Chapter Text
August 2012
The pictures leak on an otherwise pleasant Wednesday. Ilya’s mid-workout when the nightmare begins, and he hasn’t run from anything in his life, but he runs from this. After the fifth call from his agent, he puts his phone on airplane mode, his head between his knees and tries to figure this out.
He could deny. It’s a solid option. Find a look-alike, buy his statement. It’s pretty standard practice among hockey pros; he’s pretty sure there are agencies specialising in this shit. Granted, they’re typically hiding a player snorting coke off someone’s tits, but the principle is sound. Find a guy, pay him five hundred grand to say it was him holding up that twink against the wall—Maybe more than five hundred grand. Whatever, Ilya’s good for it, his contract alone—
Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ, his contract. His team. His family—
Kiselev storms his apartment at the end of the day, which is fair enough. He’s old school, is Kiselev, and he’s seen Ilya through some tough times. They do this awkward song and dance—was it you? Of course not, fuck you; alright, kid, cool it, I had to ask—and come up with a plan. He is going to give a presser, keep his head straight—hah—and they’ll rustle up someone who could pass as him if you blur your eyes. Kisel thinks he can find someone for a hundred grand tops; some gay guy from LA or New York who would love the attention. Win-win and all that. Ilya gets his life back, the anonymous guy gets his five minutes of fame and some cash to make the NDA go down. All is well that ends well.
Well, almost.
***
He will deny it at the heavenly gates, but seeing Jane flash on his screen the night before the presser is a balm on his fucking soul. He hasn’t talked to—anyone, really. Not his teammates, not his brother, not his fucking coach. Only him and Kisel and a bunch of PR guys who are trying to calculate how outraged he should be, how much disgust for the very idea he should project.
So, when the first thing Hollander has to say is You fucking idiot, he gets a bit defensive. When Hollander doesn’t follow it up with how are you or even a Canadian I hope you’re hanging in there, bud, his chest starts to tighten, and ears start to ring. When Hollander, then, starts listing PR solutions and best ways to reject the allegations without coming across as insincere, Ilya starts getting properly mad.
How dare he? How dare this man whom Ilya has fucked into incoherence, whom he kissed and hugged and lent his clothes and—And he is just assuming that Ilya is going to deny this. It’s a given, is it, that Ilya is going to stand there and reject the allegations of queerness, like they’re in the nineteenth fucking century? Like they’re back in the fucking motherland, and the admission could mean guys coming to your house with guns and bags? They’re in fucking Boston, the year is twenty twelve, and Ilya—
Ilya is going to deny it, right? It’s what he was planning. It’s what he paid all those crisis management experts tens of thousands of dollars to arrange. He’s going to find some self-actualised gay guy to help him hide, to help him fucking lie like a little bitch—
So Ilya ends up saying some shit. Hollander, who never backed down from anything, says shit back. They end up screaming at each other for longer than is probably wise, considering they’re on the phone and can barely hear each other. He can hear some, though. The last words he makes out before he gets his wits back and hangs up are, Go ahead and ruin your life, asshole. Lose your job, lose your visa. Get sent back to fucking Russia for fucking some twink up the wall in fucking Ibiza. See if you live to see the Olympics—
Nothing he hadn't thought about himself, frankly. Nothing that’s untrue. Mother Russia loves her hockey players, looks after them, gives them more gifts than anyone deserves. Only, what she gives with one hand, she can take away with the other—and the other one typically carries a garotte. Hollander is not wrong.
Odd, though. Isn’t it? Isn’t it odd that Ilya knows full well that Hollander is correct? That Ilya was always going to lie and hide and fold? So why, then, is he opening his laptop? What is he doing? His ears are ringing, hands are shaking almost—but not quite—too hard to type, and he is so angry he can barely see—But he is doing something. Click. Record. Click.
“Hi, hello. Ilya Rozanov here, Captain and star of Boston Bears. First pick of draft, best player in the fucking country. I hear people talk about my business--” It’s not that he’s not aware of what he’s saying; it’s not even that he’s particularly against saying it. It’s just that he’s not sure he is saying it and not some primordial spirit haunting his body. He’s recording too, video and all, and the little head on the screen looks—deranged. His eyes are wild, hair a mess, lips stretched into a grimace. The words come out deep and guttural, like they’re coming from some faraway place. Like they've had to fight through a lifetime’s worth of shame and fear. “Why think this is okay, I do not know, but only cowards lie, and I am never coward. You ask, I tell you. I fuck girls, I fuck guys. Sometimes both. Feels fucking great. Pretty boy in my arms is as good as pretty girl. Only important thing they beg for it. Only important thing I rock their shit.”
Time grows strange after that. Soupy and slow. He calls Kisel at some point, lets him quit, signs that he doesn’t fault him for breaking their contract. Nobody from the Bears calls, but his phone starts blowing up with unknown numbers so he puts the thing in the freezer and—doesn’t do anything else. He’s done plenty to fuck himself up already; better not get any new ideas. He’s—rich. Not obscenely, but has enough for a decade at least. His visa is set for another four months, and when it goes—Plenty of places to go. Cuba. Eastern Europe. Fucking China. It’s fine. He won’t—
Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ.
He doesn’t know how much time passes, precisely, but his world twists yet again, half a day to a day later, when Scott fucking Hunter almost breaks his door down.
***
Ilya is slow, admittedly—shock makes him stupid and slow, always has, it's just it typically takes a lot to shock him—but he’s pretty sure that the six-four, wild-eyed beast of a man looming on his door is Scott Hunter. Captain of the New York Admirals. America’s most beloved hockey star. They’ve played against each other. Odd that he can’t remember how it went down. Odd that he looks—bigger here, somehow. You’d think he’d be more frightening on the ice, where he’s pretty much unstoppable, but no. He’s here, wearing jeans and a designer hoodie, and he looks like the type of trouble you’re not sure you will survive.
Is this where he gets his ass kicked? How does he even know where Ilya lives? Should he call 911—
Whatever shows on Ilya’s face, whatever his body did to make itself into a more defensible target, it drives Hunter to take a large step back, then another, until he’s backed up to the wall of the corridor. Then he swallows, curls into himself, shoulders drooping like he’s trying to make himself look smaller. It doesn’t work, but he looks a little less like the type of muscle hired to reliably solve problems.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” says Scott fuckign Hunter. “You look like hell.”
“Fuck you,” he manages to say back, mostly because he learned how to talk shit in English before anything else. Even when you can't understand the chirps, you can cover your bases.
“Hey, no, I—Hell of a brave thing you did. Hell of a thing. I’m—“ Scott Hunter shrugs, looks around. “Can I come in? Don’t want—“ He waves a hand. “People hearing. It’s a madhouse out there. Cops’re holding the press back; have a blockade and everything. It’s a matter of time before someone sneaks through and sets up Bluetooth mics.”
Ilya opens his mouth to—Tell him off, invite him to jump off a bridge. Sock him in the teeth.
“Sure.”
***
Having Scott Hunter in his penthouse is just about strange enough to kick Ilya out of whatever paralysis gripped him earlier. It’s—He hasn’t thought much about the older man, other than to vaguely admire his play and despise how bland and empty he is. There was never anything there, not passion or rage or even simple, raw triumph, just inorganic determination to win. His hockey was good enough to make up the difference, but that’s not anything Ilya cared enough about. Fuck hockey, honestly. Fuck everything. The only thing that ever mattered was that you don’t lose, that you never lose, and Hunter lost each time he pantomimed a game just because of his contract or duty or whatever the fuck.
Only now—Only now he’s not so fucking empty, is he? Only now he’s looking at him with those big blue eyes full of sympathy, eyebrows all determined and shit, like he’s—Like he fucking—
“—changed the world, kid,” Hunter is saying, torso leaning forward, elbows planted on his spread knees. If he’s affected by the third double whiskey he’s drunk, he’s not showing it. Fuck him, then. Ilya’s on his second vodka, and his vision is swimming. "Lord knows pulled plenty of mad shit in your career, but what you did for the world, what you did for us—Nothing can top it. Nothing can ever top it.”
Ilya sits and breathes, fighting to focus on the insane gibberish coming out of Hunter’s mouth. He—For whom? What’s this us, asshole? What the fuck do you mean us—
“I do not under-stand,” he grits out. “What us? What is this shit, Hunter?”
“Us as in men who fuck men,” Hunter says. “You fuck both, I know, but I don’t. Men only. Always.”
So that happens, and Ilya shuts down even more, because—Because Scott fucking Hunter came to his house to—And he looks about as fucked up about it all as Ilya does. More, in some ways, because when Hunter hugs him—swoops down and plucks him from his chair like some sort of gay bird of prey—Ilya can feel how much his shoulders are shaking, breath choppy and uneven. He’s every bit as fucked up as Ilya is—
“Sucks,” he says, for some reason. “Sucks shit, Hunter. I never want—“
“Who would be mad enough to want this, Roz,” Hunter says, growls a little above his head, sounding halfway to fucking feral.
“You’re, what, nineteen? Twenty—“
“Fuck you, twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one, then. An infant. And they’ve got fucking—vans down there. News crews. It’s sick and you’re going to sue them until they can’t even afford to cross the Styx—“
Ilya stops listening to the crazy American at some point. He’s doing a fantastic villain speech on his own, doesn’t need Ilya’s input at all, which leaves space to focus on other things. Showboating aside, Ilya tries to be as honest with himself as he can, and his antisocial tendencies aren’t a secret he kept against himself. Keeping people at a distance, in this hyper-competitive life, was a given. On the flip side, the lack of baggage means lack of backup; his teammates never expected or required his help outside of the ice, nor have they offered it. In his more fanciful moments, he thinks Kisel would have otherwise been there for him; that he’d earned some loyalty there. Not for this, though. Never for this. Patriots don’t feel loyalty to unnatural perverts; it’s bad for your health.
So, what is he to think about the impossible Yank roaming around his apartment? Scott fucking Hunter, a wet blanket in every conceivable way—only, not so wet, maybe, cause he’s a thirty-something NHL superstar who never got caught. Ilya’s barely been playing for five minutes, and he’s already fucked it.
What the fuck—What the fuck—What the fuck—
***
He naps at some point; Hunter is still there when he wakes up. Not only is he there, he threw a blanket over Ilya, tucked him in like a lunatic, and is now making food. Ilya for sure hadn’t had food in his fridge; he gets his meals delivered like every other pro athlete. So where did he even—
“Ibuprofen and water are on the counter,” Hunter calls when he hears him padding into the kitchen area. “Not that you’ll need it. You hardly drank anything you fucking lightweight, and you’re an infant besides. Hangovers only really start happening after twenty-eight.”
Ilya takes the ibuprofen anyway—they’re for him, aren’t they?—and sits at the bar stool, tries to make anything make sense. His throat is killing him, his back hurts, his eyes are scratchy and he—
“What the fuck?”
“Hush. I know who you party with, kid; some mediocre eggs are far from the worst thing that happened in this kitchen.”
Well. Not untrue. Ilya has had some pretty wild parties. Granted, there were fewer mental breakdowns and more coke and hookers, but—
“Here, have some scramble and bacon. I’ll throw together a smoothie after. Oh, and coffee—“
Nothing much gets said for the next hour or so. Hunter seems to be going through some sort of mental health episode and Ilya—Ilya is too short on people who want to feed him. Whatever misplaced guilt is fueling this disaster, it’s going to run out soonish, and Hunter will remember they’ve never even spoken to each other, and that the fact they both fuck men is hardly a bridge built. Might as well get free food out of it. Hell, might as well get some free dick out of it. He’s never considered fucking players other than Hollander—
He cuts that train of thought right off, takes a big scalding gulp of coffee to hurt him back into coherence. Jesus. Alright—
“This is weird, Hunter,” he croaks, when the ants under his skin start leaking acid. “What do you want?”
“To help,” Hunter says. Looks earnest about it, too. Maybe a bit unhinged around the eyes, and there’s always the endless tension in his shoulders and back, but ultimately, like he means it. “I was sincere, before. I’m twenty-nine, and don’t know if I ever would have had the courage to do what you did. I’d have sooner quit. Or, more realistically, I’d have kept my head down until I retired and disappeared from public life. Hid out on some Midwest farm somewhere.”
Huh. Ilya has to chew through this one. Never coming out is—Nuts, yeah, but not strange. Christ knows Ilya never would, if he didn’t have to. But quitting? It never even crossed his mind. The option just isn’t there. Why the fuck would he quit? It’s not him who has a problem with the straights. If they want to kick him out, they will have to fight and win. Like hell is Ilya going to let anyone have anything of his without a fight to the death.
“Quit is ridiculous,” he says. Snaps, really. “They yank the game from my cooling corpse. Fuck them.”
Hunter nods, expression softening a little, maybe. It’s fucking strange. “Fuck them, yeah. So, I’m going to help. Are you—Not going to lie, kid, things are pretty nuts out there. I know the responsible thing would be to make you sleep some more, get your head on straight, but I don’t know if we can afford to delay any more.”
We? Again with the fucking we—
“There is no we, Hunter. Is what I am saying. I am not your friend—“
“Yes, you are.” Hunter leans forward, jaw working, looking so ferocious that Ilya has to fight the impulse to knock him out before he gets murdered and skinned for leather. “You changed the world, Roz. I am in your corner no matter what, so you might as well shut up and get used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”
What. What. What.
“Right. Glad that’s settled. Now: about the practicalities. The league sent an email around. We shouldn't talk about it even among ourselves, definitely not to outsiders. How’s your agent? I heard you were working with—
“Kisel quit.” Ilya shrugs, tries to make it chill. Relaxed. “After I—So I not work with agent, at present.”
“Jesus. Jesus. Alright, well, that doesn’t really matter. I have a list of names I was going to recommend you contact to replace him anyway. Mariam Haddad would be my first pick. She’s a shark; won’t let you down.”
Yeah? That’s really fucking likely.
“Secondly, immigration. I’ve spoken to Doyle, cause his sister is this bigshot lawyer in Manhattan. She is in criminal law primarily but has taken many immigration cases before. She is more than qualified to handle that front.”
Ilya swallows around the lump in his throat, digs fingers into his thighs. Focus. “Visa is through team. Work visa. Boston Bears lawyer handle it before.”
Perhaps predictably, Hunter’s lips press together into an unhappy line. “Best get ahead of that, kid. I—I don’t want to alarm you, and, obviously, I was never in the room for these conversations, but— Malloy is not thrilled. And your teammates—“
Ilya’s jaw clenches, and he does what he always does--burn the fear, alchemise it into fury. “I am the best player on team. Made captain this year. They not get rid of me over bad press.”
Hunter is quiet for several beats. Somehow, the tightness in Ilya’s chest increases yet again. He has to focus on taking in long, careful breaths. “They might. And, more importantly, I don’t like the idea of leaving a young queer player on a team with Kovalev and Hammersmith.”
Fuck you, Hunter. Fuck you and—
“Then fuck me, yes? They keep me, is bad. Trade me, just as bad. NHL not friend of—“ Say it. Say it, coward. “Queer player. I need to stay. I need to play.”
Hunter sighs, resettles the weight in his shoulders. “It’s already floating in the aether that they’re looking for a club that can afford your contract. I think it’s time to contact Kathy Doyle, then see about hiring an agent.”
Ilya very carefully doesn't shout or break his knuckles on his jaw, or do any of the million things he typically does when he feels this cornered. Fantastic. This is just—Fucking great.
“Thankfully, there is a practical solution here that you appear not to have considered,” Hunter continues. “Meaning the Admirals.”
Wait, what?
Hunter exhales a forceful breath, putting on something like an exhausted half-smile. “I have some sway there, believe it or not. They will take you if I tell them to—they might even if I don’t. You’re a superstar, kid, a generational talent. If they can get you on a steal because your management are bigoted idiots, they will jump at the chance.”
He has to be lying, Ilya just can’t figure out why he would? He gets nothing out of a ruse like this, and Ilya has very little to offer that he can’t get for himself. Well, other than the obvious, and he can’t—
Well. He might. Ilya tries to clear his head, figure this out. He’s never had to think about the possibility of being used for sex, but if that’s the price, he’ll pay it. It might even be a relief to figure out the currency early on. Do this, get this, simple math, perfect for dumb hockey players. Besides, pro athletes already abuse their bodies to make money. Letting an objectively handsome man use his--might not be bad?
He tries to imagine it, tries to look at Scott Hunter like he thinks a woman might. Like maybe a gay boy toy might. What would that even look like? Would he have to pretend to be into it? That--might suck, but it might not and, more importantly, he should be able to handle it. If he tries, he might even grow to be into it. Ilya’s hardly shy; he’s let people do crazy shit to him, with him, for free—
“You would—offer this,” he says carefully. “Offer your fancy lawyer friend and big shot agent and place on your team.”
Hunter’s brows furrow. “I mean—I did just say? I’m on your side on this, kid.”
Ilya makes a noncommittal noise. He could still be lying. Could be delusional or just suffering some sort of break from reality. Taking anything on faith just because Ilya’s feeling distinctly psychotic as well, is dumb as hell. Men tend to disappoint; this tendency seems to be true across continents, ages, classes.
“Alright, so lets call, yes? The lawyer first.”
He hadn’t meant to come across challenging; he was going for neutral. Alas, old habits and all that; Ilya is a good actor about some things, but is terrible at faking things on the fly. Give him some time to think through his options, he can build himself a roadmap of possibilities. If he’s going in blind, he’s going in aggressive every time.
“Good call, kid. Rebecca should be expecting us.”