Chapter 1: The Wet Dream
The room was small, cheap, and smelled like the ghost of a thousand cigarettes buried under a layer of floral air freshener. Ilia lay tangled in the scratchy hotel sheets, one arm flung out toward the other bed where Misha was pretending to sleep.
Ilia’s breath hitched.
A soft, ragged sound escaped his lips. In the dream, it was just them on the ice after hours, the Zamboni scent sharp in the empty arena. But there were no jumps, no programs. Just Misha’s hands, firm and sure on his hips, turning him, pressing him back against the cold plexiglass of the boards. Ilia’s own hands were fisted in Misha’s shirt, not pushing him away, but pulling him closer. He could feel the heat of Misha’s body through the fabric, a contrast to the ice-chilled glass against his spine. Misha’s mouth was on his neck, his jaw, his—
A low groan vibrated in Ilia’s throat. His hips jerked forward, grinding against the mattress in a slow, desperate rhythm. The dream-Misha’s hand slid down, palming him through his thin boxers, and Ilia arched off the bed with a sharp, choked-off gasp.
"Misha…"
The name was a whisper, a prayer, a surrender.
In the other bed, Misha froze. He’d been staring at the water stain on the ceiling for an hour, listening to Ilia’s breathing change. Now, every muscle in his body locked. He knew that tone. It wasn’t the cocky, teasing Ilia who challenged him to push-up contests. This was raw, unfiltered need.
Slowly, torturously, Misha turned his head on the pillow.
A sliver of moonlight cut through the gap in the curtains, painting a pale stripe across Ilia’s body. He was on his back, one knee drawn up, the sheet twisted around his waist. His face was turned toward Misha, eyes shut tight, lips parted. Another soft moan. Another roll of his hips. The faint, damp sound of cotton shifting against skin.
Misha’s breath caught. His gaze tracked downward, past the taut line of Ilia’s stomach, to where the thin grey fabric of Ilia’s boxers was darkened with a spreading wet patch.
Heat exploded in Misha’s gut, a sudden, vicious pull. His own hand, as if moving of its own volition, slid beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. He was already hard. The sight of Ilia—proud, brash, unbearable Ilia—writhing and whispering his name… It unspooled something deep inside him he’d spent years carefully bundling up and locking away.
He imagined it was his hand on Ilia. His mouth swallowing those sounds. Ilia’s fingers, the ones that gripped skate laces with such fierce certainty, digging into his shoulders. Ilia letting go, falling apart, coming undone for him.
Ilia’s breath shuddered into a final, deep sigh. His body went limp, a slight tremor running through his thighs. His face smoothed into peaceful, sated stillness.
The spell shattered.
Misha snatched his hand back, clenching it into a fist by his side. Shame, hot and immediate, washed over him. He felt like a voyeur. A thief. Ilia was asleep. He didn’t know. He’d kill Misha if he knew. He’d call him a pizda, a fag, and never speak to him again.
He rolled onto his side, turning his back to Ilia, facing the wall. His heart hammered against his ribs. He could still smell Ilia’s sweat in the air, mixed with his own. He didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
The morning light was brutally cheerful.
Ilia woke feeling disoriented and strangely heavy. He stretched, a pleasant ache in his muscles. Then the memory of the dream—vague but intense—flooded back. The heat, the hands, the release. He smiled lazily into his pillow. Good dream.
He swung his legs out of bed and stood. A cold, uncomfortable stickiness pulled at the fabric between his legs. He glanced down. The dark stain on his boxers was unmistakable.
“Shit,” he muttered, flushing. He hadn’t had a wet dream since he was fifteen. He grabbed clean clothes from his bag and headed for the shower, carefully not looking at Misha’s bed.
Misha was already dressed, sitting on the edge of his neatly made bed, lacing his sneakers. He didn’t look up.
“You were noisy last night,” Misha said, his voice flat.
Ilia paused, towel in hand. “What?”
“Talking in your sleep. Mumbling.” Misha finally glanced up. His eyes were guarded, circles under them. “Bad dream?”
There was an edge to the question Ilia didn’t understand. He shrugged, his usual defensiveness rising. “Don’t know. Don’t remember.” He forced a cocky grin. “Why? You miss the sound of my voice?”
Usually, that would earn him an eye roll, a thrown pillow. A returned quip.
Misha just stood up, shouldering his gym bag. “We’re going to be late for practice.” He walked out of the room, leaving the door hanging open.
Ilia stared after him, the grin fading from his face. Something was off.
The ice was their language. On it, everything else usually fell away. But today, the grammar was broken.
They were running their pairs routine—a new, experimental short program their coach was forcing on them. It required proximity, synchronized movement, a performance of intimacy.
“Your connection is shit today,” their coach barked, skating to the boards. “Misha, you’re holding him like a bag of potatoes. Ilia, you’re as stiff as a board. What is the problem?”
Ilia shot a look at Misha. Misha was staring at a point over Ilia’s shoulder, jaw tight. He hadn’t met Ilia’s eyes once all morning.
“No problem,” Ilia said, injecting false brightness into his voice. “Just tired. Bad sleep.”
Misha’s gaze flicked to him then, just for a second. It was intense, unreadable. Then it was gone.
“Again,” the coach sighed. “From the lift into the step sequence. And for God’s sake, look like you want to be near each other.”
The music started again. Misha’s hands came to his waist to prepare for the lift. They were professional, precise. They were also cold, even through the fabric of Ilia’s shirt. Ilia braced, jumped, and was airborne. Misha’s grip was secure, strong, but it felt mechanical. As he was set down, Misha’s hands left his waist as if burned.
They moved into the step sequence, blades scraping in unison. They were supposed to mirror each other, a push and pull of tension. Ilia tried to catch Misha’s eye, to force their usual silent communication. Misha kept his focus angled down, on the ice between them.
Frustration boiled in Ilia’s chest. This was their space. This was where they were equals, where their rivalry synced into something perfect. Misha was stealing that. He was miles away.
As the sequence brought them chest-to-chest for a brief, choreographed moment, Ilia hissed under his breath, “What is your damage?”
Misha flinched. His foot faltered, a tiny stumble only Ilia would notice. He recovered instantly, but his breath hitched. Ilia heard it.
The music ended. The coach said something about improvement. Ilia didn’t hear it. He was watching Misha skate quickly to the exit, not waiting for him.
Back in the locker room, the silence was louder. Misha was shoving his gear into his bag with sharp, angry movements.
The confusion in Ilia curdled into anger. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he demanded, slamming his locker shut.
Misha zipped his bag. “Nothing’s going on.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been a ghost all day. Did I do something?”
“Just drop it, Ilia.”
“No.” Ilia stepped into his path. “We have to skate together. We have to share a room. I can’t have you acting like a fucking stranger because of some mood.”
Misha finally looked at him. The emotion in his hazel eyes was a chaotic storm—anger, hurt, and something else, something desperate and deep that Ilia couldn’t name. It pinned him in place.
“You really don’t remember?” Misha’s voice was low, rough.
“Remember what?”
Misha held his gaze for a long, agonizing second. Ilia saw the conflict there, a war behind his eyes. He saw Misha’s throat work as he swallowed.
Then, as if the fight drained out of him all at once, Misha’s shoulders slumped. The storm in his eyes shuttered closed, replaced by a weary blankness. “Forget it,” he mumbled. He sidestepped Ilia and walked out.
Ilia stood alone in the humming silence of the locker room. The echo of his dream, the feeling of those phantom hands, the sticky evidence on his boxers—it all crashed into Misha’s wounded eyes and the shattered way he’d said ‘You really don’t remember?’
A cold, slow realization began to drip down his spine.
It wasn’t just a dream.
And the person in it…
His stomach twisted. He leaned back against the cold metal lockers, the world tilting on its axis.
It was Misha.