Work Text:
Las Vegas, 2014.
The sound of the door closing behind Shane felt loud like a gunshot. He actually stood for a moment in the middle of the hallway, trying to understand why it seemed so loud when he had closed it as softly as he could. Then he realized it was the pounding of his own heart, and wished he hadn’t had that realization at all.
His body felt sticky with sweat, and he was so uncomfortable he didn’t quite know what to do. Rozanov had fucked him hard, relentlessly, and then poured him vodka, proceeded to ignore him as Shane attempted conversation that seemed to fall on deaf ears, and then kicked him out before Shane could even ask to use his shower quickly to clean up.
Everything was so… wrong. Shane had never felt so wrong after a night with Rozanov, not even after that first time after the CCM commercial, after Rozanov asked for his room number. After that, mostly, Shane had felt blissful and slightly freaked out, but never like this. Never wrong. Never… dirty. And not just from the sweat and the dried come on his skin.
For six long months, Rozanov had ignored him. Shane had told himself it was alright. They weren’t anything, as Rozanov had said back in Sochi. Sure, maybe Rozanov had been the first man to ever sleep with Shane, had made his first time unforgettable and gentle and everything Shane could have ever wanted… but that didn’t mean anything, right? At least that was what Shane had been repeating to himself over and over as weeks and then months went by and he didn’t receive a single text, not even on the nights Montreal played Boston. There had been a whole lot of silence and Shane had actually had a hard time believing it wasn’t because of him.
He’d been disappointing, hadn’t he? Rozanov had fucked him and compared him to the surely dozens of guys he’d probably slept with, with the dozens of women who found themselves in his bed, and found him lacking. Inexperienced. Unnecessary. Why would Rozanov want a repeat of that, when he could have so much more?
That didn’t explain tonight, but Shane was sure he could find a perfect explanation if he thought about it for a second. Lack of options? Maybe. Surely Rozanov could go to any bar in Las Vegas and pick up someone to fuck, though, right?
Shane made his way to the elevator and wished he hadn’t sipped at the vodka. He had already had a few glasses of champagne that he had been too nice to reject at the party, and his alcohol tolerance was shit.
He was such an idiot, wasn’t he? God, the way he had admitted to needing him, the way he had crawled towards him, naked on the bed… Shane felt tears prickle at the corner of his eyes. Why was he like this? Why did Rozanov manage to turn him into this mess? Why did he keep coming back for more, despite everything? There had to be something seriously damaged about Shane if he was willing to behave like his with a man who clearly didn’t care about him.
As he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for his floor, Shane closed his eyes and could still feel Rozanov’s hands on him. But that thought didn’t add to the humiliation: in fact, it seemed to only highlight the places where Rozanov hadn’t touched him tonight.
He started typing a message. A part of him was trying to save face, to pretend he didn’t feel as shattered as he currently felt. Maybe if he pretended Rozanov hadn’t disarmed him, Shane would still be able to face him when he saw him again, right? Because that was the problem, too: Shane would never be rid of him. They were doomed to find each other on the ice over and over and over again, and Shane had already made too much of a fool of himself. He didn’t want Rozanov to look at him during a face-off and realize just how much he had managed to change Shane in a fundamental, primitive level. He was not the same man he had been before Ilya Rozanov fucked him, and Shane didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of realizing exactly how much power he held over him because of it.
But a friendly See you next season :) felt jarring, completely out of place. That was not the kind of thing you texted someone who had just screwed your brains out in a way that seemed to rearrange the very atoms you were made of. He should have probably texted something along the lines of I think it would be better if we keep things professional from now on – clean and to the point, stating that Shane didn’t want this to happen again, even if it was a lie, god, of course it was a lie. Shane never felt more alive than when Rozanov was touching him, which was pathetic in itself.
Instead, his fingers typed something completely different, something that his body was clearly aware of in such an overwhelming way that it should have just added to the embarrassment he already felt: We didn’t even kiss.
Seeing the words on the screen made it even more real. They hadn’t kissed. Rozanov had kissed him in the bathroom, but not in the penthouse, not when it mattered. He’d never been close enough for a kiss to happen: first, when Shane walked in, he was standing at the window, enticing and gorgeous and sexier than any man had any right to be, and then he had been sitting in his stupid chair facing the bed. And when he finally came close enough for Shane to press his face against him, pathetic in his need to have him close, to have him in his mouth, to fill his senses with the scent and taste of him, he had still kept enough of a distance that his lips never came close to Shane’s own or to any other part of his body, for that matter. He got his hands, and he got his dick, and even when Shane never felt fuller than when he was being fucked by him, emptiness had spread through him, uncertain and hollowing, and he hadn’t understood why until this very moment.
We didn’t even kiss. It shouldn’t matter as much as it did. Shane told himself to delete it, to write something else, to send anything else or maybe nothing at all, because anything would be better than this admission of weakness, better than showing him just how truly he seemed to need him. Rozanov did not want him – he would not care, and this would be just one more thing to tease him about, chirping material as sharp as skate blades.
Instead, he sent it, because apparently there was no end to the night’s indignities. There were still several floors between him and his hotel bed and he could still commit many more acts of self-flagellation and self-humiliation until he made it there and called it a day.
How Shane hated himself in that moment.
We didn’t even kiss. What a sad little admission that this man – his rival, the one person he shouldn’t have let near him – owned him in ways Shane couldn’t even begin to understand.
But that could change, couldn’t it?
He straightened up. Suddenly, he didn’t feel the clamminess of his own skin. Suddenly, the idea of climbing into bed was the furthest thing from his mind. He could have blamed the alcohol, but there was something else running through his veins, some sort of toxic determination that was much stronger than anything he could have drunk.
Shane had been acting as if Ilya Rozanov was the only man in this world who could give him what he needed, but that was wrong. He just hadn’t allowed himself to explore the options.
We didn’t even kiss.
There surely was someone out there who would be willing to offer him what he wanted.
The penthouse was utterly silent and the bed smelled like sex.
It didn’t matter how much Ilya smoked – he couldn’t chase away the scent of Shane Hollander’s sweat, of his skin, of his expensive cologne. Everything smelled like him, even Ilya himself. It was the worst kind of intoxicating.
Ilya was in a weird mood. He’d been in a weird mood all day, knowing he would see Hollander. He tried to pretend it didn’t matter, but after six long months of absence, there was a craving inside of him he couldn’t quite recognize, that was new and belonged entirely to Hollander. He had tried to keep his distance, too, but one look at him today and he had been ready to let himself have him right there in the middle of a public bathroom.
Those pretty brown eyes… Ilya didn’t understand what kind of spell Hollander had put on him. He wanted it gone. He wanted to go back to normal – if things could even go back to normal when his life seemed to be crumbling at the edges. He got caught in a moment of weakness, he told himself. He was always a little weaker when the return to Russia was looming closer in the horizon, like he didn’t have the energy to keep his shields up around anything else when he knew they would need to be as strong as possible once he made it home.
Home.
Do you even like it there?
What difference does it make?
A pretty big one, I think.
Hollander would never understand. He had everything he could possibly want. He was Canada’s golden boy. His parents followed him everywhere, proud and beaming. He didn’t know what it was like to have to keep afloat when everything around you was falling apart, when no one cared if you drowned…
Fuck.
Tonight had been a mistake. The sex hadn’t left him loose and pliant, relaxed. He was more tense than ever.
I need…
I need... you.
Ilya closed his eyes. He could see Hollander sitting on the bed, doing what he was told, always so good for him, always so trusting. Having him always felt like a little reward, as if the universe allowed him to have the prettiest boy in the world in exchange for all the other bullshit it put him through. But Hollander was a temporary solution. He was not his to keep.
No. Thinking on those terms wouldn’t help. Ilya did not even want to keep Hollander, not like that. He liked the sight of him in his bed, on his hands and knees, his pretty mouth open to take him in…
There was an ache in his chest he did not understand. He lit another cigarette. His flight to Moscow was less than forty-eight hours away. He was going back home a Stanley Cup Champion, a MLH MVP award recipient, and it would not erase the fact that he had lost to Latvia in the Olympics. It would be held over his head like it was a sin he needed to make up for.
Ilya had been held accountable for many sins in his life – it wasn’t something he could just get used to.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, the sound almost grating and wrong in the otherwise quiet and empty penthouse. It was so high above the city, it was easy to pretend the rest of the world had faded away, that he was all alone, up in his tower, untouchable.
Stupid, Ilya thought. The world never faded away. It always pulled at him, demanding more, reminding him when he wasn’t enough.
He almost didn’t reach for his phone. If it was Alexei, asking for money, he didn’t want to know. If it was his father, for whatever reason, Ilya did not want to talk to him. He only had forty-eight more hours without them and he wanted to squeeze as much peace as he could out of each and every one of them.
Peace. Ilya could have scoffed. He hadn’t known peace in… well, a really fucking long time, really.
He grabbed the phone. It was a text from Hollander. Had he forgotten something? Would he beg for more? Ilya had been desperate to get him out of the room, and now a part of him wished he would come back, because sitting alone with his thoughts was never a good thing.
And then he opened the new text, and something in his chest seemed to plummet.
We didn’t even kiss.
Ilya’s eyes were fixed on those words, as if he had suddenly lost his grasp on the English language and could make no sense of them. But he knew, he knew, he knew what they meant. Not kissing Hollander had been deliberate. A small shield raised between them to try to keep some of his sanity intact. Maybe Ilya had thought that if he fucked him hard enough, Hollander wouldn’t even notice the difference. Why would he want to kiss Ilya anyway? It was just a doorway to more, a little starter before the main dish, before the real reason Hollander came to him. A kiss didn’t mean anything.
And yet Ilya had held back, as much as he could, his lips never gracing any part of Hollander, not an inch of skin, nowhere near his mouth. It had been his hands and his dick that he got tonight, the only things that Ilya felt like he could spare. Ways to get pleasure. Nothing else.
He thought back to the kiss they had shared in the bathroom at the ceremony, how he had regretted it after walking away, because it had felt so good, like something Ilya should not be getting. Hollander had been pliant, loose, leaning on him like there was nothing that he wanted more than to get closer, and it wasn’t something Ilya could allow.
But now this text… how had he allowed Hollander to become such a weakness for him? Just reading those four little words made him want to rush out of his room and find him, to give him what he wanted, to…
No. Ilya couldn’t. This was getting out of hand. This was becoming more complicated than it should have been. Hollander was supposed to be a good fuck, an exciting secret to keep from the rest of the world, a thrill of danger, and nothing more.
These words shouldn’t be allowed to disarm him. And yet…
Ilya put his cigarette out with more force than necessary. As much as he wanted to believe he didn’t care about Hollander, he still didn’t want to hurt him, and this sounded like he was hurt…
His phone buzzed again. He was almost scared to see what Hollander had followed his first message with.
Ilya had never been shot. He didn’t know what a gunshot wound felt like, what it looked like, what it would be like to look down and see it on his own body, open and oozing blood and violent. But as he read Hollander’s new text, he felt like he had just been shot, like there was a hole in his chest, and it was ugly, gaping, his ribs cracking with the force of the bullet as it went through him.
But that’s okay, Hollander had written. It’s okay if you don’t want to kiss me. I will find someone else who will.
Ilya read that last part again: I will find someone else who will. It sounded like a threat, and yet it was nothing but a statement of fact. Ilya hadn’t been enough (when was he ever?) so Hollander would take the matter into his own hands and find someone who was. Someone who gave him what he wanted.
Was this Hollander’s way of saying this thing between them was over? Ilya should have been relieved. It was easier to end it. It was easier to move on – to find someone else to give him the sort of thrill he got from Hollander.
Except… did Hollander mean he was finding someone else now? Right after walking out of Ilya’s penthouse?
If the idea of Hollander finding anyone else at all felt like a gunshot, then the realization that it could be happening right now felt like Ilya had been pushed against a wall by a firing squad, bullets flying against him until there wasn’t much left of him at all.
He told himself this was not what was happening. Hollander wasn’t serious. He was surely back in his own room, about to shower and get into bed. He was boring. This was a reassuring quality to Ilya, because Hollander never did anything that could be considered out of line, never strayed from his path, always did what was expected of him…
Well – that wasn’t true. He constantly surprised Ilya when they were together, didn’t he? He was bold and sexy and definitely not boring in bed. He never backed down from a challenge, just like he never backed down from a challenge when he was on the ice.
Ilya felt hollowed out, nervous. Hollander had had a few drinks. He’d seen him with a glass in his hand several times at the party downstairs, and he had sipped most of the vodka Ilya had poured for him, too, trying and failing to hide his distaste. The thought of Hollander, with his shitty tolerance, getting himself into trouble when he was a little drunk sent an unpleasant shiver down Ilya’s spine.
This was insane. This was stupid.
He would never admit it to anyone, but his fingers were shaking as he typed a response: You’re drunk, Jane. Go to bed.
Ilya stood up. He paced around the room, still naked. Las Vegas was so bright outside the window, and Ilya thought about Hollander being nervous about anyone seeing him after he got undressed in the living room, as if anyone could see them so high up. But his discomfort had been so obvious that Ilya hadn’t even been able to mock him, had just wanted to get him comfortable again…
Only to make him sit on the bed, ask him to touch himself, like he was some plaything for Ilya to entertain himself with? Sure, Hollander had gotten into it, but at first… at first he could see the hesitation in his dark, pretty eyes. Ilya never wanted to blur the limits, to push anyone to do something they weren’t okay with, even if he often behaved like the asshole everyone knew he was.
He had made many mistakes, hadn’t he?
And it seemed he had just made a new one, because when his phone buzzed again, it was clear that Hollander didn’t like his response to his texts.
Fuck you, Rozanov. Fuck you. I don’t know why I let you do this to me… but fuck you. I deserve better.
He used his last name. Hollander, who was always so careful as not to let it slip, always so paranoid that their texts might be leaked and ruin everything, was using his last name like he didn’t care anymore.
Fear spread through Ilya, choking, effective, all-encompassing. He tried to breathe through it, but it was hard. He told himself he had to let go. He told himself to tell Hollander that yes, he deserved better, so it was better if they didn’t do this again. He told himself to go to bed, get some sleep and pretend winning tonight hadn’t left him emptier than he had been before.
Instead, like his own body was ready to betray him, to disobey his mind, Ilya began typing again one-handed as he reached for his clothes with the other: Where are you? Are you in your room?
By the time he was completely dressed, there still wasn’t a response. Ilya told himself it was silly to panic. Hollander had surely passed out in his bed. He was safe in his own hotel room. He wanted nothing to do with Ilya, which only meant he would be even safer than he was now. After all, didn’t Ilya break everything he touched?
He paced around the unnecessarily big living room. What was the point of it? He had only had the room for a few hours, would be leaving it very early the next day. Had he just chosen the penthouse to show off for Hollander? He was more stupid than he thought, then, because it was obvious that what Hollander wanted was so, so much simpler.
We didn’t even kiss.
Fuck.
Just as Ilya was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t going to get any more messages because Hollander was surely asleep, that he should sleep himself unless he wanted to be even more of a mess tomorrow, his phone buzzed again. He was not proud of the way he practically launched himself at it.
Hollander had texted a picture this time, and whatever little hope Ilya still had managed to hold onto evaporated into nothing. There were two drinks in the picture, which was shaky and blurry – Ilya didn’t think it was because Hollander was a crappy photographer. He was probably even more intoxicated than he had been when he walked out of the room.
Two drinks.
It buzzed again before Ilya could even process how that made him feel.
No. todl you. Fidnngi someone else
Ilya was also not proud of the guttural growl he let out, frustration and jealousy building inside him. Hollander was having a drink with another man. And it was obvious that the alcohol was turning him sloppy, because in the years they had been texting each other, Ilya had never seen him type like this.
Then he noticed the name of the bar printed on one of the coasters. He didn’t know Las Vegas well enough to know where this bar was, but there were ways to find out.
This was reckless. In the morning, Hollander was going to regret it, not just because he would feel like shit, but because this was surely going to end up blowing up in his face. Even if he didn’t take anyone back to his hotel room, he could be photographed at the bar. He could be outed. He could be risking everything just because Ilya hadn’t given him what he needed…
Ilya was out of his room and making his way down to the lobby before he could truly think this through. It would certainly be a lot worse if he was photographed anywhere near Shane Hollander at a bar, especially with his flight to Russia happening in just a few days, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t go and make sure Hollander was safe.
He approached the desk once he made it out of the elevator with long purposeful strides. He stopped in front of a sleepy-looking receptionist who surely just wanted her shift to be over. Ilya put his phone down on the desk and slid it towards her, the screen showing only the picture Hollander had sent him.
“Do you know where this bar is?” He asked, without bothering with pleasantries.
She blinked for a moment, before she looked down at the phone. “Oh. Yeah, I know it. It’s…”
“Get me car, please,” he interrupted. “I need to get there now.”
But she was shaking her head, polite smile plastered on her face. “No need for a car! It’s just down the block!”
Ilya was suddenly flooded with the kind of relief he should have felt when he thought Hollander was ending things with him. “Can you tell me where?”
“Sure! Just turn left at the door and go straight down the street. You’ll see it. It’s right next to a gift shop…”
“Thank you,” he said, and strode towards the doors.
This was insane. Ilya knew it was insane. But maybe he should have known he would always be a little insane when it came to Hollander.
Weakness, yeah. That was what it was. That was what he made him feel.
Ilya was in such a hurry to get to Hollander than he almost walked right past the bar. He saw the gift shop the receptionist had mentioned, and it made him backtrack. The bar was impossible to miss, really, big and loud, music pouring out of it, neon lights by the entrance. There were people going in and Ilya slipped behind them. This was a terrible idea. He was in his tuxedo pants and his white shirt, barely buttoned. He wondered if Hollander had changed. If he had, then it meant he had thought about this more than Ilya had assumed. He had made the plan to go back out, to look for what Ilya hadn’t given him.
Ilya was an idiot.
The bar was crowded. The music was loud for him, so he imagined it had to be some sort of hell for Hollander, although at least it wasn’t paired with flashing lights. Instead, the lighting was dim enough that Ilya had trouble adjusting his sight, so he stood there like a fool, glancing around and trying to find Hollander.
It took him more time than he wish it would, but then he found him sitting at a small, private table, a man leaning closer to speak into his ear, and he was still dressed in the suit he had been wearing when he left the penthouse. Even from the distance and in the near darkness, Ilya could see Hollander frowning and trying to pull away, like he didn’t like how close this stranger was to him. Ilya knew how much Hollander liked to have his personal space respected – it always felt like such a privilege to be allowed into it.
Goddamn it.
Ilya did not want to cause a scene. Even if he managed to get Hollander back to the hotel safely and calm him down, finding pictures of them arguing in a bar all over social media would definitely make Hollander never, ever forgive him. Not that Ilya wanted his forgiveness…
The stranger placed a hand on Hollander’s shoulder and moved even closer, like he wasn’t aware of the other man’s discomfort.
Fuck this shit.
Ilya marched towards them feeling like a lion who had set eyes on the perfect prey. When he stopped at their little, secluded table, Hollander glanced up and his face betrayed him for a second or two, showing his relief, before he managed to school his expression into annoyance.
“You,” Ilya said brusquely to the stranger. “Leave. Now.”
The man straightened up to look at him, clearly surprised. He had blonde hair and honey eyes, and he could have been considered conventionally attractive if he hadn’t been standing right next to Shane Hollander, who had to be the prettiest man Ilya had ever seen.
“What? You can’t…” The man started to say, and his accent was probably Australian or something like it. But then he paused, like he could see that Ilya was in a murderous mood, and he deemed his life more important than the chance to fuck the beautiful man sitting next to him. “Fine, mate. You can have him.”
Ilya did not appreciate that comment, the way it was said like having Shane Hollander wasn’t worth absolutely everything, but he did not have time to educate this asshole on the matter. He had more important things to do, so he let him go.
Standing in a way that blocked both of them from view, Ilya looked at Hollander. He looked drunk, but not completely wasted. His eyes were brighter than usual, and his cheeks were flushed. Ilya couldn’t see his freckles in this dimness, and that bothered him more than he was willing to admit.
“Are you okay?” Ilya asked him.
Hollander groaned in annoyance. “Why do you even care, Rozanov?”
Ilya shushed him. “You probably want to keep your voice down unless you want to attract attention you may not want to deal with in the morning, Hollander.” Ilya’s own voice was sharp and low, almost menacing, like he was issuing a warning. “Even if you are upset, I’m sure you don’t want to do something stupid just out of pity revenge.”
Hollander glared at him for another moment, before his angry expression started to melt a little. “Petty.”
“What?” Ilya wasn’t sure he heard him over the music.
“It’s petty revenge, not pity,” Hollander sighed. “Why are you here?”
Now he looked tired, more than anything. Ilya’s chest ached and he tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t.
“I do not want you to get hurt,” he replied.
Hollander pushed his drink away, like he didn’t even want it close. “You only seem to care about that when it’s convenient to you.”
Ilya deserved that, he guessed, but it still stung. “Look, Hollander, you can be pissed at me all you want. But we’re in public, you’re a little drunk, and I don’t think this is a conversation you want to have here, where anyone could hear us. You do not want to deal with both hangover and consequences in the morning.”
Hollander cursed under his breath, like he didn’t want to admit that Ilya was right and like it bothered him that he hadn’t been smarter about this. “Fuck.”
“And I go to Russia in a couple of days. I would like not to make the news about this before I have to be there. Would be very complicated for me,” Ilya added, rather reluctantly.
Hollander’s brown eyes lifted to his face. He studied Ilya like he wanted to make sure he wasn’t using this as an excuse to get him into a hotel room again, and Ilya wished he didn’t always have to be the person everyone expected the worst from.
“Fine. But I’m not going back to your fucking penthouse,” Hollander said. He stood up. He only swayed slightly. He really was shitty at drinking alcohol.
Ilya had no intention of taking him back to that cavernous, pointless room. He didn’t even want to return himself. “What is your room number?”
Narrowing his eyes at him, Hollander hesitated. “I don’t know if I want you in my room, either.”
“I just want to talk,” Ilya said, lifting his hands as if that would prove his innocence.
Hollander grumbled under his breath like he didn’t quite believe that, but then said: “1512.”
“Can you make it there alone?” Ilya asked. He realized his voice was probably gentler than it had been all night. Hollander seemed to notice too, and something that felt a lot like distrust painted his expression. Ilya couldn’t blame him, but it didn’t mean he liked it.
“Yes,” Hollander said, rather petulantly.
“Okay. Will meet you there in ten minutes, then,” Ilya said.
Ilya did not wait for confirmation. He turned around and left. Instead of heading towards the hotel, he took a slow stroll around the block, just to give Hollander time to make it to his room. When he finally made it back to the hotel, he took a quick detour to the desk, where the receptionist was typing something on the computer at the speed of light. She startled a bit when he stopped in front of her.
Ilya slid a hundred-dollar bill across the desk towards her. His tone was a lot softer than it had been when he first addressed her earlier. “You were very helpful. Thank you.”
She seemed so shocked by the change in demeanor, she didn’t start protesting that this wasn’t necessary until Ilya was already walking away from her.
He took the elevator to Hollander’s floor and told himself he wasn’t nervous. If he was, then it was just residual from the shitty night he’d had so far. Walking onto the stage to accept the MVP award seemed so distant, like it had happened to someone else altogether. The award was somewhere in the penthouse. He had lost track of it as he searched for a bottle of vodka. It didn’t seem important at the moment.
Once he finally made it to the right room, Ilya knocked. Hollander was always so quick to open the door for him, like he was expecting him, like he wanted to make sure no one saw Ilya waiting in the hallway, but now Ilya had to knock a second time after getting no response. He was immediately worried, which he hated: what if Hollander never made it back to the room? It was a very short walk from the bar, but Hollander wasn’t used to drinking, anything could have happened. Ilya should have walked him, but it would have defeated the purpose of keeping a low profile and…
The door finally opened. Hollander stood in front of him in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his hair slightly damp, a towel still in his hand.
“Sorry, I needed a shower,” Hollander said, and stepped aside to let him in.
Ilya slipped in and stood by the now closed door, awkwardly. He had never hesitated after entering a room containing Hollander and a bed before, and it was unsettling.
Perhaps the short walk and the shower managed to sober Hollander up a bit, because right now he looked drained and ready to put everything behind him. Ilya didn’t think he had a lot of time before Hollander kicked him out of here, so it was better not to waste any precious minutes.
“So, the texts you sent…” he started.
Immediately, Hollander looked embarrassed. “Just forget about them. Forget about everything.”
“Cannot forget,” Ilya replied. He was not going to let him get away with that. It would just make things worse in the long run, if he did.
Ilya could see the anger rising in Hollander much like it had earlier that night, in the bathroom. He knew it was just a matter of time before he started yelling again and, in a way, Ilya craved it. Anger meant there was still something there. Something… maybe salvageable?
God, Ilya should just walk away. Where was the relief he expected to feel when he thought Hollander was putting an end to things?
But Ilya had never learned to leave well enough alone. He always had to push. He always had to ruin everything.
“Is this fun for you?” Hollander said then, spitting the words out like they are poisonous. “Humiliating me? Is that what you truly get off on?”
“Hollander…” Ilya tried, but it seemed like now that he had gotten started, Hollander didn’t want to stop.
“For two years you texted me constantly, teasing me, telling me how much you wanted to fuck me. And I knew, I knew it was a really stupid idea, but I wanted to anyway, so I agreed,” Hollander said. His voice was a little louder than he usually kept it – anyone in the room next to theirs would hear, but Ilya couldn’t bring himself to care, or to remind Hollander, not when he looked this upset. “I agreed, and it was great, but since then you’ve behaved like the worst kind of asshole. Look, I was not expecting you to take me on a date afterwards, to buy me fucking flowers, this has never been about that and I never expected it to, but the least you could have done was not ignore me for the next six months like I didn’t even matter. Do you have any idea what it felt like? Like yeah, great, Ilya Rozanov got the prize he was after, time to move on!”
Something went cold right in the middle of Ilya’s chest. “Was not like that.”
“It just doesn’t make sense. You were so… so gentle, during, so… caring,” Hollander said it like it pained him to remember it. “I saw this whole other side of you. But I guess you were just having fun chasing after me, right? This one thing you can hold over my head for the rest of our careers…”
“You know I would not do that,” Ilya interrupted, but Hollander ignored him.
“Oh, wouldn’t you?” Hollander laughed now, but it was a bitter, bitter sound. “Sure. You’ve been so cavalier since, haven’t you?”
“Is this about Sochi?” Ilya asked. He did not know what cavalier meant, but he guessed it wasn’t the right time to say so. It was clear Hollander wasn’t complimenting him, though. “I could not talk to you then. Was not safe.”
“Yes, it’s about Sochi, and about the text you never even bothered replying to, and about tonight! Because despite these past six months I was stupid enough to let you fuck me again. God, what is wrong with me?” It didn’t sound like a question Hollander wanted answered. It was, how they say, rhetoric, Ilya guessed. “It’s my fault. Really, you are an asshole, but I’ve always known this. Shit, you made me beg in that fucking bathroom and I did right away. It’s my fault for thinking you could be… I don’t know, decent.”
It hurt a bit, but it was no less than what Ilya deserved, so he let it go. “Hollander, stop. Listen to me.”
Hollander shook his head, like he wasn’t interested in listening to anything Ilya had to say.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya said, before he lost his chance.
The words were simple, but they seemed to land heavily on Hollander, who clearly hadn’t expected them, judging by the look on his face. Ilya really was an asshole, wasn’t he, if a simple apology was enough to make Hollander look this surprised?
Ilya wondered what his mama would think, if he could see the man he had become.
No. Best not think about his mama now.
“You don’t deserve the way I treated you. You are right,” Ilya continued, before he lost his courage. “You’re good person, Hollander, and sometimes I forget how to be one, too. But it was not your fault, anything that happened since that night at your place. I did not mean to hurt you. I was just…”
What excuses could he give that would be believable? But Ilya realized that he did not feel like lying, not tonight. Not after the rollercoaster of the past few hours. He was tired, and feeling more vulnerable than he would like to. It was the kind of effect Hollander had on him, unfortunately.
“Russia is difficult. Always is. I wasn’t at my best when we met in Sochi,” he explained. He guessed it was as much of the truth as he could give him, at least for now. “I did not want anyone seeing you talking to me. Would be dangerous. And your text… I should have answered. But I couldn’t. You were nice to worry. I’m sorry.”
Hollander was looking at him like he could interpret to perfection the little gaps between the words, like he could still hear everything Ilya wasn’t saying. Ilya hated it, but allowed it to happen. It was the least he could do.
“Tonight was…” He took a step forward. There was too much distance between them. “You were so good for me, and I wasn’t what you needed. I’m sorry. Was not about you. Is me. Is… complicated.”
Hollander nodded slowly, like he was stunned to silence by Ilya’s now numerous apologies and what he was saying. “Why is it complicated?”
“Russia,” Ilya said. It was the best way to summarize it, anyway. “I always get a little…” He couldn’t find the right word for it. Upset? Anxious? No. It was something deeper, he thought. “Knowing I have to go back is never easy for me. I am not myself, before heading back to Russia.”
Hollander must understand he was not getting a more detailed response, but he looked right into Ilya’s eyes, like he was trying to figure out how honest he was. It was scary to think Hollander could read him this easily, because he gave him a quick nod, accepting Ilya’s explanation way too quickly.
“You were right to be angry,” Ilya reminded him. It felt wrong to get away with tonight so fast.
Another nod and another stretch of silence. Ilya could have just turned around and left the room before he said anything else, before he made things worse. But whatever strength had been enough to make him keep his distance upstairs in the penthouse has dissolved after the events of tonight. He had nothing left to give, nowhere left to hide.
It also didn’t help that Hollander’s eyes were just as bright as they had been in the bathroom earlier, like he was holding back tears.
“Hollander,” Ilya muttered now, and it came out too soft, but it was too late to stop it. He took a step forward, just one more, but it was enough to bring him within reaching distance. Still, he didn’t touch Hollander. He wasn’t sure he was allowed.
It was a mistake. Unlike in the bar, the light here was enough to see each and every single one of Hollander’s freckles.
Ilya closed his hands into fists, squeezing hard enough it made his knuckles hurt a bit from the pressure. He was not going to reach out. He was not going to fucking caress his cheek, god.
Ilya was heading back to Moscow in forty-eight fucking hours, and everything in him felt a little weaker, a little more tender than it should have with Russia within sight in the horizon. He should have been hardening himself, making himself tougher to be able to bear what he always had to bear when he was back with his family. Instead, he felt like he was being turned inside out, all the vulnerable parts of him exposed.
Hollander looked at him, which did not help. He searched Ilya’s face like he was reading a book, and Ilya could only hope that the book was at least written in a language he did not understand, otherwise he was more fucked than he was willing to admit.
“I really like fucking you,” he said, mostly because it was good to shift things back and focus on how their relationship was merely physical, and partly because yeah, it was true. Fucking Hollander was probably near the top of the list of things Ilya liked to do these days. “And I would like to keep doing it. Is okay if you don’t want. I was asshole, you deserved better, you were right. But if you can forgive me, I promise to treat you better.”
“You only like me when you’re fucking me,” Hollander retorted.
“Well, yes, of course. You are very boring person, Hollander,” Ilya teased, and it turned out to be the right thing to say.
No one’s face lit up at being called boring the way Hollander’s did, as if there was a meaning to that word Ilya was not familiar with.
“Right,” Hollander said.
“Will you let me kiss you now?” Ilya asked before he could change his mind. “Is okay if you don’t want, if you are still upset. But I wanted to kiss you, too. Should have done it earlier.”
Hollander took a deep breath. It looked like he was hesitating, like he was trying to determine how much to hate himself for giving in so soon again. Ilya still hoped he would give in, though. He wanted to kiss him.
“Okay,” Hollander said, very quietly.
Ilya did not need to hear it again. He surged forward, pulled Hollander into his arms, and kissed him as he pushed him against the wall next to the bathroom door.
It wasn’t a fast kiss. It wasn’t slow, either. It seemed to have the exact rhythm that made it perfect. For a moment, Ilya was reminded of the first time he had kissed Hollander, against another wall of another hotel room. The sounds Hollander made were similar. The way he kissed back, like he still couldn’t believe what he was doing, was similar. He was a better kisser now, though. He knew when to part his lips for Ilya’s tongue, when to push back. But he was still letting Ilya take the reins.
Yeah. Kissing Shane Hollander was always a mistake, because it kept reminding Ilya that he did not want to stop, and it was absolutely imperative that he did.
He didn’t touch him below the waist. He let his hands wander over his chest, massaging slightly at his shoulders, hands cupping his cheeks or sneaking back to thread his fingers through his silky hair. But he made himself draw a limit that he would not cross. He had already crossed too many lines tonight.
He kissed Hollander until they were both breathless. Then he pulled away and allowed himself just five seconds to rest his forehead on Hollander’s temple, breathing him in and letting his pulse try to go back to normal, which was probably useless, because it always spiked around Hollander.
“Okay?” He asked, his voice low and tentative.
Hollander nodded.
Ilya brushed his lips against Hollander’s once more. It wasn’t quite a kiss and yet it felt just as thrilling. “I should go, let you get some sleep.”
“Okay,” Hollander said, although he sounded reluctant.
Ilya made himself pull away completely. He missed Hollander’s warmth instantly. “Don’t be a stranger, Hollander. I will see you next season, okay?”
“See you next season,” Hollander echoed.
Ilya had never had trouble walking out of a hotel room after a hook up before. He was always so eager to leave, to put some distance between himself and whoever he had enjoyed for the night. Sure, this night wasn’t a conventional hook-up, not after he had fucked everything up and then had to track Hollander down and get him back to the hotel, but… it should have been easier, shouldn’t it? To open the door and leave?
And yet, Ilya stood outside in the middle of the hallway, even after finally managing to leave the room, and had to convince himself not to go back in.
No. Russia in two days. Ilya needed sleep, and a cigarette, and perhaps another glass of vodka, not exactly in that order.
But he felt lighter, definitely a lot lighter than he had felt after getting those text messages. For once in his life, he felt like he hadn’t completely ruined everything.
He didn’t let himself think about how it had been the perfect excuse to end things with Hollander. He didn’t let himself think about why he was so reluctant to let go, to give up something that wasn’t even his to have in the first place.
It was just sex – sex was never complicated, right?
Ilya took the elevator all the way up to his penthouse again. He liked Hollander’s room better – smaller, quainter maybe, not as obviously empty as this fucking place.
He jumped in the shower. He let the hot water run down his back and he pushed every single thought out of his head. That was how he survived everything, after all, by doing his best not to think about it.
It was going to be a long summer.