Chapter 3: The Morning After
The cold came first. A deep, bruised ache that radiated from his core, settling in the joints of his hips, the small of his back.Misha opened his eyes to the dark. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed 4:37 AM in blood-red numerals.
He was on his side, at the very edge of the enormous bed.The black silk sheets were cool and alien against his skin. He hadn’t dared to move, to claim any space. The memory of the table, the glass, the brutal rhythm, replayed in his muscles. He remembered cleaning himself in the guest shower, the water scalding his skin pink, the faint, rust-colored swirl at his feet before it vanished down the drain. He’d crept back into the bedroom, expecting Ilia to be gone, or asleep.He was asleep, a dark mountain under the covers. Misha had slipped in here, a mouse beside a lion.
Now, in the grainy pre-dawn dark, he turned his head slowly.
Ilia was on his back, one arm flung above his head on the pillow, the other resting on his sternum.The sheet was pushed down to his waist. In the faint light from the window, his chest was a landscape of shadow and carved muscle, rising and falling with a slow, powerful rhythm.His face, in sleep, lost some of its fierce calculation. But it wasn’t gentle.It was inert, like a statue of a conqueror.
A feeling, sharper than the physical ache, lanced through Misha’s chest.It was a hollow, terrified certainty. This was the last time.The gold medal was won.The dark need had been slaked. Ilia would wake up, see him here—small, used, trembling—and that would be it.He’d dismiss him with a word.Maybe he’d meet a woman today. A model, or a fan with bold eyes and a laugh that didn’t sound like a sob. Someone Ilia wouldn’t have to hide.The thought was a physical sickness. Misha’s breath hitched. He bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper, forcing the tears back.Ilia’s breathing changed. It didn’t stop, but it shallowed.The hand on his chest shifted. His head turned on the pillow, and even in the gloom, Misha knew the exact moment those eyes opened. They were fixed on the ceiling, then they slid, without any urgency, toward him.A pause, thick and silent.
“Why are you staring at me?” Ilia’s voice was gravel, sleep-roughened and devoid of patience.Misha froze.He hadn’t realized he’d been staring. He opened his mouth, but only a dry click came out.He swallowed, his throat raw. “I wasn’t—” he began, the lie frail.
“You were.” Ilia turned fully onto his side, propping his head on his hand.He looked more awake now, predatory. “What’s wrong with you?”
The dam broke. The fear, the sleepless hours, the crushing certainty spilled out in a desperate, whispered rush.“You’re going to find someone else. Now that the season is over.A woman.Someone… normal.You’ll get tired of this. Of me.”
The words hung in the dark between them, pathetic and true.
Ilia didn’t move for a second.Then he let out a single, cold puff of air.A laugh. It wasn’t cruel; it was dismissive, the sound you’d make at a child fearing monsters under the bed.“That’s what you’re thinking about? At five in the morning?”
“It’s true.” Misha’s voice cracked. “Last night… it felt like an ending.”
Ilia stared at him. Then, in one fluid motion, his hand shot out and grabbed Misha’s arm, yanking him across the width of the bed. Misha gasped, his sore body protesting as he was dragged against Ilia’s solid heat. Ilia rolled onto his back, pulling Misha on top of him so he was straddling his waist. The position was intimidating, vulnerable; Ilia beneath him, but entirely in control.
“Then you better remind me,” Ilia said, his voice low and close, his hands gripping Misha’s thin hips, “why I shouldn’t.”
Misha looked down, seeing the cool challenge in Ilia’s eyes.This was a test.A cruel, physical test. His mind screamed that this was wrong, that he was hurt, that he should want care, kindness. But a deeper, sicker part of him sang at the command.This was attention. This was proof he was still needed.
He leaned down, his hands flattening on Ilia’s chest, and kissed him.It was a clumsy, desperate thing.Ilia allowed it for three seconds. Then his grip on Misha’s hips tightened, and he flipped them over with a violent twist of his torso.
Misha’s back hit the mattress, the air punching from his lungs. Ilia was over him, caging him in, knees forcing his legs apart.The ache flared, bright and hot. Misha cried out, a short, sharp sound that was swallowed by Ilia’s mouth covering his—not a kiss, but a claiming, a silencing.There was no patience, no preparation. Ilia pushed inside him, and the burn was immediate, tearing through the raw, tender ache from hours before.Misha arched off the bed, a strangled sob caught in his throat. Ilia didn’t pause. He set a relentless, deep rhythm, his eyes open, locked on Misha’s.
“Look at me,” he ordered, his voice a rough whisper against Misha’s cheek. “You look at me.”
Tears welled and spilled over, tracking hot lines into Misha’s hairline.He couldn’t look away. Ilia’s gaze was like a pin, holding him to the moment, to the pain, to the devastating intimacy of it.Each thrust was a punctuation.Mine.Each gasp of air was a concession. Yours.
“This is why,” Ilia grunted, the bedframe starting a faint, rhythmic tap against the wall.“You take it.You want it like this. No one else would.” His pace intensified, becoming jarring, unforgiving. “You come for me on a fucking table. You cry because you think I’ll leave.” He drove deeper, and a fractured moan tore from Misha’s lips. His body, traitorously, was coiling tight again, the line between pain and blinding pleasure dissolving into a white static.“Come on.Show me. Show me you’re mine.”
It wasn’t a permission. It was a command woven into the violence.Misha’s vision splintered. His back bowed, and he came with a silent, shattered gasp, his body seizing as the waves of shameful pleasure racked him. Ilia watched him, a dark, focused intensity in his eyes, drinking in the complete unraveling. Only then did he allow his own control to fracture, following with a final, deep surge and a low, satisfied groan pressed into the sweat-damp hollow of Misha’s shoulder.
The weight was immense, crushing.Misha couldn’t breathe. He lay pinned, tears still leaking, his body humming with a shattered, electric exhaustion. Ilia stayed there for a minute, two, his breathing gradually slowing.Then he rolled off, onto his back again, putting distance between them.
The city outside was beginning to bleed from black into a deep, indifferent gray.
Misha curled onto his side, facing away, his body trembling in the sudden cold.He waited for the dismissal. For the cold shower, the order to leave.
Ilia’s voice cut through the quiet, flat and final.“Don’t worry. I’m not done with you yet.”
The words should have been a comfort.They were a life sentence. Relief, warm and horrifying, flooded Misha’s veins, followed immediately by a wave of nauseating despair. He brought a hand to his mouth, stifling the sound of his crying, his shoulders shaking silently against the silk. Behind him, Ilia got up. The bathroom light clicked on, spilling a trapezoid of yellow across the floor.The shower began to run.
Misha lay there, listening to the water, to the casual sounds of Ilia starting his day.He was still there.He was still his. He was nothing at all.