Chapter Text
“Rozanov?”
“Rozanov!”
“Rozanov, man, you ok? You really gotta answer one of us.”
Marlow’s voice brings him back to reality. Ilya is doubled over and on his knees, holding both hands over his mouth in pain, stick abandoned somewhere on the ice. Blood runs over his gloves and drops down onto the rink.
Fuck. Shane is going to kill him.
Ilya abruptly straightens, and shuffles awkwardly on his knees to face the small crowd at his back. Marlow’s hand falls from his shoulder, and the trainer standing next to him reaches out gently, hand hovering in front of Ilya’s face.
“Will you let me see it at least?”
Ilya lowers his hands slightly, so they hang stupidly in the air just below his chin.
He opens his mouth a fraction, to try to be cooperative.
Marlow’s face says it all.
“Is it bad?”
Ilya shouldn’t have asked. It hurt, just to form those three words, and they were barely even intelligible with Ilya’s accent, his throbbing upper lip, and all the blood pooling in his mouth.
Marlow doesn’t answer, which is a bad sign. The trainer, thankfully, keeps his wits about him and moves into action.
“Ok, don’t try to speak, just keep leaning forward so the blood doesn’t go down your throat.”
Ilya gives the smallest nod, then obeys. The trainer silently hands him a towel, then starts looking at the ground.
“Do you have it?” He gestures around, then points at Ilya’s gloves.
Ilya shrugs, then looks at the ice, then shrugs again.
“Did you swallow it?” The trainer looks more panicked at that.
Ilya shrugs once again, then lowers his gloves some more, and slowly, very slowly, opens his fingers. They’re empty.
“There!”
Marlow points excitedly, then suddenly he’s on all fours on the ice, pulling off a glove, and picking something up.
A moment later and he’s on his knees, gently holding out Ilya’s right front tooth like it’s a ring and they’re getting fucking married.
Shane is really going to kill him now, Ilya thinks.
He removes a glove and plucks the tooth from Marlow’s fingers, then lets the trainer shoo him off the ice as he starts dictating what they need to do for his split lip. Ilya barely registers it.
Shane is going to fucking kill him.
-
“You know how many times I’ve told you to get a better mouthguard? To actually use it?”
Shane is nearly yelling. It’s unlike him. What’s not unlike him is how he’s got Ilya’s face in his hands, oh so gently, prodding and tilting so he can inspect the damage.
He couldn’t even wait until they were home to do it, where no one could see them, which has Ilya concerned. Anyone could walk by on the sidewalk and see them. There they sit, in Shane’s car only a few blocks from Ilya’s hotel. It was lucky they were playing each other that weekend.
Ilya allows himself to be inspected and poked, even lets Shane pull his lip out of the way and look straight into his mouth, and then puts his own hands on the sides of Shane’s face.
“I know, moy lyubimyy. I’m sorry.”
Shane leans away.
“You’re not arguing with me.” His face scrunches up. “Why aren’t you arguing with me?”
“Because you are right and I am sorry.”
Ilya gives him his most innocent expression, and Shane looks even more skeptical.
“…Ok.” He drops his hands from Ilya’s face, turns in his seat, and finally puts the car in drive.
As they pull onto the road, Ilya flips down the visor and looks at himself in the little mirror there. His lip was healing nicely, and the team doctor had said he could take out the one stitch he’d gotten tomorrow before the game. It wasn’t even that swollen anymore.
Then he opens his mouth. The gap where his tooth used to be is staring back at him.
Shane side-eyes him as he drives. “Remind me why you didn’t want the temporary crown?”
Ilya flips the visor back up and shrugs. “Eh, no reason to get temporary one now when I could just wait a few weeks for permanent tooth.”
“The reason would be that you won’t look like a toothless hillbilly.”
“I don’t know this word, hillbilly.”
Shane gives him a sly grin. “You can look it up and be mad at me later.”
Ilya squints suspiciously but presses on. “And I have home game against you soon, so I can wait to go to my regular dentist and you can take care of me after.” He tries to put on an innocent smile to go with that statement. Shane only side-eyes him again. Damn, not buying it.
-
A half hour later, they’re pushing open the door to Shane’s apartment. Before Shane can even set his keys down, Ilya grabs him by the shoulders from behind. In one motion he turns Shane to him, kicks the door shut, and pushes Shane against the opposite wall.
Ilya kisses gingerly with his stitched lip, dropping his hands to Shane’s. He gently pries Shane's fingers from the handle of Ilya’s bag to coax him to drop it, then directs Shane’s hands to rest on his hips.
Ilya puts his own hands around Shane’s waist, pulling him closer, trying to accommodate for the fact that he couldn’t kiss very hard with a busted lip by licking into Shane’s mouth, silently encouraging him to do the same, and –
“Oh god, that’s too weird.”
Shane has pulled his face back, and his nose is scrunched up again. Ilya would melt if he wasn’t so disturbed that he’d pulled away.
“What is wrong, what is weird?”
Shane widens his eyes and shrugs his shoulders minutely, as if to say “you know what.”
“Your tooth… hole.”
“…”
Ilya pauses.
Then he grins like the fucking Cheshire Cat. The Cheshire Cat if he was missing a front tooth.
“Hollander…” He leans in to Shane’s neck, breathing in and sucking a few light kisses, trying to make Shane relax again, then pulling back to look him in the eye.
He gets very serious, puts their foreheads together, and puts on his best bedroom eyes.
“I want you to put your tongue in my hole.”
“Oh, fuck you, you asshole!”
“But I love to kiss you! Then let me suck your dick and you tell me if you feel difference, yes?”
Shane pulls another face and lets his head fall forward onto Ilya’s shoulder.
Muffled in the fabric of his shirt, Ilya hears an answer.
“…Fine.”