WELCOME HOME, OLYMPIC LOSER
Pairing: Ilia Malinin x fem!reader
Request: Hii sweetheart! Could you write something about Ilia x female figure skater where she also trains with his parents. It would be soo cool to see their dynamic as a couple. Wish u the best 🎀❤️
For as long as you could remember, the rink had been your second home. The early mornings before school, the late evenings after homework was done - it had all been part of your life since your childhood.
Your mother used to joke that you learned to skate before you learned to walk. At 6 you joined his parents' skating group, and because of that the two of you spent your childhoods sharing the same ice.Unfortunately.
More times than you could remember, Ilia had made you want to rip your own hair out in frustration. Like one time when you were eleven, and he stole your favorite song for a routine. Til this day, he claimed that it was a coincidence - but he didn't pick it until after you had said that you liked it.
Or the several other times he tried to annoy you during skating. One time, he had been doing his favorite trick - standing in your way. Even as you tried to shove him away, he would only smirk and claim "he wasn't in your way." "You're standing on my takeoff," you had exclaimed, to which he had countered that he was only "standing near your takeoff."
For years that had been your dynamic. Teasing. Competitive. A little unbearable. Once you described him to a friend as "the closest thing you had to a brother". Unbeknownst to you, Ilia had overheard that conversation. Not even knowing why, your words annoyed him to the point where he didn't speak to you for three whole days.
As you both grew older, things had slowly begun to change. And somehow, between long practices and international competitions, the irritation between you had softened into something else.
You weren’t even sure when or how it had happened. Maybe it was when you both started to compete internationally. Maybe it was when Ilia shot up a few inches and stopped looking like the slightly awkward kid you had grown up with. Or maybe it was the simple fact that you had spent thousand of hours together at the rink.
No matter the reason, you had never admitted it to anyone. And you never would, especially not to Ilia.
It was, however, an increasingly hard secret to keep. More times than you could count, he would catch you staring and make some sort of comment.
“I’m not,” you would protest, trying your best to sound normal. “I was just thinking.”
“About me?” Ilia would laugh, clearly pleased with himself, having no clue to how your heartbeat had picked up, or how your cheeks threatened to fill with color.
One week before the Olympics, everything fell apart.
It happened during a normal run-through. You had done the combination countless times before. Your body knew the rhythm of it almost instinctively. The timing felt right, the edge felt solid - until it didn’t.
Your blade caught the ice wrong during the landing. There was a sharp crack, and then pain. You didn’t scream, but the silence that followed your fall was almost worse.
Ilia and his parents all rushed over to where your body had fallen, Ilia reaching you first. By the time he had dropped to his knees beside you, your ankle had already started to swell.
When he asked if you were okay, and you answered that you were fine, you both knew that it wasn’t true.
The diagnosis came quickly. A fracture. Not career-ending, but bad enough. So bad that the doctors didn’t even bother pretending that you could compete. “You’ll need surgery,” one of them explained gently.
You took the news hard, but somehow it seemed like Ilia took them even harder when he came to visit you that evening.
He leaned back in the chair beside your hospital bed, rubbing his face. For a moment, neither of you spoke. You had dreamed about this Olympics since you were children, and now you wouldn’t even get to be there.
Eventually, he snapped back to his senses and cleared his throat. “I’ll call you all the time.”
The seriousness in his voice made your heart flutter, so you tried to laugh it off. “That sounds exhausting.”
A week later, the Olympics came.
You watched everything from your hospital bed, with your leg in a cast and your phone constantly buzzing from beside you. Ilia called you exactly like he promised. Before practices, after practices, sometimes just to complain about the food.
After the free skate, you could hear the tension and frustration in his voice.
“Don’t read the comments,” you told him during one of those calls. “You’re still one of the best skaters in the world, Ilia. One competition doesn’t change that, even if it’s the Olympics.”
There was a long pause on the other end, almost making you think he had hung up. Eventually he spoke up, his voice quiet. “You should have been here.”
“Yeah,” you answered, your chest tightening, “I know.”
Two weeks later, you stood in the arrivals area of the airport with your ankle in a boot.
In one hand you held a bunch of balloons, and in the other a sign - “WELCOME HOME, OLYMPIC LOSER.” It had taken you a while to settle on the wording, but eventually you had decided to go with honesty.
As more and more people exited the sliding doors, you grew impatient. When Ilia finally walked through with his luggage, he spotted the sign immediately. He then stopped walking, and bursted out laughing.
“You’re unbelievable,” he said as he reached you.
He shook his head, still smiling, before moving his eyes to your other hand. “And the balloons?”
“Emotional support,” you grinned.
“For me,” you deadpanned, “you were very dramatic on the phone.” He let out a quiet laugh at that.
For a moment the two of you simply stood there. It had only been a couple of weeks since you had last seen each other, but somehow it felt longer. His parents, who sensed that you might need some privacy, took the silence as a sign to move away from the two of you.
Eventually, Ilia spoke again. “I missed training with you,” he admitted. “The rink was weirdly quiet.”
You shifted slightly in your good foot. “I watched all your programs.”
He grimaced slightly at your confession. “Sorry about that.” You rolled your eyes slightly at his words. “You did fine.”
Ilia shook his head, “That’s not what the internet says.”
You let out a huff, “The internet isn’t exactly known for being a reliable source.” This was the problem with Ilia. Even if one program was a bust, he had been amazing over all.
Ilia looked at you for a moment, his eyes softening. “I think I skate better when you’re there.” He hesitated briefly before continuing. “I mean, you’ve always kind of been there.”
“Well yeah, we’ve trained together since we were kids,” you retorted, ignoring the way your heart skipped at his words.
“Yeah, exactly,” Ilia said, before continuing awkwardly, “I guess the Olympics just made me realize that I don’t like doing this stuff without you.”
He let out a small breath through his nose. “And before you say anything - no, this isn’t some dramatic Olympic self discovery moment or anything.” You both laughed a little at that, before he rubbed his neck briefly and continued.
“I just think.. things are better when you’re there.”
Tears formed in your eyes, as your lips moved into a soft smile. Even though your friendship had softened throughout the years, touchy moments like these were rare. “You sound jet-lagged.”
Ilia huffed a quiet laugh, glancing down at the floor for a second before looking back at you.
“And,” he added after a moment, “I might have realized something else.”
You raised an eyebrow, “That sounds dangerous.”
“Yeah, well.” He shifted his weight slightly. “Turns out when you spend most of your life training with someone, seeing them everyday and traveling together…” he paused, clearly trying to figure out how to end the sentence.
“… you get used to having them around?” You suggest softly.
You grab his hand in yours, noticing how his was shaking slightly. “That’s called friendship.”
Ilia lets out another short breath. “Right, except I’m pretty sure it’s not just that.”
“Oh,” you repeat your previous words lamely, your fingers tightening slightly around the strings of the balloons.
For a moment neither of you spoke. The airport around you was still busy, with people moving past you with suitcases and loud conversations, but it all felt strangely distant.
“I think I like you,” he finished. The words weren’t dramatic. It sounded more like he had simply reached a conclusion.
You stared at him for a second. “You think?”
He rolled his eyes, moving a step closer. You don’t know if it was something in your voice that gave you away or what, but his next words sounded far more confident. “I know I like you.”
“Well,” you grinned, “that’s good, because I like you too.”
Another small silence settled between you. Not awkward, but new. Ilia glanced down briefly at the medical boot on your ankle.
“So,” he eventually said slowly, “does this mean I’m allowed to kiss you, or..?”
You looked around the crowded airport terminal. “There are at least twenty people watching us, including your parents.”
You considered his words for another moment, glancing over at where his parents stood - looking both knowing and proud. Eventually you gave him a shrug of your own. “Fine.”
The kiss was brief. Short. And considering you were still holding both the balloons and sign, slightly awkward. But when you pulled back, Ilia looked entirely too pleased with himself.