, and so fucking boring, because when he asks about them, he gets such a utilitarian answer that he laughs in disbelief.
Lily: Why compression sock?
Jane: I wondered if they might help with circulation during my nightly jogs, but honestly I think it didn’t do much.
Lily: You have taken jog at 12am like lunatic? Jane reacted 🙄
Jane: No, asshole, I did not take a 12am jog. I took one at 6pm, a perfectly normal time for a jog at night Lily reacted 🤔
Lily: Oh? I see 😏
(…Lily is typing…)
Lily: You thought, ah, is useless, but sexy though, I will wear it for horny Russian, get him all riled up with boring black zip-up sock?
Jane: Well.
(…Jane is typing…)
…
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: Maybe. Lily reacted 💙
Jane: Did it work?
Lily: Yes. It worked. Is unfortunate how much it works for me
Jane: Oh yeah?
Lily: Yes, is killing me with how sexy it looks. God. Zippy socks should not look so pretty Jane reacted 😂
Jane: ‘Zippy socks’... sometimes you’re cute
Jane: Not usually though, you’re too much of a pain in the ass
Lily: No, is not cute. Russians do not do cute. Cute is like puppy, or you when on ice.
Jane: You think I’m cute on the ice?
Lily: Yes. But I am more like sexy. Handsome. Hot, yes? Jane reacted 🙄
Jane: See, this is why I said ‘sometimes’. You’re too full of yourself.
Lily: I am just right amount of sexy. Not cute though, is you.
Lily: Be a good boy and send another picture, I have need to see more
Jane: I might, I might not.
Jane: Who knows
Lily: Pleassseeeee 🙏
Jane: Hmmmm.
Lily: 🥺🥺🥺🥺 pretty please send pretty picture of you in boring sexy socks?
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: How can something be boring AND sexy?
Lily: Idk, how does it feel to be walking talking paradox?
Jane: Wow. ‘Paradox’. Good job
Jane: But also fuck you
Lily: Soon. Please send more picture like good boy in meantime 🙏
Jane: What do I get out of it?
Lily: Lots and lots of praise because you are so good for me Jane reacted 🤔
Lily: And picture of me of course Lily reacted 🤔
Lily: Naked and hard Lily reacted 👍
(…Jane is typing…)
…
(…Jane is typing…)
…
Lily: Is not rocket science I don’t think. Is simple yes or no, Hollander, do not overthink
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: 🖕
Jane: I have half a mind to just not send these Lily reacted 🥺
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: [Shane_naked_in_only_compression_socks_in_different_angle_that_shows_more_chest.png] Lily reacted 🤩
Jane: [Shane_naked_in_only_compression_socks_from_the_side_with_legs_slightly_spread.png] Lily reacted 😍
Jane: [Shane’s_hard_leaking_cock_and legs_with_compression_socks_hugging_his_thighs_TIGHTLY.png] Lily reacted 🥵
Lily: Jesus Christ. You are so pretty 😍
Lily: Please send one of you unzipping them 🙏
Jane: Fuck off
Lily: 🥺 Awe. I am sad now (((
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: Wait, really?
Lily: What do you mean by ‘really’ ???
Jane: Like, is this actually getting you off that much?
Lily: Yes really. Would not lie about this. I am hard as rock and would like to see bare thighs please and thank you Jane reacted 😳
Lily: I have dick in hand Hollander. Was about to take shower before you text me pretty picture so I am wearing nothing
Jane: Oh.
Jane: Alright
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: Show me and you’ll get what you want Lily reacted ✅
Lily: Yes of course красивый 💙
Jane: What does that mean?
Lily: Handsome, pretty, beautiful Jane reacted 🫣
Jane: Oh.
(…Jane is typing…)
Jane: Thank you
Lily: So Canadian. So polite
Jane: Fuck you, asshole
Lily: Secret American strikes again 😲 Jane reacted 🖕
Lily: [Ilya_in_bathroom_mirror_completely_naked_holding_flushed_hard_cock.png] Jane reacted ❤️
Jane: Jesus, that’s hot
Jane: [heartstoppingly_sexy_to_Ilya_specifically_6_second_VIDEO_of_Shane_slowly_unzipping_compression_sock.mp4] Lily reacted ‼️
Lily: Holy shit Hollander 🥵
Lily: Fuck. You spoil me 😍
Lily: You are so so so good
Lily: So pretty. I love your thighs they are so sexy
Jane: Why is this so hot? What the hell. I’m so turned on but they’re just socks
Lily: Yes, I know. You wear them just for me, though, yes?
Lily: And you like to do things just for me. Even if I have not told you to. Because you are good boy
Jane: Maybe. Lily reacted 😏
Lily: You can say yes, hm? Is not surprise or secret that you like when I tell you what to do. Jane reacted 🖕
Jane: No I don’t think I will 🖕🙂↔️🖕
Lily: Ah. Brat.
Jane: :) 🖕
He masterbates to the pictures. Obviously, god, how could he not? He cums way too soon, moaning out Shane’s name. It takes him several minutes afterwards to form a coherent thought, bracing his hands on the countertop as he pants. When he cleans up the mess he made on the marble and finally steps into the shower — phone left on the counter, photos freshly deleted — Ilya dispairs.
He has been experiencing confusing mixed signals from his dick ever since he saw Shane Hollander walk towards him completely naked except for his stupid white socks when they were eighteen and reckless, but his preferences have been getting weirder and weirder as Shane has sent him pictures of himself these last few months. He’s been getting hard from the normal things Shane wears, like running shorts and sweat wristbands and custom Metros Reebok Questions with white crew-cut socks.
This is definitely wildly embarrassing at least — yet hot as hell for sure — but if Ilya saw Shane in person straight after a jog, wearing his boring white t-shirt, running shorts, and crew socks, he might pop a boner so fast he’d be at risk of passing out.
Maybe it’s because Shane doesn’t wear anything else. He wears athletic clothes in the day, athletic gear on the ice, athletic clothes in the evenings, athletic-branded comfy pajamas to fucking bed. Ilya has always found Shane to be absolutely irresistible, so of course he considers what he wears to be part of the package, even if it’s probably the most boring fashion sense he has ever witnessed besides those girls who dress exclusively in beige. He’s pretty sure that his brain has somehow twisted it into some strange sexual preference, because anything Shane Hollander wears might as well be fucking lingerie.
Basically, Ilya’s tastes in what he likes to see men in is leaning farther and farther away from flashy European styles and more towards Casual but Committed to the Grind Jock Fashion territory.
Or maybe not, because that describes practically half his team and he doesn’t get hard at the thought of them wearing compression socks, a jock strap, and absolutely nothing else.
So it’s just Shane Hollander, then. Because of course it is.
Fuck.
It’s horrible. This is so fucking bad. He needs to not think about it.
As he towels off after the shower, he catches a glimpse of the trash can. Half the ripped receipt is hanging off the edge. He stares at it again.
He then continues to think about it as he dresses, because Ilya fucking hates himself.
He remembers when he told himself I should stop, back when he was still in Moscow. He remembers the first night that he’d cut his gaze away from the woman beneath him and avoided looking at her face completely; the first time he’d realized that he hadn’t once looked into her eyes while he was in her, fucking her. Anja, he thinks, was the name she gave him. Definitely fake, but he hadn’t cared, had he? Anja didn’t matter, in the long run.
But that night matters. Because that night changed fucking everything, enough that he can’t even fuck a girl face-to-face at all anymore. Not even Svetlana.
Well.
Did it, really? Did it change everything? Or was that night just a mere symptom of something that took root years ago, has been spreading deep in the dirt, filling up all the space where no-one can see until the cracks in the surrounding pavement start to show? It’s destruction, pure and utter devastation. A small fault line that has grown past being something narrow and easily skipped over. It is a yawning fissure, a chasm that keeps on getting wider and wider, deeper and deeper, with each and every text, every second of a call, every picture he stares at as he touches himself.
God, it’s not a fucking ditch at all, is it? It’s so much worse. If he fell in, he’d surely never get back out. And he’s right at the fucking edge, isn’t he? Looking down. Wanting so badly to jump.
If Ilya looks into Shane Hollander’s eyes as he fucks him, will he ever be the same?
His chest feels like it’s going to cave in. His eyes burn. He nudges the receipt fully into the bin with his slippered foot, like it might poison him if he touches it with his hands.
No, he knows. No, I won’t be.
But that won’t fucking stop him from doing it anyway.
God. He is so unbelievably, irreversibly, detrimentally fucking fucked.
—
He stops having sex with anyone all together, except once during the weekend at the end of the second week back, when Svetlana comes by to mess around with her fixer-upper in his garage. They fuck on the dining room table, Svetlana bent over and cursing beneath him.
“Jesus Christ, Ilya, are you pent-up or what?” she gasps afterwards from where she’s spread-out like a starfish on the floor next to the table.
Yes, he wants to say, I haven’t had sex in five fucking days. On purpose.
Instead, he wanders over to the kitchen for a Coke and asks, “Do you want a rootbeer?”
“Yes,” she sighs, slapping the floor. Then she says in English, “I demand one rootbeer, squire, for you hath worn me out.”
Ilya snorts, and when he grabs the can, he lightly shakes it a few times. When she pops the tab, there’s a mild explosion all over her front — and then she is up in record time to streak through the house, pantsless, as she shrieks and hollers after Ilya. He runs from her for dear life, but gets cornered in the guest bathroom, where she proceeds to bully him into the shower while still completely clothed and turn the water on full-blast.
“Repent!!!” She yells, “Repent for the sins against your Dutchess!!!”
“No, I will not!” he says, stubborn and laughing. He yelps when she turns the water to its coldest setting. He tries to push her out of the way to run again, but she slams the shower door shut, flipping him off through the glass with one hand and holding the door closed with the other. “Shit! Svetlana! It’s fucking freezing!”
“Freeze, fucker,” she says, “My poor rootbeer, all over my limited edition MakSim T-shirt. You know I love this shirt. You’re a monster.”
“Okay, okay, I repent!” he grovels, but Svetlana doesn’t deem it a worthy enough punishment yet, and Ilya has always humored her even when she’s actively sort of torturing him, so he only half-heartedly attempts to wrestle control over the sliding glass door away from her in a bid to escape. It’s harder to grip because the water makes everything slippery. She’s also just fucking strong.
He’s soaking and shivering and still laughing anyway by the time she relents in her assault and he remembers he can just turn on the hot water, which only takes care of one problem and makes the other problem worse, but whatever.
He ends up shedding his sodden clothes in favor of pajamas as Svetlana throws her shirt in the wash and steals one of his. Ilya curls up on the couch with a still-pantsless Svetlana, a blanket tucked around them.
“You smell like root beer,” he tells her as she channel surfs.
“Oh really? I fucking wonder why,” she says, then smacks the back of his head.
He hides his smile in her curls, but it fades as she settles on CNN. An ad for Rolex is playing, and he knows that wrist. The camera pans up to Shane’s face as he drags the hand with the watch through his hair.
“God, he’s fucking hot. Look at those hands,” Svetlana says. “You play against him soon, right? You’ll send him my love, won’t you? Tell him Svetlana says hi.” She turns to grin at him a bit too wide. His jaw ticks.
“I will not. Change the channel, Sveta.” He says. Stop fucking looking at him. “I do not want to watch the stupid news.”
“You have to admit he’s gorgeous,” she says, turning back to the TV, where an announcer is now talking about — ugh, American Football.
“If you say so,” Ilya says, rubbing at his nose.
The bombastic side-eye he gets from her is both deserved and undeserved, Ilya feels.
“You know he’s gorgeous. Don’t even try to act like he’s not, you idiot.”
Ilya grunts. She smacks him upside the head again, and he thinks, You’d smack me harder if you knew how much of an idiot I’m really being.
—
Halfway through the third week of being in America, he’s used to it. Not having sex, that is.
He goes home alone at night after hanging out with his friends, or heads to bed at a reasonable hour in the hotel they’re staying at, since the preseason has now started. He jerks off in the shower to thoughts of Shane in boring running apparel, or later on his couch to sexy texts, or while on the phone way past Shane’s bedtime, listening to his ragged breathing and moans from across the line as Ilya squeezes the base of his own dick the stave off his orgasm and tells Shane exactly how to touch himself.
Seven days before they get to meet, Shane jacks off in some French theater bathroom because Ilya is being a jealous, mean little bastard. Ilya can’t help himself — he escalates the dance they’ve been quietly partaking in but never quite acknowledging, because he wants more, something that no-one else can have. He demands that Shane refer to him as Sir, and Shane is such a good fucking boy, because he does. The rush Ilya experiences when he reads Shane calling him Sir nearly whites out his vision.
The whole time, Ilya becomes increasingly aware of Cliff and Connor’s stares when he rebuffs every girl’s attempts to get him out of whatever club or party he’s at and into bed. Their expressions of suspicion and disbelief only get worse when he inevitably wanders over to both of them to say he’s going home early. Whenever they ask, he tells the truth; no, he’s not exclusive with anyone.
Technically.
Sex has always been an escape for Ilya. So it is common for him that the less he has of it, the more he thinks about it, because that’s what he craves when everything in his life is going to shit. Or in general, because his libido is sort of insane.
But his life is pretty good, mostly. At least considering the circumstances. And Boston is not Moscow. And Shane Hollander… exists. In general.
So.
Well.
If Ilya was obsessed before, when he was getting laid every other day, he’s absolutely obsessed now, when he’s not even able to get his shit together enough to bring a girl home.
Ilya isn’t stupid — sadly, as that might make this whole ordeal more bearable — but he also isn’t attempting to deal with an even bigger crisis than he’s already going through, so he spends most of this time pretending everything is normal and fine and not at all completely different. While also thinking constantly about Shane naked, Shane under him, Shane on top of him, Shane next to him on the bed reading a fucking book, fully clothed, within reach, looking pretty and perfect in Ilya’s dark sheets.
The epitome of depravity, for Ilya; fantasizing about domesticity. And wanting to fuck the same guy, and only the same guy.
Every day.
For… a long length of time.
Unfortunately, his friends aren’t idiots either. No matter how many internet memes Cliff doesn’t understand because he’s like a million years old and only checks Facebook sometimes — typically to make sure his parents are still alive and posting long rambling paragraphs about whatever date their cult leader has pushed back the Rapture to, since the last one passed by just fine — Cliff is not an idiot. Or how much world history Connor doesn’t know because he spends all his time on USA-centric Instagram and Twitter arguing with other NHL players — usually about if his mom actually loves him or not since she named him fucking Connor Connors and most of the league (and Svetlana) just can not let go of that chirp material for the life of them — Connor is also not an idiot.
Of course they fucking notice.
Cliff knows that there is something to notice in the first place about three days into Ilya being back in Boston, not bringing a girl home because he claims to be tired. And if Cliff knows, then Connor knows, because they’re best fucking friends and gossip amongst themselves like two school boys in the back of a bus.
Ilya is too fucking obvious when he wants or doesn’t want something. They know not to listen to what his mouth is spouting, because it’s always bullshit when it comes to vulnerable things like this. They know to watch what he is doing, since he’s an instinctive creature that can’t help but follow his heart even when it might get him in trouble.
Or kill him. That’s always a possibility.
So, they’re not stupid. And Ilya is, despite what he might try and convince himself, because he keeps texting “Jane” no matter where he is, no matter who he’s with. He just can’t fucking help it.
Connor is starting to ask him if he’s okay, giving him glances full of genuine worry. It isn’t the best feeling, having your friend concerned about you not because you’re sick, but because you’ve momentarily ceased being a bit of a slut. Cliff, on the other hand, is probably as close to the truth as he can get. He keeps asking how Jane is doing, with that ridiculous smirk he always gives when he ribs Ilya about that girl from Montreal.
But Ilya keeps going home alone anyway.
It’s six whole days of getting absolutely nothing but texts, Shane’s voice in his ear, and his right hand. And he is… surviving.
Somehow.
Honestly, Ilya is not even vaguely frustrated in the same way he used to be during dry spells. Don’t get him wrong — he is extremely frustrated, but in the same way an animal looking at something delicious just out of reach from their lead might be. He’s not looking anywhere else, not when what he wants looks and tastes so good.
Before, he’d known he wanted some vague sexual experiences with whoever he found during the night, so of course he’d been satisfied with what he got, most of the time; he’d not had any real expectations besides I’m going to be a good lay and everyone involved gets to cum. Now, though, he doesn’t just want what any random person could offer him.
He wants what one exact person can offer him. Is offering him. Later.
In five days.
Cliff makes comments whenever Ilya takes the time to reply to Shane in the locker room. He chirps him on the ice about his Montreal girl when Ilya seems distracted during practice — although, to be fair, half the time he’s absolutely right.
Connor keeps pointing out girls to Ilya at clubs, parties and bars, ones that are attractive and already eyeing him like he’s a piece of meat, and watches like a hawk as Ilya pretends to be interested but is easily distracted by his phone. By the end of the night he doesn’t even attempt to pursue anyone past a few dances and increasingly unsatisfying short dance floor makeout sessions. Those stop, too, once it starts making him feel weird, like he’s doing something he’s not supposed to.
Or, more accurately, something he doesn’t want to do anymore.
Ilya knows that he should get his shit together and just bring home a girl like he usually would, like he usually needed to, before he’d been regularly texting and calling Shane fucking Hollander. If not for his libido, which is suspiciously fine with this arrangement so far, then for his image. The one that casts him as the bad Russian playboy who brings home a new girl every night and fucks her nice and good. The Ilya Rozanov his friends expect, the one with no strings on purpose and no interest in commitment at all, because strings are complicated and messy and not what he wants.
But — but — there haven’t been strings involved, when it comes to Shane. No commitment beyond the plans to fuck him. No meaning behind the sex besides the want to feel good. And he’s waited so long for Shane's first time, to chew on him and spit him out so Ilya can admire the teeth marks he leaves and hopes won’t ever go away. That Shane will forever remember what it felt like to get bitten by a dog like Ilya Rozanov, even if it meant Ilya had to unlock his jaw afterwards and let him go in the first place.
Because he didn’t want strings. Or exclusivity. And he still doesn’t, he reminds himself. Yeah, he totally doesn’t want that.
This is of course ignoring the fact that Ilya already knows he likes him. That he has a bit of a crush on Shane Hollander, maybe. It’s also ignoring the fact that Ilya Rozanov is a huge fucking liar.
He wants Shane Hollader. He wants to keep him, to jeopardize all of his time, to make sure no-one else gets to touch him. And Ilya doesn’t want to fuck anyone else except Shane. He knew it so deeply even before he stopped fucking anyone else. He knew it back in Moscow, pretended he didn’t and tried so hard to make it true, then failed spectacularly. Failed so much so that he couldn’t even stop himself from telling his mother before he left her alone to lay in silence for more than half a year.
He’d needed to tell someone. He’d had to tell her. She’d want to know, anyway, that he likes a boy — a man. She’d be so happy for him. He won’t get it, that happiness he craves, the one his mother had told him the day before she left for good to chase whenever he got the chance. He can’t have it, he’ll never experience it — but she doesn’t have to know that.
Being in denial doesn’t mean he has to truly believe the shit he’s trying to convince himself is real in the first place. He just has to keep pretending it’s what’s real. To the outside world, to his friends, to himself. Because he is very good at pretending.
Except when he isn’t.
He keeps telling his friends, I am merely just not interested in fucking the girls I have met since coming back from Moscow. My standards have changed, that’s all.
No, Jane from Montreal is not different or more special to me than anyone else has been.
No, I don’t want something new. Something different. Something other. Something I have never had before.
Ilya hates lying to his friends.
—
He’s still Ilya Rozanov. He’s still a dog on a rope running, running, running, seeing something beautiful and going for it. Prey, the dog thinks, prey that I can play with, catch and release, leave behind me without consequence.
Except this time, he just wants one prey animal in particular. One that tastes sweet and bitter all at once. He’d not fully understood what it was, before, what form it took. But now he knows.
If Ilya Rozanov is a run-down, pathetic whipped dog, Shane Hollander is a strong, stubborn and beautiful hare.
A pretty wild rabbit that darted out in front of his maw years ago, kept returning just out of reach — sleek dark fur catching in the light, speckles on its back the color of onyx. Faster than Ilya, surely — and yet he’s caught it before, if only because it let him. If only because it wanted him to. It all but told him to bite down with its beautiful brown eyes, hooded and full of desire as he stood above it and panted into its mouth.
The dog, enraptured by its gaze, pleading, Oh please oh please just let me eat you.
He does not want to let it go once he catches it. He wants to hold it in his maw for as long as he can have it, as long as it will let him have it. He fears that if he keeps it longer than the rest, his fangs will sharpen, his body will morph, his instincts will heighten, his will and might will grow, and he will become a wolf.
He can’t let that happen. He has to remain tame.
Right?
But he can’t fucking stop running after it anyway. What does he think will change? That he’ll actually get to keep it? It’s never let him do that before, what makes him think the pattern will differ from what history has shown him so far?
Sometimes he wants to ask, Why did you wait for me? When you took so long to allow me back here, with you.
Two years of waiting, of chasing, of trying to catch it. Isn’t it enough just to lock his jaw one more time, and then let it scamper away, sated and lovely, so, so fucking pretty, and not Ilya’s, never Ilya’s, fuck, fuck, god—
No. No, it’s not enough. God, it really, really isn’t.
But it should be.
He wants to ask, Will you discard me, afterwards? Like I deserve?
What makes him think he has any right to keep it in the first place? That he has that kind of importance? The bravery, the will, the drive to actually try?
He wants to say, I want you but I cannot have you. I couldn’t keep you even if I tried, anyway.
He’s lazy. He won’t keep it because he’ll get sloppy and let it go anyway, and he’ll watch it run off, too tired and heavy in his limbs to chase after it.
Even if he was a wolf, Ilya knows he’d not be a very good one. He might even wander his way back to his old, familiar cage just because he knows it best and has no energy left in him to seek anything else out. Collapsing back into the cold embrace of captivity. Half a wolf. Never fucking free.
He hasn’t done anything to make him worthy enough to keep the hare in his jaws anyway. No matter how much he desires it, craves it, needs it to be his.
He doesn’t deserve it.
So he won’t, he promises it. He’ll let it go. He’ll gaze after it as it sprints away, feeling wretched, empty, abandoned maybe. Alone, alone, alone, yes, of course.
Oh, it hurts. But what does that matter? It doesn’t.
He’s just a dog.
—
When he gets off the plane and walks into the Montreal airport, he gets five texts from Shane the second he turns off airplane mode.
Jane: I’m going to beat your ass on the ice so hard you’re gonna wish you never played against me, asshole
Jane: But you’ll like that, won’t you? You don’t want some easy competition. You want me to push you into the boards and chirp you.
Jane: Should I play more aggressively tonight? I think I will. I think you’re a bit too cocky. Maybe you need to be knocked down a peg or two.
Jane: What do you think, Sir? Can you take me on at my worst behavior?
Jane: I bet you fucking can’t.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ilya says, a bit too loudly. His dick and his brain struggle with control, because this is not an optimal place to get fucking hard. Connor gives him a curious look, but Cliff just grins big and wide.
“Don’t worry about him,” Cliff says, “he’s probably just got a sexy text from Jane.”
“Fuck off, Marly,” Ilya snaps, and he’s mortified when he feels his cheeks heat at both of their knowing smirks. He rarely flushes. This is literally the worst.
“Look, Conny,” Cliff says, pointing at Ilya. “He’s fucking blushing.”
“No, never in life have I blushed. Russians do not do this,” Ilya says, even as his face feels as if he had stuck his head in some coals. Shit, this is embarrassing. Shane is absolutely going to pay for this little stunt.
Lily: I will end your life on ice, Hollander. I almost got hard in airport like horny teen. Boards are in your future. Nice pretty bruises on ribs to remember me by Jane reacted 🖕
Lily: Then I fuck you later even though you are brat
Jane: Looking forward to it :) Lily reacted 🥵