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It was a simmering summer day in Boston, little to no breeze in the air, the temperature rising to a sweltering degree. All while the apartment complex’s air conditioning unit had for some reason malfunctioned and stalled out, Ilya sat on the couch of his Boston apartment. Shirt off, in just his underwear body sweating so badly he was sticking uncomfortably to the leather sofa whilst scrolling through the channel log of his television trying to distract himself from the heat.
While they usually had summer practices to keep in top shape it was a week break, a week they get off every few weeks of practices, a week where there were no practices, no PR stunts, and no pub crawling or bar hopping with Svetlana or any of his other friends. Just Ilya, himself, and his apartment. He had tried to contact Shane to see if he was free anytime during the summer, a little meet up wouldn’t hurt, after the cottage trip last summer. Even in this heat Ilya could get it up for Shane anytime, any place, anywhere. Although his texts and calls landed on deaf ears as it seemed, as he held his phone up to his face looking at the contact of his now boyfriends which was still labeled [Jane<3] and their messaging logs he could see that although the messages read as delivered, that the beautiful man with the constellation of freckles dusting his cheeks had yet to open or read said messages.
Shane hadn’t replied in about a week an a half which wouldn’t be beyond the normality between them during the hockey season, even now that they were officially a couple between themselves but on off season Shane would usually be the first to see about making plans or texting the Russian, so Ilya had begun having a twisting feeling of dread in his stomach. Could something have happened to him? Could he be sick or injured in a hospital somewhere? Even though Yuna and David knew of their relationship it could’ve slipped their minds to let Ilya know, It was odd for him to not even have read his messages let alone ignore every phone call and text.
Ilya was starting to spiral, what if’s and what could have happened scenarios played in his head over and over again, small glimpses of his mother on their bathroom floor flooded his mind after a while and Ilya had, had enough sitting up and looking at his phone more intensely now he shot off another few rounds of texts to Shane and even a few to Yuna. After not receiving a reply for either in ten minutes Ilya was done waiting, he swiped out of his messaging app and pulled up google, typing in as many searches as he could fire off in the five minutes of searching he did, trying to find out if there had been any news leaked or shared about Shane Hollander’s health, injuries, or anything stating he was alive and well within the last week.
[Is Shane Hollander sick?]
[Is Shane Hollander hurt?]
[Shane Hollander, hospital?]
[any fucking interview Shane Hollander last 7 days]
All searching he ended up clicking on an article mentioning Shane being somewhere today in the header, it wound up leading him to a small blog of a girl who was obsessed with Scott Hunter and his boyfriend Kip, having done small interviews with them and sharing undeniably cute pictures of the couple from joint interviews and games. Ilya scoffed, if he wanted to see this he’d have looked at the old fucks Instagram, he was about to click off the site and continue searching for information on Shane when he dropped his phone, it accidentally clattering to the floor and sliding under the coffee table. Ilya groaned as he had to pry himself from the leather sofa as if he was glued to it, dropping down to get his phone and heading back to the sticky pit that was his sofa. He hadn’t turned his phone over yet but when he did he about had a heart attack, in the midst of dropping the phone Ilya had scrolled down the girls blog and there in big letters was something he’d never thought he’d see in his lifetime [ Shane Hollander struts the runway for first ever Reebok X Rolex fashion show in Paris, France! ]
Ilya stared at the blog post in shock and relief for another minute or two before scrolling through and checking the comments on the post, many fans of the blog were screaming about hot that ‘neurodivergent man’ was, and how sexy it was seeing him out of his hockey clothes, like when he was back dating Rose Landry.
Although the top comment being from the blog poster herself was linking to the live feeds of the fashion show that was supposed to start any minute now, Ilya shook his head and sighed, clicking on the link that took him to a site where a web cam was facing a stage, he could faintly make out the Reebok X Rolex on the wall where the models would be entering from. Ilya jumped a little as the loud music began and light began strobing, flashing on and off, over and over again until it finally fell to pitch blackness, after a suspenseful ten second wait a spot light was shining down on the top of the stairs in front of the walkway, illuminating one especially slow, boring, fucking hockey player that Ilya knew all to well. Ilya himself was surprised at the gasp he had gasped as the cameraman zoomed in on Shane, who had started his dissent down the stairs leading to the runway.
He was covered in some kind of body oil that made his darker completion shine so brightly like a million diamonds in the sky, his hair was gelled up and back for the most part, except for one strand that hung over his forehead falling to his brow bone. The outfit he wore had Ilya scrambling to take screenshots of the show as it pulled in closer to the Asian-Canadian male, Shane was dressed in baggy cargo like pants, parts having been patched with squares to make it abstract, he wore some classic Reebok shoes, black in color, an oversized jacket was hanging off his shoulders, his shirt was a cropped male’s athletic shirt with a mesh undershirt. Ilya was going feral with the visuals he was being fed, he kept screenshotting as if his life depended on it, he was happy his partner was alive, but now that he knew that Ilya junior was having trouble processing just how hot their partner looked.
As the camera continued to zoom in Ilya continued to notice more details, a gold Rolex link checker necklace graced the throat of the brown eyed man matching the golden ring and bracelet he also had on, as he got a better look of his face he got a little irked as it seemed Shane’s freckles had been covered up and replaced with glitter freckles and a slight shimmery eyeshadow, Ilya grumbled about how they should’ve kept his original freckles with golden glitter freckle accents, but that’s just his opinion. Obviously had been done by the makeup artists at the show, Shane knew how much he loved his freckles and didn’t want him to cover them up. As they were a constellation that had kept Ilya grounded in some of his most vulnerable times, a place he could look without making eye contact during a breakdown and were able to count them to calm himself into being able to come back down to reality, to be able to wake up from nightmare happening in his head even when he wasn’t sleeping.
Ilya continued to watch the show, screenshotting Shane anytime he was on the screen and smiling like a love sick fool, the show seemed to come to a close as Shane posed awkwardly at the end of the runway, lights dimming as he and the rest of the models walked off. Ilya clicked off the link once Shane had left the stage and a message [ Thanks for Watching ] popped up on a blank screen, going back to look at all the screenshots he had taken.
All the sudden his phone began to ring, the contact of [ Jane<3 ] flashing across his phone, he fumbled with his phone for a second before catching it, taking a deep breath and finally answering the call.
”Hollander…” Ilya said gruffly, shifting on his couch still half-way excited from how hot and ethereal Shane had looked on that runway, glad was he that only he got to fuck and would get to fuck that beautiful man, hopefully for the rest of his life.
”Ilya! I’m so sorry, momager took my phone this week after I accidentally embarrassed us in front of the CEO’s cause I was reading your messages on my Lock Screen and not listening to them. And so I wouldn’t be unfocused during this because it was a good brand deal, so I agreed to let her take it for the week! I sent you a message but it apparently didn’t go through, but I did send an email as well. I miss you…” Shane rambled out in a rush as soon as he had heard Ilya mutter so much as a word.
”I miss you too.” Ilya chuckled out “My email full, I don’t get email cause I don’t know how to fix” Ilya said as he looked down at his hand, before continuing “I thought you were hurt again, was scared, like bad nightmare, you were great in fashion show. Pretty.” He finished smiling at the slight gasp from the other end of the phone.
“Oh my god, you saw it???” Shane whispered into the phone, from the muffled sounds afterwards Ilya could tell Shane was hiding his face in his hands. Ilya smiled, he could never ever stop loving this boring fucking hockey player, the only ‘problem’ in his entire life that he had never ever wanted to ever go away.
”You were beautiful, took my breath away. So pretty.” Ilya sultry voiced said through the phone as he smirked at the sound Shane let out. “But don’t let them cover freckles ever again, they need their own show, not to be covered like imperfection.” Ilya said, voice dropping a few octaves in seriousness.
“Ilya, you know the rules in modeling, no distracting features.” Shane sighed out, shaking his head at his boyfriend's antics.
“Then we change it, rules boring anyway. Freckles stay.” Ilya growled out, letting out a small laugh at the end of his sentence.
”Or maybe we keep them between just us and at hockey, like our times together.” Shane said into the phone, letting out a laugh as well. ”I’ll be in Boston next week, do you want to see them up close and personal again?” Shane asked, voice laced with his own gruffness now.
”Fuck….yes. You come to Boston, need to see that constellation in person and not on a phone anymore.” Ilya spoke, voice drifting off at the end.
”What constellation?” Shane asked, clearly confused as to why his boyfriend had brought up stars in the middle of their talk. Ilya smiled to himself and sighed, beginning to speak again.
“Don’t worry about, they are a constellation of my own. All to myself.” Ilya said, as he smiled thinking about the freckles dusting the other man's cheeks. They continued to talk for hours afterwards, promising to not cut contact off ever again for a week no matter the reason and talking about what food Ilya could make Shane once he got to Boston.
The day had started out a shitty spiral of emotions but had ended in a cosmic collision of the two fated stars once again. Two that were meant to make their own constellations collide and form a new one together and forever.