Archive of Our Own

It’s a regular night out, until it isn’t.

The Raiders won at home tonight, and with a free evening before they’re bundled onto a flight tomorrow, the boys have been celebrating hard. They’re between the third and fourth bar now, and Ilya’s carried along the streets by the revelry of his team, by their drunken hollers and slurred chants – and at one point physically, Marleau hoisting him under his arms and Connors grabbing his legs as they raise him up in the air and sing his praises. 

The energy is stupid and beer-soaked, and Ilya lets himself throw his head back and crow in triumph, basking in the ego of it all. The victory was hard-won, but he had led them there, pumped them full of adrenaline and determination and guided them through the plays.

It feels good. 

The vodka chilling his veins feels good, too. 

Almost good enough to forget how many weeks stretch out ahead of him before they face Montreal.

The thought is blessedly dislodged as Marly almost drops him on his ass, the group stumbling as one and just barely dumping Ilya back onto his feet.

“Fucking assholes,” Ilya laughs, shaking himself and straightening his jacket. “Thank god you are more coordinated on ice.”

“Fuck off, Rozy, all that fuckin’ McDonald’s makes you fuckin’ heavy,” Marly shoots back with a grin, before he’s dragged into a different conversation by Carmichael’s arm hooking around his neck.

The group devolves into a squabble, with half insisting on pivoting to a club, while the other half pull towards another bar. Ilya doesn’t particularly care enough to contribute. He’s partied at every place in this city, and he’ll have a good time in any one of them. Despite their fierce celebration of him minutes earlier, Ilya easily fades to the backdrop of the conversation, becoming more of an outside observer to the chirping and the friendly arguing. 

As a rookie, he used to think he lagged behind sometimes because he needed to process each individual word in his head before voicing a careful reply. His English has improved enough to know now that it’s not only that. Connection just seems to come easier to the rest of them, loose and free-flowing in a way that feels inaccessible to him. It’s at odds with everything he always trained himself to be. Marly’s the closest thing he has on the team to a best friend, but there’s still a distance that feels impassable.

It’s different with Sveta. She knows almost all of him, having slipped secretly under his armour when they were young and made a home there. But she’s busy lately – new business, selling fancy cars. 

Fuck, he misses her.

He misses a lot of things.

It’s three. Three weeks until Montreal.

His hands are itching for another drink. He settles for the next best thing, shaking a cigarette free from a pack he plucks from his jacket and sparking it up. The first inhale quietens his brain, even if just for a moment. He doesn’t catch the conclusion of the debate, but when the group starts making a more determined beeline, he figures they’re headed to the bar at the next corner, a blue neon sign beckoning in the distance.

That’s when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket.

Reflexively, Ilya falls back a step or two as he pulls it out, expecting to read one of a few select Cyrillic names on the screen.

Then he stops dead.

He stares at the name – the last he’d ever expect – for long enough that the call drops, the screen going black in his hand. With a furtive glance to his team staggering unsteadily up the street, Ilya pulls up their text thread, his thumb hovering indecisively over the keyboard. 

He has no idea what to type. This is… unprecedented. He learned that word recently. 

Before he can even attempt a response, inexplicably, the same caller ID flashes up again. The phone buzzes insistently in his palm, once. Twice.

He can still hear the shouts of his teammates up ahead.

He knows what he should do.

“Fuck,” he mutters, doing the opposite.

When he answers, he’s greeted with a whimpered moan that goes straight to his head, leaving him reeling like he’s just thrown back another shot. His mouth drops open, the cigarette dangling stupidly from his lower lip for a second until he plucks it free with his other hand.

Holy fuck. He must be dreaming. But the rough breaths filtering into his ear are too real, tethering him tightly to the moment.

“Jane,” he murmurs, gleeful and shocked. “This is not like you.”

If Ilya’s honest, he’s impressed. 

Ilya’s attempted to goad Hollander into just sexting him countless times, to varying degrees of success. It’s become a familiar game over the years, Ilya teasing and coaxing sometimes for days at a time, refusing to let up despite Hollander’s half-hearted snippy comebacks. He’s always so insistent on denying himself, even when it’s so obvious that he’s dying for it. So fucking stubborn, until he either stops responding completely or he finally breaks. And when he does, he breaks so beautifully: all misspelled pleas and filthy confessions spilling into their text thread. Ilya doesn’t care that he’s painfully literal or that he misses half of Ilya’s innuendos. Ilya drinks it up every time, like he’s parched.

The last time, though, was different. Several months ago now, on a random Thursday night that's clear as day in Ilya’s mind – because that time Hollander had started it.

Jane: What are you doing right now

Ilya had blinked at it for several seconds, before sending a single ? in response.

Jane: Never mind

Ilya had typed quicker than he could think.

Lily: Nothing. At home. You want something?

A long pause. Three dots popped up maddeningly, disappeared, popped up again. And again.

Lily: You can have. You just need to ask

He’d felt a weird sense of pride when Hollander had finally responded – it was stilted and awkwardly-phrased, but he hadn’t backed down from voicing what he wanted. It had led to a flurry of texts so heated that Ilya came harder than he had with the girl he’d taken home a week earlier, shuddering into his fist and clutching his phone like a lifeline.

The next time they hooked up, Ilya couldn’t resist asking what had gotten him so bold. He waited until Hollander was sufficiently fucked-out, still catching his breath as he lay with one hand casually thrown over Ilya’s chest. Still, he’d become evasive, avoiding Ilya’s gaze and deflecting his questions a handful of times before eventually admitting, “I was just – stressed. When there’s a lot on my mind, it’s harder to… y’know. Sometimes.”

“Harder to…?” Ilya had pressed, grabbing Hollander’s jaw and turning his face so he had little choice but to look at him.

“To get off.” 

His hackles were raised as he said it, glaring at Ilya as if daring him to mock him. Ilya had sensed that he shouldn’t. The knowledge that Hollander had turned to him when he needed to be taken out of his head was too weighty, too real. Instead, he’d quietly taken the fragile admission and tucked it away somewhere safe.

“Hm. Maybe next time you are stressed, you call me instead. I can be even more helpful that way,” he’d suggested, with a wiggle of his brows.

Hollander had snorted and pushed at his chest. “Yeah, no way. That’s – embarrassing.”

Ilya had thrown his arms up in dramatics, calling him boring and lamenting how cruel and heartless he was for not letting Ilya hear him come. He had acted mortally offended that he could refuse Ilya’s voice in his ear telling him exactly how he wanted to fuck him.

All he got in return was, “You’re insufferable,” as Hollander had headed to the bathroom, and that was that. 

Ilya had assumed this was simply one of those invisible lines that Hollander tends to draw in the sand; another thing to deliberately deprive himself of, following a logic that made sense only to him.

Ilya understands that, though. He does the same thing.

A bitten-off curse from Hollander tears Ilya back to the present moment, standing in the middle of the street, in the chill of a Boston evening. The sound filters through the phone along with a rustling, like he’s writhing in the sheets. Ilya imagines him sweating and ruddy-cheeked and so fucking infuriated with himself for calling – but not enough to resist. 

He’s just as stupid and irresponsible as Ilya is for picking up. 

Ilya’s own last name curls into his ear, low and hot. “You said next time I should, uh.” 

It jolts Ilya into action. Quickly checking no one’s turned back to look for him, he ducks into an alley by the side of a restaurant, letting the drunken shouts fade without a second thought.

“What do you need?” Ilya murmurs as soon as he’s tucked away from the street.

It comes out more urgent than he intends. It’s a little pathetic. The phone burns against his ear, pressed tight so he can catch the frantic, slick sounds in the background. His eyes squeeze shut. 

“Hollander.”

“You,” comes the response, gritted out like he had to force it, followed by a gasp as if he shocked himself. “I need…”

Ilya waits. The rest comes eventually, inevitable and pitiful.

“Help me, I – I need you to help me.”

Ilya presses his lips together. Glances over his shoulder, before turning back. “Ah, no. More specific, I think.”

“Make me come. Fuck.”

The honesty of it rings loudly in the quiet static between them. Ilya doesn’t know if it’s bravery or desperation that has Hollander laying himself out like this when he swore he never would. Maybe it’s both – or something else entirely. 

He certainly sounds desperate. He’d have to be, to stoop this low.

“How long have you been touching yourself?” Ilya asks quietly, laying on a casual tone. “Long time, probably. Maybe all evening. I bet you are dripping by now.”

Hollander whines, and doesn’t deny it. They breathe together for a minute: Hollander panting and gasping, Ilya measuring each of his exhales carefully, trying to cling onto some control. They come out shaky, still. He takes a long, long drag of the cigarette.

“So, what,” Ilya muses, “you can’t get off without me now?” He curls into himself, back to the street and shoulder to the wall, as if he can create a private space for them by sheer force of will.

An irritated noise bursts out of the phone. “God, fuck you. You’re such an asshole.” 

Again, Ilya notes: not a denial.

“Oh, I am asshole? Then I can get back to my night out?” Ilya bites down on a grin. “Team is waiting. Wondering where I am, maybe.”

“No–!” A panicked gasp. Hollander’s next words come out choppy and rushed, as if he actually thinks Ilya would hang up. Stupid. “No. Fuck. Don’t. I was thinking about – you, and – I was using my… I was…”

“Fucking yourself,” Ilya supplies in a low rumble. 

Of course he was. He’s a fucking dream, always.

Hollander moans helplessly, and those filthy-slick sounds kick up a notch, punching husky ah, ah, ah’s from his chest. Ilya’s cock pulses in his jeans. God fucking help him. 

“Still fucking yourself now, while you talk to me,” he observes, faintly awed. “Is not enough for you?”

“It’s not the same.” Hollander’s voice softens, then. It sounds a bit like a confession, sweeter and more delicate than what came before it. Ilya bites his cheek, hard. “I’m – fuck, I’ve been so close, I just can’t – I need to hear your voice. Please. I need…”

“Yes, Hollander, okay.” Ilya presses his temple against the cold brick beside him. “Okay. I have you.”

Hollander gives a relieved, pretty sigh that Ilya wants to drink from his lips. His own mouth is dry. He flicks some ash, rolls his shoulders and adjusts his necklace so the cross sits dead centre, cool against his chest, exposed by the deep ‘v’ of his shirt. The chain settles over the pulse thrumming wildly at his neck. 

“Tell me what you are doing,” he orders softly.

“You already know,” Hollander protests weakly.

“No. Tell me exactly. I want to picture.”

There’s a pause where Hollander’s definitely caught between feeling mortified and turned-on. The latter always wins eventually. “I’m, uh. I’m laying on my bed. On my back.” 

Ilya’s mind fills in the details – the stupid throw pillows, the expensive sheets he always gripes about needing to change immediately after they’re done. Ilya knows he’ll be sweating into them by now. By the time Ilya’s done with him, he wants him drooling into the pillows, wants him tangled in the sheets and smeared with his own come, as ruined as he’d be if Ilya were there to do it himself.

“I’m naked. I, um, I’ve got you on speaker. Touching my dick. And I – fuck – I’ve got my, uh…”

“Your dildo,” Ilya purrs, knowing the word will fluster him.

“Yeah. It’s, uh, the one you’ve… seen.” 

Ilya can practically feel the heat of his blush through the phone.

“Yes. I did more than see, I think. I think I fucked you with it until you came – what was it, Hollander, a third time that night?” Ilya recalls smugly. “You thought three was, mm… impossible.”

“Yeah,” Hollander breathes shakily. Ilya can hear him picking up the pace, obscenely wet thrusts in the background.

Ilya remembers the little shakes of his head, the overwhelmed I can’t, I can’t. Remembers how he’d taken him over the edge anyway with unrelenting thrusts and a coaxing hand on his cock, shock and wonder slapped across Hollander’s freckled face with the force of it. 

“I knew you could,” Ilya murmurs. “You just needed me to make you take it.”

“Fuck,” Hollander gasps, “I need that now. Need you to make me.”

Ilya shouldn’t want to know what’s driven him desperate enough to call; what kind of troublesome thoughts have crowded his brain so he can’t focus enough to get off. He shouldn’t care, but stupid questions dance tauntingly on the back of his tongue anyway, threatening to jump out.

What were you thinking about tonight? 

Is it the season? Is it family? Is it a girl?

Are you okay?

Ilya swallows them. Hollander doesn’t come to him to talk. It’s not what Ilya’s good for. And even if Ilya can’t hold him down and fuck him out of his mind, he can still give Hollander what he needs. 

“I asked you how long,” Ilya reminds him, his voice silky. “How long you’ve been touching yourself tonight. Answer.”

“A long time,” Hollander admits. “Fuck, I don’t know. I’m so hard.”

Yes, Ilya thinks, and you couldn’t get there, so you came to me. It’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying.

The sounds of Hollander’s toy driving into him grow increasingly louder, drawing noises from him that almost sound pained. Ilya’s cock stiffens further in response, and he tightens his grip on the phone. The cigarette shakes minutely between his two fingers as he inhales.

“Slow down,” he says sharply. “Stop touching yourself. Stop everything.”

“What–?”

“Take your hand,” Ilya reiterates slowly, “off your dick.”

Hollander makes a high, breathy noise of disbelief, and still Ilya has no doubt that he’s done as he’s told. “And the–?”

“Yes. And your little toy. Take it out, Hollander.”

He swears in response, and Ilya smirks down at his shoes, picturing the scrunched-up, angry-kitten face he’s making. 

“Y’know, when I fucking called you, this isn’t what I had in mind.”

“But you have done it anyway, haven’t you?” A smug certainty laces Ilya’s words, and he gets a gratifying silence in return. “Wish I could see. You squirm very nicely when I make you wait.”

Hollander’s breaths are still coming thick and fast. “For fuck’s sake. Rozanov –”

“You can touch,” Ilya says. “But only your chest. Like I would do it.”

Ilya imagines he can hear the soft sweeping of Hollander’s hand over the ample swell of his pecs, where Ilya loves to grab handfuls and dig his nails in, loves to bury his face until he’s forced to come up for air.

“You always squeeze so hard,” Hollander pants.

“Yes. Do it,” Ilya commands softly, and strains to hear Hollander’s choked-off gasp. “Pinch your nipples for me, both of them,” he says, and when Hollander groans, he urges him on: “Harder. Make it hurt.”

“Fuck, that’s – can I touch my dick?” Hollander gasps, alongside a rustling and a muffled thump. Ilya pictures him arching prettily off the bed into the harsh pinching and twisting of his own fingers, the phone sliding off the pillow next to him with how he’s writhing. He hears him fumble around and then he’s asking again, as if Ilya didn’t hear him. “Can I please touch my dick?”

Ilya pauses. Takes stock of what he’s asking for, and weighs it against what Ilya knows he needs.

“No.”

Ilya listens carefully. Hollander’s breath hitches and stutters for a moment – and then releases in one long, shaky exhale, as if it’s bringing some of the tightly-wound tension in his body with it.

“That’s it,” Ilya breathes. Soothing and secretive, as if the words are tickling Hollander’s ear, rather than floating upwards into the cold night in a visible puff of air. “No need to think, hm? No need to do anything but what I tell you.”

“Uh-huh.” Hollander sounds a little dreamy now. “Yes. Yeah.”

Without a second thought, Ilya flicks his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and crushes it under his heel. This needs his full attention. 

“Good.”

Hollander makes a faint sound at that, so quiet it barely carries over the connection, but Ilya can’t miss it.

No one else gets to see these parts of him. The entire MLH and all of fucking Canada think they know him, this two-hundred-pound powerhouse of solid muscle and polished politeness and formidable skill. They don’t know who he is when he shrugs off all those layers; the pure, wild core of him. Ilya doesn’t deserve to know him like this, doesn’t deserve to be trusted with it; but Hollander keeps placing himself in his hands, again and again. 

Hollander’s breathing slows incrementally, unsteady exhales crackling through the phone. Ilya counts them out in his head before he speaks again.

“Very good,” Ilya praises again, his voice hushed. “Those pretty tits are sensitive now, yes?”

“Don’t–” Hollander grumbles, cutting himself off, but it makes Ilya grin anyway. Don’t call them that, he loves to complain, even though it gets him so fucking hard every time. “Yes,” he breathes instead.

“Okay. Keep one hand there. They deserve attention,” he says with a smirk. “Move other one down – over your stomach. Light. Just your…” Ilya searches for the word, glancing upwards in frustration. “Fingertips.”

Hollander sighs, “Okay,” and it’s so fucking sweet and so fucking terrible, the way he lets Ilya take over so readily. The way he would probably say okay and uh-huh to any number of demands, no matter how fucked-up they were, as long as they came from Ilya. The weight of it settles on his shoulders, solid enough to crush him.

Ilya swallows, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes again. “Keep going. Down. Don’t touch your cock, not until I say.”

“God,” Hollander bites out, but there’s no ferocity to it. 

“I want you to touch your thighs instead. Light, still. Just teasing. Drag your fingers up the inside. Place I like to bite.”

For the thousandth time, Ilya hates how stilted his English is after years of speaking it. He could practice every hour of the day and it will never be perfect. This deserves perfect. Ilya wants to give him so much more, so much better. 

Maybe it's for the best, though; he doesn't dare to think what might pour out from the depths of him if he could speak freely.

“Fuck,” Hollander whines, “Rozanov…”

“Yes,” Ilya urges, “tell me how it feels.”

“Good,” Hollander says unsteadily, “it’s good. I don’t, uh, touch myself like this.”

No, Ilya thinks. Only I do.

“Fuck, I’ve been hard for so long, this is… it’s all over my stomach.”

Ilya knows exactly what he means, and Hollander is the real asshole here, because he knows exactly what that does to Ilya. Fuck, he wants to see just how much precome is smeared over his skin, watch it pearl at the tip of his cock, wants to fucking lick it off his abs. Glancing over his shoulder again, he presses the heel of his hand against the ridge of his cock in his jeans, stifling a groan into the shoulder of his jacket.

“Touching yourself, Rozanov?” 

Ilya can hear a self-satisfied grin in Hollander’s voice, despite how wrung-out he is. It catches him off guard, just like so many things Hollander does. 

“I am in public, Hollander.” Ilya glances downwards somewhat guiltily, debating whether it counts if it’s over the clothes. 

“Bet you’ve done worse in public,” Hollander retorts in a valiant attempt at a chirp, but he sounds so breathless that he undermines himself. 

Ilya also can’t refute it.

“Is hard not to touch,” he murmurs, shrugging one shoulder, “listening to you. Knowing you are all spread out for me. Wanting so much, being so good.”

Hollander’s breath catches. “Oh yeah?”

“Mm. Knowing you are making mess all over yourself. Fuck.” Ilya’s voice is a little rougher now. “You get so wet, so easy. Wet like a girl.”

That would usually earn him a snippy reprimand, but now Hollander simply breathes, “Yeah,” and Ilya knows he’s tipping over into that floaty place where all he can do is hang on Ilya’s every word. His eyes get all glassy when he reaches this point, as if he’s about to well up with tears. Sometimes he does, if Ilya fucks him right, but mostly he just gazes at Ilya like he’s the centre of the world. It’s Ilya’s favourite look on him. Something in his chest gives a weak flutter.

“Harder now,” Ilya grunts, “like I am gripping your thighs, like I am spreading you open. You like when I bruise you there?”

“Fuck. You know I do,” Hollander gasps, and the strangled little moan that follows is enough to tell Ilya he’s following his instructions to the letter. As if Ilya would ever doubt it. “Oh, god, I feel so…”

“So?”

Hollander hesitates. Ilya waits, smirking at the inevitable response. “Empty. Oh, fuck, I need –”

“Yes, yes,” Ilya croons, deliberately condescending. He cups his hand more firmly around the shape of his cock in his jeans, squeezing once, twice, before forcing it away. “Your hole is very needy, I know this. Is aching, I bet, since I took your sweet little toy away.”

“God,” Hollander moans. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Poor thing. Is very sad. It needs something inside, hm?”

“Rozanov, please.”

“Mm, yes, okay. You can touch, but not inside. For now. I want you to feel how stretched you are.”

“Oh –” Hollander chokes. “Oh my god. Fuck. It’s…”

Ilya pictures his hand dipping between his legs, tracing his puffy pink rim, teasing it as it flutters and twitches and begs to be filled. His mouth waters.

“Tell me. Or I won’t let you fuck yourself.”

“It’s fucking wide open, okay? Shit – I’m so – you could just slide inside, you could just walk in and f-fucking take me.” 

Ilya doesn’t muffle his groan this time, rough and low. Ilya’s dick is so hard it’s aching, trapped behind his fly. He pushes some errant curls back from his forehead and notices he’s sweating. He feels wild, untethered.

“You would like that, yes?” Ilya pants. “Would not even use my fingers. Would not bother to undress. Just take out my cock and fuck into your greedy little hole.”

“Oh my god,” Hollander says, voice cracking. “Yes. Yes.”

“All sloppy and stretched for me. You will not need prep. Will not need me to go slow. Not when you have been fucking yourself for hours, like desperate slut,” Ilya grits out, and Hollander lets out a noise close to a sob. 

“Please, God, please let me –”

“Greedy, greedy boy.” Ilya wishes he was hissing it meanly into his ear, pinning him by the back of his neck. “No. Not yet. Keep teasing. I want you shaking with how much you need it.”

“Motherfuck–”

“Is that what you were thinking about before you called me, hm?” Ilya demands. “My cock, filling you?”

“Yes,” Hollander gasps instantly, like it’s torn out of him. Needy whimpers punctuate every other trembling word. “Fuck, I was – thinking about, ah, the way you, like, fucking bend me in half sometimes. It's – it’s insane, you get so deep in me.”

Lucid memories burst instantly in Ilya’s mind: his hands grasping the back of Hollander’s muscled thighs, pushing his knees all the way up to his chest. The pretty little ‘o’ his mouth makes as if he’s surprised by it, despite the fact that Ilya’s tested this flexibility several times. The way he digs his heels into Ilya’s shoulders and gasps disbelievingly: oh, I can feel you in my stomach, oh my god. 

Ilya is going to die here, in this alley. He would die happy, probably. He turns to face the wall and presses his forehead into the brick firmly enough that it hurts a little, bracing his free hand there too to stop himself from breaking a public indecency law.

“Da, you are very good at taking me like that,” Ilya agrees fervently. “Like you were made for it. Made to be cockslut. Only for me.” 

Hollander moans brokenly, as if he’s getting fucked to within an inch of his life, rather than just barely petting at his hole. Ilya wonders if he’s that far gone or if he might be performing, making himself loud and showy for Ilya’s benefit. He’d never admit it, but he loves to show off.

“So easy for me you would do anything. Wouldn’t you?” Ilya presses, taunting in the way he knows will make Shane flush scarlet, make him squirm and shudder. “Even call me while I am out with team, beg for me to make you come. You cannot get enough. So desperate, always.”

“Fuck yes, yes, I am – please, just –”

“Like hungry little whore for me, hm? Say it.”

“I’m a – fuck –”

“Say it, Hollander.”

A beat passes, two, and then he cracks, as he always does. It’s a heady rush of satisfaction for Ilya, chasing hotly down his spine and pooling deep in his gut. 

“I’m yours, I’m your – whore, God, whatever you want me to be, just fuck me, I need it…” 

All Ilya hears is yours. It echoes in his ears, over the thundering of his own pulse. I'm yours.

It’s an injustice to be faced with this gorgeous man begging for his cock like he’ll die if he doesn’t get it, and to be so far from him. It’s torture. Ilya would move Heaven and Earth if it meant he could be in that bed now, plunging deep and taking him apart until he can’t remember his own name.

Maybe afterwards, if Ilya did his job well enough, he wouldn’t recoil and shut down if Ilya asked him what’s been on his mind. Maybe Ilya would press his lips to his forehead, comb his fingers through his mussed hair. Maybe Shane would even answer.

“Rozanov, please.” Shane – Hollander – shatters the thoughts Ilya shouldn’t be indulging in. Ilya’s thankful for it.

“Yes, okay, yes. You are so good. You have done so well,” Ilya soothes. “You are ready for it, I think.”

Hollander gives a thready, slightly delirious laugh. “I’ve fuckin’ been ready, God –”

“Then do it.”

Ilya hears him scramble instantly, and he must have kept the dildo right next to him, because a second later the most gorgeous, fractured moan filters through. It’s the kind of sound Ilya’s tinny phone speaker can’t possibly do justice to, the kind that usually means Hollander’s throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut, all the tendons in his neck standing out. 

“Good fucking boy,” Ilya growls quietly, feeling another shred of composure peel away. “Fuck, Hollander. Harder. I know you can take it. If I was there I would pound you into the fucking mattress.” 

Shane cries out again, loud and long, and Ilya can hear the slick slide of it as he fucks himself, the base of the toy slapping obscenely against the cheeks of his ass. Ilya clenches his jaw so tightly that it aches, ignoring the way his cock is straining against his zipper. He presses the phone tighter to his ear, as if he could fall through it if he tries hard enough.

“Wait,” Shane mumbles, and then there’s more frantic rustling. When he speaks again, it’s muffled, the way it is when Ilya’s crushing his face into a pillow. “Fuck. Oh, fuuuuck,” he slurs, completely blissed-out.

“What – tell me,” Ilya whines urgently, pathetically, like he’s the one who’s begging. 

Shane’s too far gone to reply, a few faltering attempts breaking off into low, guttural groans. Ilya loves it when he gets like that, when he forgets about sounding pretty and melts into something raw and animalistic. Ilya feels it too, his senses sharpening and a feral energy bristling inside him with the need to grab and bite and fuck and come. His hand twinges with the force of its grip on his phone, so tight it could crack at any second.

Ilya doesn’t need Shane to say it – knows him well enough to guess he’s turned over onto all fours so he can fuck himself deeper. Always so hungry for it like that: face-down, ass-up. Ilya pictures his knees slipping further apart on his high thread-count sheets, bicep flexing as he reaches back, his body bowed in a deep, beautiful arch as he buries his gasps in the pillow.

“Fuck, Hollander, you are so –” Ilya cuts himself off, a little afraid of what the end of the sentence might be. “Don’t fucking stop. Want you aching when you play tomorrow. Want you to think of how you begged for my cock from hundreds of miles away.”

The sounds spilling out of the phone grow more strained as Ilya speaks, more panicked. They get caught in Shane’s chest, hiccuping out on uneven breaths. Ilya can tell he’s close. 

He sneaks a hand down to adjust himself, turning his back to the street again as a car turns a corner at the mouth of the alley, headlights momentarily lighting up the narrow space. God, this is fucking insane, but he couldn’t stop it if he tried. He’s hooked.

Ilya feels just as feverish as Shane sounds when he mumbles something that sounds like I can’t, and he shakes his head.

“Yes you can. Moya shlyukha – it is not up to you, hm? Is up to me.” Ilya's barely thinking about what he’s saying. His voice pitches low, his accent wrapping thickly around each syllable. “You can let go. I have you. Fucking give it to me, Hollander.”

Ilya wishes he could bottle the sound Shane makes as he finally falls apart, the way it’s torn from his lungs like it hurts, the way it dissolves beautifully into an earnest sob of, “Thank you, fuck, thank you.”

Ilya’s chest swells with pride and ego and something else he doesn’t like to look at too closely. He scrubs a hand over his face habitually in an effort to pull himself together, but it’s no use – he feels dangerously close to shaking apart at the seams, coming completely undone. His hand falls from his face and he stares down at it, willing his fingers to stop trembling.

Ilya listens quietly as Hollander comes down, hanging his head and letting his eyes slip closed. It takes a while, but he finds he’s not in a rush to end the call. He likes him like this: soft breaths, shivers of aftershocks coursing through him, slumped and pliable.

“I didn’t even…” Hollander slurs eventually, sounding a little drunk. “Holy shit.”

Ilya frowns, waiting for the rest of the sentence. “You didn’t…?”

“I – um,” Hollander mumbles, and he must be coming back to himself, because he sounds embarrassed now. “Didn’t even touch my dick.”

Ilya blinks. His entire body flushes hot, arousal spiking sharply in his veins and pulsing in his cock. “You didn’t,” he echoes dumbly.

Because Ilya didn’t –

“You didn’t tell me to.” The confession is a little self-conscious, but also matter-of-fact. Unquestioning. 

Christ. Ilya suddenly feels as if he’s had about five more drinks. His head spins.

“I’ve never come like that on my own,” Hollander says plainly, as if every word isn’t a physical blow to Ilya’s gut. “I didn’t think that was possible. Without you… fucking me.”

Ilya does not know who the fuck designed this man and placed him on Earth specifically to drive him out of his mind. He’s not sure if he wants to thank them or murder them.

Ilya clears his throat. “Not possible. Sounds familiar,” he quips, trying for cocky. “But, I was kind of fucking you. If you think about it.”

Shane laughs weakly. “You’re so annoying.” 

His voice is clearer now, like he’s taken Ilya off speaker. Ilya cradles his own phone closer to his face.

“I should, ah. Get back to team,” he says, not meaning it.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “I can’t believe they haven’t come looking for you yet.”

“Ah, no. Is okay. They are used to me disappearing.”

There’s an awkward pause, and then Shane says, “Right.” The single syllable is stiff and tight, the post-orgasm sweetness drained from his voice.

Ilya has a feeling that, possibly, he's said the wrong thing. His throat constricts slightly, as if it's trying to save him from making it worse. For a moment, there's nothing but static on the line; he imagines he can hear Hollander’s gentle breathing, but it's in his head this time. 

He should hang up. He should want to hang up. Ilya tips his head back and gazes helplessly up at the stars, mouthing a silent fuck to anyone or anything that might be listening.

“You are…” Ilya starts, falters. “Feeling better?”

After a beat, Shane sighs – quick and curt, a far cry from the dreamy sounds he was making before. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Yeah, I am.”

Ilya nods. “Good.”

“Thank you. Again.” Shane is affecting something close to the tone he uses in press interviews, polite and mechanical. Sweat cools on the back of Ilya's neck, uncomfortably prickling under the collar of his jacket. “Sorry for distracting you, I guess. From having… fun.”

Ilya has to laugh. “Hollander,” he says, “you think this was not fun for me?”

A pause. “Yeah?” Shane says, a little softer. 

“Yes. Shane Hollander, not so boring after all, maybe. Someone alert media.”

“Fuck off,” Shane shoots back automatically. Ilya thinks he probably rolls his eyes.

A smile tugs at Ilya’s lips. “I will think about this for next three weeks,” he adds, quiet and sincere, because he knows Shane needs it spelled out plainly. “Every day.”

He hears a matching smile in Shane's voice when he replies. “Okay, well. Maybe in three weeks you can make good on those promises.” He pauses, perhaps gathering himself for what he'll say next. “I'll give you the door code. If you want. So you can… let yourself in.”

The roar of arousal in Ilya’s veins has quietened somewhat now, but it surges again at the suggestion. Walking in like he owns the place, finding him there, waiting and ready. God.

“Mm, yes. But that sounds like something you should have only as reward. Shame you will not be winning.”

“Oh, we're gonna win.”

Ilya grins, something settling inside of him at having landed on steadier ground. This is familiar territory. This is safe.

“We will see,” Ilya murmurs, and forces the next sentence up out of his throat. “I should go now. Really.”

“Okay.” 

A silence hangs between them, stuffed full of unsaid things. Ilya doesn’t think about how much he'd rather stay here than rejoin his team; about how easily he would cave, if only Shane were to ask. 

“Night, Rozanov.”

Ilya wrangles the stupid, aching mess in his chest. Straightens his clothes and fixes his hair as he turns back to the street.

“Goodnight, Hollander.”