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The thing is, Shane infinitely prefers going to Rozanov’s than the other way around.
When he slips off to Rozanov’s hotel room, or more often these days, his apartment in downtown Boston, Shane is in control of the situation, at least in theory. He could come and go when he decided. He could decide not to go at all last minute, if he really wanted to. He never actually did that, but at least the option was there.
When it was over, he could slip out as soon as he started to feel antsy, call a car and be back at his hotel in under twenty minutes. He could shower and get into a bed that hadn’t been dirtied by sweat and cum and sex.
When they were both in Montreal, when Rozanov was coming to him, that was different. Shane would get back after home games against Boston and take his suit off right away. He’d get into the shower, turn the spray up as hot as it could go, setting the showerhead pressure high so it was concentrated into a single stream of water, pounding hot against his shoulderblades, down his spine.
It still wasn’t enough. It was never enough. He’d step out, teeth chattering as he adjusted to the temperature outside of the shower, and he’d still feel like he was about to vibrate out of his skin.
It was the waiting that felt so painful, the not knowing if it would happen until his phone would buzz with a text that just said here. Rozanov had never once stood him up, but he still felt so pathetic and low anyways as he waited, every inch of his body hot and tight and thrumming like he could burst at any moment.
In that in-between space, he always felt torn between texting him never mind, forget about it, forget that any of this ever happened and getting on his knees on the hard tile in front of the stairwell door so that he could be there, kneecaps aching, so ready, the second Rozanov’s taxi pulled up.
More often than not, he spent the time between getting home and when Rozanov showed up already half-hard without even touching himself, trying his best to ignore it. In some sick way the denial felt good, almost like he was floating. Shane had no control over the situation, whether Rozanov showed up or not, what happened when he got there, if the waiting for Rozanov got him hard. It simply happened to him.
During the weeks they spent apart, it was easy to pretend none of this was actually real, like the hour or two they had together every few months were a fluke. It didn’t belong to Shane’s actual life. It was fuzzy with no real weight, like a half-remembered dream.
When they were together though, when everything was narrowed down to Rozanov’s big hand pinning his shoulder to the mattress, his hot breath against his ear, things reversed. The true nature of Shane’s world revealed itself to him for a fleeting second: this was his real life, this was the real heart of things, of him. Everyone outside of it— the Metros, his parents, everyone who thought they knew Shane Hollander— only saw a sliver of him. The truest version of him only existed in fleeting glimpses, flashes of light and the afterimages left burned on the insides of his eyelids, when he was in bed with Ilya Rozanov.
That night, Comeau had knocked Rozanov’s tooth loose. Shane hadn’t been on the ice when it happened, had been looking away for a split second as he fiddled with a loosened skate lace on the bench when suddenly the Bell Centre erupted.
The fight was over before Shane could even see any of it. All he caught was Rozanov on the Jumbotron, his white away jersey speckled red, fiery and handsome and grinning, a dark space where one of his front incisors had just been.
All through his five minute major, the camera kept cutting over to Rozanov in the penalty box, sprawled out and smug. Shane was scared it showed on his face, the way his eyes were pulled to him, how badly he wanted to lick over Rozanov’s full upper lip where it was still stained red with drying blood. He felt lit up all over at the sight of him on screen, bloodied face blown up larger than life. When he climbed over the boards for his next shift, he was half hard.
Shane was so caught up in it that the rest of the game and press afterwards passed by in a fevered blur, his entire body, every cell and nerve ending, every hair follicle, bending in the direction of the visitors dressing room. He felt so hazy through it that when he got home, the first thing he did was find a stream of the post-game press conference on Twitter to make sure he hadn’t told the media scrum about how badly he wanted to press his tongue into the space where Rozanov’s tooth had been. He watched it back three times just to make sure.
His phone buzzes. He presses the heel of his palm to his dick, wills it to go down, just a little bit.
When Rozanov comes up, his mouth is clearly still hurting him. He keeps cradling it absentmindedly with his hand as they talk, winces as he sips water. Up close, Shane can see where his lip is a little split from when he must’ve bitten down on it during the fight, a reddish-purple scab starting to form over the tender skin.
Rozanov’s mouth guard had flown out of his mouth during the fight, laying abandoned on the ice. Shane wonders what had happened to it. He wishes he could’ve pocketed it somehow.
“Do you want like- ice?” he asks. Is it weird, to offer him ice? They never usually do stuff like that, but it’s making Shane’s jaw hurt, watching him gingerly prod at his cheek.
Rozanov nods, and Shane leads him over to the freezer. He has a whole section in there for ice packs of various shapes and sizes: soft square ones designed to fold over an aching knee or shoulder, one with straps that he can wrap around his bad wrist like a bracelet, an eyemask with frozen gel beads inside that he likes for when he comes home after a rough game and his face feels like it’s hot and buzzing.
Rozanov takes him up on none of them, instead grabbing a bag of frozen peas and pressing it to his upper lip. He throws his big body down onto the couch, groaning pitifully from under the bag.
Shane watches him. His tongue darts out to his dry bottom lip. It makes him feel a little guilty for finding the missing tooth so inexplicably hot when it’s clearly hurting Rozanov so much, and yet.
He wants to kneel down by the side of the couch where Rozanov is laying and rest his face into the valley between his hips. He wouldn’t be too greedy with it, if he were allowed. He’d just lay his face there, against Rozanov’s crotch, where he could lightly press his mouth against his cock still covered by fabric, until he was allowed to take it into his mouth.
He wants to be able to offer him something. He’d be so good, if he were to be given a place to put the big lump of feeling that had been burning in him for hours, months, years now, embers still smoldering in his chest. He had so much to give, if he were just asked.
Instead he clears his throat hard. “Comeau’s a dick,” he offers, sitting down on the armrest just above Rozanov’s head. It feels disloyal to say about a teammate, but it’s true. Maybe it’ll help the throbbing in Rozanov’s mouth hurt a little less.
Rozanov laughs and the motion makes the bag of peas slide down his face a little. “I will send him my bill from the dentist,” he says. “Made me ugly.”
I don’t think you could ever be ugly, Shane wants to say but he doesn’t. Sitting like this, Rozanov’s curls are brushing against Shane’s bare thigh where his shorts are riding up. He thinks about touching them, about sliding a hand in where his hair is thickest so he can play with them.
That’s what someone normal would do to someone they’re sleeping with when they’re in pain, stroke their hair and give them a real ice pack and soothe them. They would kiss them gently so they didn’t hurt them any further. He wouldn’t know how to take care of Rozanov even if given the opportunity. He pictures fussing over him, offering up a night of cuddling on the couch instead of fucking, wanting a night of cuddling over fucking, and the idea is laughable. It’s unthinkable.
“Should I keep it like this?” Rozanov says, grinning up at him all gap-toothed. Shane can picture him younger like this, before he came to North America, crashed into Shane’s life, all missing baby teeth and gold curls, his sweet, laughing mouth.
He snorts and grabs a big handful of hair. “Then you’d really be ugly,” he says. He gives it a tug and Rozanov bats his hand away, holds his wrist loosely in a way that Shane knows he could break free from if he tried. He doesn’t, though.
“Have you ever lost your teeth?” Rozanov says. His grip is slowly tightening on Shane’s wrist. Instead of giving Shane time to answer, he continues. “Of course you haven’t. Mister good boy. LIke you don’t get in fights yourself.”
“I don’t get in fights for no reason like you do,” Shane corrects. “You get in a fight just to get in a fight.”
Instead of taking his bait, Rozanov turns his head to press his mouth to the inside of Shane’s wrist. He scrapes over the thin skin there gently with his teeth and when he does, Shane can feel the gap where the missing one should be, the absence of pressure.
“Would know, I guess, if you were missing teeth. Knowing you, you’d be like— spokeman for the dentist after. You never turn down a chance to make money.”
“Spokesman,” Shane says, then feels bad. Rozanov’s English is pretty good these days, already not terrible when they first met and made better by five years in Boston.
Rozanov responds by dropping the thawing bag of peas on the ground, where it’ll leave a little melted puddle by the time they’re done. Shane deserves that, he supposes.
Rozanov’s hand tightens all the way until he’s able to pull Shane down on top of him, flips them so Shane is folded under him. It all happens so quickly that Shane’s head is spinning.
He bares his teeth at him. The sight of him, the bloody cavity where his tooth should be, the bruise blooming along his high cheekbone, makes Shane’s mouth go dry. Rozanov has him pinned in a way that he must know is uncomfortable for Shane, his wrists shoved up into the metal frame of the couch, but Shane would rather die than complain.
When they kiss, Shane can finally do what he’s been longing to do all night and flick his tongue between his teeth. Rozanov’s mouth tastes saltier than normal, more iron-heavy. Some horrible, twisted part of Shane wishes his mouth was still bleeding, needs to be able to taste every part of him. He’s sick with how badly he wants him.
Rozanov groans and ruts his hips into him once, twice, then flips him roughly. Shane’s face is mashed into the couch like this, nose smushed flat into the cushion. It’s like breathing through a straw, like the whole scope of him is narrowed down to the little sips of air he can get in like this and to Rozanov’s body pressed unseen above him. He’s never been harder.
Rozanov makes quick work of his sweats and briefs, tugging at them, big hands squeezing at Shane’s hips and thighs on the way down. His right palm is still cold from the bag of peas. Something about it feels so intimate, the way it’s cool and damp against Shane’s feverish skin, the heat and the cold meeting until their bodies are the same, shared temperature.
With the way Rozanov is moving, hands pawing at the meat of Shane’s ass, he should’ve expected the rush of air on his hole but it shocks him all the same. He can feel himself open and close around nothing, can hear Rozanov’s low chuckle as he touches over it, first teasing it with the dry pad of his thumb, petting over the rim. He pulls away, then his thumb returns, wet from his mouth now so he can tilt just the tip of it in. The sensation makes Shane keen, all high and needy. It’s embarrassing in a way that makes him feel sick, that he loves deep down. It’s lighting every inch of him up, needing someone like this.
He’d never tell Rozanov this, but he almost loves this first stage even more than the fucking. He loves having his fingers in him, his mouth on him, loves being able to feel Rozanov inside of him bare like this, without the barrier of a condom.
He wonders if they’d ever fuck like that, raw. No, he thinks. Too intimate. Something about the thought of it, asking for it, the conversations they’d need to have first, and afterwards, makes Shane’s stomach hurt.
Rozanov pulls his thumb out.
“Go get your lube,” he says, dispatching Shane with a quick tap to his ass cheek. When Shane stands up, Rozanov is sprawled out lazy against the couch, still clothed but with his cock pulled out, the waistband of his sweatpants framing his balls.
He’s fully hard, big in a way that makes Shane’s mouth water, and leaking at the tip. Shane feels a little ridiculous, standing and staring dumbly in front of him, t-shirt still on but naked and hard from the waist down.
When he gets back, Rozanov is stroking himself. He looks strangely unguarded like this, face soft, lips parted. Shane doesn’t know if it’s seeing him in this state or how stupid and desperate he gets when he’s hard or something else, some sort of wild, magnetic charge that fries his brain whenever he gets close enough to Rozanov, but he hears himself saying the words from far away.
“What if we fucked without a condom? Just- for tonight,” Shane says before he can think better of it.
He doesn’t add anything about are you clean or when did you last sleep with someone who isn’t me, who are you fucking who isn’t me. He’s not sure he wants to hear the answers. He just wants one night to be stupid and reckless for once, wants to feel Rozanov up close, just once.
For a fleeting second, Rozanov looks surprised before a wolfish smile settles over his face. Shane instantly regrets bringing it up. Now Rozanov is going to know, know that he thinks about this, that he wants this, that he’s dying to know what it would feel like to have Rozanov’s cock inside of him bare, have him finish—
Shane cuts the thought off. That part isn’t happening, tonight or ever.
“If you wanted my cum that badly, you could’ve just said so, Hollander.” Rozanov is grinning now, and it makes Shane’s jaw feel tight. He rubs at it with his knuckles, tries to knock the feeling loose. Idly, he thinks about how satisfying it would be to pinch Rozanov hard.
“Don’t— no. Fuck off. That’s not what I’m saying,” he says. This is getting away from him. “Obviously you can’t— not inside. Just pull out.”
Rozanov laughs, and Shane could just be imagining things but there’s something warmer about it, like the teasing edge from before has been blunted. “Understood, no finishing inside. No little baby for us.”
Shane groans. This is getting away from him.
“Shut the fuck up,” he mutters limply. When Rozanov reaches for him, pulls him back under him, he doesn’t offer any resistance.
“Too bad,” Rozanov says as he pulls Shane’s hips back up to where they were before. His hand is cupping the back of Shane’s skull now, pushing his face into the cushion. “Was looking forward to knocking you up.”
It’s embarrassing how hard that makes Shane, embarrassing how much he loves this, being pinned under him like this, knowing he’s strong enough to push him off but choosing to submit anyways, embarrassing the way he’s pushing his ass up into Rozanov’s hips, begging for it. It’s embarrassing how much the shame of it all, the sick, hot want low in his gut, just makes him even harder.
Rozanov pries him open again, and for a moment doesn’t do anything, just stares at his tight, unopened hole until Shane wants to squirm away. When he tries to shift a little, Rozanov pinches his ass hard, mumbles something in Russian, then spits into it, rubbing it in with his thumb.
“I like you better when you’re wet for me,” he says, and Shane is so, so grateful that his face is still being pressed into the couch so he doesn’t have to respond to that.
Rozanov must be hungry for it too, because he opens Shane up quickly, roughly, two lube-slicked fingers pumping in and out of him. His hands are beautiful on the ice, soft when they need to control the puck, deft and quick, and it’s no different in bed. He crooks his fingers deep into Shane, scissoring them apart to open him wide, and it’s all Shane can do to keep from cumming immediately, humiliatingly.
When Rozanov slides into him, it’s a totally new sensation. Over the years, Shane’s gotten very familiar with how it feels to get fucked by him: feeling himself open and stretch around him, how full he feels when he has Rozanov’s cock fully inside him, how right it all feels. But this is so different. Without a condom, Rozanov is so warm and heavy inside him, throbbing in time with Shane’s heartbeat. It feels so good that for a second, he thinks he’s going to pass out.
Shane wonders how it feels for Rozanov, what it’s like to be inside him raw like this. Is it making him feel this good, this crazed? That doesn’t seem possible. Rozanov always seems so in control of himself, his emotions, in a way that seems beyond Shane’s grasp. Shane is always alone in the feeling.
But still. It’s incredible, fucking like this. Rozanov is still holding his head down with one hand, the other roaming up and across Shane’s side, down the side of his hip. He snakes his hand around to Shane’s torso to grope for his nipple, flicks it then thumbs over it in a way that makes Shane’s leaking cock jump. He’s pretty sure he’s moaning into the pillow now, a little pool of spit soaking into the fabric.
Neither of them is going to last long. Shane’s cock is throbbing, every muscle in his body pulled taut and ready, and he can tell from the way Rozanov’s hips, which have been snapping into him steadily, are starting to stutter that he’s close too.
Wildly, selfishly, he wants to tell him not to pull out, wants to feel him spill inside of him as Shane grips his cock, wants to feel them cum together. He doesn’t think two people have ever been as close as this before, not once.
Maybe Rozanov can read his thoughts. Maybe he can sense all the insane desires wheeling through Shane’s mind, because he pulls out with a shaky little groan that Shane files away for later. Shane’s hole feels wet and open and used, clenching and unclenching around nothing. He whines.
“Knees. On your knees,” Rozanov says, nudging him off the couch and down to the floor. He looks as wrecked as Shane feels, blotches of red high on his cheeks, lips bitten and wet. His eyes are crazed, and for a moment their gazes hook together. Shane is totally caught, flayed open.
They’re moving in sync together right now. The part of Shane that’s always focused on hockey, even now with his knees on the hardwood floor, thinks that they’d be unstoppable if they ever played on a line together. They’re like one brain, joined together by how badly they need each other.
He knows what Rozanov wants him to do, but he waits a beat anyways so he can feel his thumb slide over his lips, the quickest gentle touch, then down to his chin so he can nudge Shane’s mouth open. His cock is heavy on Shane’s tongue and he only fucks Shane’s mouth once, twice before moaning, low and boyish and sweet. Shane’s head spins.
“Open,” Rozanov says, using his thumb again to pry Shane’s mouth open. “Open, open, let me see.”
Shane sticks his tongue out for his inspection. He’s holding Rozanov’s load on his tongue, the way he knows he likes. He lets him look at it, lets him see the way that Shane cradles it carefully, like it’s something precious. Rozanov groans something in Russian and tips his head back, grinning. He looks like he can’t believe his luck.
Shane swallows it. He presses his face to Rozanov’s strong, perfect thigh. He could stay like this all night if Rozanov would let him, on the edge of his orgasm, kneeling in front of him, face tucked where the scent of him is strongest. He wants to stay like this all night.
“So good for me Hollander, always so good for me,” Rozanov is saying as he hauls Shane to his feet. When he wraps his hand around Shane’s aching dick, Shane knows it’s permission to let go and he does right away, shooting off into Rozanov’s waiting palm, mouthing senselessly across his lips, his jaw, his cheek.
They stay like that for a moment, standing flush against each other, catching their breath as they both come down. It’s almost like they’re slow dancing, Shane thinks, and the thought of that is so ridiculous that he laughs, loose and boneless, into Rozanov’s shoulder.
“What is so funny?” Rozanov says, fingertips skimming up Shane’s spine. For a second, Shane thinks he’s going to kiss him again but instead he taps Shane’s cheek twice, two little baby slaps, and then steps back. Shane didn’t realize how much of his weight he’d been leaning into him, and the sudden absence makes him stumble forward a little.
“Nothing,” he mumbles, feeling sticky and sweaty now.
He wants to shower. He wants to get into bed. He wants Rozanov to go so he can forget about how desperate he had felt tonight.
“Nothing, alright.” Rozanov always gets dressed just as fast as he undresses, and Shane is left feeling very exposed, suddenly the only one without his clothes on. How is Rozanov always one step ahead of him?
They both know their parts in their little closing routine. Shane pads off to the bathroom to wash his hands and brush his teeth and get some clothes on; the real shower will come later, once he’s alone again. While he’s doing that, Rozanov calls his car.
When he comes back out, Rozanov is at the mirror in the front hallway, back to worrying at his jaw, one finger hooked in his upper lip so he can inspect his missing tooth.
Why did he come over here tonight if he’s in so much pain?, Shane wonders.
It probably would’ve been better to stay back at the hotel, take one of the prescription-strength painkillers the team doctors hand out like candy, pass out early. They’re not going to see each other again until Montreal at Boston in February, two long months away, but still. Surely Rozanov would have a chance to fuck someone besides Shane before that.
He knows better than to ask him anything like that. Asking Rozanov these kinds of questions is a guaranteed way to get him to leave even sooner than he usually does. He does feel bad though, that he’s in this much pain.
“Ice? For the road?” He sounds dumb, too eager. He sounds like a teenage girl with a crush. There’s no way Rozanov is going to take him up on this shit.
Rozanov nods. He always manages to surprise Shane.
Shane sends him off with one of his nicest ice packs wrapped around his jaw, the specialty contour gel one. Rozanov had rolled his eyes when Shane had explained it could also be heated up in the microwave if he wanted heat instead, once the swelling had gone down. He had told Shane that he was being a mother hen and they’d both laughed at that and stood in Shane’s doorway smiling at each other for a few seconds until Rozanov’s phone had pinged.
Whatever. Shane needs to shower. He needs to shower and stretch and roll out his aching muscles, throbbing from twenty minutes of ice time and from getting fucked hard from behind. More than anything, he needs sleep.
There’s no point in dwelling on any of this for too long, not the way Rozanov felt inside of him with nothing in between them, not the way they’d been laughing together before the car came, not the way the soft gap between his teeth had tasted under Shane’s tongue, salt and heat.