Hello!! I'm Kade, I'm genderfluid, and I'm 24 years old! I don't mind whatever pronouns you use for me
I am currently taking requests and I'm willing to write for:
The marauders era characters
Ilia Malinin
Blade angels (amber glenn, isabeau levito, and alysa liu)
Supernatural
Stranger Things
If you have something outside of those and think I'd write it, definitely send it in! I might not end up writing it though.
I'm a bit iffy on whether or not I write smut, but it really depends on the level+who it is. I will not write non-con, rape, or similar subjects as I'm not comfortable writing it.
Feel free to dm me or send me something via the requests if you'd like to know anything or ask questions!
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i miss my spectacular amazing beautiful gorgeous misunderstood sexy kind angry sad happy scared brave spectacular drop dead pretty wife, dorcas meadows
BAD IDEA, RIGHT? — rockstar!ilia/popstar!fem!reader
☆*:.｡. .｡.:*☆
Last season, Billboard called him the living reincarnation of a time past: sex, drugs, rock and roll. But right now, standing in front of you, he seems almost…shy.
OR: you’re pop’s newest princess, fresh out of a very public and humiliating breakup. And Ilia, an up-and-coming rockstar, agrees to make your ex jealous.
If it’s all for publicity, why do you feel yourself starting to fall for him?
a/n: musically, think of ilia as jeff buckley and you as sabrina carpenter. your ex is a grade A LOSER. also this is not proofread
─────────────────────────
You see it on the day you were supposed to announce your tour.
Your knocking pulse makes your chest pound. Words collapse in your throat.
There’s pictures plastered all over social media of your boyfriend cozying up with another girl. Her legs are swung over his lap. She’s squeezing one of his biceps with her hands. The other one’s flexed around her waist.
“What’s this?”
Your boyfriend mumbles something garbled through his toothbrush, bits of paste pooling at the corners of his mouth. Gross.
You shove your phone in his face. “What is this?”
Tears well at his eyes. He spits out his toothpaste. Starts hitting his head, blubbering about how he didn’t mean to and you’re the only one he really loves.
You smooth your palms over the duvet cover, if only to gain a semblance of something being pin-straight and orderly. And you lie.
“I’m not mad,” you say slowly, the words flooding your mouth with acidity. “Really. I get it. It’s hard to control your urges.”
You suck in a deep breath.
“But to be my boyfriend, you have to be a respectable person. And I just don’t think you are.”
He nods placidly, scouring your surroundings while fishing through his pockets. You’re about to burst from frustration when, finally, he speaks.
“Have you seen my vape?”
You storm into the closet, reaching for the nearest suitcase and shoving all your belongings in there. The few ones you had there, anyway, tucked in a rare, neat corner among the overgrowth of dirty laundry.
He shouts apologies as tears stream down his face. He hits his head, calling himself stupid, and blubbering incomprehensibly. Your irritation roars with the fire that’s been fed for the two years you’ve been together.
“Can you stop?”
Your voice cuts through the racket. He sniffles quietly as you feel your phone buzz nonstop. No doubt your manager asking if you wanted to postpone the tour announcement.
You yank your suitcase across the linoleum floors, flinching as the wheels screech. He doesn’t try to stop you from leaving.
Out of pure spite, you rip a poster off his wall by the door. His favorite poster, of his favorite artist - the epitome of nineties grunge with a cerebral twist, dirty basslines paired with raw, vulnerable vocals. The kind of artist whose public appearances were so rare that they made the morning news - Ilia Malinin.
Luckily for you, you were signed to the same company. And you needed an opener for your tour.
The proposition felt like a shot in the dark, if the shooting mechanism was a boomerang that could shred your ego and the “shot” was a tight shirt, a full beat, and practicing what you’d say to him on his way out. Hey, I’m going on tour this fall. Wanna join?
You’d never worked together. Hell, you’d never even met, and you weren’t sure if he’d want to headline a series of shows known for their glitz and glamour.
An hour passes, then two. Then every second seems to slug by, and the clock on the wall ticks too loud, and the blisteringly air-conditioned lobby feels stuffy, and fuck - you’re hungry. So you hunt down the vending machine, get yourself something-
And turn around to see the lead singer of said band eyeing your candy, then frown at the vending machine.
“What?” you ask, ripping open the plastic, pleased that the perforations weren’t weird and stubborn for once. (Clean tear. Perfect bite. And you ran into him. What a day.)
He’s still standing there. Still eyeing your candy, then the vending machine, and back. “You took the last one.”
You swallow a mouthful of chocolate. “Sorry. You want a bite?”
He seems surprised but nods eagerly. You rip off a few pieces, which he eats at lightning speed.
“Thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver. These are my favorite chocolates.”
“Really?” You take a step closer. He pointedly looks at the space behind you, face flushing, fighting a smile. “It’s my favorite too.”
Last season, Billboard called him the living reincarnation of a time past: sex, drugs, rock and roll. Critics lauded his music like he was an angel sent down and cloaked in hedonism and mesh shirts. But right now, standing in front of you, he seems almost…shy.
His eyes finally flicker back to you.
“I’m Ilia, by the way. Don’t think we’ve met. By the way, I love your music.”
“Really?” you ask again, surprise making you falter in your half-baked market the hell out of this tour plan. “I didn’t strike you as the type.”
What surprises you is the ferocity of his enthusiasm. “Actually, yeah, I’m a huge fan. I’ve gone to your past two tours, undercover, because I was too intimidated to seek you out and ask, maybe, if you wanted to make a song together?”
You blanch. You’re beyond flattered by his fervor, and his request was exactly what you came here for, but you just about short circuit when he asks why you haven’t performed your favorite song of yours more - a song that only the superfans really bring up.
“No, of course, Ilia. I’d love to work with you and your band. I’m Not a Vampire has got to be one of my favorite albums ever. Reminds me of Massive Attack during the Mezzanine era with that textured, grungy feel.”
He lights up, trying (and failing) to compose himself as he puffs up with pride. “Wow, I’m so flattered. They’ve gotta be my biggest musical inspiration. I usually get the Jeff Buckley comparison, and don’t get me wrong - I love his work too, but this means a lot to me. Thank you.”
For a moment, you stand awkwardly beside each other. Then he looks to his feet, laughs quietly. With a dramatic huff, you gently nudge his side, beckoning him to follow you back to the studio.
Ilia listens as you hum a tune that comes to mind and improv on the keyboard. You expect him to lay it down heavy - a smoky guitar line that soars that fills your chest with devastating yearning.
Instead, he plays a few gentle yet complex chords that soar like a rock lullaby but drown out the other sounds.
You ask him to try a few new ones, and he obliges. He threads elements you would’ve never imagined: a quiet cymbal during the spots you’d usually add a sudden lull. You jot down lyrics on a notepad that he peers over at.
“Poetic,” he muses, looking over your notepad as you play back the latest recording. “Pop’s poetic princess.”
You pause the playback, caught off guard. “What?”
“That’s what everyone calls you. You don’t like it?”
You feel heat course through your body. “No, I like it. It’s just…” and you trail off. He stops bouncing his knee, the expanse of his thigh softening into his well-worn jean shorts. You force your attention back to your screen, jamming the spacebar and praying that the music will wash away the strange stirring in your chest.
“Okay, princess.”
Fuck. You wouldn’t mind if he called you that more often.
He hums a quiet melody, trying to find the right one - the one that’ll click the second he hears it.
You find that Ilia’s presence has a certain rhythm to it. He adjusts the timbre of his guitar-playing with such elasticity that the notes fall together into distinct shapes. He fills the pauses between your staccatoed bursts of thought without pressing against your creative vision.
You don’t realize that you’ve begun articulating a story about his cologne threading through your lungs until later, once you’ve had dinner.
“Citrus, pepper, sweet-ish wood,” he reads out. “You know, that’s not what I thought your ex would smell like.”
“What, you think he’d reek of perfume?”
“I mean, yeah, given who he’s seen with.” He grimaces mid-bite, shaking his head as he chews laboriously. “I’m really sorry. Been there, done that.”
“February 13th?” The image flits into your head: a highly publicized clip of his former bandmate and his then-girlfriend making out, then the TikTok reposts, then the sudden but understandable announcement that he was pursuing a solo career.
He nods. You absentmindedly chew on the same fry for about a minute.
“I’m sorry, Ilia.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t be. It’s in the past, and it’s over. Plus, I get the chance to work with you.”
“Oh, so we’re just gonna be coworkers? I’m hurt.”
Ilia looks bashful, ducking his head. You can’t read his expression, and a sliver of worry weeds through your head until he laughs quietly.
“What?”
He gazes deeply into your face, worry lining the slopes and drawing his lips into a pout. Then, out of your peripherals, you notice - his hand sneaking out to steal one of your fries.
“Asshole!” You lunge forward, trying to pry it out of his clenched fists. “You know what, keep it. I don’t want your sweaty hand fries.”
You don’t realize how much time has passed until you make it back to the studio and realize the sun’s risen. Ilia mutters something about needing his beauty sleep and makes you promise him (pinky promise? he pouts) that you’ll cap your studio sessions at midnight next time.
“Next time?” you ask, acutely realizing that your pinky is still in his, and you’ve been standing there, immobilized in the parking lot, for far too long.
“Next time.” He nods.
Then next time slipped into weeks into months, and you found yourself visiting each other outside of the studio. You drag him out of bed in the mornings to go to the farmer’s market. He keeps you up to go on a night stroll, then tries to show off his gaming prowess (swearing up and down that he’s usually better than this - it’s an off night).
It took no convincing to get Ilia to do a joint tour with you. It took much effort, however, to get him to be satisfied with any of the songs you wrote together.
You groan as he surveys the stack of instruments along the walls once more - biting back a comment about the song being good enough when he settles back on his chair, unzipping an instrument case.
“You play the violin?” you ask in surprise.
“Before I got into rock, I was classically trained.” He nests the chinrest between his jaw and shoulder as he tightens the bow. “Jesus, this needs some rosin.”
After some tuning and Ilia complaining about the violin’s subpar maintenance, he scoots towards the mic, talking in a funny voice that makes you laugh. With a sigh, he kicks his chair back, standing so as to move his arms freely while playing.
There it is: sun-soaked notes that make the entire song shimmer.
Ilia sets the violin back in its place and slumps on the couch.
“You know that couch has been there for at least twenty years, right?”
He curls into a ball, picking at the frayed threads on the cushions. “Yeah, who cares.” He picks at the blisters on his fingers as you sip room temperature coffee. A yawn escapes you nonetheless.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing at the empty space on the couch.
“What?”
“We’ve been working for so long. Let’s take a break. I wanna get to know you - the real you. Not just the singer with a platinum record.”
A grin tugs at your lips. “You seem to know a lot about me. Am I that irresistible?"
He’s suddenly bashful, cheeks heating up as he ducks his head. “Yeah, well, what can I say? You kind of are, princess.”
“Ilia, I was joking.”
“I wasn’t. And I have an idea.”
“Go on.” You toss a pillow at him, which he attempts to catch in his mouth. The shit-eating grin on his face only seems to grow when you shoot him a disgusted look.
“What if we, uh, started a rumor?” Ilia buries his face in his hands, surprisingly shy. You pull at the pillow in his lap that was partially concealing his face.
“What?” His breath hitches when you accidentally graze his hair, and you wonder if you hadn’t imagined all of it - the way he’d sometimes go quiet when you started packing up, or the sharp stylistic increase in his outfits over time. Little things, like the way he’s looking at you now: his careful composure unraveling under the weight of something unreadable.
“You know, when my ex and I broke up, I really wanted to get back at her, which is unlike me. I wouldn’t say I’m a petty person or set out to, uh, get revenge on others, or anything like that. But I really like winning. Awards, yeah, but I win a lot of those. What I mean is winning the breakup.”
Ilia leans back, gauging your reaction and praying he doesn’t get an article written about him in the news tomorrow.
“For publicity,” you say, weighing each word carefully, though your heartbeat feels like it’ll burst from your sleeves. “You know, it’s funny you mention that. His favorite band was actually yours. Genuinely grieved when you left.”
“I know,” he deadpans. “I got an Instagram DM from him the day that I announced my departure.”
“You did not!”
“You want me to read it? Hold on, give me a second so I can pull it up. Ah!! Stop it!” He keels over as you tickle him, and then - then he’s on his back, and you’re half-straddling him, and when that lazy smile comes over his face, you crumple - fall onto your side on the couch, trying not to look him in the eye but catching his gaze anyway.
And he kisses you.
He’s breathless as he turns you on your back, showering your face with kisses. He drags a thumb down your lower lip, and your mouth closes around it. He hisses when you suck, teeth lightly grazing the flesh. You feel him throb through his pants.
“Hi, princess,” he says hoarsely, looking down at you in awe.
You rut your hips against his in retaliation. His eyes screw shut as he groans loudly.
“Easy. Be nice.”
You whine in frustration as he pulls away, opting instead to play with the strings of your hoodie.
Ilia’s a quick learner on and off the ice - he learns to kiss you in the ways that you like, kiss and tongue and suck in ways that render you an absolute mess under him. Fuck, you think, he’s ruined you. And the shit eating grin he delivers when you whine just a little bit too loud, grind into him and let him know you want him more than you’d let on - it just makes you wetter.
“Ilia…” you groan. “Please, please fuck me already.”
He wastes no time pulling off your shirt, then your pants, then everything - and he still has his on, even as your clawing at his back underneath the cotton shirt, letting your hands fall and dip beneath his belt buckle. You grip the length of him - wet, warm, and hard, and you shut your eyes, envisioning him inside you.
When he finally does, completely bare before you, you whine. You try to stifle it in his shoulder, but he hears it and grins.
“There you are,” he coos. “Atta girl.”
You swat his shoulder as he sinks back into you, every bit of your body firing up and clenching as he falls into a steady rhythm. It hits you then - Ilia Malinin, the hot rockstar, is fucking you, and you’re so wet that it squelches whenever he draws his hips back. The sound makes you wetter.
Ilia circles your clit with his spare hand - the other covering your mouth so any remaining personnel in the building can’t hear you whine into the air. You feel the familiar tightening in your stomach, threading your fingers through his hair and tugging so tightly that he has to bury his face in your shoulder, so as to not be too loud.
“Ilia,” you whimper through his hand. He gets the memo, speeding up his movements as you clench around him, tighter and whinier.
“You gonna cum, princess?” You nod, tears welling in your eyes as you see stars.
And Ilia’s still hard inside you, rocking his hips slowly back and forth as he screws his eyes shut.
“Ilia, want you to cum.”
He shakes his head, pouting. “Want you to cum again first.”
You fuck him in every position known to man - riding him one round (he’s impatient, needs to bounce you on his lap while he bites the pillow), getting it from the back another (he clasps your hands behind your back, letting you feel every inch of him as your clit rubs against the mattress), sucking him off (he cums so hard he almost kicks you in the face), him eating you out (he doesn’t stop once you’ve cum already).
As you doze off, head cradled in his arms, he whispers in your ear.
“Gonna miss you once the tour ends.”
You awaken to the faint sound of traffic outside, Ilia dozing soundly in your arms. You shake him awake.
“What?”
He blinks slowly through bleary eyes, and you briefly wonder what it’d be like to see that for the rest of your life.
“Time to go, sleepyhead.” You poke his nose.
He grunts, turning back over against the couch. “Don’t wanna.”
“Come on, Ilia.”
He groans dramatically, finally sitting up and smoothing out his hair. “Anything for you, princess.”
─────────────────────────
The song breaks the Billboard top 100. Rumors circulate, and Ilia is more than happy to feed them. You attend an award show together, go on dates that feel a little too private to be for show. Matching getups, Issey Miyake suits, vintage Dior dresses, camera crews swarming you on the red carpet, his oversized shirts turning into yours - if it’s for publicity, why do you feel yourself starting to dread the day tour ends?
Your friends shake their heads whenever you update them, knowing smiles on their faces. His joke about when the wedding’s coming, and you smile so hard that your face hurts.
Finally, the day comes.
You awaken bright and early, slamming the alarm off as you immediately flop back on the mattress.
“God, I’m so excited to never wake up this early for a while.”
Ilia remains silent. You shake him by the shoulder.
“Yeah,” he says, a strange bitterness in his voice, “me too.”
The show is, to say the least, one to go down in the books - perhaps your best yet. But he’s is in tears by the time you leave the stage.
“Ilia, what’s wrong?” you ask, racing to catch up to him as he sprints to the tour car. “Ilia!”
He stops right outside, desperately wiping his tears from his face.
“I never really cared about making your ex jealous,” he says. “I just wanted to spend more time with you. I thinkI’ve watched every interview you’re in. I thought of a million ways of how to approach you, but I couldn’t think of one that felt right. And then we met at the studio, and I thought we could be good collaborators, but-” he hiccups softly, “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
You guide him into the car, inviting him to sit, but he refuses.
“No. I think I’m gonna book a hotel tonight and probably fly back alone.”
“Ilia, please. Can’t we talk?”
You try to hug him, but he cowers away. Your chest stings, briefly recalling all the times that he’d jumped into your arms, how you’d laughed and kicked your feet as he picked you up and spun you in the air.
“Don’t you get it? It was never just about publicity. I just…fuck, I think I’m in love with you.” His red-rimmed eyes meet yours, and you crumble, tears beading at yours as well. “I’m sorry.”
You walk towards him in determined strides, grabbing his shoulders and bringing him in for a kiss. It’s bruising, and it makes him cry harder, but you do it anyway. And when you finally break away, you tell him the truth.
“I love you too, Ilia.”
He kisses you with fervor, picking you up and setting you on the couch. You tug at his shirt, coaxing him to take it off - then yours, and, without warning, he pushes inside of you. He whispers an apology as he picks up the pace, covering your mouth with a heavy, restrictive hand.
“Shh, princess. The fans are waiting outside. Don’t want them to hear us, do you?”
A half-gritted whine escapes through his teeth when you tug lightly on his hair.
“Want them to know how good you are to me,” you say earnestly.
“Don’t say that. Fuck-” and he cums instantly. Far quicker than he ever has. His face burns, swallowing down the perceived humiliation of finishing so fast.
You kiss his shoulder as he pulls out, replacing his dick with his fingers inside of you. “Ilia, it’s okay.”
“It’s embarrassing,” he grumbles, burying his face into your chest and greedily sucking on your tits. “Don’t want you to think bad things about me.”
You laugh quietly as he blows a raspberry at you. “You sound obsessed.”
“Yeah, princess. Yeah, fuck - maybe I am.”
─────────────────────────
Four months ago, a message from your ex-boyfriend to Ilia: Hi Ilia, I’m such a big fan of yours and would let you steal my girlfriend if you released the album
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did you know that there's a tunnel under ocean boulevard
[chapter one]
author's note: i'm glad everyone liked the prologue so much! i hope this lives up to the hype. explicit content ahead. there was a request for a taglist, so let me know if you'd like to be added. enjoy!
word count: 3.7k
taglist: @thetorturedpoetsdep
milano cortina winter olympic games, 2026
for the fourth time that morning, you reminded yourself that you were on regular ice. it was the exact same frozen h2o you’d always skated on. anything that felt different was entirely in your head.
with that in mind, you went into your triple flip again. it wasn’t perfect, but it was by far the best one you’d landed so far. you sighed and shook out your hands, very aware of the tension creeping into your body. you needed to work out your nerves before it was competition time.
amber skated up to you, smiling. “that looked great.”
you sighed. “it was the only good one i’ve had so far.”
she rolled her eyes. “none of them have been bad. make sure you don’t obsess over landing them all perfectly and leave your best jumps on the training ice.”
“you’re right,” you said, forcing yourself to relax slightly. “of course, you’re right.”
she smiled gently. “hey, it’s okay. i think everyone’s feeling it.”
you laughed. “except alysa. i swear, it’s like she can opt out of nerves.”
amber looked at you pointedly. “and it’s fine if that doesn’t work for you. just try to remember why you’re here, okay?”
you took a deep breath and nodded. “thanks, amber.” she smiled and skated off, leaving you alone with your thoughts.
she had a point. you certainly weren't here so you could waste the last twenty-ish years of your life because of nerves. your family had given so much to support your skating, and you wanted to make them proud and prove that it had all been worth it. besides, you really did love performing. there was something magical about the hush that fell over the crowd just before your music began. skating could be so freeing. it was the only way to love the best and worst parts of yourself.
the danger came from your determined pursuit of perfection. you didn’t want to settle for an okay triple axel or a clean enough combo. you had a tendency to get in your own head about tiny mistakes, unable to move on from minute imperfections. your body would guide you through the well-rehearsed motions, but despair would gnaw at your heart, creating cracks that sucked the soul out of your performance and dragged down your goes and pcs. still, there were little moments you relentlessly chased, little sparks of otherworldly highs when everything came together just right and you knew you were making people feel something. why even bother performing if you couldn’t reach that peak?
you remembered watching replays of old competitions when you were little. you’d taken one look at michelle kwan’s championship skate from 1998 and decided you were going to beg your parents to let you go to a rink. you’d quickly become enamored with the passion and intensity all the skaters left on the ice. you hoped that some little girl would watch you perform in a few days and ask for skates for her birthday.
but before you could go around inspiring little girls, you had to polish a few things. you glanced at the clock on the arena wall and sighed. there wasn’t much time left before your practice session was up. you took a deep breath and started your free skate step sequence. you hated feeling like you’d skimped on the spins and step sequence so you could focus on jumps instead.
you came out of the step sequence and headed into your triple lutz-triple toe combo. it was your favorite of the combos you did, and you caught it just right. you smiled to yourself, unable to help it, as you landed cleanly. you’d been relentlessly working on that lutz edge after nationals.
a buzzer sounded, signaling the end of your practice time. you skated to the boards, wondering if you could’ve put a little more into the step sequence.
“that combo was lovely. you almost came out of your head.” you beamed at your coach. a gruesome acl tear had ended aleksandra ivanova’s competitive career before it had properly begun, but she always said she was grateful it had happened, or she wouldn’t have become a coach. still, you wondered if she missed it.
“thanks, sasha,” you said as she handed you your skate guards. “it felt good.”
she helped you pull on your team usa jacket. “think less about the triple flip.”
you fidgeted with your sleeve. no matter what you did, you couldn’t seem to get out of your own way. the triple flip was your most consistent jump, and you’d managed to make a mess of it on multiple occasions today. “i’ll try.”
she gently tapped under your chin. “trust yourself. you did well. i’m proud of you.”
you smiled softly. “thank you.” regardless of how your practice sessions and competitions went, she always made a point to tell you she was proud of you and the work you’d put in. you really appreciated it.
“you’ll be ready for friday,” she said firmly. “take it easy tomorrow. you don’t want to have to make a hard choice.”
you nodded. “i won’t push.” she looked at you pointedly, and you smiled thinly. “i promise.”
“good.” she smiled. “what do you have this evening?”
you thought back to something amber had said over breakfast. “we don’t have anything official, but i think amber’s organizing group dinner.” and you’ll probably see a certain quad-jumping someone, but she didn’t need to know that. you fought the smile threatening to show itself on your face and quickly tried to think of something innocent. “uh, and gelato?”
sasha didn’t comment on your poor attempt to pass off gelato as the reason for your sudden delight. “well, that sounds nice.” she smiled gently. “try to have fun.”
you nodded and picked up your water bottle. “i will.”
she headed off to speak with another coach, and you sipped water and waited for amber so you could head back to the village together. as you stood there, the next group of skaters came in. your heart skipped a beat as ilia walked toward you. he looked unfairly good, wearing his team usa jacket over a tight black shirt that clung to him a little too well.
you bit your lip and desperately tried to think of something unsexy. what was unsexy? american politics? too late. he grinned at you as he walked by with mikhail shaidorov, and you immediately felt weak in the knees.
over the last month, not much had really changed between you and ilia. when you weren’t busy with practice, conditioning, or analyzing footage, you hung out like always. the only difference was the addition of hooking up to your rotation of leisure activities.
you’d be lying if you said it hadn’t been great so far. strict adherence to the agreed-upon rules meant that you’d successfully snuffed out whatever ridiculous lingering feelings you may have had for him. you might even dare to call what you were having fun. it was an easy and convenient way to work out any stress you felt from the upcoming games, and it didn’t infringe on your friendship. your arrangement was just an added bonus to what you would’ve done anyway. so what if a movie ended with really good sex on the couch? who cared if you gave him head for clearing a new level on geometry dash? none of it meant anything. right?
at your side, amber cleared her throat. “is there something you need to tell me?”
heat rushed to your cheeks as you tore your gaze away from ilia. “no!”
she laughed. “okay, whatever you say. let me know if that changes.” she slung her arm around you. “are you still down for dinner?”
“oh, definitely. there’s no keeping me away from the gelato.”
–
as it turned out, you could be kept away from the gelato, or at least seriously delayed in getting to it. fifteen minutes before dinner, you’d gotten a text from ilia.
torgs left. come over?
you hadn’t even bothered to reply.
a few minutes later, he pulled you into his room. you barely had a chance to kick off your shoes before he pressed your back against the door. “fucking finally,” he groaned, immediately attaching his lips to your neck. “i’ve been waiting for this since we got here.”
you bit your lip to stifle a sigh and quickly pushed his jacket off his shoulders. “we have to hurry. amber wants us all to meet for dinner in fifteen minutes.” and you’re more than a little worked up, judging by the wetness gathering between your thighs.
he smirked and pulled his shirt over his head. “well, we both know i don’t need that long to make you come.” he glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “uh, this may be slightly complicated. the beds aren’t super sturdy, but at least they aren’t made of cardboard this time. i think that was a thing in paris.”
your eyes widened as you stared at the bed, trying desperately to not ogle him. “cardboard beds? how did they ever think that was a good idea?” and would anyone really notice if he showed up to the team event with a hickey?
“these are the same geniuses who never supply enough condoms.”
you felt a wave of disappointment roll over you. “are they out already?” he shook his head, and you sighed in relief. “oh, thank god.” that was a potentially career-ending risk you didn’t want to take.
he laughed and smoothly relieved you of your leggings and underwear. “don’t worry. if that’s an issue, i’ll just eat you out until you can’t feel your legs.”
you clenched your thighs together at the thought. he’d done that before, and your legs had actually given out when you’d tried to stand up. judging by his smug smile, he was still entirely too pleased with himself. “tempting, but someone might ask questions if you have to carry me to dinner.”
he kissed your jaw; you moaned quietly and leaned against him. it hadn’t taken him long to identify the sensitive spots that made your knees weak. “how about this: i’ll fuck you against the door right now, and we can see how durable the bed is when we have more time?”
“yes, please.”
he grinned cockily and scooped you up with ease. you wrapped your legs around his waist as he pinned your back to the door and teasingly ran his fingers through your soaked folds. “holy shit, you’re wet.”
“don’t tease,” you whined. “ilia, don’t tease.”
he made a show of licking your slick off his fingers. “can i eat you out after dinner? please?”
you gently ran your hand through his hair, pushing his unruly blond waves out of his eyes and trying to suppress the inexplicable urge to do something really stupid like kiss him. you weren’t going to break the rules you’d come up with. “well, i’d be an idiot if i turned down that offer.”
to your surprise, he hummed quietly and leaned into your touch. there was something unbelievably soft in his eyes that made your chest tighten.
suddenly, someone knocked on the door. the moment was gone, and you felt panic race through you. ilia froze then gestured that you should be quiet. “well, duh,” you mouthed.
“the doors are thin,” he hissed. “uh, yeah?” he called.
“ilia?” your eyes widened at the sound of maxim’s voice. shit. “amber wants us to meet for dinner, remember?”
ilia smirked at you and pulled one of the complimentary condoms out of his pocket. you knew what he was thinking, and you ignored the rational part of your brain that urged you to be smart and stop. clearly, he hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said how much he’d been looking forward to seeing you. “yeah, i know,” he said, his voice mostly cool. “i’ll be there in a few minutes.”
you bit your lip as he opened the condom wrapper with his teeth and pushed his pants down enough to free his cock. your chest heaved in anticipation as he put on the condom and teasingly slid the tip of his dick through your folds. “stop fucking teas–oh–” your eyes rolled into the back of your head as he suddenly slammed into you.
“what was that?” maxim asked, sounding very confused.
“i said i’ll be there in a few minutes,” ilia said, his voice slightly strained. “i’m–fuck–playing, uh, block blast.”
you dug your nails into his back, gasping quietly, as he gave you a second to adjust. the stretch was almost too good, and the angle meant he was already hitting the spot that made your vision go blurry.
by some miracle, maxim left. ilia slid his hand behind your head, protecting you from a potential concussion. “are you okay?”
his voice was rougher than usual, and you felt yourself clench around him as you nodded quickly. “yeah, yeah, i’m fine.” you choked out a strangled whine and took a deep breath. “can you move, please?”
he grinned. “hold on to me.”
broken moans spilled from your lips as he began to mercilessly pound into you. you clung to him desperately, raking your fingers through his hair as he kissed your neck. your back arched off the door when he ground his pelvis against you, catching your clit. “fuck!”
“you feel so good,” he groaned against your skin. “taking it so well.”
you hoped nobody was in the hallway, because they would definitely know what was going on. “harder,” you begged. “harder.”
he did exactly as you asked, pushing one of your legs up slightly as he drilled into you. the angle made your eyes flutter shut as you dug your nails into his back, desperately trying to hold on. the slight stinging seemed to turn him on more, and he moaned loudly. “fuck, someone’ll see if i wear a tank top.”
you quickly moved your hands so you were clinging to his shoulders instead. “sorry.”
“no,” he whined. “why’d you stop? i don’t care if they see.” you couldn’t think of a reason to care. if he really needed to, he could make up a story about trying to pet a very unfriendly stray cat or something. his hips stuttered slightly when you raked your fingers across his back again, and he slid his hand between your thighs to toy with your swollen clit.
you could feel the orgasm building in your core. god, what had it taken, two minutes? “ilia,” you moaned, “i’m gonna come.”
he kept up the pace, his thumb tracing merciless circles on your clit. “yeah? already?”
“shut up,” you whined. “feels too good.”
he laughed against your neck. “i know it does.” he suddenly used the hand that was cradling your skull to tilt your head so he could hold your gaze. “you’re fucking perfect, you know that?”
your thighs trembled as you shattered around his cock, still clinging to him as you rode out the waves of ecstasy. you could feel his breath on your lips as he followed you into bliss with a gasp of your name.
you stayed like that for a few moments, trying to remember how to take in oxygen as he held you up against the wall. eventually, you realized that the ringing in your ears was actually your phone buzzing in your jacket pocket on the floor. you groaned. “we are so late for dinner.”
he hissed in a breath as he slowly pulled out of you and set you back on your feet. your legs shook for a moment, and he grinned as he steadied you. “careful.”
you rolled your eyes and smiled softly. “worth it.”
he brushed your hair out of your face, his palm lingering against your cheek, then seemed to realize that you were crunched for time. he disposed of the condom and threw you your leggings and underwear before he slid his pants up.
you wriggled into your clothes. “so, do you want to wait a few minutes after i head down?”
he pulled his shirt over his head. “uh, yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
he picked up your jacket and held it out for you, smiling crookedly. pleasant heat filled your chest as he helped you put it on. he even zipped it up to your chin, where his hand lingered. you reached for it before you could stop yourself and squeezed gently. “thanks, ilia.”
he squeezed your hand back and let go, reluctance clear in his eyes. “i’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”
you nodded as he walked you to the door. as it closed behind you and you headed for the cantine, you felt a wave of sadness wash over you. you used to be able to just go places with him. why had that changed? you wondered what it would be like to walk in with him, not caring who saw you.
–
as you took a bite of your pasta, isabeau frowned. “this isn’t as good as my nonna’s.”
you laughed, having heard tales of her grandma’s lasagna. “isa, the bar was too high.”
she snickered. “damn right.”
next to isabeau, alysa shrugged. “it tastes fine.”
to your left, amber tapped her fingers restlessly. “does anyone know where ilia is?”
“he’s playing block blast,” you said casually.
maxim frowned from where he sat on isabeau’s other side. “still?”
andrew groaned as he finished his slice of pizza. “do we have to wait for him to get dessert?”
alysa grinned. “nope. his loss.”
you took a sip of orange juice, which you’d stupidly decided to pair with your pasta, and grimaced. “this was a terrible idea. amber, why did you let me do this?”
she laughed. “i can’t be there to stop you every time you make a bad decision!”
you groaned. “i was trying to be healthy! the lady at the juice bar said it has vitamin d in it.” you grimaced, because it probably contained a bunch of extra sugar, too. “i was thinking about my lutz edge instead of what would go well with lasagna.” actually, you’d been thinking about where you could meet ilia after dinner, but you didn’t need to mention that.
alysa snickered. “i think you already got that vitamin d.”
your eyes widened and heat rushed to your face, the innuendo not lost on you. “what?”
maxim quickly took a sip of water, andrew hid a laugh in a cough, isabeau aggressively stared at her lasagna, and amber massaged her temples in exasperation. alysa smiled innocently. “you had eggs this morning. what did you think i meant?”
“oh,” you said. “uh, nothing.” you mentally kicked yourself for making a mess of that.
amber ran a hand through her blond hair and mercifully changed the subject. “who's ready for the team event?”
alysa laughed and lowered her voice goofily, imitating a reporter. “is another gold in the cards for team usa?”
andrew rolled his eyes. “if ilia’s as late to the competition as he is to dinner, i think your hope for that is riding on me.”
amber smiled. “and you’d be great.”
he seemed to appreciate the vote of confidence. “well, let’s hope the quad god deigns to make an appearance with us mere mortals so we don’t have to hope i beat yuma and shun.” he glanced behind you. “oh, speak of the devil, and he appears.”
ilia sat down in the empty seat next to you, his plate filled with macaroni. he grinned. “what’d i miss?” you tried to ignore how your heart raced when his shoulder brushed yours.
“not much,” alysa said, “but i’m not waiting for you to eat before i get dessert.”
he shrugged and took a bite of pasta. “what can i say? i’m devoted to block blast.”
alysa rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she got up to get dessert. “yeah, whatever you say.”
maxim glanced between amber, you, and ilia. “how are you feeling about this weekend?”
ilia shrugged. “ready to make some headlines.” he took another bite of macaroni, but you could see a slight hint of tension in his shoulders. you felt the sudden urge to lean against him, and you couldn’t figure out why.
you forced yourself to look away from him. “hopefully, i can make everyone else’s jobs easier,” you said thinly. you’d been watching highlights of kaori sakamoto’s programs over the last few weeks. your advantage was your triple axel. if you could land the axel, nail your triple flip, and catch your lutz edge right, there was a pretty good chance you’d win the short program. that would be a huge advantage and a real statement on the first day. there would be a far greater margin of error for everyone else if you could deliver.
“we’ve got each other’s backs,” amber said. “no matter what happens, we’ll look out for each other.”
you smiled at her gratefully. “thanks, amber.”
next to you, ilia grinned. “we’re golden. we've got the queen of pep talks!”
amber rolled her eyes, but she looked nervous despite his sincerity. you reached for her hand and squeezed gently. “we’ve got this.”
alysa reappeared with a huge tray of desserts, grinning. “i hate to crash this touching moment, but who wants dessert?”
you took a shaky breath and forced a smile. “do you have gelato?”
she set the tray down. “gelato, tiramisu, lava cakes, some mysterious cupcake thing that looks really good, cookies decorated like skates, and jello!”
she slid you a cup of gelato, which immediately improved your mood. you took an eager bite and gasped. “oh, this is really good!”
“i know you like raspberries,” she said innocently. you ignored her comment, though heat rushed to your cheeks.
ilia, who had just finished his pasta, looked up eagerly. “gimme!” he swiped your spoon and quickly took a bite. “oh, that is good.”
“get your own, lutz boy!” you fought the urge to smile as you took your spoon back.
he gasped, faux-offended, then grinned and reached for his own dessert. “bossy.”
despite the cold gelato, something warm fizzled in your chest. you took another bite and forced yourself to think about your upcoming short program. you couldn’t afford to get distracted now, not with olympic gold at stake.
summary: You were outraged by the way this year's World Cup had been organized, and despite being a die-hard football fan, you had no intention of joining your famous athlete boyfriend for the final in New Jersey. But the moment you found out your national team had made it to the final, there was no way you could pass up the chance to witness Spain lift the World Cup trophy for only the second time in its history — and, if only for a night, feel a little closer to home.
content: established relationship, football, in this house we hate FIFA and support España, melancholy, spanish reader, world cup 2026, argentina vs spain, ilia knows shit about football, strong language, alcohol, sexual content MDNI, reader is a little grumpy (and homesick :<), bittersweet ending
word count: 9k
author’s note: Yoo, I've been a huge football fan since I was a kid, so the second I saw Ilia at the World Cup final, I had to write a one-shot inspired by it. Hala Madrid btw 🤍 I also love Spain. I took one of my high school final exams in Spanish, and even though I only lived there for 2 months, I still feel somehow connected to the country. At the same time, I always felt a little out of place because everyone around me seemed to live so differently from me, and I wanted to capture what the reader might've been feeling while being so far away from home (I genuinely can't write anything happy and silly without sneaking in at least a little angst).
As for the match... Argentina played such a dirty, brutal game in the final that I was genuinely embarrassed for some of their fans. Their players kept trying to provoke almost everyone, especially Olmo and Rodri — and earlier in the tournament, Bellingham, too. And I'm not even gonna get started on what happened after they beat France in 2022. So honestly, I don't feel bad about the reader talking so much shit about them in this one-shot 😭English isn't my first language, so some of the sentences might be a little too long. Thanks for reading! <3
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Had someone told you a year and a half ago that Spain would reach the World Cup final, you would've been only mildly surprised. After all, just two years earlier you'd stood shoulder to shoulder with thousands in the streets of Madrid, celebrating La Roja's triumph at the Euros, your faith in Luis de la Fuente bordering on religious devotion — though, in one deeply unpatriotic lapse before the group stage had even begun, you'd put a few dollars on France winning the whole tournament. Thankfully, it had only been a handful of bills, so the damage to your wallet had been negligible.
If, however, someone had dared to tell you that you would attend the World Cup final with your boyfriend — a world-famous figure skater, no less — you would've laughed straight in their face, though you wouldn't have known which part of the prediction deserved more ridicule. Back then, the notion of being in a relationship at all would've sounded infinitely more absurd than going to New Jersey for a championship match whose ticket prices bordered on financial insanity.
Truthfully, the fact that you'd spent eighteen months living in Virginia in the United States, working in a research laboratory, had already seemed like an act of beautiful madness.
You had almost turned the offer down. When your university first approached you with the opportunity, you'd spent an entire week trapped in relentless deliberation, your thoughts circling themselves into exhaustion. You hadn't wanted to leave behind your family, friends or beloved city.
And yet, here you were now, thousands of miles from home, nerves devouring you alive as Spain prepared to contest the World Cup final, sitting in the passenger seat of Ilia Malinin's car while your emotions crashed inside you like restless waves against a cliff face.
"Can you please hurry up?" you urged, barely disguising the panic creeping into your voice. You were the more experienced driver when it came to long-distance trips, but your thoughts were too scattered, your pulse too frantic, to trust yourself behind the wheel.
"I literally can't go any faster here!"
"You can," you argued stubbornly. "You just don't wanna break the speed limit." Your accusatory stare lingered on his profile. "This is gonna be your fault if we're late."
"Oh my Goood," Ilia groaned, never taking his eyes off the road ahead. "We're not gonna be late. We're getting there, like... two hours early."
Then, after a beat, the corner of his mouth curled into a smug little smile.
"And besides..." he said, his voice dripping with innocent mischief, "it's not entirely my fault." He spared you the briefest sideways glance. "If I remember correctly, you seemed to be enjoying yourself too." His grin widened.
At the memory of how, less than two hours earlier, Ilia had slowly eaten you out on your living room couch before fucking you like the world was about to end, heat rushed to your face so fast it painted even the tips of your ears crimson. Although your boyfriend was usually shy around you, every now and then — especially in moments like this — he transformed into someone almost unbearably cocky.
The moment he'd come to pick you up and caught sight of you standing there in Spain's jersey and a short skirt, he'd completely lost his mind, shamelessly taking advantage of the fact that your roommate wasn't home. Luckily, the drive from Reston to New Jersey wasn't unbearably long (just under three hours along the interstate) which meant you could afford to leave a little later than planned, though dragging Ilia out of your bed had still required considerable effort, and in the end you'd had to promise that you'd blow him in the car after the match before he'd finally agreed to get up and gather the clothes he'd scattered all over your freshly mopped floor.
And even if you were pretending to be angry now, you had to admit he wasn't wrong — you'd enjoyed yourself perhaps a little too much, especially whenever he pleasured you with his mouth. He was far too good at that, and you secretly adored it.
Maybe not all that secretly, considering you ended up muffling yourself against a pillow every single time, something Ilia never failed to scold you for, because he loved listening to you moan broken, incoherent sentences in Spanish, while you, in turn, loved hearing him murmur Russian curses against your ear while he was buried deep inside you.
"Anyway..." You cleared your throat, eager to steer the conversation somewhere infinitely safer. "Do you think Ramos is gonna be in the stands? He has to be. Maybe we'll spot him somewhere. I mean, he'll probably be sitting in one of the VIP boxes again, like last time with Iker Casillas and Iniesta, but-"
"Y/N," Ilia cut in before you could tumble headfirst into another emotionally fueled monologue, "I have absolutely no clue who you're talking about."
You shot him a look dripping with theatrical disappointment. As someone who had supported Real Madrid practically since birth (your father had been taking you to the Bernabéu from the moment you turned four) you genuinely couldn't comprehend how anyone could possibly not know who Sergio Ramos was.
"But I do know Cucurenda signed for Real Madrid!" he added hastily, clearly attempting to salvage what little dignity remained.
You rolled your eyes so dramatically they nearly disappeared into your skull.
"It's Cucurella, you dork," you corrected, unable to suppress the grin tugging at your lips. "And where the hell did you even hear that?"
"Well, you reposted it on Instagram. He’s, like, good, no?"
You laughed quietly and said nothing more.
Ilia hadn't the faintest clue about football. You had never managed to break him of calling it soccer, could never make him understand why he couldn't cheer for every single team at the World Cup — "They're literally all GOATs," as he insisted — or why supporting both Atlético and Real Madrid at the same time bordered on sacrilege. In return, he failed spectacularly every time he tried to explain the latest rule changes introduced by the ISU (which couldn't possibly have interested you less) and despite his endless patience, he still hadn't succeeded in teaching you how to tell a Lutz from a Flip; to your untrained eyes, every jump looked exactly the same. When it came to stubborn resistance against learning anything about each other's sports, the two of you complemented one another perfectly.
And yet, despite the relentless schedule that consumed your days in the laboratory, you almost always found time to watch him train. The staff at SkateQuest greeted you with the same warmth they reserved for the coaches themselves, and Tatiana had even given you a handful of skating lessons. Simply putting on a pair of skates had terrified you beyond reason, but you'd swallowed your fear for one reason alone — to make Ilia happy. You had cheered him on from the stands at Nationals that year, flown to Milan for the free skate that had shattered his Olympic dream, and stayed beside him through the entire night afterward, quietly gathering the broken pieces of his heart after the unforgiving Olympic ice had crushed everything he'd worked toward.
Now it was Ilia's turn to give something back.
Truthfully, he wasn't particularly interested in the match, or even the World Cup itself, save for the occasional Haaland and Mbappé memes, but he'd wanted to make you happy, so not only had he accepted invitation to the final, he'd practically begged his agent to secure him an extra ticket. Lately, he'd begun to feel as though your entire relationship revolved around him, and although you'd never once complained, he wanted the two of you to spend a day doing something that genuinely belonged to your world.
He simply loved watching you smile.
And from the moment you'd walked up to MetLife Stadium, that smile hadn't left your face, even though you'd spent weeks insisting you didn't want to go. After the VAR scandals, the overturned red card for the United States, the commercial pauses disguised as hydration breaks, and what you considered disgraceful officiating throughout the tournament, you'd stubbornly declared that you wanted nothing to do with what you called a rigged World Cup. But the instant Spain eliminated France in the semifinal, every ounce of that determination had evaporated. There had never been any chance you would willingly miss the opportunity to witness your national team lift the World Cup for only the second time in its history. You'd been just a child when Spain conquered the football world in 2010, and now, more than anything, you wanted to relive those same impossible emotions.
You were also terribly homesick, and coming to MetLife Stadium meant surrounding yourself, if only for one evening, with fellow Spaniards whose celebrations might momentarily fool your heart into believing you hadn't left home at all. Besides, you hadn't wanted to disappoint Ilia by sulking through a day he'd gone to such lengths to arrange for you, so you kept your scathing opinions about the tournament's organization mostly to yourself... at least for a few hours.
The moment you found out who'd been appointed referee for the final, you resumed complaining without missing a beat.
Fortunately, Ilia had grown accustomed to your endless grumbling and, for reasons that remained entirely beyond your comprehension, considered it rather adorable, whereas most people simply found you exhausting.
"I still don't get why you wouldn't wear the La Roja jersey I bought you," you said as he finished recording a clip for his Instagram Story. You'd made him check the frame twice to make absolutely certain you weren't visible; you valued your privacy far too much to let the fans of your ridiculously famous boyfriend know you even existed.
Which was becoming increasingly difficult, considering some people had long since forgotten where admiration ended and stalking began.
"Because I like Argentina too," he explained, slipping his phone into the pocket of his brown shorts. "I kinda didn't wanna look, I dunno, biased."
"Oh, really?" you scoffed. "Then name one Argentinian player besides Messi if you're such a huge fan."
His nose scrunched up the way it always did when he was thinking, and after a long, thoughtful silence, he ventured carefully,
"Uh... Maradona?" He shot you a cautious sidelong glance — another one of his unconscious nervous habits.
"He's dead," you replied with perfect seriousness.
"Oh." He blinked. "Right."
For a while, the two of you wandered aimlessly around the entrance gates, taking commemorative photos beneath the towering banners draped across the stadium. You passed Javier Bardem, then Robert Lewandowski, and Ilia nearly let out a delighted squeak the moment he recognized the Polish striker. You, meanwhile, feigned complete indifference, reminding yourself that Lewy had worn Barcelona colors until not so long ago, though inwardly you were just as thrilled as Ilia was.
Once your wristbands had been checked and you'd finally made your way inside, you split up. Ilia disappeared toward FIFA's celebrity photo wall alongside the other invited guests, while you, shrinking instinctively from the relentless flashes of photographers' cameras, escaped toward the food court in search of something to eat.
You joined the line for pizza and drinks behind a group of young men wrapped proudly in Spanish flags. At first, you merely listened, too shy to interrupt them, but when you overheard them debating Michael Olise's rumored transfer from Bayern Munich to Real, your courage finally overcame your hesitation, and you joined the conversation.
As it turned out, they'd flown all the way from Madrid. A warmth you hadn't realized you were starving for blossomed somewhere deep inside your chest as you found yourself telling them which neighborhood you'd lived in before moving to the United States, reminiscing about the afternoon after an El Clásico when Casemiro had signed your father's jersey, your words carrying a homesickness that needed no explanation among people who spoke your language.
Long after you'd bought your food and eaten it, the five of you remained leaning against a concrete pillar, talking as though you had known one another for years instead of minutes. The boys were wonderfully kind, and when the time finally came to part ways because their seats were on the other sector in the stand from yours and Ilia's, so they had to use a different set of stairs, you found yourself unexpectedly reluctant to let the conversation end.
You thanked them sincerely before saying goodbye, absurdly happy that, for the first time in months, you'd been able to speak your native language with someone other than your parents over FaceTime.
You never even noticed when Ilia returned from the photo wall. He spotted you immediately despite the sea of people and slipped quietly through the crowd before wrapping his arms around you from behind.
You startled so violently that you instinctively jerked away, nearly dropping both your beer and the fruit juice you'd bought for your boyfriend. For one glorious, panic-stricken second, you were convinced Argentine goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez had finally come to strangle you in retaliation for every scathing tweet you'd ever written about him.
"Ilyushenkaaa," you scolded, turning to face him with an exasperated sigh. "Don't scare me like that. You promised you'd behave. Someone could see."
He immediately pushed out his lower lip and looked at you like a sad, lost puppy. Your resolve melted on the spot.
Physical affection had always been Ilia's love language. Despite being cautious, painfully shy, and instinctively guarded around strangers, he hugged his friends and his parents whenever the opportunity presented itself, usually for no reason whatsoever.
He was, in many ways, nothing more than an oversized baby, and you adored that about him more than you were ever willing to admit, even if it occasionally meant having to rein him in whenever you were out in public.
"But you look so pretty," he whined softly. "Besides, nobody here knows who I am. I'm not that famous. Everyone's looking at that old dude from The Rolling Stones and Matt Damon."
You frowned in theatrical disbelief before handing him the outrageously overpriced fruit juice. He accepted it with an expression of heartfelt gratitude.
"That old dude? You mean Mick Jagger?"
He nodded matter-of-factly.
"Yeah. Whatever his name is."
"Right." You couldn't help grinning as you teased him. "Honestly, I'm surprised you even know what he and Matt Damon look like."
"What's so strange about that?!"
"Because you're the same guy who couldn't even recognize Justin Timberlake."
His earlier mistake still amused you almost as much as the first time you'd convinced him to play FIFA16 with you, when he'd enthusiastically scored an own goal because he'd somehow convinced himself your net was his.
"I know who he is now!" he protested. "I swear I can tell NSYNC and One Direction apart! I did my research."
You cast a quick, careful glance around the concourse to make sure no one was paying the two of you any attention and, to your immense relief, everyone was far too absorbed in their own conversations to notice.
So you leaned in and kissed him, just to quiet him. He smiled against your lips, melting into the kiss so completely that he nearly tipped the cup of juice straight onto your shirt.
After that brief exchange of affection, you finished the last of your beer, and together you made your way to your seats. Warmed ever so slightly, and mercifully calmed, by the alcohol, you finally gathered the courage to edge closer to Ilia and lace your fingers through his.
He looked more than delighted.
Once you'd settled into the stands, Ilia, already growing impatient with the endless wait for kickoff, absentmindedly began scrolling through TikTok while you occupied yourself by studying the people around you. Most of the supporters seated nearby wore Argentina jerseys, which did little to improve your mood, though you eventually spotted a handful of Spanish fans scattered throughout the section. Two rows below yours, you also recognized Lindsey Vonn, whom Ilia had met earlier at the FIFA photo wall.
With every passing minute that carried you closer to the opening whistle, your nerves tightened another impossible degree as the magnitude of the occasion finally settled over you. Your palms were slick with sweat, your fingers trembled as you replied to your father's text asking whether you'd made it to the stadium safely, and throughout the closing ceremony you found yourself rolling your eyes so often at the relentless spectacle and manufactured grandeur that they almost ached, while Tom Cruise's unexpected appearance to deliver yet another hollow motivational speech made you laugh outright.
"I swear this has to be the trailer for another Mission: Impossible," you muttered, barely containing your grin. "Except this one's for Argentina."
Ilia wisely chose not to comment. He was trying very hard to remain neutral. That resolve lasted precisely until Lionel Messi stepped onto the pitch. He applauded enthusiastically.
You stared at him in horror.
"Why are you clapping for him? Are you dumb or what?" you demanded, elbowing him in the ribs. "Stop it."
"But he's the GOAT," Ilia protested innocently. "Honestly, you're, like... way too prejudiced."
Your blood practically caught fire.
"Prejudiced? I'm a Madridista, dude. Of course I don't like him. He should've been sent off with a red card at the beginning of the tournament!"
Two elderly men wearing Argentina shirts with SIMEONE stretched proudly across their shoulders turned around to glare at you in obvious annoyance. You came dangerously close to flipping them off. At the last possible second, you restrained yourself. Ilia had invited you here. The least you could do was avoid humiliating him.
Then again, football supporters obeyed entirely different laws of nature, especially when their national team was fighting for a World Cup.
Barely five minutes into the match, when Unai Simón rushed off his line to clear a dangerous ball before Messi could reach it, your heart nearly burst straight through your ribs. You squeezed Ilia's hand so hard you were fairly certain you were breaking at least two of his fingers.
Your anxiety was written plainly across your face, and it only worsened. As the minutes crawled by, you repeatedly reached toward your own hair in utter despair every time another Spanish player was hacked down by an Argentine challenge while Slavko Vinčić seemed determined to pretend he'd witnessed absolutely nothing.
"This referee is a complete disaster," you fumed, springing to your feet yet again. "He's blind! This is NOT a referee worthy of a World Cup final! He already showed exactly how useless he was back in Poland versus Sweden! I know, because I watched it with Polish guy from my lab. He almost smashed his laptop out of frustration."
A woman about your age sitting behind you, who appeared far more invested in her phone than the match itself, finally asked you to stop fidgeting because you kept blocking her view. Without missing a beat, you answered in Spanish that perhaps she should get back to watching Jude Bellingham edits instead… which, admittedly, you secretly liked from time to time yourself.
"I dunno..." Ilia said carefully, attempting to defend the official despite himself. "Looks like he kinda knows what he's doing… I guess."
Even with all his admiration for Messi, however, he couldn't deny that Argentina had been playing aggressively.
"He doesn't know shit," you snapped. "They only picked him because he's Slovenian, just like Trump's wife. Fucking Argentina-Fifantina, man, ugh. Even La Liga refs have more competence, and they're practically blind and allergic to using VAR. This whole World Cup is a fucking joke. First, the sensor in the ball detects a goal that was offside by a hair's breadth, then the ball bounces off some stupid camera cable, and England eliminates Norway — what happens next? Maybe the aliens bought by the italian printer kidnap Laporte or Pedro Porro during halftime. ¡El calvo les arregló todo el campeonato y ni siquiera lo disimula!"
You hadn't even realized you'd switched back into Spanish, your hands slicing emphatically through the air as your outrage gathered momentum.
"What?"
"The bald guy — Infantino. He is the FIFA president. He rigged the whole tournament for Argentina and isn't even trying to hide it anymore." You jabbed a finger toward the field. "Did you see how Paredes shove Olmo? That asshole didn’t even see yellow!"
"...Which one's Paredes?"
Ilia glanced helplessly toward the jumbotron overhead, desperately trying to work out who was who.
"The guy wearing number five." You barely paused for breath. "That idiot Vinčić has to be bribed! I can't believe he still hasn't shown a single card! I'm seriously gonna march down there and kill him. ¡Voy a matar a ese idiota, lo juro!"
Several supporters dressed in Spain's crimson shirts overheard your furious rant, burst into laughter, and immediately echoed your indignation.
"¡Vamos, España!"
"¡Vamos!" you shouted back without hesitation, flashing them an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Ilia watched the entire exchange wearing an expression suspended somewhere between fascination and genuine alarm. He had never seen you watch a football match before, and he'd had absolutely no idea you became this emotionally invested.
It was his first football match too — or soccer, as he stubbornly continued calling it — and little by little the atmosphere inside the stadium was sweeping him away as well. He'd begun noticing that nearly everyone around you, whether draped in Argentina's sky blue or Spain's furious red, reacted with exactly the same unfiltered passion you did, as if tens of thousands of strangers had surrendered themselves to one shared heartbeat that rose and crashed with every touch of the ball.
During the halftime show, when Madonna, flanked by Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, emerged onto the pitch, which was hidden beneath a vast kaleidoscope-colored tarp, you grumbled under your breath about commercialism bleeding the soul out of football and about the pitiful attempt to turn the World Cup Final into some imitation of the Super Bowl, yet the moment BTS took the stage, followed by Shakira, a small, reluctant smile settled upon your lips and refused to leave.
You didn't even bother hiding it. Ilia, of course, noticed.
"That's a violation of Article 7, Section 2 of the Laws of the Game in the name of commercialism and show business," you declared with theatrical indignation. "The only person who could've officially signed off on this is that absolute idiot, Slavko Vinčić, and I seriously doubt he did. The guy can barely figure out how to use a can of referee spray."
Ilia knew better. The brief Coldplay and BTS performance had captivated you every bit as much as it had captivated him. Before the players returned to the pitch, you caught yourself quietly humming Dai Dai beneath your breath.
As the second half crept toward its end, your heart began to wither beneath the unbearable weight of anticipation. You were frustrated, terrified, just like every one of your fellow Spaniards scattered across MetLife Stadium.
Even the second beer — one you'd sent Ilia to fetch around the sixtieth minute because he was the dictionary definition of a simp, despite refusing to admit it aloud — did nothing to steady your nerves. Argentina had all but vanished offensively, yet somehow they still refused to concede.
Extra time loomed closer with every passing second. Spain were undeniably the better side, but if the match reached penalties, everything would be surrendered to chance. A penalty shootout was little more than a cruel lottery, one that rarely reflected the story ninety — or even one hundred and twenty — minutes had written.
In the third minute of stoppage time, Enzo Fernández brought Cubarsí down with a reckless challenge. Marc hit the ground like a discarded rag doll, his lip splitting open on impact. The referee had no choice. The yellow card came out. His second.
Which meant he was off.
"So... two yellows equal a red?" Ilia asked, blinking in surprise. "I always thought refs just, um, y’know, pulled out the red straight away."
"You've still got a lot to learn," you replied without taking your eyes off the jumbotron. Argentina's players were shoving Spain's. For a brief moment, Cucurella covered his mouth with his hand. "What the hell is that?" you burst out, crushing your empty beer cup in your fist. "¡Messi fue a chivarse con el árbitro! ¡Qué patético! Jesus Christ, what is this, kindergarten? Stupid rata."
Ilia tried to calm you down, but it was hopeless. You were standing on the razor's edge of an emotional detonation. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, every ounce of anxiety dissolved into pure, incandescent euphoria.
The 105th minute — Ferran Torres. He met the ball with the inside of his foot and lifted it beneath the crossbar after a sublime assist from Nico Williams. Goal.
You shot to your feet so violently your seat nearly folded beneath you, bouncing up and down, arms flailing wildly through the air as you bitterly regretted not bringing a Spanish scarf to wave above your head.
The tidal wave of joy crashed over you with such force that you completely forgot to watch where you were stepping. Your foot slipped and you tumbled an entire row down the stands. Ilia barely managed to grab hold of you and haul you back into your seat before you disappeared any farther.
"Yooo, bro, you okay?" he asked, his worried gaze sweeping frantically across your face.
You laughed breathlessly, wiping away the tears of pure happiness.
"Yeah. I'm okay," you assured him before leaning over to press a quick kiss against his flushed cheek. "I used to fall off my seat at the Bernabéu all the time."
When the match finally reached its end and the shrill blast of the referee's whistle echoed through the stadium, instantly swallowed by the deafening roar of tens of thousands of jubilant Spanish supporters, you cried without restraint, mascara streaking beneath your eyes in dark rivers.
You weren't even embarrassed. After all, it wasn't every day your country became world champions. You were almost as happy as you'd been when Ilia had won Olympic gold in the team event and later stood atop the podium once again in Prague.
Football was football. But your boyfriend becoming the best in the world? That wasn't exactly an everyday miracle either.
Even Ilia found himself swept away by your contagious ecstasy. He bounced awkwardly in place, mimicking the celebrations of the fans around him, enthusiastically chanting ¡Campeones! along with the Spanish section despite mangling the pronunciation beyond recognition.
Naturally, the evening wasn't spared its share of ugly scenes. Paredes, incandescent with bitterness after the defeat, lashed out at Spain's substitutes, shoving them in a fit of childish frustration.mIt saddened you that Ilia's very first football match had also been his first glimpse of such spectacularly unsportsmanlike behavior. When he'd finished eighth in Milan, the very first thing he'd done was congratulate Shaidorov.
Not everyone, it seemed, possessed that kind of grace.
As the players stepped forward one by one to receive congratulations from King Felipe VI, while the president of the US and Infantino — two men you despised and would've greatly preferred not to see anywhere near the ceremony — placed medals around their necks, you tried to record everything on your phone so you could send the video to your father, but your hands were trembling too violently with emotion for the footage to resemble anything but an earthquake.
You handed the phone to Ilia instead. He was more than happy to oblige. Every single time your lock screen lit up, however, he couldn't stop smiling. It was a polaroid scan of him, the photo was taken by his stylist only a few days earlier while he'd been posing in his outfit for the Cero Magazine event.
The first time you'd seen that picture, you'd solemnly informed him it deserved to hang in the Louvre. You had never seen him blush quite so fiercely. You were fairly certain you'd inflated his ego that had already been generously nourished by countless edits of himself and an endless parade of thirst traps flooding TikTok.
When the entire squad and coaching staff assembled for the official team picture, you smiled so hard your cheeks began to ache. Then Rodri lifted the World Cup above his head. Gold confetti burst into the night like a second sunrise. Without saying a word, Ilia slipped his arms around you, pulling you into the warmth of his embrace as one hand gently cradled the back of your head.
"I'm so proud of you," he murmured into your messy hair.
You leaned back just enough to search his blue eyes, your brows lifting in bewilderment.
"What? Why? The players won, not me. All I did was yell at the ref and complain."
"Yeah," he replied with a crooked smile, "but... you know. Just... in general."
You let yourself remain in his embrace for a long while, content to disappear into the quiet sanctuary of his arms, until you gradually became aware of curious glances drifting your way from passing strangers.
You had never been particularly fond of couples who treated public spaces like private living rooms, constantly wrapped around each other in syrupy displays of affection, so with visible hesitance you finally eased yourself out of his embrace.
You were spending the night at Ilia's anyway. There would be plenty of late-night cuddling to make up for it — assuming little Mila allowed you to claim even a sliver of space in his bed. Unlike Mysti and Miu Miu, who often regarded Ilia with the dignified indifference only cats could master, Mila shadowed him everywhere, following him with unwavering devotion as though the world itself began and ended wherever he happened to be.
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Even after the trophy presentation had ended, the two of you lingered in the stands, watching Spain's players celebrate with their families and loved ones, while Ilia became utterly captivated by Lamine Yamal's little brother, who was, in his opinion, the cutest and funniest kid he'd ever seen.
Eventually, the show came to an end. The captain, the coaches, and the players took their bows and said goodbye to the fans. Outside the stadium, the two of you walked several paces apart so you wouldn't look too suspicious, and somewhere among the tide of departing spectators you spotted Dua Lipa with Callum Turner, while, on the way back to the parking lot, Beyoncé passed by surrounded by security.
You still hadn't quite grown accustomed to the fact that your boyfriend was famous. To the fact that Snoop Dogg had worn a shirt with Ilia's face on it during the Olympics. Sometimes you caught yourself wondering how footballers' partners managed to live with men who were recognized absolutely everywhere.
You found it stressful enough when people occasionally approached Ilia at SkateQuest asking for photos. The thought that someone might one day secretly film the two of you sharing an intimate moment and unleash it upon the merciless machinery of the internet terrified you.
You weren't ready for that, and you knew Ilia wasn't either. It had already been painful enough when he'd been forced to apologize to his ex-girlfriend because strangers kept flooding her social media with cruel comments simply for having dated him.
Eventually, the two of them had blocked each other across every platform just to put an end to the harassment.
You never wanted to experience that yourself. You didn't want thousands of strangers dissecting your photos and deciding whether you were worthy of dating the Quad God.
Once you climbed into the car and the adrenaline gradually began to settle, you found yourself scrolling through countless videos from Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, and Seville that had already flooded the internet.
It was well past midnight in Spain. The entire country seemed to have poured into the streets. Bars overflowed, nightclubs pulsed with music, fan zones erupted into songs, public squares disappeared beneath seas of red and gold. Your parents sent you photos from Plaza de Cibeles, where they'd gone with your grandparents and cousins to celebrate alongside the rest of Madrid. You already knew almost no one in Spain would be sleeping until dawn.
The images struck you with a longing so sudden it stole your breath. For one impossible moment, all you wanted was to be home. The guilt followed almost immediately. It wasn't fair to Ilia. He had taken you to the World Cup Final, fulfilled one of your greatest dreams, and here you were... sad.
You tried to smooth the emotion from your face before he noticed, but you failed. He always noticed.
"So..." he said quietly after a while. "What do you wanna do?"
You looked over at him, puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"Your national team just won, right?" He smiled softly. "Feels kinda, I dunno, wrong not to celebrate."
"I'm not sad," you insisted a little too quickly, unwilling to sound ungrateful. "I got to watch the final live. That's already... more than enough."
"I know." He nodded. "But..." His fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel. "Okay, what would you be doing if you were in Madrid right now?"
You fell silent, disappearing into your thoughts.
"Hmm..." A wistful smile found its way onto your lips. "I'd probably head into the city for tapas and sangria, find some little bar with good music, maybe eat paella, and then end the night dancing to J Balvin or Bad Bunny." You laughed quietly to yourself. "Or I'd just go to Cibeles with my parents. That's where the national team and Real Madrid always celebrate their trophies. The players ride around the fountain on the team bus, and the captain wraps a scarf around the statue of Cybele." You sounded almost homesick as you spoke.
"Okaaay..." Ilia drew the word out thoughtfully before snapping his fingers. "Bad Bunny it is." To your delight, one of his notoriously chaotic rap playlists disappeared, replaced by DtMF. You smiled at him in silent gratitude. "We can stay here a little longer and find a club," he suggested with wide grin. "Or we could go grocery shopping so you can make paella and we can drink sangria. I've always wanted to try both."
"You don't have to do that, Ilia," you assured him gently. "We can just go home, play Fortnite and get some sleep."
"But I want to."
That's why you loved Ilia so deeply: because he was so unfailingly considerate of everyone around him. People often mistook him for someone selfish, self-absorbed, or hopelessly full of himself, but that simply wasn't true — or at least, it had never been true with you, although, like everyone else, he had bad days when he became snappish and short-tempered, though it wasn't as if you yourself didn't spend half your life complaining about one thing or another.
You had met Ilia shortly after arriving in Virginia, at the very beginning of 2025, and almost immediately he had taken care of you, something for which you would always remain profoundly grateful.
You had been terrified to your very core. A foreign country. A language that wasn't your own. Unfamiliar faces, different customs, a completely different rhythm of life. Although your roommate had been kind to you, your lab supervisor had welcomed you warmly, and the other graduate students and newly minted PhD researchers had practically adopted you, promising to teach you everything you needed to know, you still cried into your pillow every single night during those first few days, aching with homesickness.
You couldn't shake the feeling that you didn't belong here, that you were trespassing in someone else's life. The American healthcare system frightened you, especially the knowledge that a single ambulance ride to the hospital could cost you thousands of dollars. You couldn't understand why nobody separated their rubbish. The streets, deserted after sunset, unsettled you when, back in Spain, entire cities only seemed to awaken after eight in the evening. You found it unnerving that waiters casually walked away with your credit card to process your payment themselves. You distrusted almost everything sold in grocery stores, checking every ingredient through an app because so many products contained additives considered carcinogenic elsewhere.
Even the cars intimidated you. They seemed absurdly enormous. Back in Europe you had rarely seen vehicles like that. Here they were everywhere, and looming quietly in the back of your mind was the driving exam you would eventually have to take, knowing your international licence would only remain valid for six months.
You were hopeless.
Then one afternoon, while standing in the middle of a Walmart aisle trying to decipher the ingredient list on a container of tuna sandwich spread — determined to make sure it contained nothing remotely questionable — you spotted a smiling blond guy who looked approachable enough and gathered every ounce of courage you possessed before asking if he could explain, in simpler words, what ground mustard seed and xanthan gum actually were.
At first, he muttered something beneath his breath without even looking at you, immediately destroying the favorable first impression he'd accidentally made, but after a moment's hesitation he reluctantly took the container from your hands and began reading through the ingredients one by one.
"I'm kinda in a rush," he mumbled, shooting you a sideways glance as he slowly rotated the container between his fingers. "Can't you just use, like, Google Translate or something?"
He came across as kind of rude. You chose not to mention it. Maybe he'd simply had a bad day.
"I could," you admitted softly, struggling to keep your voice from trembling, "but I'm trying to actually talk to real people instead of my phone and to get over my... um... timidez… uh, I don't know what the noun form of being shy is…sorry."
That was the first time he truly looked at you. And then he froze. As though heaven itself had struck him with sudden revelation. He would later confess that it had felt like love at first sight.
The truth was, the same had happened to you. The moment you looked into those impossibly blue eyes and took in the delicate softness of his features, something inside you surrendered without a fight.
"Yeah... right." He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking embarrassingly flustered. "Um... honestly, I have no idea what any of this stuff is." He gave a sheepish laugh. "My mom does all the cooking, so..."
"Oh." You smiled despite yourself. "Qué pena. I mean... that's a shame. Sorry, I keep mixing Spanish with English." A small, embarrassed pause. "Actually... more often than sometimes."
And that was how you met Ilia. He was your first friend in America, your first real crush, your first kiss, your first boyfriend, the first person you ever made love with, and the first before whom you allowed yourself to be utterly vulnerable.
He had never mocked your accent, nor the way your words caught in your throat during those first uncertain weeks in Virginia, when the weight of unfamiliar language tangled your tongue and, out of instinct, Spanish slipped into every other sentence like a homesick refrain.
He had never minded that, when you stayed over at his place, by the time he was already climbing into bed at ten or eleven each night, you were still clattering around his kitchen, fixing yourself dinner; if anything, he had warned his parents in advance not to scold you for eating so late, gently explaining that it was simply what you had always known.
He had never complained that you spoke too loudly. He understood it was woven into the fabric of who you were, into the warmth and unabashed spirit of Spaniards themselves.
He hadn't laughed when, cheeks burning with embarrassment, you shyly asked him to teach you how to kiss properly, how to make out, or how to suck him off without feeling awkward and afraid. And when the night finally came that you entrusted him with your virginity, he held your hand the entire time, infinitely patient, infinitely gentle, taking every care not to hurt you more than he had to.
He was the first person whose mere presence could fill you with happiness, as if simply existing beside you was enough to quiet every storm that had ever lived inside your heart.
Even now, sometimes, you still couldn't quite believe how lucky you had been. Barely a year and a half earlier, you had been convinced you were a lost cause. You didn't particularly like yourself, and you couldn't imagine ever meeting someone you genuinely loved who, impossibly, loved you just as fiercely in return.
Until then, every boy you'd ever known had remained exactly that — a friend. Nothing more. At first, you hadn't thought there was anything wrong with that. Back in high school you hadn't cared much about dating, you'd been too busy studying.
But once university began and you watched every one of your closest friends drift into serious relationships while you'd never even been kissed, doubt quietly settled inside your chest. You became convinced that your impossibly high standards, your complete inability to feel attracted to anyone who wasn't somehow reminiscent of Anakin Skywalker or Bucky Barnes, and your hopelessly unrealistic idea of love — carefully stitched together by every early-2000s romantic comedy you'd ever watched — had condemned you to spend the rest of your life alone. Even your mother used to tell you stories like the ones in films simply didn't happen in real life and no one will treat you like a princess.
Maybe a conversation about tuna sandwich spread wasn't exactly the kind of grand romantic beginning those films would've chosen, but despite your faltering faith, you found your love anyway.
From the outside, it probably looked complicated. Ilia spent endless hours at the rink, and during the competitive season he was constantly flying from one country to another, leaving you behind more often than either of you would've liked. To you, though, it had always felt astonishingly simple.
Or at least it was supposed to remain simple for a little while longer. In August, your placement at the laboratory would come to an end. You would leave Virginia and return to Madrid.
And Ilia would remain on the opposite side of the Atlantic.
You already knew that when the moment finally came to say goodbye, something inside you would split cleanly in two, but today, Spain had become world champions, and you refused to let tomorrow's sorrow steal even a fragment of today's happiness.
That grief could wait — at least until you were lying awake in bed, overwhelmed by your own thoughts, staring into the darkness and waiting for sleep to show you mercy.
After you'd sung along (loudly and unapologetically) to nearly every song on Bad Bunny's album, the two of you pulled into a 7-Eleven to fill up the tank and grab a few groceries. You were both far too lazy for a proper shopping trip, and you had neither the patience to spend the evening making paella nor your mother's effortless talent for it, so in the end you settled for tortilla chips, gummy worms, nachos, a bottle of Californian red wine, and, for Ilia, dino chicken nuggets and Coke Zero. You already knew he didn't like drinking alcohol, and you were almost certain his grand declaration that he'd keep you company with the wine would end exactly the way it always did — with him grimacing after the first glass before quietly surrendering.
You decided to take advantage of the fact that you were miles away from home, that Ilia's Honda had heavily tinted rear windows, and that the parking lot lay almost entirely deserted. Finding even a moment alone had always been difficult for the two of you; your roommate studied online and was almost always home, while the mere possibility that Ilia's parents — or Liza — might overhear the two of you in his bedroom filled you both with unbearable embarrassment, so you learned to seize whatever scraps of privacy fate happened to offer, no matter how unconventional the place happened to be.
As you'd promised Ilia, you eagerly blew him in the back seat, urging him to stop being such a gentleman and come in your mouth. He found your boldness incredibly hot, and the moment his breathing steadied and the stars stopped dancing behind his eyes, he kissed the small, remaining droplets of his release from the corner of your mouths, settled you comfortably against the seat and slipped a hand between your thighs. As he fingered you, he held your gaze, praising you softly in Russian, just the way you liked it. The only sounds filling the quiet car were squelches and your whimpers. When it was over, Ilia casually wiped his fingers on the fabric of what you considered that hideous T-shirt with the giant, green FIFA World Cup logo before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to your sweaty forehead.
"So?" he asked in a deep voice, searching your face. "Was it good?"
He always asked. He needed to know you'd enjoyed yourself, needed the reassurance that he hadn't disappointed you, that there was nothing to complain about when it came to your sex life. Failing to satisfy you would have felt like his greatest personal defeat. He was just as ambitious and determined off the ice as he was on it.
"Yeah," you whispered, still hazy from the pleasure he'd just given you. "But not as good as Ferran's goal."
He snorted, a grin tugging at the corner of his almost red lips.
"Well, yeah. Obviously. That goal was kind of an absolute masterclass."
You let out a quiet laugh, straightening up in your seat before wrapping your arms tightly around him. His hand drifted lazily across your back while you buried your face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, breathing in the faint scent of his cologne.
More than anything, you wanted to slip your index finger beneath his necklace, tug him closer by the chain, and draw his face to yours so you could kiss him until the sun dipped below the horizon and your lips were swollen and aching. You wanted to take his hat off, play gently with his hair, make him slowly peel your T-shirt and bra off your body, guide his mouth to your breasts so he could lavish them with unhurried, tender kisses and delicate flicks of his tongue, and then you desperately wanted to roll him onto his back and ride him, admiring him from above. You loved the way he writhed beneath you, the way he panted heavily, and the way he caught his gold chain between his teeth. It was the most beautiful sight you had ever seen.
The two of you were far too exhausted to give in to those desires, though, and with a three-hour drive home still ahead of you, you reluctantly climbed back into the front seats and set off on the journey back.
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When you finally pulled into Tatiana and Roman's driveway, the very first thing the two of you did was take a shower, washing away the sweat, the dust, and the lingering scent of the stadium before changing into comfortable clothes. You slipped into one of Ilia's oversized T-shirts with Toothless printed across the front, while, much to your quiet satisfaction, he put on the Spain jersey you'd bought for him.
Over the dinner Tatiana had prepared, the two of you recounted the day's adventures, though Roman, more than anyone else, seemed eager to hear what Ilia had thought of his very first football match.
"Too bad you didn't get smacked in the face with the ball," Liza muttered sourly, still bitter that you'd gone on the trip without her, before scooping Mysti into her arms and disappearing upstairs with a theatrical pout. You made a mental note to spend some time with her tomorrow and watch a few episodes of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous together.
"I'm glad you both had fun," Mrs. Malinina said while you stood beside her at the sink, helping wash the dishes. "I hope my son took good care of you."
"He did," you answered with a smile.
After dinner, you and Ilia retreated to his room, where Mila immediately welcomed you, having apparently claimed his pillow as her throne while Ilia was gone. Miu Miu, meanwhile, lounged atop the cat tree and greeted her owner's return with one long, lazy meow that sounded suspiciously like commentary rather than affection.
You settled together on Ilia's bed and called your parents on FaceTime, only to discover they were still out celebrating Spain's victory, delightfully drunk somewhere in the heart of Madrid. Ilia remained adorably intimidated by them, mostly because their English was shaky at best, but somehow he always managed to navigate the language barrier anyway, smiling politely at nearly everything your father said, whether he understood it or not.
Exactly as you'd predicted, you ended up drinking the entire bottle of wine yourself. It wasn't as good as sangria, but you still enjoyed it. It reminded you of two years ago, when you got drunk with your friend while celebrating La Furia Roja winning the European Championship.
The sheer avalanche of emotions had wrung every last ounce of strength from your body, leaving you desperate for nothing more than quiet, and besides, there wasn't anywhere nearby where the two of you could disappear for loud music and dancing. Ilia, on the other hand, wasn't tired in the slightest, so you insisted he boot up Geometry Dash and finally catch up with Jacob on Discord; lately, he'd been consumed either by skating or endless serious events in NYC, while Jacob had spent weeks away at skating camp in Lake Placid, leaving them with almost no time for one of their gaming sessions.
Sleep claimed you quickly, softened by wine and emotional exhaustion, so deeply that you never even heard Ilia's loud, utterly unrestrained shrieks every time his cube smashed into another row of vicious spikes after failing the same level for what was probably the hundredth time.
You stirred only when he finally slipped beneath the duvet and wrapped an arm around your waist from behind. Yawning, you turned to face him. The room lay submerged in darkness, illuminated only by the faint ribbon of yellow LED lights running along the ceiling, bathing everything in a quiet, dreamlike glow.
"What's up?" you murmured drowsily. "Did you and Jacob end up playing FIFA?"
He laughed under his breath.
"Haha, naaah. I think I've had enough football for one day."
A sleepy smile curved your lips as you slowly forced your eyes open, only to feel something impossibly soft brush against your shoulder. You lifted yourself onto one elbow and looked down. Mila had squeezed herself neatly between the two of you, clearly jealous of the attention Ilia was giving you and determined to reclaim at least half of it for herself.
"I'm sorry we didn't celebrate the way you wanted to. We should've gone somewhere other than 7-Eleven or found a Spanish restaurant in New Jersey or something."
"Ils, it's okay," you cut him off. "I was way too tired for anything. I didn't think I would be, but I guess the excitement of actually being at the stadium just overwhelmed me. I got to see it all live, and none of my friends back in Madrid did... so I still won. By the way, thank you..." you whispered, your voice still thick with sleep. "For today. It... it really meant a lot to me."
"Of course." He shifted even closer and pressed a feather-soft kiss against your temple. "I love you."
"Love you too," you replied automatically, absentmindedly stroking the gray fur along Mila's back.
And just like that, everything you'd managed to outrun throughout the day came rushing back. All the worries, the fear, the grief waiting patiently beyond the celebration. The shadow of your return to Spain circled above you both like an approaching storm.
Ilia’s confession, gentle as it was, sent tears spilling into your eyes before you could stop them, and when they rolled silently down your warm cheeks, Ilia brushed them away with both thumbs as though they were something unbearably precious.
He already knew. He didn't have to ask what had shattered your composure so suddenly. Your return to Madrid was drawing nearer with every passing day, and he knew the moment when he'd have to let you go was no longer some distant possibility waiting on the horizon — it was approaching with quiet, merciless certainty.
He also knew he would never convince you to stay forever. You missed your city and family, missed home far too fiercely to abandon all of it and build a life in Fairfax for love alone.
And yet love was a force astonishing enough to blur even the sharpest definitions of home. Because although your heart ached for Madrid, Ilia had become home, too.
The distance waiting between you would almost certainly break both your hearts, but neither of you had any intention of giving up on what you'd built together. You had promised each other that you'd find a way to meet as often as possible, to keep choosing each other despite oceans, time zones, airports, and impossibly busy schedules, though neither of you knew whether your love would prove strong enough to survive a distance so vast it seemed almost cruel.
Still, some things were always worth trying for. After all, if Spain had managed to overcome mighty France in the semifinal, why couldn't the two of you overcome fate?
Or perhaps it had all simply been too beautiful to last forever. Perhaps the time had finally come for the curtain to fall, for the final act to end, for the two of you to step forward beneath the lights, take your bow, and quietly say goodbye.
You didn't know. You hadn't the faintest idea what your future looked like or which way your story would go.
And so, with Mila purring softly between you and Ilia's heartbeat echoing steadily beneath your palm, you made yourself one silent promise: that you would stop worrying about things before they happened, cherish every single one of your remaining days in Virginia and bring home the best memories of the boy who had given you everything you'd ever dreamed of.
Request: (From anon) I was thinking maybe the reader is a figure skater as well, a pretty good one, and she has been training at the club like with his parents maybe since they were little and now that they are older they start to realise that there are some feelings between them, just some fluff or something because i feel like we need it right now😭
Warnings: mentions of childhood isolation and eventually cutting off ties to a parent (but it's like just a bit in the beginning), this is pretty much just fluff with a side of obliviousness
Word Count: 1.6k words
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
A/N: So anyway, in addition to my obsession on the blonde F1 driver (Max) and the blonde Leclerc (Arthur), I now have a blonde figure skater to add to the list. On the bright side tho, fresh inspiration!
Masterlists | Ilia Malinin Masterlist | Taglist
Her friendship with Ilia started out as a tentative thing.
When they met, she didn't have time for friends. Her father made it very clear: if she was to become the best figure skater this country had seen, she wasn't allowed any distractions. Her life consisted of homeschooling and training. No friends, no other hobbies, no distractions.
She wasn't allowed to talk to other skaters at competitions; they were her rivals, she needed to focus on her performance.
She wasn't allowed to make friends at their skating rink; they only wanted to distract her so they could get a leg up.
Moving to Virginia had changed everything.
It was an incredible opportunity to be coached by Tatiana Malinina, and her father had made it very clear that he expected her progress to be exponential. She'd gone to that first session with her heart in her throat and her back ramrod straight.
She never saw him coming.
Even at only ten years old, Ilia was already incredible. Not only on the ice, but outside of it as well.
For three weeks straight, he would sit with her as she put on her skates, prattling on about anything and everything. She never talked back. She was too scared of her father's disapproval.
Until one fateful Tuesday, that is.
Why are koalas not bears? Because they don't have the right koala-fications.
It was stupid.
It still made her laugh.
Leaving the rink that night, her father told her she should stick close to “the Malinin boy”. He was talented, and being close to her coach's son might have its advantages. He also wasn't a threat, since he wasn't her direct competitor.
The next day, she said her first words to him, and that's how it started.
For years, he was her only friend. He cheered her on at every competition, practiced every skill with her. He was her rock.
Moving out at eighteen and deciding to cut contact with her father had been soul-crushing, and she wouldn't have been able to do it without him.
For three months straight, he would come over to her apartment every day, and his voice would chase away the guilt. He picked her up from her therapy sessions every week, helping her undo the years of damage that isolation had caused. He introduced her to his friends, and helped her make her own.
He was everything. Her best friend.
And now, ten years after their first meeting, she couldn't imagine her life without him.
“You sure you don't wanna just go to bed?”
She felt his muffled “no” more than she heard it, head resting on her thighs with his arms around her waist. A full day after the competition and he was still exhausted. But then again, what else can anyone expect after he landed seven quads in one program and broke four world records in one night?
They were on the couch, as they had been since that morning. The How To Train Your Dragon trilogy had been rewatched, and they'd now moved on to watching Avatar: The Last Airbender for the millionth time.
She scrolled through her Tik Tok, smiling at all the people praising her best friend. There was little that made her happier than seeing him get his well-deserved flowers.
That is, until a specific video caught her attention.
It was footage from the Grand Prix final. On screen, she cheered as he landed his seventh quad. The footage then cut to him skating towards the rink’s exit, a bright smile on his face. It ended with them hugging, with Ilia squeezing her tight, lifting her clean off the ground in his excitement.
That wasn’t what caught her attention though. The music playing in the background was Taylor Swift’s The Alchemy, and when combined with the words written on the screen, it had her brows furrowing.
Find someone who looks at you like Ilia Malinin and (Y/n) (Y/l/n) look at each other
She clicked on the comment icon, scrolling through them as well.
They’re literally soulmates😭❤️
They’re the reason I believe in love🥹🥹
Can they get married already???
She couldn’t help but laugh.
How silly of their fans to think there’s anything romantic between them, when it was clearly all platonic love.
She turned the screen down so Ilia could see it.
“Look at what I just found.”
With a barely-suppressed yawn, he took the phone in one hand, rubbing his head against her thigh sleepily.
She saw him scroll through a lot more comments than she herself did, and felt him smile against her skin.
“You know, one of these days we really need to announce our relationship, the fans will go insane.”
She furrowed her brows.
What relationship?
“...Relationship? But they know we’re friends already.”
“No, I mean announce that we’re dating.”
Her brain grinded to a halt.
Dating?
“Dating?”
He hummed, still scrolling through the comments.
“We’re dating? Since when?”
His hand stopped, and she felt his body tense.
“Since June?”
It sounded more like a question than an answer. When she didn’t say anything, he sat up, turning towards her.
“We went to see the How To Train Your Dragon live action, then went to dinner, and I told you I love you, and you said it back.”
The cogs in her mind were turning.
“I thought you meant it in a friend way.”
“I held your hand the entire night.”
“Your hands were cold.”
“I’ve been introducing you as my girlfriend for the past six months.”
“I thought you meant girl space friend. As in a friend who is a girl. A female friend.”
She couldn’t tell if he was hurt or baffled.
“So every time I took you on a date, got you flowers, gave you my shirts to wear… you thought that was all platonic?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No.”
They stayed quiet for a few more seconds, as she slowly ran through all of their interactions from the past six months in her head.
“Wait, so when you said you love me, you mean… you mean you love me? You mean–”
“I’m in love with you, yes.”
She looked at him.
“Since when?”
He shrugged.
“Honestly, I can’t tell you for sure. I just woke up one day and realised that I don’t like being away from you, and every day I don’t spend time with you is a wasted day in my eyes. I realised that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen before, and I’m never more at peace than when I’m with you. I realised that the moment you walked into my life, home stopped being a place and happiness stopped being a feeling, they both just became you.”
She shook her head.
“Well yeah, but that’s just friendship, right? Like that’s what happens when you’ve been friends for long enough, I feel those same things for you, that doesn’t mean we’re in love.”
He squeezed his lips together, clearly fighting off a smile.
“Hmm, so that means you feel this for all your friends?”
She crossed her arms, huffing.
“Well no, this is just a you thing.”
He blinked at her with that awful expression of his. The cocky one. The one that said “I was right and you were wrong”.
“But it’s because you’re my best friend, not because we’re in love.”
The smile was a bit too close to breaking out now.
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.”
He was grinning now.
She had the crazy urge to wipe that smile off his face by any means necessary.
Speaking of which…
“If we’re supposedly ‘dating’, then why haven’t you kissed me? As far as I know, that’s what couples do.”
He tilted his head.
“I was waiting for you to initiate it. I wanted to go at your pace to make sure I didn’t push you into it. I was raised to be a gentleman, you know?”
She rolled her eyes.
“But hey, since you’re not in love with me, and I’m apparently not in love with you either, why are you thinking about kissing me?”
That… was actually a really good point.
“You started it!”
“I didn’t say anything about kissing.”
“Well no, but— you uh— you were smiling—”
She waved her hands about, trying to make her point.
He just laughed.
“Ugh, and you know what? So what? So what if I thought about wiping that stupid smirk off your face and kissing seemed like a good way to do it? And so what if I wanna talk to you all the time? And so what if I don’t like being apart from you, and you’re the first person I wanna talk to every day, and your arms are the safest place I’ve ever found? That doesn’t mean I’m in love with you.”
He just kept laughing.
And yet…
“Okay, so hearing that out loud it kind of does sound like I’m in love with you.”
He pulled her into his arms, kissing the top of her head.
“Nice of you to notice. On the bright side, I’m in love with you too, so this is good news.”
She pressed against him until they were lying on the couch, his arms around her shoulders, hers around his waist. Her head was buried in his collarbone, relishing in the warmth of his skin.
“You’re never gonna let me live this down are you?”
“I’m gonna tell this story to our grandkids.”
He was such a jerk.
“So does that mean we’re officially dating now or not?”
“Just kiss me already, you dick.”
Unsurprisingly, Ilia was as good a kisser as he was a skater.
Hope you guys liked that! If you did don't forget to like, comment, and reblog. I'm a sucker for praise so feel free to interact with me.
Now if you need me, I'll be rewatching the 2025 GPF cause in my mind, that's how the Olympics went.
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