Chapter Text
The sweat on his back and chest felt never ending as the sun beat down on him. Shane could feel his hair whipping him on the forehead when he ran from the sheer amount of sweat dripping off of it. His compression shirt was soaked through, dripping down through his sweatbands, making his grip on the racket slip. Well, it would if the death grip he had on it would allow. He needed new sweatbands; he hated playing with sweaty hands.
With every team having its share of phenomenal players, it did have its positives. For Shane, those positives were getting to go all out for the first time in a couple of months.
Shane and Kip were in similar states. Sweaty, panting, and determined to beat the other. There had only been a handful of times where Kip had beaten Shane, and even then, Shane had almost won. Shane won the vast majority of matches against him.
Eventually, Coach Theriault put an end to it and they were tied. The entire roster, including the guys who hadn’t made the team, were surrounding them as they finished. Shane and Kip approached each other at the net, giving a little fist bump like they usually did after a match.
Shane and Kip, despite competing against each other often, were best friends and had been since their freshman year. They were the only two freshmen to make the team after cuts and got close rather quickly. By their sophomore year, they were living together in an off-campus apartment, then, by some weird twist of fate, both got boyfriends on their universities hockey team.
Alec Jacobs was everything Shane could want in a boyfriend. He was the first line left wing for Boston U, psychology major, and attractive as hell. He was calm and sweet. Alec had a 4.0 and was on the Dean’s List. Was he going to make it to the NHL? Possibly. He would go low if he made it to the draft, but most didn’t even make it there.
When Shane accepted that he was gay, he found that his type was hot, overachieving athletes. He loved a man that could throw him around, but could turn around the next second and have a deep conversation with him, which was Alec all the way. He loved being able to wear a jersey with his boyfriend’s last name and number on the back, it was a high he could never get over.
Kip felt much the same with his boyfriend, Scott Hunter. He was the starting center and captain for the hockey team. Shane liked Scott, especially for Kip, he was a good guy. He was more hockey-brained than Alec was, determined to make it into the draft that summer, determined to make it to the NHL. Shane appreciated the ambition, he was similar, but he knew he’d go pro after the collegiate tennis season wrapped up. In fact, he’d already been offered some sponsorships for after he got out of college.
After he took a much needed shower, cleaning himself of the sweat, he stood at his locker, throwing a shirt over his head, smirking when Kip wolf-whiswing of the racket, he let out a grunt. There was no reason for the overexertion during practice, but their first match of the NCAA season was coming up. Second ranked Boston University–which Shane was still mad about, their preseason should have made them first– would be facing thirteenth ranked Michigan. Still, he hadn’t had a good match in a while.
Their coach never let them go against each other this hard in practice, usually it was all drills and Shane having to dumb his play down for the freshmen. Yes, he was captain, but he hated going against their freshies, it was annoying. He was the top ranked singles player in the NCAA, if he were to put any effort in, they probably wouldn’t get anything past him.
At least he had Kip, not that they were ever paired up together. Well, until now. Having the first and fifth ranked men’s singlesstled at him.
“Do you still wanna head to Scott’s after?” Kip asked, already fully dressed, watching Shane. After Alec and maybe Rose–his best friend that he’d met in his major– Kip was his favorite person.
Scott and the rest of the hockey team were having a party at their place to welcome some new guy from Russia that would be starting on their team the next week. Scott had offered him the spare room in his house and now they were throwing him a ‘Welcome to the United States!’ party in conjunction with their annual start of the season party.
It was a wonder to Shane that Scott and Kip hadn’t moved in together yet, but he supposed it made some sense. Scott was planning on getting drafted and Kip, despite all his talent, had no interest in playing professionally, but applying to graduate school for his art history degree. Kip had already mentioned moving anywhere with Scott and finding a job or working on a master’s. They were both silently hoping for New York, if Shane had to guess. Plenty of museums or colleges for Kip.
Either way, Scott had a new roommate. Last year, he’d lived with a different hockey player, but he’d graduated. He’d been living without a roommate for the longest time, but then jumped at the chance to get a new one when their coach told them about the new player.
Shane knew nothing of the guy, except that he’d already met most of the team. Alec said he was sort of an asshole, but that it might’ve just been the ‘slavic tendencies’ Alec wasn’t too well versed in.
“Sure, but we’re going home first,” Shane nodded, throwing things into his bag and slinging it over one shoulder, following Kip to his car.
“Yeah, yeah, Shane,” Kip snickered. “You wanna change and get another shower, I know. Do you forget how long we’ve lived together?”
“It’s not my fault I hate communal showers,” Shane rolled his eyes. “Everyone in them is disgusting, including me, and I’m not bringing my good soap in there for people to steal.”
“No one would steal your soap.”
“I’m not taking a chance like that,” Shane shrugged. “Someone could forget their soap and ask to borrow mine, how am I supposed to say no? Should I just let them walk around smelling disgusting?”
“Changing the subject,” Kip told him, pulling the car into drive. “What have you heard of this Ilya Rozanov dude?”
“The new guy?” Kip nodded at him, starting the ten minute drive to their apartment building. “I don’t think Alec likes him very much. Hayden does, maybe.”
Hayden Pike, another one of Shane’s friends and the current starting right wing for Boston U, was a happy kind of guy. He was oblivious to most things, obsessed with his girlfriend Jackie, and dreamt of the NHL. Hayden was a supportive guy who listened to most everything, and never gave advice because he knew it wasn’t his place to. Jackie, his girlfriend, was a saint. The sweetest girl he’d ever met, crazy smart, and made up for emotional intelligence where her boyfriend lacked.
“That’s because Jackie likes him, though,” Kip pointed out. “Scott said he and Hayden helped him move in, not that he had much stuff. Jackie was there and she and Ilya apparently hit it off.”
“Then he must be somewhat decent,” Shane laughed.
The rest of the drive was mostly silent, save for the music on Kip was playing from his phone that Shane never listened to. He wasn’t really a music person, never had been. He wasn’t sure if he knew a single artist other than Taylor Swift. It wasn’t like he listened to her, but there were just so many men who complained about her.
He sort of recognized the song that was playing as Kip pulled into the parking lot of their building. It was girl in red, or something to that effect. Maybe. He just knew the October song that Kip liked because he’d spent a while gushing about it, mainly because he and Scott had gotten together in October.
When they’d gotten in the house, Kip announced they’d be leaving in an hour, so he better ‘hurry his cute butt up.’
If there was one thing Shane loved in the world, it was his own shower. It was everything he needed it to be and more. It resembled the one in his childhood home in the fact that there was a door and not a curtain, and believe him, it’d been hard to find an apartment that didn’t have one of those showers that doubled as baths. Those shower-bath things had always grossed him out in a way, but he never knew why, they just did.
His shower had a glass door and was spacious. It had built-in shelves for all of his soaps and shampoos, every product he’d ever need was sitting on the shelves. The water pressure was just right, also weird for such a big college town.
Being clean was one of Shane’s favorite feelings, right up there with winning a tennis match and really good sex. Bonus points for the shower if it came after the sex, there was nothing better to him, really. The feeling of hot water hitting his back, burning his skin just right to be red when he emerged, no other feeling in the world he’d rather have. Especially after a particularly hard practice.
He turned the knob on his shower and got his towel ready. He’d do his skin care later, preferably right before bed so as to not mess with his routine.
Yes, Shane knew, he was obsessive about his routine. But no one needed to comment on it, genuinely. He was okay.
He stripped, walked into the shower and almost moaned when the hot water hit his back. He strained his neck, aiming to hit all parts of his posterior with the hot water before letting it hit his face. After just standing there for way too long, he took his nice, eucalyptus-scented, shampoo in his hands and massaged his scalp with it. He dragged his blunt nails through his hair, already feeling the invisible dirt and grime wash away.
The shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and most of his other products were eucalyptus-scented for the stress-relieving factor it was supposed to provide. Aromatherapy, his mother called it when she gifted it to him. They were expensive, more expensive than he could probably afford to buy himself despite being a student athlete who’d appeared in multiple magazines. But those appearances were paying for the apartment that allowed him to have such a perfect shower.
When he got out of the shower and turned the water off, he noticed the bathroom mirror was foggy, but that was normal for him. After every shower, the mirrors and windows would be fogged up, but they’d usually clear when he was ready to leave the bathroom. He toweled himself off with a white, fluffy towel. He lathered his arms, chest, and legs in his favorite non-scented lotion that practically melted into his skin. He hated the lotions he’d wear that would linger after he put them on. The ones that left him with a sticky sheen to his body.
Exiting his bathroom, he moved into his bedroom, taking a quick glance at his phone. He still had thirty minutes before Kip would be pushing him out the door, swearing as he ushered him into the passenger seat of his car. It would give him enough time to find an outfit and have the red twinge to his skin finally return to its normal tan.
In the end, he picked something simple, nice dark wash jeans and a random, casual t-shirt. The shirt itself was cropped, which he hadn’t noticed until Kip pointed it out.
“Let me go change,” Shane shook his head, looking down at his shirt. If he lifted his arms, the lower half of his abdomen and back would show, and that wasn’t really something he was into. The shirt itself was grey with bright red letters that read ‘Boston University Tennis’. It was one of his workout shirts from about two years ago when Kip cut it because he was complaining about it being too long. Since that day, he’d left it long abandoned in his closet, it was a miracle he still had it.
“No,” Kip said, grabbing his wrist. “You look hot, Alec’s gonna wanna eat you up. Make sure you lift your arms once or twice while he’s behind you, these jeans are gonna show off your back dimples.”
Shane felt himself go red from the tips of his ears down to the base of his neck in embarrassment. Alec probably would like it, but that wasn’t the problem. Shane didn’t necessarily have a problem with his body, but he also didn’t want to show it off to everyone at some random welcome party for a guy he’d never even met. Besides, Shane and Alec would not be hooking up in the bathroom of Scott’s house, no matter how clean he kept it, they had a touch more class than that. On the other hand, Shane would love to get fucked tonight.
By the time they got to the party, the music was already going through the house rather loudly, and there were people everywhere. It wasn’t one of Scott’s usual parties that were just the hockey team and some significant others and friends, this one was much more… lively.
Quickly, Shane and Kip found Scott. He was in the corner of the kitchen holding his head in his hands. “It was not supposed to be this big.”
“How does something like this accidentally happen?” Kip asked, looking around the house in shock. For someone like Scott who was so strait-laced, this sort of thing was unexpected. Yes, he was a hockey player, but he didn’t fit the usual mold. For one, he was gay, that was a really big outlier in the sport. After that, he didn’t drink during the season or he at least paced himself, and he wasn’t one for big parties like the one he was throwing.
“Fucking Comeau,” Scott pushed out a laugh. “He invited a bunch of people, told them to bring their friends, and their friends brought more people!”
“Scott, calm down,” Kip told him, putting a hand on his boyfriend's chest as he started to yell. “Is the new guy at least having fun?”
“Rozanov?” Scott said, the hand on his chest bringing him back from his overexertion. “Yeah, he’s loving it. A bunch of people are all over him actually. He’s over there.” Scott said, pointing at the couch where a man with curly blonde hair sat on the arm.
From the distance he was away, Shane couldn’t really see much, especially with the dimmed lights. He could see the faint outline of his huge, muscular bicep bulging against a plain black tee. Shane could feel the tips of his ears redden, because why would that be the first thing noticed about his boyfriend’s new teammate?
Pushing the thought to the back of his head, he turned back to Scott, who was cooling off with Kip’s help. “Do you know where Alec is?”
Scott opened his eyes in surprise, like he was surprised to see Shane there. Wordlessly, he pointed toward the opposite end of the living room to where Rozanov was. Shane followed his gaze to his boyfriend talking to one of his teammates animatedly. Shane thanked Scott quickly before moving to where he was.
It was a miracle Shane had even seen him given all the people that were in the house at that point. He was dodging and weaving people touching him (because that would be gross) until he ended up at his boyfriend’s side. Alec didn’t stop his conversation with whoever he was talking to but brought Shane in by slinging an arm around his shoulders.
Shane listened to the very long and boring conversation about bag skates for more than a couple of minutes before the guy left and Alec finally looked at him. Shane liked to think whenever this happened, all of the listening and being ignored was worth it for the moment his boyfriend looked at him. Tonight, he didn’t feel that so much.
“Hey, babe,” Alec said, moving to press a kiss to Shane’s hair. Alec was a couple of inches taller, so he didn’t even have to press himself up to his toes to do that, in fact he had to bend down a bit. Alec was definitely attractive, with his green eyes and dark brown hair, his athletic body. Shane liked the little things about him, he supposed, the point in the cupid’s bow of his lips, the crinkle in the skin next to his eyes when he smiled, his ever-so-slight widow’s peak. More than all of that, he enjoyed hearing Alec talk.
Whenever they talked, Alec would dominate conversations. It gave Shane something to focus on, knowing he wouldn’t be expected to reply to most things, Alec would just barrel through his stories, going from thing to thing without so much as a pause for Shane to ask a question. He appreciated it, most of the time. Of course, there would be times when Shane would be confused about a detail but wouldn’t have enough time to ask because by the time his brain caught up enough for the question, Alec would think up something new to tell Shane.
He didn’t mind it. He really didn’t. He liked that Alec had so much to tell him, that he wanted to share every part of his day with Shane. It was endearing.
“Hi,” Shane replied, burying himself in his chest. “There’s a lot going on,” he said, but was muffled a bit since he was talking into his chest. Alec laughed anyway, pulling him to an unoccupied part of the couch. No one was surrounding them, which Shane was grateful for. Alec sat down, pulling Shane into his lap, legs thrown over him, face in his neck.
They stayed like that for a while, Shane tucking himself against Alec while his boyfriend stroked his back comfortingly. There would be people coming up to them to talk to Alec, not really acknowledging Shane. He didn’t mind it all that much, those were Alec’s friends and, not to be rude, Shane didn’t like them much. Most of them were rude and slightly homophobic, even towards Alec.
Mostly, it was the guys who weren’t on the hockey team that he didn’t like. Most of the guys on the team, minus Comeau and Drapeau, maybe a couple more that Shane couldn’t be bothered to remember, were all around pretty good guys. With a captain like Scott, there wasn’t much room to be anything but accepting of everyone.
His other friends, the psychology majors, were absolute dicks. They walked up to him and tried out the tactics they’d been learning in class and tried to diagnose him even though most of them didn’t even want to go into the counseling side of things. One of them once called him schizophrenic, which felt completely off the mark. Still, he hated most of Alec’s friends and they hated him in return.
He was glad to be hiding during most of the time they’d come up to them. He knew them by their nasally, narcissistic voices and he was glad not to be dealing with them. He’d much rather have his face in his boyfriend’s neck, drawing comfort from the strong arm wrapped around his waist.
“Shaney!” A voice rang through next to him, making him jump out of Alec’s arms with a startled laugh. Alec looked more annoyed than anything else as they both looked to who made the noise. It was Jackie, barreling herself over the couch to wrap him up in a hug. Shane laughed and let himself be pulled in close. He wasn’t very into touch from most people, but Jackie was someone he enjoyed it from. She was soft in the way that all women were, in a way that he wasn’t attracted to sexually, but was attracted to platonically. Her soft hugs, soft words, lovable attitude.
“Jackie!” He giggled, watching his boyfriend’s face turn sour at the girl. Hayden sat down on Alec’s other side, pulling him into a quick conversation before he could cause a natural disaster to get Jackie away from his boyfriend. He supposed if he was allowed to hate his boyfriend’s friends, his boyfriend was allowed to hate his.
“Guess what?” she said, planting her hands on his thighs once he was completely off of Alec and turned towards her.
“What?”
“I met Ilya,” she told him, completely proud of herself. “Rozanov. He’s actually really cool. Not dickish for the most part.”
“Did you hear that he was?” Shane snorted.
“Well, yeah,” Jackie said in a tone that screamed ‘duh.’ “I thought you knew that. He was supposed to be horrible, everyone was supposed to hate him.”
“Didn’t he move here from Russia?” Shane asked. “How would anyone know what he was supposed to be like?”
“His reputation, obviously. He played juniors against Vaughny, you remember Carter right? He got drafted last year when he was supposed to graduate this year and he dropped out.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Shane nodded. Carter Vaughan was a sweet guy, Scott’s best friend who got an offer he couldn’t refuse from the NHL and went fourth in the draft the previous year.
“On the ice, at least, he’s supposed to be a dick,” Jackie explained. “I talked to him, he’s actually really nice, after he tried to come onto me, obviously.”
“Because you’re so hot,” Shane rolled his eyes, jokingly.
“I’m a catch!”
Before they could even laugh, Alec put a hand on Shane’s bicep, stopping their conversation. Shane moved his head to look at him, smiling softly at his boyfriend who looked slightly irritated. Alec gave him a ‘can we talk?’ look, making Shane nod. He quickly greeted Hayden and kissed Jackie on the cheek before leaving with Alec. Alec threaded their fingers together, leading him towards the private bathroom at the end of the hall. It was Scott’s bathroom that he had the foresight to put a lock on before, luckily for them, he’d given Alec the code just in case.
As soon as they entered the bathroom, Alec crowded him up against the door and pulled him by his neck to crush their lips together. Shane moaned into the kiss, feeling the pleasant slide of Alec’s lips against his, hands going to hang onto his shirt. Alec quickly flicked his tongue against Shane’s lips, allowing a tongue to begin exploring his mouth. The kiss deepened as his boyfriend pressed a knee between his thighs, pressing up into his crotch. Shane pulled back, but apparently Alec hadn’t gotten the hint because he withdrew his lips and began to kiss down his neck, pushing up the cropped shirt and grabbing at his waist.
“Alec,” Shane tried to say through a moan, but Alec pulled him back into a kiss. He kissed back for a split second before completely pulling back and taking Alec’s hands off of him. His boyfriend furrowed his brows and pulled his knee down.
“What?” Alec asked him, putting his hand back on his waist. The touch wasn’t the same as it was not twenty seconds ago, it was no longer sexual, but more questioning. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not doing anything with you in Scott’s bathroom,” Shane shook his head.
“What’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?” Shane asked with a confused smile.
“You’ve been off all night,” Alec told him, expression going sour.
“I’m off because I’m not letting you fuck me in a bathroom at a party,” Shane asked him incredulously, letting go of Alec’s wrists. “Are you serious?”
“No, you’re off because you’ve barely said two words to me all night!”
“Parties aren’t really my scene, you know that,” Shane pushed his hands off of his waist, not wanting anything to touch him when he was overwhelmed.
Shane had an off relationship with touch, people touching him came with closeness, but he couldn’t handle it sometimes. Sometimes, when he was having a conversation, touch overstimulated him and made him want to claw his eyes out. The spot where someone placed their fingertips could feel like fire at the worst times, like something was physically burning him, even if it was feather-light. The touch throbbed all the way up to his head and made his head cloudy, like he just played a tough match and felt like he could take a nap as soon as it was over.
“I get that, Shane, I really do,” Alec sighed, bringing a hand up to his face, but Shane could only flinch away.
“Please don’t touch me right now,” Shane pleaded, only to get a scoff from his boyfriend. Alec grabbed the door knob, waiting for his boyfriend to move before yanking open the door, groaning, and leaving the bathroom. He left the door open as Shane took a deep breath.
His hands shook violently as he tried to slow down his breathing. It hadn’t been the first time Alec had done something so absurd. Or maybe it wasn’t absurd, maybe it was completely valid and Shane just couldn’t understand. One thing about their relationship was the fact that Alec didn’t understand exactly what Alec was feeling all of the time, most of the time he needed someone to spell things out for him. Alec didn’t get that and it led to times like these, when Shane needed something specific and Alec got mad because he just didn’t get it. Shane was tired, not even of the relationship, but Alec not understanding him and not even attempting to.
The creak of the door hinge with the door opening wider startled him, making his head snap to his right. It was Ilya Rozanov coming into the room, if the view he’d gotten of his side profile earlier served him correctly. Up close, he was striking.
His blonde curly hair fell slightly on his forehead, but not reaching all the way to his blue eyes. His eyes crinkled with something Shane couldn’t exactly understand, his hand was cautious on the door knob. It looked as if he didn’t know if he wanted to go or stay. It would probably be best to go if Shane had to guess, there were only so many people who could handle him when he started to go into that headspace that he hated.
“Are you okay?” Ilya asked apprehensively, watching Shane’s every movement as he pressed his back up against the empty wall. Shane leaned his head up against the wall, trying to school his breathing to answer him.
“Fine,” Shane exhaled, feeling his breathing evening out as he looked at him. The panic he could feel coming on eased itself away as he found something new for his brain to focus on. His hands started to still, fingers going straight to the cropped hem of his shirt. Sometimes, he found if he eased out, it was just as easy to spiral again.
“Really?” He asked, moving forward and leaning against the sink, directly across from him. “You are Shane, yes?”
“Yeah,” Shane nodded, even though he was greatly confused. It was obviously Ilya Rozanov, if not only because of the thick Russian accent that spilled out of his mouth with every word.
“I saw Jacobs come out,” Ilya clarified. “Hunter said his boyfriend was called Shane.”
“And you’re assuming I’m his boyfriend?”
“Hunter also said his boyfriend is tennis player,” Ilya smiled, pointing at the shirt. The corners of his mouth pulled a little further when he heard Shane laugh a bit. “My English not so good, but I think your shirt says tennis.”
“It does,” Shane smiled softly. “Your English is actually pretty good, how long have you been learning?”
“I come here every year,” Ilya explained. “My friend’s father is famous Russian goalie. I train under him in summer here.”
Shane continued to stare at him, taking in his every word. He found his eyes drifting around his face, studying every part of it. Whether it was because Ilya’s sharp features gave him something more to focus on rather than everything swimming in his brain or because Ilya was just attractive, he didn’t know. Either way, he was more than grateful for Ilya at that moment.
He stayed quiet after, hopefully realizing that Shane needed a second and not commenting on the staring.
“I gotta go,” Shane said after a couple of minutes of silence. Just then, he understood how bad it looked. He let his boyfriend run out of the bathroom only to spend the next moment staring at a man he didn’t know but found attractive. “I should go find Alec.”
“Okay,” Ilya nodded, his smile falling the slightest bit. He knocked open the door wider to give Shane a clear path outside. He cringed as the music got louder, not even a slight barrier between him and the too loud speakers. Ilya still watched Shane as he made no move to actually leave the bathroom. His smile slightly returned, looking from Shane to the door.
His face was nothing like anyone Shane had ever seen before, equally so blank and expressive at the same time. Shane felt like Ilya could look straight through him, pulling every single emotion right from his heart, every thought from his mind. From the moment he realized that, Shane knew he’d never meet anyone else like Ilya Rozanov.
+
The first day on the ice was brutal in ways Ilya couldn’t begin to describe in English or even Russian. It wasn’t that it was particularly physically demanding, because it wasn’t. The actual part where he was playing, showing off to Coach Wiebe was invigorating and he felt a weight leave his shoulder that had been sitting there since his plane touched the ground in Boston.
No, it was horrible because he hated Alec Jacobs with everything in him. There was pretty much nothing that Ilya enjoyed about the man’s presence.
Firstly, he was a horrendous hockey player. Or maybe not horrendous, but he was pretty incompetent with a hockey stick. In his opinion, it was a miracle for him that their second line wasn’t very good, otherwise, Alec would be way out of his element. Jacobs was below average on a line good enough to carry him completely.
Also, he was an asshole. Not in the cool way Ilya was an asshole himself, he was just a complete dick. He believed he was much better than he was, spoke to everyone as if they were beneath him, and he had the most unrealistic goal of making it to the NHL. That guy would be lucky if he made it on a rec team of white-haired has-beens after graduation.
And those weren’t even the worst parts. The worst part was that he treated Shane, his wonderful boyfriend, like shit. He’d made Shane two days before his first practice at the party Scott, his new roommate, threw for him.
In that bathroom, Ilya Rozanov was almost positive he’d met an angel.
For the party, Ilya had volunteered his own bathroom for the guests since they’d only had two and Scott was kind enough to let him into his home. Yes, Ilya was mean, but he wasn’t rude. After fighting his way to his bathroom, he saw two people well on their way to hooking up and he turned right back around. Scott had given him the code to his bathroom just in case, and he was glad for it.
There were voices in Scott’s bathroom when he approached it. More like one loud voice and one that was shaky and uncertain of their words. He hadn’t met most of the guys on the team, nor had he met Scott’s infamous boyfriend, Kip, and his best friend, Shane. It seemed like those were the only people who would’ve had the code, and now he would be meeting two people who would become staples in his new home.
When the door ripped itself open, he came face-to-face with Alec Jacobs, and he already knew he didn’t like the guy. He scoffed right in Ilya’s face and walked right past him. The only reason he knew his face was because of the pictures in the living room. There was a framed picture on top of the bookshelf with four people, Scott, Kip, Alec, and Shane. When Scott told him about it, he made a sour face when talking about Alec, and Ilya knew he wouldn’t like him.
Scott was a good guy, opening his home to Ilya. They'd only been living together for less than a week, but already they both knew they’d be good friends. Well, if they stopped getting on each other’s nerves at all times.
When Alec left, leaving the bathroom door wide open, Ilya took a step in and saw his boyfriend.
He’d heard plenty about Shane Hollander from Scott and Hayden Pike and his girlfriend Jackie. Hayden and Jackie were the only two available to help Ilya move in, and in the amount of time they spent together, neither of them could shut up about him. The greatest tennis player Boston University had ever seen, someone who could’ve gone pro straight out of high school, but decided to dominate at the collegiate level first. And shit, was Ilya glad he did so he could have the moment unfolding right before his eyes.
The man in front of him had wet, glazed over eyes and was shaking in his hands and breathing. All Ilya wanted to do was to reach forward, take his hands and tell him to take deep breaths. Instead, he stayed away, made jokes about his English, explained things about himself so Shane didn’t have to think.
Eventually, Shane left to talk to Alec and Ilya wanted nothing more than to bring him back into the bathroom, for nothing else but to stare at him. Ilya was mostly focused on the man obviously coming out of a panic attack, but he’d taken a couple of moments to appreciate his beauty.
Not only was he the prettiest man he’d ever seen, he was everything Ilya found attractive in a man. Of course, living in Russia and only being in America for a few months at a time, Ilya didn’t get the opportunity to explore his interest in men very often. He’d only been with a handful of men, a small percentage of the countless people he’d slept with.
Shane has gorgeous big brown eyes that made him look like a baby deer, even more so with the unfortunate amount of tears welling in his eyes, tan skin, hair so brown it was almost black, and, best of all, a constellation of freckles sprinkled across his cheeks that he just wanted to reach out and touch. Those freckles had haunted him in his dreams since he’d seen them.
Alec didn’t deserve him, leaving his perfect boyfriend crying in the bathroom. He couldn’t exactly hear what Shane was saying, but he would probably be able to hear Alec’s complaining from the opposite end of the hallway with the music. Something about Shane not talking to him when he was clearly overwhelmed, then storming out and leaving him there like the toddler he was.
There were so many reasons to hate Alec Jacobs, and believe him, Ilya would find every single one even if it killed him.
Scott and Ilya went into their house after practice, bags slung over their shoulder as they excited Scott’s car. They left their bags on the hooks by the door and Scott went straight to the kitchen. He pulled out a fruit salad from the refrigerator that he’d made the night before and placed it on the kitchen table between himself and Ilya. He offered Ilya a fork, smiling when he accepted it.
“You’re doing pretty good during practice,” Scott said after a couple of minutes. “You liking the team?”
Ilya hummed, biting down on a piece of pineapple to buy him time to figure out what to say, then translate it to English.
“You don’t like them, do you?” Scott asked, smiling around an apple. “Who don’t you like?”
“Comeau,” Ilya told him, rolling his eyes even thinking about the second-string center. He was a dick and worse, a homophobe.
“No one likes Comeau,” he nodded along. “Anyone else?”
“Jacobs,” Ilya said after a moment of hesitation.
“I don’t think anyone likes him either, no one but Shane.”
“You do not like Jacobs?” Ilya asked him, eyebrows raising. “I would think that you would.”
“Because our boyfriends are best friends?” Scott scoffed. “Not fucking likely. Jacobs is a dick, I have no idea what Shane sees in him.”
“You like Shane?”
“Yeah, Shane’s great,” he smiled. “He’s a good friend. Did you, uh, get a chance to talk to him?”
Based on the weird way Scott was looking at him, he sensed that he already knew the answer to that question. “Da. Yes. He seems okay.”
“Is it cool if they come over after their tennis practice?” he asked, picking around a piece of orange, flicking it over to Ilya’s side of the container.
“Kip and Shane?” Ilya asked, and hummed when Scott nodded. “Yes, I do not care. As long as fucking Jacobs stays the fuck home.”
“Don’t worry, we stopped going on double dates a long time ago,” he chuckled. “What do you think about him as a player?”
Ilya pulled a face. “Even worse. He is terrible. No business being on ice anywhere. Is crime.”
“What if you played left wing?” Scott asked him. “I mean, I know you’re a center, but I think both of us and Pike on a line would be pretty damn good.”
“Why would I play left? You play left,” Ilya scrunched his face. “I am faster, I play better, I should be center.”
“Either way, You’re left or I’m left, Jacobs is off first string, and we actually have a complete line. Best of everything, you know?”
“Yes, I know this,” Ilya nodded. “Jacobs is problem. He pulls team down.”
Just then, there was a knock on the door, and Scott lit up. It was honestly sort of cute, though it did sort of make him want to throw up. Scott ran over to the door, leaving Ilya with the fruit salad. He watched as Scott opened the door but had to look away as he brought the shorter man into a kiss. With a grimace, he turned his head back to the door just in time to see Shane walk through the door.
He was wearing tiny athletic shorts, as indecent–or maybe even more so– as the crop top he wore at the party. They hugged his legs in all the right places, showing the lean, but defined muscles of his quads. The shorts themselves were a dark grey, a color so boring that it almost excited Ilya. His hoodie, that he quickly abandoned on the coat rack, was a lighter shade of grey than the shorts. His shirt was completely crimson with a white Boston University emblem and a size too big, reaching almost to the end of his shorts. His hair was slightly damp, falling over his forehead, but not long enough to cover his eyes.
“Hey, Ilya,” Kip smiled, interlacing his and Scott’s fingers while the man brought them to sit down next to one another at the kitchen table, directly across from Ilya. Shane shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, toeing off his shoes and hesitantly sitting next to Ilya on the left side of the table.
“Hello,” He greeted, even though they’d never actually met before. He turned to Shane next to him and offered him a small smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Shane smiled back, but it seemed forced in a way. He wished he could see him smile fully with teeth, just to see him radiate with joy. He couldn’t think of anything better than Shane Hollander smiling at him, Ilya being the cause of his joy.
Ilya looked away from Shane long enough to catch the couple across from them exchanging smirks. “So, Ilya, Scott told me that you’ve actually been to Boston before.”
“Yes,” Ilya nodded, simply choosing to stare at him and not elaborate. “How did you get your name, Kip?”
“Oh,” he said, completely startled with the sudden question. “It’s short for Christopher.”
“How?”
“Okay!” Scott said, glaring at his roommate’s expression. “When are you guys leaving for Michigan?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Shane responded, shaking his head when Ilya offered him some of the fruit. “We play the next afternoon. I just hope our freshmen keep up enough for us to win. This is their first match and I’m not confident.”
“Well, how can you be?” Kip agreed. “Michigan has great doubles pairs, I just hope they don’t lose that badly.”
“We’re gonna have a hard time this year if we have a weak fourth doubles pair,” Shane shrugged. “I mean, Texas is amazing this year, and even though in my opinion we should be ranked ahead of them, we’ve got a weak spot.”
He’d gotten the feeling that Shane and Kip had the conversation about the freshmen countless times. Ilya didn’t exactly know how tennis teams worked, he knew about singles and doubles, but he didn’t know how schools could compete as teams. Though, he did know Shane and Kip were ranked quite high in all of college singles players.
“And you two are so sure you will win?” Ilya asked.
Shane and Kip shared a look before staring at Ilya in surprise. “Michigan isn’t really known for their singles players. The only reason they’re ranked is because of their doubles pairs. We should win pretty easily,” Shane explained. “We’re just really hoping for a sweep for the start of the season. Us and Carmichael should win, then our first three doubles.”
“And if the freshmen can win their first against a pretty good pair, it’ll be good for morale going forward. We genuinely don’t have another pair that could attempt to beat them,” Kip nodded, picking a strawberry out of the container.
They continued to talk about tennis for a while, but eventually, Shane’s phone started ringing. He looked over at the man’s phone only to start rolling his eyes at the name on the screen, Alec Jacobs. He was surprised to see it was his boyfriend’s full name and that he had an occupation under it, boyfriend. He excused himself and went into Scott’s bathroom to take the call.
“Was it Alec?” Kip asked Ilya, knowing that he caught a glimpse.
“Da,” he nodded, not even registering that he was speaking Russian. Kip and Scott had gotten the gist anyway.
“You’ve practiced with Alec, haven’t you?” Kip asked, to which Ilya quickly nodded. Kip, untangling himself quickly from Scott, dropped his voice to a whisper. “What’s your opinion on him?”
“He is horrible.”
Kip nodded in agreement. “I wish Shane would just break it off, I’ve put up with him for two years and I don’t think I can do this much longer. He’s unbearable and treats Shane like a lesser human.”
“You should’ve seen Shane after their last anniversary,” Scott told him. “We were at their house because Shane had mentioned they were going over to Alec’s after their date. He came home in tears about some fight they had and Alec dropped him off a couple of houses down the block so he had to walk home. It was ridiculous.”
Ilya’s jaw was on the floor. What could Shanee have possibly done for Alec to believe he deserved that? And why would Shane forgive him for doing that? “And they are still together?”
“Unfortunately,” Scott whispered.
Shane quickly came back to the kitchen, massaging his temples. “Sorry, guys, I gotta go,” he grimaced, grabbing his keys and wallet. “Is it okay if I take the car? Scott, can you take him home?”
“Yeah,” Kip nodded. “We’ve got a date tonight anyway. Alec needs something?”
“No, he just thinks we need to talk or something,” Shane grumbled. He barely whispered a goodbye before bolting out the door, raking a hand through his hair in stress.
“He forgot his hoodie,” Ilya pointed out, jutting a chin out towards the coat rack.
“He’ll probably come back after he goes to Alec’s,” Scott shrugged. “If not, Kip can take it over to him.”
Ilya stayed there, sitting across from the couple for about another thirty minutes before retiring to his room to finish unpacking it. He understood why Scott was so infatuated with Kip, they complimented each other well. While Scott was intense and a tad neurotic, Kip took it all in stride and was attracted to those traits. Kip was easy-going and funny, someone who Scott could never tire talking to. He liked them together, he decided.
No matter how much he liked the couple, he hated being a third-wheel. Besides, he had more unpacking to do and even had an assignment from his first week at an American university. He knew he’d need all the time possible to be able to decode what it even said since his English wasn’t the best.
While he unpacked the last of his clothes and put them into his dressers, he thought about Shane and Jacobs. He couldn’t understand how someone as driven and hardworking as Shane could be with someone like Jacobs and be able to respect him. Alec Jacobs was entitled and had no real skill, aloof, belligerent, and had no ounce of humility in his whole body. Those weren’t even the worst parts, though. Someone could have all of those qualities and still love and care for their partner, but Jacobs didn’t even do that right. He made no move to understand Shane as a person and compliment him in a relationship, and he wasn’t even an honorable person.
It bothered Ilya to no end, and he barely understood why. He’d had a total of two conversations with Shane and he knew close to nothing about him, but he was drawn to him. It was a weird pull he couldn’t exactly ignore. Ilya was attracted to Shane, more than he’d been to anyone before, but it was more than just the physical. It was a first for him, usually, he was only attracted to someone's body. With Shane, he was attracted to all of him in the way that he wanted to devour him whole. It was scary for him.
He’d had friends he’d hooked up with, but the pull he felt to their bodies and their minds were completely different. Svetlana was his best friend and he’d had sex with her countless times, but he couldn’t imagine being anything more. There wasn’t even a time where he thought it was possible for that. Sasha was another friend he’d hooked up with, and he could never do anything more than sex with him. He pulled out the worst parts of Ilya and they would’ve driven each other to be crazy people.
Then there were the numerous women and handful of men he’d slept with in Russia and his summers in Boston only for him to never speak to them again. He flirted with almost all of them before he had sex with them, and there was nothing that drew him to date them, in fact, he’d never dated anyone. It was probably odd for a man of his age and body count to never have dated a single person, but he didn’t care. When the time came, if it ever did, he knew how to treat people right, he wouldn’t have to be told how to be a good boyfriend.
Something about Shane made him want to learn more about him and never stop learning. Every time he spoke to him, he wanted to learn something new. He wanted all of Shane injected into him. It wasn’t because he was hot–even though he absolutely was– it was because his personality intrigued him to no end.
He was completely boring to everyone around him, he was all tennis and training regiments and meal prepping. Ilya could feel that there was more to him other than the surface level “tennis robot” everyone believed him to be, and he wanted to know the Shane Hollander no one got to see. If he got to see only a small part of that side of him, Ilya believed that he’d be able to die a very happy man.
Halfway through his assignment for his nutrition class, he heard a very loud knock on the door. He was home alone since Kip and Scott left just as he finished unpacking the last of his clothes, claiming they were going out to dinner, so he was the one who had to open the door. He didn’t bother checking the app on his phone to see who was at the door, he knew it was Shane Hollander.
When he opened the door, he saw Shane standing there, red-rimmed eyes and blotchy pink cheeks. It was cold for January, especially at seven o’clock, he could tell Shane was missing his hoodie.
“I forgot my hoodie,” Shane said in lieu of a greeting. Ilya just moved out of his way and let him through the door, he could tell well enough when someone didn’t need to be heckled. Though, he still wanted to.
Shane picked up his hoodie, throwing it on immediately.
“Why?” Ilya asked, closing the door behind Shane and leaning against it.
“Why what?” Shane approached the door, looking like he wanted to leave.
“Why him?”
“Alec?” Shane pulled a face at him when he nodded. “He’s my boyfriend. I love him.”
“I did not ask that.”
Shane hesitated for a moment, his eyes not leaving Ilya’s. On the other hand, Ilya was searching his entire face, Shane’s lips, huge brown eyes, the apples of his cheeks where his freckles were, the dry hair barely touching his forehead. Everything about him was breathtaking and Ilya could never get enough.
“Why do you care?” Shane asked, eyes flickering down to the door knob as if he wanted to reach out and grab it, forcing him out of the way. Ilya doubted Shane could move him, hockey players and tennis players had very different physiques. While hockey players were big and bulky, tennis players were lean from the amount of cardio they did. Hockey players were fighters, they needed to be big, tennis players ran around a cart, using momentum to make their plays.
“I think you, um, what is word? You are worth more than to be with him.”
“I deserve better than him?” Shane asked, an incredulous look on his face.
“Da. Yes, that,” Ilya nodded, snapping in recognition. “Forgive me.”
Shane completely breezed over his horrible English to focus on Ilya’s opinion about his relationship. “You don’t even know me, how would you know what I deserve?”
“I know enough of you,” Ilya shrugged. “I know him more.”
“And he’s, what?” Shane waved a hand around. “A horrible person? Narcissistic and only cares about himself and not me?”
Ilya only smirked and raised his eyebrows, clearly amused that Shane answered his question just as he would, though he didn’t exactly know what a narcissist was. “He is not good person, is he? Is not even good hockey player.
“He is a good hockey player!” Shane argued. He kept the put out look on his face as he stayed rooted to his spot, only a couple steps away from Ilya.
“So he is bad person,” Ilya smirked, taking a small step towards him, pushing off the front door. “You admit it?”
“No!” he squeaked. “Alec is a great person!”
“Do you believe that?”
Shane took a long look at him before sighing. “I know I really don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “Do you know anything about athlete nutrition?”
“What?” Shane blinked rapidly, dealing with the whiplash of the subject change.
Ilya shrugged at him. “Is my first assignment and some of the words are not making sense. I am having to look them up, is taking a lot of time.”
“You want me to help you with your homework?” Shane stared at him in disbelief.
“I transferred from Russian university, I have never studied in English.”
Shane looked at him oddly, before smiling softly. “I know enough. It’s not my major, so I’m not sure how much I can help.”
Ilya waved him in the direction of his room where his laptop was wide open on his freshly made IKEA desk. Shane stood awkwardly behind him while he sat in the chair but quickly took a seat on the bed once Ilya told him it was okay. “What is your major?”
“Art history,” Shane grinned. “I wanted to do something I really enjoyed in college since I’ll be playing tennis for the rest of my life.”
“You are so sure?” Ilya mused, pulling up his assignment and looking for the highlighted words in his textbook.
“You’ve never seen me play,” Shane shrugged. Ilya liked that about him, he was confident in his abilities, but not in a way that came off like Alec, it wasn’t overconfidence. He knew himself and his tennis, and it seemed like that was all that mattered to him, everyone else and all the doubts were just noise to him.
“Fair point, I will have to come to one of your games,” he winked, grinning when Shane’s face flushed from the tips of his ears to the bottom of his neck. “What is bioavai– avalia–?”
“Bioavailability?” Shane giggled.
For an hour, they went over his vocabulary words that he needed to know and what he needed to understand about their concepts. Shane was unsurprisingly knowledgeable about everything having to do with athletes and their bodies. Shane proved that he was one of the athletes that were very ‘my body is a temple.’
“Rozy!” Scott yelled as he opened the front door of their house.
“Shouldn’t you see what he needs?” Shane asked, turning his head to him once Ilya didn’t respond. At some point, Ilya brought himself and his computer to the bed to sit next to Shane so he wouldn’t have to keep trying to decode what he was trying to say. Or that was his excuse to Shane, really he just wanted an excuse to press their thighs together without Shane looking at him weird.
“No, he will just let himself inside.”
And that he did. Scott barged into the room not two minutes later with Kip in tow, smirking when he saw Shane next to him. He’d already heard countless hookup stories from Ilya despite only living with him for a couple of days and he was sure Scott could see some type of similarity.
“Shane’s here?” Kip asked, wiggling his brows at his best friend.
“Fuck off,” Shane rolled his eyes, whispering a small goodbye to Ilya when Ilya thanked him for the help. He walked out with Kip, who was poking him in the side as he began to talk about his date.
Once they were out of the house, Scott’s smirk widened and he stepped further inside Ilya’s room. “What was Shane doing in here?”
“Helping me,” Ilya mirrored his expression.
“Helping?”
“With my assignment,” he clarified, watching as Scott’s face fell.
“Just homework?”
“Just homework,” Ilya told him. “He will be trouble for me, I am sure.”
Scott’s face went through a journey in only a couple of seconds. “I don’t know whether or not to be happy about that.”
“There will be one good thing,” he shrugged when Scott asked him to clarify. “He will not be with Alec much longer.”
+
Shane was completely hard as a rock. There was no way around the what felt-like, permanent tent in his pants as a hot mouth pressed up against his neck, sucking hickies into his pulse point. He grabbed a fistful of curly hair into his hand, tugging until his knuckles turned white.
There was a hand on his jaw, pushing his head back further against the wall he was pressed against, knee pressed against his crotch. The other hand was crawling up his shirt, revealing more and more of his stomach, the fingers of the hand pressing into every curve and groove of the muscles there. The moans punched out of him, punctuating each suck to his neck and press to his crotch.
The hand on his stomach lowered to Shane’s pants, pulling the drawstring of his sweatpants until the stretch allowed for a hand down his boxers. He played with the base of his cock for a couple of moments, drawing out moans from Shane. It was a completely dry hand, and he felt every nerve of the rough calloused fingers from years of hockey.
The hand glided down to the tip, fingertip sliding around the slit, swirling the precum around. He started to bring the–frankly alarming– amount of precum to wrap around the head. With a slow, torturing pump of his hand, Shane threw his head further into the wall, almost to the point of getting a headache.
All Shane could feel was desperation and want for the man in front of him. He brought his hands from his neck to his back, noticing that he was shirtless, and bringing his blunt nails to scratch down the length of his spine. The man groaned, detaching his lips from his neck to rest his head on Shane’s chest.
Shane let his head fall onto the man’s, kissing the crown of his head, hand dragging up to his neck. He pulled his head up, trailing his lips from the top of his hair, down to his neck, taking his turn in branding the man with a hickey with his eyes seared shut from the pleasure coming from the hand on his dick.
The pumps from the hands started to get faster, causing Shane to dissolve himself from moaning to quick pants. He could feel himself inching closer and closer to the brink of exploding.
It was unlike any other intimate experience he’d ever had, nothing like Alec had ever given him before. He’d never had someone hold him in their hands like he was so precious, the intimacy was something he believed they’d lacked in their relationship. This entire experience was giving him hope that he and Alec would actually work, that they could have a future together beyond just a college relationship. This was the only sexual experience they’d had together in the past year that Shane had felt wanted and he’d missed the feeling of being wanted to the point of desperation.
The hand on his cock played with his balls, stimulating them so intensely that Shane could feel himself go to the brink before the hand pulled completely away. He whined at the loss, coming down sharply from his almost finish.
The man tilted his head up, bringing him into a needy kiss.
It was then that he realized that the lips didn’t belong to his boyfriend. The hands cupping his jaw (both hands now, the hand in his pants came up to join the other, the thumb of the left hand grazing the top of his cheek) weren’t Alec’s. The cupid’s bow of the lips was much more defined, the pads of his fingers rougher, his hair curlier.
When he pulled back, he caught a glimpse of the face of Ilya Rozanov right before he sank to his knees with a smirk.
When Shane Hollander woke up, he found himself in a hotel room in Michigan. To his left, Kip Grady was in his own queen bed, sleeping soundly while his best friend had a wet fucking dream about his boyfriend’s teammate.
Never in his life had he thought so intimately about someone while in a relationship, and he’d been with women before figuring out he was gay. Even then, he never let his eyes wander to anyone else, keeping his eyes on his girlfriend while not even being attracted to them physically.
Alec was his first boyfriend, and he couldn’t believe he was letting himself think about a man he’d just met in that way. Practically throwing away his entire relationship for some guy he probably came up with in his head on a body he thought was the hottest he’d ever seen.
Still, he’d never felt so wanted. Truthfully, he didn’t even feel a semblance of want in his relationship unless Alec wanted to prove something, either to himself, or to Shane because he did something wrong, or to others because he felt threatened.
He’d felt more genuine attachment in a fucking dream than he had in his two year long relationship.
He was so fucked.