Archive of Our Own ^beta

Fall 2016

“It is very fucking annoying that I can’t just fall in love with you,” Svetlana groused. “It would be so convenient.”

Ilya laughed and kissed her cheek noisily. It was very cute how she loved the word fuck so much that she’d taken to sprinkling it in even when she was speaking Russian. Also, he was glad they felt the same way. About each other and lots of other things. 

They were lying in Ilya’s bed in a postcoital slump watching a women’s hockey game on TV. Ilya liked this part almost as much as the sex–the part where you just hang out with someone, still naked and steeped in your combined smells and juices like sloth-people. No getting up immediately to have a panic attack, like some people. It was maybe easier to do this with girls–depending on what kind of sex you’d had–but definitely more likely to happen with normal people who were not obsessed with shit like hygiene and compulsively folding their clothes and being perfectly perfect all the time.

On the TV, the New York team’s right winger scored a goal–Ilya didn’t know her name–and Svetlana got distracted analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of just about every player on screen. Ilya listened indulgently while she ranted, idly appreciating the way her tits bounced as she waved her hands around in her enthusiasm. Obviously, he loved hockey, but possibly not as much as Svetlana did. She certainly knew more about it than just about everyone Ilya had ever met–and that included most of his coaches.

Later, once the game was over and they were scrounging for food in the kitchen, he told her, “It’s because you are just like me, only a woman.” That wasn’t entirely true. For one thing, Svetlana actually liked her family. But it was true enough. 

“What?” Svetlana scrunched up her nose in distracted confusion. She was barefoot and wearing Ilya’s T-shirt as a dress. A wave of affection flooded through Ilya as he watched her carefully read the instructions printed on a bag of microwave popcorn. 

“We can’t fall in love because we are twins,” Ilya explained. 

Svetlana made a disgusted face. “You are not my brother. That would be incest.” 

Ilya huffed. “Shut up. You know what I mean. I love you, just not like that.” 

“We don’t love anybody like that,” Svetlana said, and Ilya didn’t say anything in reply, despite the churning in his gut whenever he thought too much about Shane Hollander. 

He was so lucky that Svetlana had decided to move to Boston. This way Ilya had someone to speak Russian with besides the grumpy old man behind the counter at his favorite deli or the obligatory phone calls with his stupid cokehead brother and his father, who had lost too many of his marbles for Ilya to even hate him properly any more.   

Svetlana was still just staring at the popcorn bag like it was a difficult math equation. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you never made popcorn before?”

Svetlana glared at him. 

Ilya sighed theatrically. “Give that to me. I will make it for you this time. Pay attention so you learn how to do it correctly.” He rescued the popcorn bag from Svetlana and her culinary incompetence and placed it on the counter while he filled a coffee mug with tap water and put it in the microwave for a quick minute. 

Ilya was retrieving butter from the fridge when he realized Svetlana was staring at him like he’d sprouted a second head. 

“Are you making tea too?” she asked. “I thought you didn’t believe in making tea in the microwave.”

“What? No, it’s for the popcorn. The water makes steam in there and then the popcorn pops better. It’s science.” Why did he sound so defensive? About popcorn of all things.  

“What do you know about science?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Ilya responded automatically. More softly, he added, “This is how my mom made it.” 

Svetlana nodded. This was another good thing about having her around–she remembered his mom. But she never made him talk about it.  

When the popcorn was all popped and the butter melted, Ilya methodically drizzled butter over the popped corn in layers so it would be uniformly delicious. They moved to the couch and ate out of the same bowl until there was nothing but crumbs and unpopped kernels left. 

“I have to piss,” Ilya announced. 

“You have my permission,” Svetlana said airily.

“Oh, do I have your permission? In my own fucking house?”

“Yes,” she said, and grinned. For a second, Ilya was reminded of the gap-toothed girl-child he’d first met. The one who had slapped a shitty little racist bully who’d been making fun of her hair so hard that she’d made the fucker cry. The one who decided that Ilya was going to be her friend, whether he liked it or not. (Luckily, he did.) 

Ilya decided to use the en suite bathroom attached to his bedroom so he could find another shirt to wear, since she’d appropriated the one he’d had on earlier. Once he’d emptied his bladder and washed his hands, a little devil convinced Ilya to retrieve the top he’d stripped off Svetlana earlier and put it on. It was purple and a little bit sparkly and just stretchy enough for him to squeeze into it, though it was so small he was still showing a lot of skin. Ilya went back into the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror and barked a laugh at his reflection.

He looked ridiculous, but maybe also kind of hot. Should he take a photo and send it to Hollander? No, that would probably freak him out. Ilya shook his head to rid himself of that thought and went back to join Svetlana in the living room. She’d turned on some dating reality show where a bunch of interchangeable guys competed for one extremely blonde girl. Ilya really didn’t care what they watched. 

“Have I told you how boring most men are?” Svetlana asked rhetorically. She wasn’t looking at him yet. 

Ilya replied anyway. “Just a few hundred times.” 

“Well, it’s true,” she said. “That’s why it’s so unfortunate that we are too alike to date. You are not boring.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Especially not dressed like that.”

Ilya flexed his muscles cartoonishly at her until Svetlana begged him to quit making her laugh. He collapsed on the couch beside her and slung an arm around her shoulders. Kissing the top of her head, he said, “You’re always talking about how boring men are. Maybe you should try fucking a girl some time.”

Svetlana opened and closed her mouth a few times, having an uncharacteristically difficult time getting words to come out of her mouth. Enough time passed that Ilya had given up on the topic when she quietly said, “I might not be good at it. I like to be good at things.”

Ilya hummed into her free-floating curls and asked, “Is that the only reason you’ve never tried it? Performance anxiety?”

“Ilya,” she said. “We are Russian. It’s dangerous.” 

“We are not in Russia now, Sveta,” he reminded her. “Not that that stopped me and Sasha.”

“Well,” Svetlana said philosophically, “You are both idiots.”

“True,” Ilya agreed. 

They sat in comfortable silence for a while until a lightbulb went off in Ilya’s head. He snapped his fingers. “I have an excellent idea. We will pick up a girl together. It will be like training wheels for you, if I am there too.”

Svetlana tried to give him a withering glare, but he could tell that she was intrigued. She twisted a corkscrew curl around her index finger and bit her lip, glancing towards his face and away. 

“You can pick the girl. I’ll fuck just about anybody,” he wheedled.

“As someone you fuck on a regular basis, that’s very flattering, thanks,” Svetlana said dryly. “Also, you are so full of shit. You only fuck hot people.”

Ilya shrugged. “Yes, but many kinds of people can be hot.”

She snuggled into his armpit. “I’ll think about it.”

~

Ilya was not there the first time Svetlana made out with a girl. He was out of town on a road trip, and since she did not, in fact, need him around to have fun, Svetlana agreed to go out with her favorite coworker that Friday night. She and Andre didn’t have that much in common but unlike most of the other guys at the dealership, he was not a sexist jerk. He also happened to be gay and liked dancing, so they went to a gay club that, hilariously, was host to at least half of Boston’s PWHL team that night.

Svetlana had fully expected to spend the evening playing wing-woman for Andre, who had recently been dumped by his longtime boyfriend, and then take a cab home alone. But Andre quickly found a guy to buy him drinks all by himself. 

Svetlana was trying to get the bartender’s attention when she felt eyes on her. She glanced around and met the grass-green gaze of one of Boston’s d-women. MacMillan. Svetlana forgot her first name. Out of her hockey gear, MacMillan’s body was lean and feline in a pair of designer jeans and a black muscle-T. She had the androgynous look of a boy band member, somehow pretty and handsome at the same time.

“Good game tonight,” Svetlana said.  

MacMillan raised one black eyebrow and smiled like a toothpaste commercial. “Thanks,” she said, and magically summoned the bartender with just a quick nod. Must be a regular, Svetlana thought, only mildly annoyed that she herself had been waiting for like ten minutes already.

“Two IPAs,” MacMillan told the bartender, and then belatedly asked Svetlana, “You drink beer?”

“Yes,” Svetlana said, stupidly charmed by this presumptuous behavior.    

“You’re Rozanov’s girl, right?”

Svetlana’s spine stiffened. “I am his friend,” she said.

“Okay,” Macmillan said. “I’ve seen you before, at the rink,” she explained.

Svetlana nodded and decided not to be a bitch about yet another person making a perfectly logical assumption. “I am Svetlana,” she said. “We grew up together. In Russia.”

“Quin,” said Quin. “And don’t worry. I don’t hate your boy or anything. He treats us the same as any of the other players.”

“I see,” Svetlana said seriously. “So he acts like he is better than you.” 

Quin grinned, and there were dimples involved. “Well yeah, but it’s not because we’re girls. He’s a cocky little shit to everyone.”

Their beers arrived and they drank them. They talked hockey for a while, and Svetlana even told Quin who her father was, which she did not always do. Then there were more beers, and the kind of dancing that was half a step away from dry-humping in public, and before Svetlana knew it she was pressed up against a wall with a denim-clad thigh wedged between her legs and a hockey player’s tongue in her mouth. 

Perhaps she would have let it go further, but Andre ended up drunk-crying all over the poor guy he’d been trying to pick up, so she had to be a good friend and get him home safe.

Once she’d tucked Andre into bed with a glass of water and some painkillers on his bedside table, Svetlana texted Ilya from the back of a taxi: I kissed a girl.  

His reply came seconds later: Did she taste like cherry chapstick?

No. Beer. 

He sent a long string of beer stein and tongue emojis.

Good night, Ilyusha. You must rest so you can destroy San Francisco for me tomorrow. 

~

Svetlana told Ilya the whole story when he got home later that week. He laughed like a hyena and said that she was “hockey-sexual.” 

Svetlana lifted her nose in the air and reminded him that she also got wet for underemployed actors and the occasional finance bro (to her shame). 

“Quin is very sexy,” Ilya observed. “Not sure I’m her type, but you never know.”

Svetlana rolled her eyes. 

“No, really,” Ilya said. “I’m proud of you. It’s good to have options.”

Later, when he was fucking her pussy from behind with his thumb tucked snug in her asshole, Ilya started babbling about double penetration and what a filthy, dirty girl she was. That kind of talk always did it for her, and he knew that, but Svetlana was in no hurry to actually take on two dicks at once. At least not ones attached to two human men.  

Anal sex was a special occasion sort of thing for Svetlana, for those times when she just really wanted to turn her brain off entirely. So far, Ilya was the only guy she’d let fuck her in the ass. No way was she gonna give that kind of access to the dumbass fuckboys she usually slept with. Ilya was a fuckboy too, of course, but he wasn’t a dumbass. (Usually.) And she trusted that he knew what he was doing and, you know, she trusted him.  

Ilya trusted her too. That’s why he finally told her the truth while they smoked their postcoital cigarettes. Or something closer to it, anyway.

“I lied to you. Sort of. There is someone, but it’s not serious, it’s just stupid. And over, probably.”

“Why? Did ‘Jane’ get sick of you being such an ignorant slut?”

“No. I don’t know.” Ilya sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He looked her right in the eye and said, “He got a girlfriend.” 

“Oh,” Svetlana said. “And you’re jealous?” She was in no way surprised that his top secret fuck buddy was a guy, obviously, but this was new. 

“No, yes, fuck. I just wasn’t ready for it to end yet, you know? And he’s not like us. He’s so good, like a really good person.”

“Hey!” 

Ilya squeezed her hand apologetically and said, “You are a good person too, Sveta. The best! I just mean that he is, like, pure of heart, innocent. And I think I fucked it up somehow. Scared him right into the arms of a fucking movie star.”

Svetlana’s eyes popped open wide. 

Ilya’s face drained of color, and he whispered urgently, “You didn’t hear that.”

Svetlana nodded. 

“I am so serious. You can’t say anything to anyone.” 

Ilya looked so desperate and so sad. Svetlana wanted to protect him from everything and everyone, but it was near impossible to protect him from himself, she knew.

“I don’t know anything,” she assured him. “And I would never betray you, even if I did.”

“I know,” he said. “I know that.”  

~

Svetlana started noticing women right and left. It was like she’d had scales covering her eyes her whole life that dissolved after one (1) drunken make-out session with a stranger. She’d always been aware of attractive women in the way that everyone was, including the gayest of her collection of gay boys. But this was different. 

And it wasn’t just horniness, although there was plenty of that. She’d never had many female friends. Svetlana wasn’t actually your typical “guy’s girl” though, she didn’t think. She didn’t hate other women. But the only people back home in Russia that she’d let really know her were two closeted queer boys with chips on their shoulders even heavier than her own, so she had big secrets to keep. 

Also, she loved hockey but didn’t actually want to play it, which separated her from most of the other girls who were really serious about the game. And of course, once Ilya became a superstar, Svetlana had to contend with all the girls who were jealous of her close relationship with him. 

Svetlana knew that a lot of people thought she was a puck bunny. Which was funny because her interest in hockey was actually incredibly nerdy. Her weird brain was into the system analysis of it all, organizing data and statistics into logic puzzles and predictions. 

So yeah, Svetlana was not above ogling hockey butts, but that wasn’t the primary draw for her. She actually preferred watching women’s games a lot of the time, in part because there was so much less pointless fighting. (Although, if Svetlana was being honest, the idea of two women getting into it electrified her lizard brain more than big dumb men raging out on each other.)

Svetlana had been waiting her whole life to get out of Russia. To go somewhere where not being white wasn’t all that unusual. That feeling of not quite belonging was probably why she and Ilya had latched onto each other in the first place. Not that she had clocked him as queer when they were little kids, but she had instinctively known that he was different too.

And now that she was finally here in America, what had she done? Decided to work in the male-dominated field of luxury car sales, catering to a lot of assholes who usually assumed that she was a receptionist or treated her like eye candy to be ogled along with the flashy merchandise. 

So her new life was not as different from her old one as Svetlana had hoped. And she was starting to think that there was something pretty fucked up about the fact that aside from Ilya, she rarely slept with anyone that she liked as a person. It wasn’t like Svetlana thought there was anything wrong with casual sex—it was just that maybe it would be better if she spent more time with people who were worth getting to know. Just like, in general. 

~

Ilya didn’t even say hello when Svetlana answered the phone. He just plowed right in with, “What are you doing tonight?” 

“Why?” Svetlana asked suspiciously. Ilya had been terrible company lately. Neither of them acknowledged it directly, but Svetlana knew that he was sulking about Shane Hollander and he knew that she knew it. As far as she was aware, this was Ilya’s first time pining for anyone. So she’d been doing her best to be patient with him, but it was a lot. And she was in the middle of a very relaxing bubble bath right now.   

“I talked to Quin at the rink today,” Ilya said. 

“Uh, okay.”

“She is getting traded to Toronto,” he went on. 

“They could use her,” Svetlana said, mentally starting to readjust her projections for the rest of the PWHL season. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Ilya said impatiently. “I asked her if she would like to fuck you before she leaves. And if she would mind if I kept you company while she did it.”

Svetlana almost dropped her phone into the bath tub. “You did what?”

“What? She is leaving tomorrow. You never have to see her again, unless you want to. It’s a perfect opportunity.”

“You are the worst.”

“Yes, of course. But that does not answer my question.”

“What question?” Svetlana sputtered. “I think I’m hallucinating,” she told the nearest shampoo bottle. 

“Do you want to have sex with me and Quin MacMillan tonight?” Ilya said slowly, like he was talking to a toddler instead of trying to arrange a threesome.

“She said yes?” This couldn’t be real. “She isn’t doing some sort of goodbye thing with her teammates?”

“They took her out last night,” Ilya said. “And of course she said yes. We are very hot and I am very convincing.”

This was his apology for being such a lovesick pain in the ass, Svetlana realized. It would probably be churlish of her not to accept.

~

Svetlana ate an edible before Ilya picked her up–just a small one to loosen her up. Ilya had brought a bottle of that excessively expensive vodka he liked. “You realize that she probably won’t be able to taste the difference between that stuff and bottom shelf booze,” Svetlana pointed out. They were standing in front of Quin’s front door and Svetlana was trying not to fidget.

Ilya made a dismissive noise. “Quin has excellent taste, obviously. And I will taste the difference.”  

Before Svetlana could think of anything to say to that, Quin opened the door for them. Ilya thrust the bottle into her hands and walked right in. Quin shook her head and shot Svetlana a bemused smile. “Come on in,” she said, and made a welcoming hand gesture. “Lucky for you guys, there are still sheets on the bed, and I haven’t packed up all of the sex toys.”

Svetlana told her nerves to just fuck right off. This woman was as ridiculously brazen as Ilya, and Svetlana knew how to deal with that.

Ilya spun around and exclaimed, “Sex toys!” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. 

“I apologize for him,” Svetlana told Quin. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Quin said easily. Her shortish dark hair was tousled and a little damp from the shower, probably, and she was wearing adidas track pants and house slides. 

“Do you know that you are dressed like a slavic fuckboy?” Svetlana asked.

Quin’s mouth quirked up. “I didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s just as well. Something a little familiar for you.”    

“Is it familiar for you?” Svetlana asked. “Boys, I mean.”

“Sure, I like boys sometimes,” Quin said. “Not usually straight ones though.” 

Svetlana snuck a quick look in Ilya’s direction. He rolled his eyes.

Quin stepped closer to Svetlana and leaned down to whisper conspiratorially, “He’s very pretty, but not as pretty as you.” Svetlana felt her cheeks heat. 

“I heard that,” Ilya said.

“That’s fine,” Quin replied. She was crowding into Svetlana’s personal space, like they were dancing. Svetlana looked up and their faces moved together like magnets. Quin was an even better kisser than Svetlana remembered, playful and responsive. Svetlana let herself get a little lost in it but didn’t startle when she felt the heat of Ilya’s body pressing against her back. He kissed her neck and suckled at her earlobe while Svetlana and Quin kept exchanging languid tongue-kisses. 

Soon, Svetlana was completely naked on the bed that was the lone piece of furniture left in the apartment, getting serviced like a sultan. Quin and Ilya were both topless, but had been too busy applying their hands and mouths to Svetlana’s body to finish getting undressed. Ilya sat with his back to the wall and Svetlana reclined against his chest, her body framed by his splayed legs. He played with her tits with his large hands, tugging and rolling her stiff nipples between his fingers while Quin made a whole meal out of Svetlana’s pussy.

“Watch and learn,” Quin had said to Ilya cheekily before diving face first between Svetlana’s thighs. He’d laughed, but Svetlana thought he actually was paying close attention. It occurred to her that maybe she should do the same, but it was impossible. It felt too good. 

“She is delicious, yes?” Ilya asked conversationally. Quin kept flicking Svetlana’s clit with the tip of her tongue instead of answering him verbally, but their eyes met over the tableau of Svetlana’s quivering body. There was something weirdly hot about them both focusing so intently on pleasuring Svetlana while talking over and about her.

Even after Svetlana had come all over Quin’s face and was bravely endeavoring to return the favor, they kept talking about her. 

“She learns fast,” Ilya observed proudly as Svetlana crooked two fingers in Quin’s cunt and lightly sucked at her clit. He was stroking Svetlana’s pussy lips affectionately. It was only a little bit distracting. 

“Yeah,” Quin panted. “And enthusiasm counts for a lot too.”  

Quin didn’t shave or wax down there or anything, but Svetlana was willing to bet that she trimmed. She tasted warm and pleasantly musky–much better than dick, honestly. And Svetlana felt so much more accomplished getting Quin off than she ever had with any blowjob.    

After that, Svetlana told them,“You two should kiss or something. I want a drink.” Ilya and Quin looked at each other and shrugged in tandem. Svetlana perched on the windowsill and sipped vodka straight from the bottle, watching them make out. She thought about how Ilya must be tasting her pussy juice on Quin’s tongue and felt a flicker of heat flare up again in her belly.   

When Svetlana joined them back on the bed, Ilya detached his mouth from Quin’s and declared, “I want to see these sex toys!”

Obligingly, Quin got up and dragged over an unsealed cardboard box. It was not a small box. 

Ilya started pulling brightly colored dildos out for inspection. He looked delighted, like a kid at Christmas. It was nice to see him so cheerful for a change. 

“I wish I had a different dick for every occasion!” he crowed. “This is an impressive collection, Quin. I did not realize the PWHL paid so well.”

“They don’t,” Quin said. “My ex-girlfriend works at a sex shop. Staff discount, you know.” 

 “We should both fuck her,” Ilya suggested giddily. “What do you say, Sveta? Me in your ass and Quin in your pussy? Or is it not that kind of day?”

Quin touched Svetlana’s shoulder gently and said, “I’m down if you are, but no pressure.”

Svetlana thought for a minute, then said, “Okay, why not?”

The logistics were a little bit awkward at first, but they all laughed when necessary and persevered. When she was full–so full–of both of them, Svetlana’s mind whited out the way she craved, and she came so hard she soaked Quin’s sheets. It was both the filthiest sexual experience of Svetlana’s life to that point, and also the friendliest.

In the car on the way home, Svetlana thanked Ilya.

He drummed the steering wheel and smiled. “It is not so bad to try new things.” He patted her knee. “I want you to be happy.”      

“What about you?” Svetlana dared to ask. “You deserve happiness too, Ilya.”

“Maybe one day,” he said.

Epilogue: February 2026

Ilya and Svetlana sidled their way down the row of stadium seats to where Shane sat waiting for them. With a full frothing cup of beer in one hand and a ginger ale in the other, Ilya was having a hell of a time not spilling on any unsuspecting spectators here for the Olympic preliminary round women’s ice hockey game between the USA and the Czech Republic. Svetlana was managing with ease, but then she only had the one beer for herself and it was already half-empty. Huh, good idea. Ilya took a big gulp of his pilsner and then a smaller sip of soda, grimacing as the two flavors intersected in his mouth. 

“Hurry the fuck up,” Svetlana grumbled in Russian. “The game is starting.”

“We’re gonna need a swear jar for you pretty soon,” Ilya replied in the same language. 

“Your kid’s not even born yet and you’re already less fun,” Svetlana complained, as if she wasn’t responsible for half the baby toys already accumulating in the freshly-converted nursery at the cottage. 

“Auntie Sveta has a filthy mouth,” Ilya informed Shane when they finally reached Ilya’s husband and the two seats he’d reserved for them with two neatly laid out Team Canada jackets. 

“You don’t say,” Shane said wryly, accepting his ginger ale from Ilya with a grateful peck on the lips.

Ilya shrugged back into his team jacket. It was pretty surreal being at the Olympics again, the first time NHL players had been allowed to represent their countries since Sochi twelve years ago. More significantly for Ilya, however, this was the first time Ilya would be playing for Canada (and most likely the last time too, since he would be a stay-at-home dad in the near future).  

Svetlana rubbed at the gooseflesh prickling the skin on her arms. “Brr. I am freezing. Sheinik, can I borrow your jacket? Is that allowed?” 

Before Shane could answer her question, Ilya interjected, “Doesn’t matter. Your papa will disown you if you are on TV covered in maple leaves.” 

“Hmm,” Svetlana said. “I am cold enough that it might be worth it.” 

Ever the gentleman, Shane solved the problem by shucking off his cable-knit sweater and handing it to her. The sweater-removal process rucked up Shane’s T-shirt, exposing a strip of golden brown skin for a tantalizing second. 

Ilya made a show of lasciviously eying Shane up and down. “These people paid to watch hockey, Hollander, not strip tease,” he teased. 

Shane blushed and quickly donned his own jacket. It was such a delight that Ilya could still fluster this man after all these years.  

It was a good game, exciting to watch, and Ilya felt humbled by his own happiness. To be here in this moment with his two favorite people–it was everything. 

On the way out, Shane said. “Wow. MacMillan’s really something. Her stick game is kinda unreal.”

Ilya took one look at Svetlana and they both dissolved into hysterical laughter.

~fin~