I love Freedom of Religion, we can have Mean Dom Ilya and Service Top Ilya and enjoy him all however we like both seriously and not! I can suspend my disbelief like no one's business! It doesn't have to be #MyIlya to be a worthy Ilya
Having said that, I think it's funny how some people are really thinking that man would be 100% of the time no exceptions In Charge™. I don't agree, he wouldn't settle for that with Shane Hollander. He knows what he would miss out on.
In the Tuna Melt Fiasco, I believe he did plan to ask Shane to stay and feed him, but I think he didn't think much farther than "I get to take my time and have multiple rounds of the best sex if I convince him to stay with me the whole day", he obviously felt much more than that, but the plan wasn't an emotionally significant hangout.
The thing is, the lights were on... and the sun was coming from the windows... and Shane rode him into oblivion.
And then in round two he was in his lap, looking down at him intensely and controlling the pace and "you gonna come for me, Rozanov?"
...and then shortly after he blurts out the fucking first name! Coincidence? I THINK NOT
He had a religious experience, imploded his situationship and came in his rick owens, because he got Topped From The Bottom.
He definetly likes to see Shane take charge once in a while.
It's 2013, four years after Ilya left the league prematurely. Shane and Ilya are both passengers on a four-month, around-the-world cruise, each for their own reason. Shane is out for the season due to an MCL tear, and Yuna got him a deal with the cruise ship: their finest suite in exchange for a few social media posts.
But for Ilya, the reason is much darker. He left the hockey world before his rookie year to take care of his father after his older brother's untimely death. This cruise is his way to blow his meager inheritance, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s to find some kind of proof that life is worth sticking around for.
Read it on AO3
Ilya’s debts are accruing at a pace he cannot keep up with and it’s terrifying. He tries to believe Paula when she says her kindness toward him is out of friendship, but it’s a type of care he’s entirely unfamiliar with. And this from Hollander is beyond what he could ever feasibly pay back.
“I’m going to shower,” he says, pulling his hand back. He grabs his gym clothes and sneakers — it’s almost time to meet Paula there anyway.
“Oh, okay,” Hollander says. “I guess maybe I’ll see you up there. I have PT in an hour or so. I’ll start… unpacking,” he looks around the room, as if to scan for a dresser he could unpack into.
Ilya bolts from the room all the way up five flights of stairs and sets the treadmill to the fastest pace the machine will go. He runs nearly five kilometers before Paula even gets to the gym.
“I heard what happened,” Paula says. She climbs onto the elliptical next to him but doesn’t start it. “I’m so sorry.”
“Everyone keeps saying sorry,” Ilya huffs. “I don’t know how to respond. We don’t say sorry so much in Russia.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Paula says. They both laugh. “How are you not still sore from yesterday?” Paula asks, dumbfounded. “There’s no way my legs could make this machine go right now. I figured we would stretch and take it easy.”
Feeling his own body aching under the stress, Ilya nods and presses the emergency “stop” button. He climbs off and grabs two mats, placing them on the floor. Paula sits down on hers and immediately stretches her hamstring, bending over her right leg to touch her toes. “Thank God,” she says.
It’s silent for a beat as they both give into their achy muscles. Ilya breaks the silence. “I hate that I’m a burden. Benny was going to room with me and Hollander is giving up his suite because of me.” He says these words while facing the royal blue foam beneath him so that he doesn’t have to look at her face.
“None of this is your fault,” Paula replies, echoing Hollander’s words.
“If I weren’t here, they wouldn’t need to do this,” Ilya retorts.
“Have you ever considered that maybe people want to help others? That it feels nice to be useful sometimes?” Paula asks gently. “I’m sure you’ve experienced that before. Being a shoulder to cry on for a friend or giving someone a hand with a task. It’s nice to be needed.”
“I guess, yes. Maybe. Probably,” Ilya says. He thinks of Svetlana’s many break ups, and how they always became so much closer when she was heartbroken. It is much easier being on the other end of the equation.
“Well, I can only speak for myself, but I want you here. I’m glad you’re here. And, if Benny had told me earlier, I would have demanded you stay with me and Al on our couch, but I think this solution is even better,” Paula tells him.
“Better for me, maybe, but not for Hollander. He gets fucked over.”
Paula laughs at this. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s going to be miserable,” she jokes. He’s slightly comforted by this, considering for the first time that Hollander’s offer might not have been one hundred percent selfless like he’d assumed.
After a dip in the pool and a very long shower, Ilya returns to the empty staff room. The television is on, providing a bright, synthetic light source for the otherwise dim room. Hollander connected a lot of wires and devices to it, and there is a rectangular white remote on the bed.
Hollander’s bags are standing neatly in a row between the couch and the wall of the ship. There isn’t any storage space, just one small, navy blue couch that’s seen better days. Ilya places his own duffel on one of the couch cushions and tucks his gym clothes into the side pocket, trying to make his belongings as tidy and unobtrusive as possible.
He sits on the bed — their bed — and acquaints himself with the white remote Hollander brought. The television is so close to the foot of the bed that it’s almost hurting his eyes: he knows this setup would have been his dream as a child, with how easy it is to see the TV while lying back on the pillows.
He uses the four arrows on the remote, shaped like a giant plus sign, to flip through the icons on the screen. He quickly notices a small cartoon that looks exactly like Hollander, doing a little dance on the right side of the screen next to all of the game icons. He laughs at the spiky black hair, round face and freckles staring back at him. The character is even wearing a navy blue shirt with red shorts, Metros colors.
——
When Shane returns to the room later in the afternoon — he had wanted to make himself more scarce, to give Ilya some space, so he avoided coming right back after PT — he finds Ilya swinging the Wii remote, a little out of breath from the effort.
“Oh!” Ilya startles, stilling and letting the video game tennis ball go right past his character. Shane notices that there’s already a Mii icon with curly blond hair and black workout clothes, facing away from the camera in the fake tennis match.
“I see you figured out the Wii,” Shane smiles.
“Ah, this is what it’s called?” Ilya replies, setting the remote down. “Sorry, I was bored.”
“No, I’m glad you’re using it. I set it up for both of us,” Shane reassures him. Then he examines the screen more closely, seeing Ilya’s perfect score on the board. “Okay, but maybe not if you’re that good.”
“Is too easy,” Ilya shrugs.
“Well, you are on a pretty low level still,” Shane says, his competitive spirit sparking like an ember that just touched kindling.
“Show me harder one, then,” Ilya demands.
Shane navigates to a doubles game and sets the level higher. Ilya is still making all of his shots. “Are you sure you’ve never played this? I think you’re hustling me.”
“We do not have in Russia,” Ilya says. “I don’t even own a television.”
Shane presses “pause” on the controller and looks at him, his jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Ilya says, finally making eye contact for the first time in a long time.
“What do you even do all day?”
“Read. Is why we are so smart in Europe,” the other man shrugs.
“Oh, fuck off,” Shane says. “I play plenty of Europeans in MarioKart Live tournaments.” Okay, maybe that was too much information to share.
“In what cart?” Ilya furrows his brows.
“I have so much to teach you,” Shane says with a smile.
They have their typical dining times and Shane’s physical therapy that night, giving them a few hours apart, but they otherwise spend the rest of the day in front of the television in their tiny room. It’s a great excuse, Shane thinks, to confine himself next to Ilya in the name of beating his ass at video games.
Ilya falls asleep with the white Wii steering wheel on his chest after losing a 64-game MarioKart tournament while Shane watches the highlight reel to see where he could have done better.
Shane reclines, too, and wishes their bodies were closer together, wishes he could slide in next to Ilya without it being weird. The tension he’s felt emanating from Ilya all day got a little looser with something simple to focus on, but it didn’t disappear. He’s sure that getting too close to each other would only escalate it.
——
Ilya stirs awake and quickly notices his back pressed against something warm. He turns over and realizes it’s Shane, who is facing away from him and very lightly snoring. In his dreary, sleepy haze, he allows himself to press back against the other man and enjoy the simple comfort of their bodies together just for a moment.
When he wakes up again, Hollander is gone. His phone says it’s 10:30am, later than he’s used to sleeping. The toothache that normally comes to him in the mornings after grinding his teeth all night is missing, too.
“Soooooo, what did you get up to last night?” Paula says in a singsong-y tone, smiling as Ilya sits down in the chair next to hers on the pool deck.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he frowns. “But I am a man with dignity. I do not put out so quickly.” It’s not true at all, but he doesn’t feel like explaining to her the ins and outs of top drop and how he hasn’t yet learned how to be physically intimate without becoming a kinky, dominating slut devoid of deeper emotions. He’s not even sure he could explain that to himself.
“Mmmkay,” Paula says, not believing him. He lets her exist in that fantasy world.
Paula puts her book back up to her face and Ilya sees a half-naked man on the cover with an eight-pack. He’s got his arm around a woman in a bikini with comically large tits. “What are you reading?” he demands.
“Romance,” she shrugs unabashedly. “The guy is in a mob and she is being held for ransom but they fall in love, it’s kind of enemies to lovers.”
“And you like this?” he asks, flabbergasted.
“Are 47 year-olds not allowed to like sex?” Paula raises an eyebrow at him.
“Yes, but…”
“Everyone reads smut,” Paula says, dismissing his concerns.
“I do not,” Ilya interjects.
“Well you should,” she tells him. “Maybe then you’d be less weird about what’s going on between you and Shane. It’s just sex and romance, Ilya. Everyone does it. Everyone deserves it.”
He huffs, opening his own book and trying to pay attention to the words on the page. “You have more of these books?” he asks, finally.
Paula smiles. “I’ll bring you one tomorrow.”
“I will maybe read it,” Ilya says. “Maybe.”
He returns to the room when he grows tired of having the bright sun on his face — something he never expected to grow tired of. Hollander is flipping through channels on the television.
“Oh, hey,” Shane says. “Good timing. Have you ever seen The Bachelorette?”
“No,” Ilya replies. “What is this?”
Hollander explains everything there is to know about the franchise, how there’s one woman dating dozens of men at a time to try to find her future husband. He tells Ilya about the star of this current season, Rose Landry, a celebrity who he claims the network chose because the show has been low on viewership lately.
“I love Rose’s movies so I think she’ll be a great Bachelorette. They’re just starting a marathon of it to recap the season and I haven’t seen any of it yet,” Hollander explains. “Unless you’d rather play video games instead, or-”
“No, I am intrigued,” Ilya replies. He sits on his side of the bed, careful not to make contact with the other man.
——
Five episodes later, they each have a clear favorite contestant locked and loaded for next week’s live episode. They’re surrounded by empty plates with small ketchup and mustard splotches, both reclined on the pillows. They had debated whose bachelor choice is better over room service burgers and fries, a late lunch.
Paul T (Ilya’s pick) is mysterious and brooding. None of the other guys on the show like him, but he puts on the charm for Rose and always ends up sweeping her off her feet. Alex M (Shane’s pick) is more popular among the other contestants and has a few “bromances” with the guys in the house. He’s got a more boyish look about him and always makes Rose laugh.
Neither Shane nor Ilya do the easy psychoanalysis of understanding why they’re each magnetized to their respective favorites.
Shane is equally exhausted and full of energy at the same time, the kind of feeling that only happens after a long day of watching television. His body wants him to either go on a long run or crawl out of his skin. He can see that Ilya has the same kind of restless energy, too. They haven’t kissed all day.
Shane shuts the television off and turns onto his side, looking at Ilya’s profile. Ilya shifts his face the tiniest bit. Their eyes meet.
He might not know a whole lot about interpersonal moments like this, but Shane knows enough to be sure that Ilya should probably initiate a kiss right about now. It was Ilya who ended their makeout last time, so anxious and caught off guard, and now Shane is horizontal in front of the man after they’d already discussed the potential of being physical and dating. It seems like a no-brainer.
Instead, Ilya breaks his eye contact and checks the clock. 4:45pm. “You have PT,” he announces.
Shane would like to say something snarky, like “are you my mom?” On second thought, he’d like to tell Ilya to make him stay on his knees for long enough to really need PT, and Ilya can decide what to do with a kneeling Shane for hours on end. Instead, Shane nods and just leaves.
He spends the entire session with Doug thinking about what he must be doing wrong to make Ilya shut down like this. The only real data he has to draw from is when he dated a man named Luke a year or so ago. They’d met at a bar in Montreal — not a sports bar, to be sure. It was immediately obvious that Luke had no idea who Shane was or what Montreal’s hockey team name even was, for that matter. It’s part of why Shane allowed himself to indulge in the dating scenario like a normal 22 year-old.
Luke had been nice to him. They’d spent a few months together, texting and talking on the phone whenever Shane was away, or having sex and watching movies in each other’s homes when he was in town. It was… nice. Until it wasn’t.
Shane had spaced about dinner plans, which was unlike him but it was during the play-offs and he was too stressed to even check his calendar. Luke had made pasta for them and rented a movie, even lit some candles (he mentioned that fact later on.) Half an hour into their scheduled date, Luke called him to formally end things.
He used some harsh language about why it would never work out between them. Things like “You do whatever your mom wants you to do and you’ve never had to grow up” and “You’re too rich and spoiled to know what it’s like to go through trauma.” All of the shame Shane had about his closeness with his parents was coming out of someone else’s mouth, and it crushed him. All of the things he hated about fame were being reflected back to him, too, painting him in a negative light he’d tried to escape from ever since.
Shane wonders if that’s how Ilya sees him, too. Ilya, who had to leave the NHL way too early and go home to a country that doesn’t accept him. Ilya, whose brother died when he was way too young to have to deal with something like that. The very short list of personal items Shane knows about the man are all tragedies, and it would make sense for Ilya to deem him immature for not having even a fragment of the hardships he’s been through.
“Either these exercises are too painful right now or you need to get something off of your chest,” Doug says, interrupting Shane’s spiral.
“Sorry,” Shane says. “Just in my head.”
“Hard to miss the season, huh?” Doug guesses. Shane is grateful that he doesn’t even need to come up with a reason of his own. He nods and goes back to squatting on the BOSU ball.
The next three days go by in similar fashion. There are stolen glances and tense moments littered between Shane and Ilya coexisting in their temporary space like roommates. They play so much MarioKart that Shane needs to use eye drops to mitigate the pain from the screen time. They join Paula and Benny near the pool sometimes, and Shane doesn’t comment on the weird book he sees Paula hand off to Ilya with models posing half-nude on the cover. Their backs touch each other under the covers when they sleep, and every once in a while Ilya turns in his sleep and his face is close enough that his breath is on Shane’s neck. It’s nice. Easy (mostly.)
Shane tries to stop wanting more for now and focuses instead on the small joys of introducing Ilya to new things, getting front-row access to watch him becoming much more boyish and carefree as he leans into gaming and binging television like everyone else their age does.
——
Ilya doesn’t get the timing right. He should be paying attention to the clock better, maybe even setting an alarm on his phone, but he assumes Hollander is going straight to dinner from PT like he typically does, giving him plenty of alone time in their shared space.
The memory of Shane straddling him in the hot tub the other night, and the four days he’s now spent mere inches from the man, have been making Ilya’s skin burn. There’s a heat inside of him that feels bottled up. A ticking time bomb. If it isn’t dealt with soon, it’ll be a problem.
He takes the time that he thinks he has, being leisurely about it all. He palms his cock through his boxers gently as he replays memories. He’s slow to get the lube from his duffel, and even when he does, he takes his time warming it between fingers before wrapping his slippery hand around his dick and moaning at the sensation. He doesn’t even pull up the video from weeks ago that’ll get him off immediately: he wants to indulge in this, not rush to orgasm.
If they were staying in a normal room on the ship, there would be an extra latch on the door he could lock to keep Shane out. There would at least be the warning sound of the light “beep” when someone’s card goes through the reader.
Instead, all he has is a millisecond between hearing the turning of the handle and seeing Hollander’s shocked face.
“Fuck,” Ilya says, pulling the blanket over him.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Hollander lets out, grabbing the door and closing it.
“Holland—” Ilya is interrupted by the door slamming shut.
He pulls up his boxers, slips into his workout shorts that are conveniently on the bed next to him, and bolts to the door.
Hollander is standing there, frozen in the doorway, his face and ears beet red. Ilya’s body moves faster than his brain can. He makes a fist in the fabric of the man’s shirt and pulls him into the room, pushing him against the wall in the entryway. He presses his lips to Shane’s and is immediately met with reciprocation.
Their mouths move quickly, hungrily together, tongues sliding in unison and wet lips biting each other lightly. Ilya pulls off, pushes the hair out of Shane’s face and really looks at him, then pulls the strands harder to force Shane’s mouth open more, making room to slide his tongue in. Everything he’s dreamt of doing to the man every day of the last four years comes to his mind and he can barely decide where to start.
He all but throws Hollander onto the bed, then lowers himself on top of him, bringing their mouths together again quickly so he doesn’t have to go too long in the absence of it. Their hard cocks make contact and Shane moans into Ilya.
“Fucking touch me already,” Hollander says, and it’s the exact right thing. It’s demanding and desperate all at once, shattering the need for Ilya to take full control and making everything feel more even.
Ilya moves his hand between them and under Hollander’s waistband. His lower stomach hair is so soft, the skin so warm, and Ilya gets goosebumps as he slides his hand over Hollander’s dick. His own hand is still lubricated enough to move against it easily, and Shane lets out a shaky breath as he does.
It’s not enough. Ilya needs more. He puts his mouth back on Shane’s neck, sucking lightly as he continues moving his hand. He can feel Hollander’s heart beating quickly when his mouth trails over a pulse point. He makes a line of kisses downward, slowly, until Hollander catches on and places both hands on Ilya’s head then pushes it down toward his crotch. It’s bossy and decisive and everything Ilya wants right now.
Ilya rips off Hollander’s shorts and boxers, admiring the man’s glistening cock for a brief second before taking the entire thing into his mouth.
“Ilya,” Hollander moans, bucking up into him.
The familiar ache of his jaw opening around someone is so fucking delicious, made better by the fact that it’s finally Shane. Ilya licks up the shaft in front of him and circles his tongue around the tip before taking Shane fully into his mouth again, letting it fill his throat to the brim. He’s almost too lost in the act of it to notice when heat starts spreading through his mouth, a nostalgic taste filling him and dripping onto his chin as Shane moans and balls his fists into the sheets. He keeps Shane in his mouth, feeling the cock get smaller as he swallows around it.
And then Shane is using his bossy hands again, pulling Ilya off and back up the bed so they’re face to face. Shane licks the tiny trail of his own come off of Ilya’s chin, and Ilya has to stop himself from wondering where the hell Hollander learned that.
They’re kissing again, still just as eager as they were that very first time. Shane shifts them both, positioning himself on top of Ilya. “Let me show you how to do this, kid,” he chirps.
Ilya chuckles at the reference to their first night together. Something warms in him at the idea that Hollander remembers those words all these years later. Maybe Shane replays the night in his head all the time, too. If memories were YouTube videos, that one would have a million views from Ilya’s account, but he wonders now if Hollander would match that number.
He stops thinking any coherent thoughts when Shane’s mouth is on him, his warm tongue licking from base to tip. And then Shane’s open, pink mouth takes Ilya in, sucking him deeper and deeper until his nose is pressed flush to Ilya’s skin. Shane moans, causing a flutter deep in his throat that vibrates and sends Ilya to another dimension.
Ilya moves his hands down to grab Shane’s head, trying to pull him up and down. In an instant, Shane’s hands find Ilya’s wrists and force them down onto the bed. He shakes his head and glares at Ilya through his eyelashes. He bobs up and down himself, holding Ilya firmly against the bed.
The feeling of his own hands immobilized is enough to making Ilya fucking explode down Shane’s throat. He can’t even try to pull away out of courtesy: he’s forced to just let Shane take it, and there’s something so unbelievably hot about that.
——
“Good boy,” Shane says as he pulls off Ilya’s cock and returns to his horizontal position on the bed. The look on Ilya’s face is enough to know that was the right thing to say. He had decided, without really thinking about it, to let the “Daniel” persona shine through during their sex, giving himself permission to do what he wants and not wait for someone else to say it’s okay.
He can tell he is starting to crack the code of how to get Ilya out of his own head. He wants to call Hayden to scream “I figured it out!” but there are too many details he doesn’t want to share. Details that belong just to him and Ilya.
Ilya is still catching his breath, his face an adorable shade of red. Shane wants to live in the beautiful silence between them right now, in this moment where Ilya feels like his, unable to slip away just yet. Ilya finally looks at him and there’s a soft smile on his face. Shane leans in and kisses him.
“Don’t pull back this time, okay?” he says when their mouths part.
Ilya nods. “I can try.”
“Don’t just try. Do,” Shane’s never heard himself be this bossy outside of the locker room. He likes it.
