Work Text:
Nobody knows Shane Hollander. At least, that's what Ilya thinks.
"What a fucking goody-goody," Marleau complains. Ilya is watching clips of last night's Montreal-Nashville game, because they are waiting in the airport, and Marleau is watching over his shoulder.
"Who?"
"Fucking Hollander." Marly gestures with his coffee.
"Ah, right," Ilya says.
"Quick little bastard though," Marly says. He watches Hollander score on the screen and shakes his head.
"Not so little," Ilya says. "He is the same height as me."
"Huh." Marly sips his coffee. "Thought he was shorter. Maybe because he's not always getting in my face like you are."
"Lucky him," Ilya says, pretending to wave away Marly's coffee breath.
Marly rolls his eyes. "All right, all right."
Ilya texts Hollander when they're on the plane, when he can fold himself into a window seat and no one is looking. The good thing about being an asshole and the captain is he gets two seats to himself sometimes. Hollander is traveling today too. They don't always text between hookups, but maybe he will be bored like Ilya is bored.
Lily: what is goody-goody?
Jane: Someone who's way too into following the rules
Lily: ok
Jane: So the opposite of you basically
Jane: Nobody's calling you a goody-goody, are they?
Lily: no I am a baddy-baddy
Jane: Wow.
Lily: yes everyone says that to me
Lily: wow
Lily: when I take my clothes off mostly
Jane: I bet they do
Lily: don't be jealous
Jane: I'm not
Lily: you're cute when you lie. send me picture
A few seconds later, he gets a photo of Hollander in an airport, looking cozy in a hoodie, middle finger raised in front of his pretty face. Ilya smiles and turns his phone off. He'll delete the picture later. They almost always delete the pictures. But he likes to see them, and he likes that Hollander does what Ilya asks.
Ilya does not understand why everyone thinks Hollander is so good. When he looks at Hollander, that's not what he sees. Hollander plays as hard as anyone else on the ice. He spends his time in the penalty box for elbowing and tripping and generally being an asshole, and when he doesn't, it's because his big brown eyes convinced the ref that he is an angel who could never do these things even though it is on video. Hollander is a fucking liar, just like the rest of them.
Maybe everyone else only sees the serious mouth and the quick hands. Those things are good, very good, but they're just the beginning of Hollander. Yes, Hollander is nice to the media, Hollander is polite, Hollander doesn't fight the way that other people do. For a professional hockey player, he's almost gentle. No one will ever put him on a line as an enforcer: he's not a brawler like Ryan Price. But that doesn't make Hollander good. It only makes him clever. They have talked, a very little, about the future. Ilya knows that Hollander wants to play for a long time. The reason Hollander is so careful, following so many rules, is to get more years out of his body before he is too exhausted to continue.
When Ilya looks at Hollander, he sees a longing for something more than awards and trophies. There's so much need in him, so raw it's almost painful to see. Somehow no one else knows this. They see the decisions Hollander makes and they don't see the reasons. He has made his outsides so perfect and shiny and smooth that maybe people only see their own thoughts reflected in it. Really Hollander wants to be wicked. Hollander wants to be reckless. If breaking bones won trophies, Hollander would be in the hospital always. But Hollander is afraid, too, that showing one part of himself will show everything. They haven't talked about that, but Ilya knows it. Hollander is good so that no one asks too many questions. This way he hides in plain sight. For now, it works. Maybe not for always.
Lily: what is the word for when something is like
Lily: not expected
Jane: Surprising?
Lily: no more like something happens opposite of what you think
Lily: and it's not funny but almost
Jane: Ironic?
Lily: yes
Lily: thanks
Jane: I'm marking this on my calendar. Ilya Rozanov was polite to me.
Lily: I am always polite
Lily: to your dick
It is ironic that Hollander's niceness is more likely to make people think he's gay. People will say this about anyone clean or kind or shy, and Hollander is a little bit of all of those things. Ilya is safer there. No one will accuse him of fucking men, when they've seen him with so many women. No one will say he's nice. He breaks the other rules, so no one will think he's breaking the biggest one, the unwritten one, that men who play hockey don't love other men. In this way, they are both hiding, both trapped. Hollander can't be wild. Ilya can't be soft. Only together, they can show each other the truth.
Hollander needs to lose control. Ilya needs to take it. It's nice that they fit so well. There are a lot of good players in the league, but there was never going to be anyone else near their age playing at the level they do. Since the beginning, it's been Hollander and Rozanov. Ilya thinks it will be that way until they retire. Someday there will be new players, maybe even better ones, but their names will always be said together because of these years. Their talent ties them together and so does their secret. To Ilya, that feels right.
It feels even better when he tells the best player in the league to get on his knees and Shane drops without a word. Shane doesn't obey because he's a nice person. Yes, he wants to be good for Ilya, but Shane obeys because there's so much wanting in him he can't bear it. Maybe only Ilya has ever given him what he needs that way: taken charge, made Shane bend for him, given Shane some shape for his desire. Ilya doesn't make Shane ask for pleasure, mostly, because Shane doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. Shane doesn't know what he wants. He only wants, and wants, and wants, so hungry even Ilya is surprised. He could fuck Shane forever and maybe Shane would always beg for more, wordless need in his open mouth.
Fuck, Ilya has to stop thinking of Hollander as "Shane". They don't talk like this, in case they say it by accident in front of other people. Anyway, it feels too complicated. Hollander is a hockey player. Shane is a boyfriend's name. Ilya doesn't think he has ever said Hollander's first name out loud, not by itself, but it's in his head now. He almost said it the last time he was jacking off, thinking of the way Hollander's eyes glaze over when Ilya holds Hollander's face. Nobody else knows what Hollander looks like when he wants so badly to be fucked, panting and pink. Nobody else knows how pretty Hollander looks when he cums. Only Ilya knows the real Hollander, inside and out.
He shouldn't be so horny on a plane. It's a long flight to California.
Lily: are you on the plane yet
Jane: Yeah. Had to find my headphones.
Jane: Hayden passed out instantly and he's lying on my arm so movie it is.
Jane: Pretty much everyone is asleep. They partied pretty hard last night.
Lily: but not you
Jane: I had a beer.
Lily: whoa crazy
Jane: It's not like it was a playoffs win or anything.
Lily: what are you watching
Jane: The first X-Squad.
Jane: I feel like I've seen all these movies a thousand times.
Lily: me too it's so boring
Lily: start over
Lily: the movie
Jane: Why? Are you going to watch too?
Lily: yes
Lily: then we will be bored together
Jane: It's not so bad. At least Rose Landry is in this one at the end.
Lily: she is hot
Jane: You think everyone is hot.
Lily: good for you, yes? that I am so generous
Lily: open-minded
Jane: Fuck you.
Lily: not this time :'(
Lily: okay play
They watch the movie together, hundreds of miles apart. Ilya doesn't wish they were in the same room even once, except to think about Hollander's mouth during the parts of the movie that make no sense, which is a lot of them, and also the movie is way too long. He doesn't think about how it would feel to pull Hollander's head onto his shoulder and push Hollander's hand away from the best popcorn in the bowl. That's too soft, not who they are together. He can fuck Hollander, but he can't hold him. They both know this. Whatever Ilya feels is just too much horniness, spilling into strange places in his brain.
He rolls up his sweatshirt and puts it between his head and the plane wall and barely texts Hollander at all.