Work Text:
Call started
Call ended
Jane: ?
Jane: did you mean to call me?
Ilya wasn’t even sure how it happened. One second he had been at the table with Svetlana and a gaggle of her groupie friends. The bottle girls had just brought whiskey on ice. There were sparklers, complimentary champagne—the fanfare and the works.
And yet he had somehow ended up here of all places. Alone in a single stall bathroom staring at his hazy reflection in the mirror. Outside the heavy bass thumped against the door. There was a trail of white powder on the sink counter. Left behind, mostly likely, from the person who had been in here before.
His phone screen lit up—Incoming Call. Before he could think better of it, his thumb moved to accept.
“Hello,” he rumbled into the mic.
Several seconds passed before Shane Hollander’s unmistakable Canadian accent came over the line.
“I–ugh. Hey. I saw that you called me?”
The last time he had heard that voice had been in Vegas. When he had watched Shane on the bed, feet skidding against the sheets as he had touched himself, lit only by the jewel-like strip lights. That had been nearly a month ago. There had been no other correspondence aside from a single text—See you next season.
“Yes. Butt call.”
“Excuse me?”
“Is by accident.”
“Oh,” Shane paused, “Butt dial, you mean.”
“Yes. That.”
He was quiet again, and for a moment, the silence almost read as disappointment.
“Okay then, nevermind. I thought—” in the background came the rustle of what sounded like a stack of papers.
“Where are you?” Ilya interrupted.
There was a pounding pain in his head from the loud music and the drinking. It hadn’t helped that his brother was being a dick as usual—screaming at him over the phone about sending him more fucking money for blow and hookers.
“I’m ugh… at home?”
“Ottawa.”
“Um. Yes?” Shane hesitated, voice laced with uncertainty.
“What are you doing?”
Ilya wasn’t even sure why he was asking. His phone was vibrating, probably Svetlana asking where he was, and soon someone would knock on the door to use the bathroom. But the dark room was a soothing balm for his pounding head. It was nice, for a moment, to just focus on Shane’s voice with the rest of the world muffled outside.
“I’m ugh. Building a desk. Or—well. Trying to at least.”
Ilya snorted. It was just so… Shane. He could easily imagine him now, brow furrowed as he flipped through a little instruction book and sorted through labeled screws.
“Hollander,” he huffed, “you are so–”
“Boring. I know.” It was followed by a sigh that almost sounded fond. “Careful Rozanov. You’re starting to get predictable.”
Shane Hollander was as interesting as a doorknob. But there were moments. Rare moments. Small remarks and small looks the man gave him that made Ilya’s throat close up as if he’d been stung by a million bees.
He breathed out, something like anticipation gathering in his gut.
“So. What are you wearing?”
“I—” an angry exhale. “No. Absolutely not. Fuck off.”
“See?” Ilya couldn’t help the shit eating grin stretching his lips. “You are allergic to fun.”
“My parents are outside, you dipshit.”
Ilya pressed his hand over his mouth so he didn’t have to look at himself smiling in the mirror like an idiot.
“You know you can just hire someone to build it for you, yes? Clean glove service.”
“White.”
“Hm?”
“White glove service,” Shane corrected, albeit more amused now than annoyed.
Ilya leaned against the bathroom wall. It was a miracle he hadn’t been kicked out yet.
“Ah, so you know this? And you can definitely afford it. So you are suffering on purpose then? Like monk?”
“Why would I pay someone to do something I can do myself?”
Funny. It was the complete opposite of his brother’s approach to life. Why do anything when throwing money at the problem was so much easier?
Outside, the music changed to something loud and gritty with base. Someone knocked on the door. Ilya winced.
“Are you at a party?”
“Yes. This thing called a ‘nightclub’. You would know it if you ever did anything exciting.”
“Gotcha. Sounds fun.”
“Yes,” he replied bluntly.
Summer was when he trained hard and partied even harder. It was when the weather was finally mild in Moscow and beautiful girls sauntered the streets in short glittery dresses much like the girls who were waiting for him just outside. That was all to say that Ilya’s life was full of beautiful, glamorous things. Things that were sexy and way more fun than listening to some boring Canadian building a desk thousands of miles away.
And yet, here he was, in the dark listening to Shane breathe over the phone line. Out then in then out again.
“Well, I guess I’ll let you get back to it.”
“OK,” said Ilya, strangely disappointed.
“Enjoy the club.”
“Enjoy your desk.”
“Asshole,” Shane muttered distantly before hanging up.
When he finally returned to the table, Svetlana was scrutinizing him, brow arched.
“Did you get a blowjob in the bathroom?” She drawled in Russian.
“What do you mean?”
“Your face,” she jeered, “You’re smiling.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Although, now that he thought about it, his headache had suddenly disappeared.
“Was it the bartender?” The glint in her eyes turned mischievous. “He’s been looking at you all night.”
He pulled her close, so that she was practically in his lap. “Should we put on a show for him then?”
She laughed, swatting at him when he skimmed his nose ticklishly along her neck. Ilya downed another shot of vodka and made sure not to look at his phone for the rest of the night.
—
Jane: [image attached]
Jane: finally finished
Ilya: do you feel accomplished?
Jane: maybe
Jane: took over 2 hours
Ilya: seems not stable
Jane: wdym
Ilya: will not hold your weight
Jane: ??
Ilya: if i bend u over it
Jane: dude
Jane: shut up
Ilya: ;)
Jane: also
Jane: it’s a danish brand
Ilya: what
Jane: danish furniture is known for its sustainable craftsmanship
Ilya: ah
Ilya: good to know
—
He had hired a private coach to manage his off-ice conditioning over the summer. A bushy-browed man named Sergei who had once made a living breeding racehorses in the warm south. He wasn’t sure how exactly one made the transition from horses to coaching. Perhaps there was more money in breaking off-season players instead of foals.
They were doing sled pulls today in Gorky Park. It felt good to be outside after a week of dealing with renovations around the apartment. It was an old unit, which meant the repairs had been more extensive than he expected.
It had been a pain in the ass, moving his family into a hotel so the contractors could come in and out. His father often woke up hopelessly confused in an unfamiliar environment he didn’t remember. His brother called him constantly, complaining about the hotel even though it was one of the best rooms money could buy.
One week, he told himself. He only needed to deal with it for one more week. By the time it was noon, Ilya’s muscles were screaming. He was just about to head back with the sled when his phone started to buzz in his pocket.
He dropped the sled ropes. “I’m taking a break,” he called out to his coach.
Sergei gave him a disapproving flick of the wrist before shaking his head and wandering into the shade to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette.
Ilya sat in the grass, breathing hard. He accepted the call and flinched when a piercing screech burst from the speakers.
“No Ruby! No! C’mere—give me the phone.”
There was a muffled sound of screaming, followed by high-pitched peals of laughter. Distantly, there was another man’s voice booming in the background. After a lot of movement, the voices were drowned out behind a slam of a door.
“Shit—sorry about that,” Shane’s voice sounded thoroughly exasperated. “Tiny demon stole my phone.”
“You are with Hayden, I’m guessing.” He would never understand why Shane willingly chose to be friends with him.
“I… yeah. He’s on vacation with his family. They're. Ugh. Staying for a bit at the cottage. Close to the lake, and hiking spots, you know.”
No, he really didn’t. He imagined Shane’s summer as these idyllic scenes from a movie—smiling people doing cannonballs into lakes, family dinners with laughter and wine. A happy but foreign scene like a postcard from somewhere far away.
Another girlish scream echoed in the background. Followed by a pitter patter of little feet running through the hall and then a distant loud crash.
“Sounds like it is going well.”
In the background, a little girl had started to cry.
“Uh huh,” Shane sighed, drawn-out and tired. “God, I could use a xanax.”
Ilya’s hand clenched around the phone. A joke obviously since Hollander was the last person who would put substances recklessly into their body. Although, Ilya thought, knuckles tightening—he had thought the same of his mother once too.
“Sorry. Ignore that.” Somehow, Shane sounded even more miserable than before, “That was. Ugh. Not funny. It was a shitty thing to say.”
“You do not like kids,” murmured Ilya.
“I do. I—it’s just…” There was a huff, then a shifting movement. Ilya imagined Shane leaning against a wall, phone pressed to his cheek. For some reason, the vision made him feel strangely adrift.
“I had to rearrange my schedule. I missed my workout this morning.”
Ilya barked out a laugh, caught off guard. “Oh no Hollander. How will you ever survive?”
“Asshole.”
Ilya had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling. “You are on vacation.”
“I like sticking to my schedule.”
“Mm,” Ilya murmured, unsurprised. There had been a reporter who had called Shane a ‘robot on ice’ once. An obnoxious man who pestered Shane constantly. Ilya had always hated him.
“Plus, families,” continued Shane. “They can be kinda… well, you know—”
He had gotten into a fight with his brother that very morning. It had ended with Alexei chucking a TV remote at his head.
“Yes,” said Ilya, voice hardening, “I know.”
His coach called out to him from a distance. Ilya exhaled, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead on his shirt sleeve.
“You’re training?” Shane asked.
“Yes.” Perhaps he had been breathing harder than normal.
“You should work on your right knee. It was looking a little wobbly during the Admirals game.”
Wobbly? Ilya scowled. “No.”
Not for the first time, he mourned how English was such a ridiculous language.
“What? It’s true.”
“No. I do not ‘wobble’. Wobble is for jello and lazy Americans. Never in my life have I done this.”
“Whatever. Fine. Tear your ACL for all I care.”
“Prick.”
“Asshole.”
Ilya bit back a laugh as he hung up.
When he looked up, Sergei was standing right in front of him, eyes disapproving and hand outstretched. Ilya rolled his eyes and dropped his phone into the man’s open palm.
“You can chase girls on your own time.” Sergei all but wagged his finger at him like a little kid.
Ilya flicked him off and got a cuff on the ear for all his troubles. Later, after the sled pulls, he mentioned the right knee to him.
Sergei raised a brow and then laughed. He wrote something down on his clipboard and muttered something about ‘finally growing some sense’.
—
Ilya: [image attached]
Jane: what am i looking at
Ilya: you cannot read?
Jane: you’
Jane: you’re at a museum exhibit
Jane: about the designs of robert venturi?
Ilya: r u feeling intimidated mr. real estate
Jane: do you even know anything about postmodernism architecture?
Ilya: yes
Ilya: it’s the one with four walls and one roof
Jane: brilliant
—
The gym was empty when Ilya strolled through the doors on Sunday. It was his off-day which normally meant sleeping in and finding someone who could entertain him for the daytime.
Except Svetlana had left earlier that week for a business trip to Boston. He had been strangely restless all morning. He ran on the treadmill until his lungs hurt and nearly tripped over himself when Shane Hollander’s face flashed across the gym TV screens. It was a commercial for some type of cologne.
Hollander was spraying a fancy bottle of it all over his naked chest.
Ilya stopped the treadmill before he seriously hurt himself and managed to snap a pic of it before the commercial ended.
Ilya: [image attached]
Ilya: big celebrity
It only took a few minutes for Shane to send back an emoji rolling its eyes.
Jane: shut up
Ilya huffed and went back to walking on the treadmill. He was surprised when, a few minutes later, Shane messaged him again.
Jane: where is this even?
It would be night time in Canada. He imagined Shane in bed messaging him, a ripple of anticipation passing through him.
Ilya walked up to one of the mirrored walls of the gym and lifted the edge of his shirt so that his abs were visible. His shorts had slipped low from his run, barely clinging to the V of his hip bone. He took a picture then sent it.
Ilya watched with amusement as the ‘...’ bubble appeared and disappeared in real time. He could clearly imagine Shane in his indecision, fidgeting, shifting in bed, biting his lip, typing and retyping the same message just to delete it.
Eventually, a response came back.
Jane: have a good workout
Ilya snorted. He just barely managed to school his expression into something normal when someone else walked into the gym.
—
Ilya: when are you coming back
Ilya: there is party on friday
Svetlana: meetings. can’t talk.
Ilya: svetlana
Ilya: you r so lame
Ilya: nvm i will go with the petrov twins
Ilya: !!!
Iyla: big news
Ilya: antonia petrov got a boob job
Svetlana: antonia petrov has two and a half brain cells
Ilya: boobjob is more useful than braincells
Ilya: (unfortunately for you)
Svetlana: you are a pig
Svetlana: (i miss you too)
—
The apartment was a mess after the contractors had finished. Haphazardly packed boxes littered the floor, covering every spare inch. It took all day to unpack them and return the things to their places.
He was surprised to find a pile of old trophies gathering dust in the back of a walk-in closet of the spare bedroom. The closet was deep. It had taken him a better part of the evening to clean it out and he barely even seemed half way through.
He took a break in the living room, sunk into the leather couch and took out his phone.
1 unread message from Jane.
His brow ticked up when he opened it to find a picture. It was Shane, but he was… damp? He was dripping, nearly doused in water, holding a bottle of the same cologne from the commercial. His white tank top clung to his torso, so wet it was basically translucent. Ilya sat up on the couch, suddenly wired. Was this revenge for yesterday’s text? Not that he was complaining.
Ilya: pretty pretty boy
He zoomed in on the photo, noting the curve of Shane’s waist. The glistening drops of water sitting with impunity on his collarbone.
Jane: don’t. call me that
Ilya: why not? Is true
He had been pretty back then too, when they had shot that commercial together on the ice. Doubly so later in the showers when he had found the other man not-so-surreptitiously staring at him while he washed.
Under the hot shower, Shane’s normally pale skin had become a scalded pink. When he blushed, it bloomed in red blotches up his chest and cheeks. Just thinking about it was enough to make his dick twitch with interest.
Ilya: pretty like a doll
He remembered the first blowjob Shane ever gave him, how his lips had been so deliriously red as if wearing lipstick.
Jane: fuck u
He hadn’t been particularly good at sucking cock, but gods above he looked so fucking pretty doing it. He wondered if Shane had ever given another man a blowjob before. A thought that made him want to simultaneously jerk off and punch someone in the face.
His cock was fully hard in his boxers now, a thick bulge against his thin workout shorts. His hand drifted downwards to cup himself lazily through the fabric. With a hiss, he slid his hand into his pants to give himself one languid stroke. He hadn’t been laid in a long time, not since Svetlana left. It showed in the leaking slit of his cock head and the way his balls throbbed, full and tight.
He still had his phone in his other hand. Biting his lip, he took a photo of his hand wrapped around his leaking dick.
This was a terrible idea. He sent the photo anyway.
Ilya: i’m trying to
Ilya: will you let me?
He waited a long time for a response. So long, his erection inevitably softened. He contemplated jerking off, but there was still too much work to do.
He shrugged off the stinging sense of disappointment to go take a cold shower and get back to unpacking.
He had finally gone through all the crap in the closet when he had found one single worn box at the very back—dustier than the rest.
There was a strip of tape on the front. Someone had written across the surface in black marker.
Irina
It felt like a stone had dropped into his stomach. The dust was untouched on the top. Probably, it hadn’t been opened since it was sealed.
He stood there for a long time, holding it like an idiot. He felt like a little kid again; he didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do.
Eventually he transferred it to the closet in his room. His heart thundered in his chest as he closed the door on the offending item and sat on the bed.
He laid back on the blankets and pillows, closed his eyes and counted to twenty.
Pull yourself together, a voice said in his head. It was eerie, how similar the voice sounded to his father. Spoiled. Shameful. Disappointment.
He must have been more tired than he thought because the next time he opened his eyes, the room was dark. Somehow, he had fallen asleep.
His phone was buzzing in his pocket.
‘’Ello?” he grunted into the mic, not even fully registering who he was even talking to.
“You—” Shane snarled, “are the most aggravating person I’ve ever met.”
Ilya pushed himself up so that he was sitting against the headboard. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, still groggy. “Well,” he grunted. “I try.”
Shane didn’t seem to be in the joking mood. He sounded furious. So mad he could spit.
“You can’t just send me shit like that. I was in the makeup chair with someone right behind me. They could have… Fuck! Rozanov, they could have seen!”
“Hollander.” Ilya sat up straighter. There was something wrong with his voice, a creeping edge of hysteria.
“Hollander,” he said again in a lower pitch, “Calm down. You are hyperventilating.”
“And who’s fucking fault is that?”
“Easy, easy.” Ilya murmured. He had seen this sort of episode once before. The first time he had wanted to fuck him. Even scared, Shane was beautiful. Eyes wet as slick stones after the rain.
“I count. You listen and breathe, OK?”
He didn’t wait for a response before counting to eight. He waited for the sound of a deep exhale before doing it again. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, counting quietly and listening to Shane breathe.
Eventually his breath had lost its jittery wheezing edge.
“Better?” He asked.
“Yeah. I… Thanks.”
“Are you… OK?” Ilya’s hand tightened on the phone. He preferred Shane’s anger to whatever this was. This defeated exhaustion.
“Yeah. I’m just. I dunno. Stressed, I think. Had to get up early for the photoshoot. I don’t even understand what I’m doing here. I don’t even use cologne and—” He sighed. “Nevermend, it’s stupid.”
“Say it anyway,” Ilya murmured, impatient.
Shane laughed, self deprecating. “I missed my morning workout again.”
All this for a missed gym session?
“Hollander,” he exhaled, stunned. “You have OCD.”
“I… Jesus, Rozanov. You can’t say that.”
“Why not? Is true.”
“I. No. It's not true, first of all. And second of all, classifying any mildly type A behavior as OCD trivializes a serious medical condition. It’s misleading and derisive.”
“Um,” said Ilya, “Use smaller words please. I can’t understand.”
Shane huffed, annoyance palpable.
“It means you sound like a dickhead.”
“Ah,” Ilya smiled in the dark, “much better.”
There was a quiet rustling on the other end, fabric moving over skin. He wondered if Shane was in bed too, staring at the ceiling. He wondered if he missed him.
“It’s hard for me sometimes,” said Shane after a long pause. “The summer.”
Me too, Ilya thought but did not say. He wasn’t even sure how to verbalize it. How every flight back to Moscow felt like a little piece of his soul was dying.
“I feel… weird, you know?” It was the afternoon in Ottawa, but Shane sounded very tired. “Without a schedule, or a routine. Without something telling me what to do.”
Ilya shifted to his side, so that he was facing the empty side of his bed. As he spoke, he imagined Shane on the other side, his position mirroring his own—two bodies facing each other in the dark
“I don’t like feeling… out of control. And I know, it’s objectively not a big deal. Missing a workout or whatever. But it follows me around sometimes. This feeling like something bad will happen.”
Ilya processed this quietly. Everyone knew of Shane’s famous restrictive diet. He didn’t drink, didn’t eat carbs. Shane Hollander didn’t make any exceptions. Ever. He had always assumed it was pride, a symptom of a massive fucking ego. He had never considered that it might be fear, that he was being chased. Ilya exhaled, fist clenching in the sheets. He knew what it was like to run from demons.
“Is that all?”
Shane’s confusion was palpable in the silence.
“What?”
“Is that all you need? For someone to tell you what to do?”
Ilya’s voice sounded unrecognizable even to himself, low-pitched and rumbling. In the dark it was too easy to imagine Shane beside him on the bed, just an arm’s length apart. For a while Shane only breathed over the line. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet.
“Maybe,” he said, barely the volume of a whisper.
“Where are you?”
“My room.”
“Good,” Ilya practically purred, “get on the bed.”
There was a slow intake of breath. He imagined Shane’s eyes, wide and blown out, the slow creep of red into his face. There was something about watching Shane give into desire, the slow burn of it, that made him feel like an addict.
“Take off your pants too.”
He heard Shane let out a shaky breath before hearing a sound of a belt buckle clinking and whispering through belt loops. There was the sound of frantic movements across whispering sheets.
“Slower,” he commanded, accidentally slipping into Russian.
A groan came from far away. A bitten back whisper. “Oh my god.”
“Slow down,” he said again, very deliberately in English, “Lay down on your back.” He had to concentrate on his pronunciation. He felt drunk.
His cock was fattening up in his shorts, he cupped himself but didn’t do anything beyond that.
“Put me on speaker, right next to your ear.”
“O-Okay,” Shane whispered. Fuck, he sounded wasted.
“Spit into your hand, get your dick wet with it.”
“Ah..it’s–um. Already pretty wet.”
“Jesus, Hollander,” said Ilya, slipping into Russian once again. A skittish whimper fell from Shane’s throat.
“Spit on it anyway,” Ilya managed to pull together. He wanted Shane to be sloppy and dripping.
He must have had the phone right by his face because Ilya could hear every gory detail of it. The gagging noise in his throat, the filthy drip of saliva and the slap of it on his skin.
Fuck, he should have asked him to turn the camera on. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see Shane Hollander, face of the Metros, fluent French speaker and Rolex ambassador, slick his cock with his spit.
But mostly, he wanted to see him desperately. Wanted to see his legs spread, muscles twitching in his thighs as he held them open. He wanted to see for himself how hard his dick was, if it was red and throbbing as badly as his own was. Thanks to Vegas, he had an idea of what he was missing. Needless to say, it was self-inflicted sort of torture.
“Are you nice and wet?”
“Y-Yes,” Shane whispered, voice fraying at the edges.
“Good,” Ilya rumbled from deep in his chest. “Now here is what is going to happen. You will make a fuckhole with your hand. Slick and tight. Yes?”
He wasn’t actually expecting Shane to answer but it was gratifying to hear his bitten back moan over the line.
“You will fuck yourself. Hump it. Fast as you want. Like a rabbit. And then. When you are right there, at the edge, about to come your brains out. You will stop and you will tell me.”
“Umm,” whispered Shane, dazed.
“Do not,” commanded Ilya, “come without my permission, Hollander.”
There was a growling rasp to his words, his accent naturally tilting into the harsh consonants of his mother tongue. Judging by the harsh breathing and the bitten back moans, Shane didn’t seem to mind.
“Okay,” said Ilya, darkly. “Go.”
Ilya Rozonav did not have the best imagination. He watched porn like every other guy and had lost his virginity at fourteen. Sex was not mystical or fantastical as much as a means to an end of getting off. And yet, laying in the dark, listening to the slick sounds of Shane working his dick made something in his brain explode. Every moan, every hitched breath sent a domino of wishful fantasies and sick desires toppling through him, one cascading into the next.
Shane made a gurgling noise on the other end.
“F-fuck—” he wheezed, “Okay… I did it, I stopped.”
His voice was edged with exertion. Ilya imagined sweat dripping from the tip of his nose, imagined licking it up like milk.
“Did you come?”
“Obviously not—” Shane growled, angry and prickly as a wet cat.
Ilya could not help but laugh, thrilled senseless by the sheer desperation in the other man’s voice.
“Did you like it?” he teased, “The picture I sent.”
“Y-yeah,” Shane whispered feebly.
“Did it get you hard on set?”
Shane’s silence was all the admission he needed.
“Oh sweetheart,” he rumbled in Russian, noting how Shane’s breathing got harder.
“What were you thinking about?”
“I… I was thinking about you–” Shane finally relented. “I was thinking about taking you in my mouth.”
Ilya swore in Russian. “Fuck, you’re hungry for it aren’t you?”
“What are you saying?” Shane was practically begging, “tell me, please.”
“Touch yourself again. Make yourself come.”
He groaned thinking again about Shane sucking him with his slutty tongue.
“Put two fingers in your mouth. Deep. Pretend I’m choking you with it.”
Whatever Shane was going to say, it was drowned out by a loud moan, followed by the slick sounds of gagging and a hand jerking his dick.
Ilya Rozonov had a poor imagination. But suddenly, he wanted to fuck Shane in a classroom like a schoolgirl, in some cave dungeon like a prisoner, on a boat like a pirate. Every perverted prepubescent image flooded his brain as if it was his first fucking day on earth. He felt raw and sunburned by all his senses.
“Shit–” Shane wheezed, taking his fingers out of his mouth, “I…” he whimpered, “I’m close.”
He had never hated being in Moscow more.
“I want to see you,” he growled, giving up completely on English. “I liked watching you, back in Vegas. Too much, probably. You are so, so beautiful.”
“Fuck–Rozanov,” Shane whispered, voice shattering as he came.
Ilya could have come from listening to him alone. Even his breathing was sexy, languid and sharp as he came down from the high of his orgasm. That’s all to say that Shane Hollander was a fucking cocktease.
“What were you saying,” rasped Shane, voice wrecked. “Near the end?”
Ilya’s pulse was going haywire, he tried and failed to calm his breathing.
“I said that if hockey does not work out you could do sex hotline,” he managed to say somewhat casually. “You sound hot. Just like porn star.”
“Asshole,” muttered Shane.
Ilya smiled. “Feeling better?”
“Tired,” Shane whispered. His voice was small and vulnerable. It felt like a knife carving into Ilya’s chest.
“Go to sleep, Hollander.”
“It’s not even noon here.”
“You act as if you will be arrested for taking a nap.”
Shane muttered something that was probably an insult but it came out as more of a sleepy jumble.
Eventually, his labored breath mellowed into something soft and slow.
“Hollander?” He called, but got no response aside from a murmuring sleepy noise.
A suffocating feeling lodged in his chest. It felt like too much. He wasn’t sure how long he laid there in the dark listening to the other man’s quiet breathing before hanging up.
—
Monday came with howling winds and thick sheets of rain. They drove to Sergei’s property for Ilya’s training. An old converted barn that had been renovated to be a crossfit gym.
It was spacious enough and had plenty of nice equipment. The downsides were that it smelled vaguely of hay. That and the walls were covered with pictures of Sergei’s favorite racehorses. Pictures which he kept stopping to ramble about and wax poetic.
A few days had passed and Ilya still hadn’t touched the box with his mother’s name on it. His father had called earlier in the practice, sounding confused, asking where the commissioner was and whether he was still available for the meeting even though he had been retired for years. This had prompted a yelling match between Alexei and Ilya. A few minutes later Svetlana had messaged him, saying she needed to stay in Boston for a few days longer.
“You are distracted,” said Sergei, sitting down across from him at the bench. “Should we take a break?”
Ilya looked up at him surprised.
“We could feed the pigeons, play chess in the park, drink coffee and sit in the plaza all day like the other oldheads.”
Ilya snorted, rolling his eyes. “Oh fuck off.”
His brother was calling him again. It took everything in him not to throw the phone across the room.
Sergei looked down at his clenched fist then back up to his face.
“So. Tell me, Ilya. Why do you play hockey?”
“I—” He looked back at him, brow furrowed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Sergei made a dismissive noise, gesturing around the room, at Ilya’s right knee which was bandaged with kinetic tape. “So much trouble, so much time. You never ask yourself—what for?”
Ilya scowled, nostrils flaring. “Because I am good at it,” he hissed, “Because I am a winner.”
He looked Sergei up and down, a streak of cruelty flashing through him.
“Something you may not be very familiar with.”
“Winning, is it?” Sergei stood, voice heavy. “Come here. Come look.”
He went to a picture on the wall of a chestnut brown horse and pointed to it. Ilya looked back at him, confused.
“Sokol,” he said, “First place finisher at Juddmonte International.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your stupid horses.”
“Broken leg—” Sergei continued, ignoring him. “It was infected in two days. I shot him myself to put him out of misery. Left temple.”
He moved on to another picture, this time it was a silvery mare.
“Sivka,” he stated, “Breeder’s Cup Classic, finalist. Cardiac arrest. He ran so hard his heart exploded.”
Another photo. A black and white foal.
“Voronok, Epsom Derby first place. Hemorrhage of the lungs, suffocated in his blood—“ and again to the next, “Oryol, Royal Ascot Champion—collision with another horse. Nine hundred pounds straight to the face.”
Finally, he turned back to Ilya.
“So you see Ilya, I am very familiar with it. Winning, that is.” He smiled at him, withered and sad. “And so I ask you again—what for?”
Ilya stood abruptly, hands clenched into fists. Whatever this was, he didn’t have time for it.
Wordlessly, he went to the treadmill and started to run. He winced, when his right knee twinged on the higher speeds.
“Ilya,” Sergei warned.
He didn’t even bother to stop the treadmill.
“Sergei,” he huffed, “we aren’t friends. Don’t forget that you work for me.”
He concentrated on running and punched the speed up higher.
—
Call started
Call ended
Alexei: where the fuck are you
Call started
Call ended
Alexei: answer your fucking phone
—
Friday night found him pressed against the bar waiting for drinks next to the Petrov twins. They looked great as expected, except after sharing a ten minute car ride to the club, Ilya was already deeply bored of them.
The counter was understaffed, he had been waiting for what felt like a century. On top of that, Alexei wouldn’t stop fucking calling him. He dismissed yet another incoming call and was about to pocket his phone when he received a text.
It was a photo at what looked to be a sports bar. Some football game was playing on a projector screen. In the background, JJ Boiziau and some other Metros were watching the game while Shane’s hand was cut off in the left corner next to a pint of beer.
Ilya: you have been kidnapped
Jane: what?
Ilya: you. day drinking. alcohol. you have been kidnapped and taken hostage yes?
Jane: ha. ha
Ilya held back a grin. He could almost hear the caustic sarcasm through the text.
Jane: the guys were giving me shit for never coming out
Ilya: who cares what they think
Jane: i am the captain you know
Jane: it’s bad if the team thinks im
Ilya: ??
Ilya: thinks you’re what
He watched the ‘...’ of Shane typing for what felt like a long time.
Jane: idk
Jane: soft
Ilya’s fingers froze over the keyboard. He remembered the way his father would scream at his mother in the kitchen. Why are you spoiling him? Is that what you want? For him to become soft and rotten like you?
Ilya: there are worse things to be
“Ilyaaa, who are you texting?”
Ilya swore when Antonia appeared out of nowhere at his side. Her long blonde hair was slicked to her skull, blue dress tight and clinging to her newly sculpted breasts. She was gorgeous and sexy and the absolute last person Ilya wanted to talk to right now.
“Is it Svetlana? Ooh, gimme the phone! I wanna say hi.”
“Antonia,” he scowled, “it’s none of your–“
“Jane? Who is Jane?”
Somehow she had weaseled his phone out of his hand. Ilya growled, fury coiling in his gut like a nest of snakes.
“Give. It. To me. Now.”
Antonia squealed “You have a girlfriend and didn’t tell me?”
“Call her,” her twin sister Helga giggled from her other side, “tell her to come out.”
“I said. Give it back.”
He snatched it back, using more strength than was probably necessary.
“Ilya!” Antonia looked up at him with her big blue eyes, clearly hurt. He flinched when she reached out to put a hand on his arm.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
The two blondes gawped back at him, wide-eyed and scandalized. He left them at the bar, taking the metal staircase up onto the roof. Cigarette butts littered the ground and the wind whistled straight through him.
He paced back and forth, heart turning in his chest. He opened his phone, pressed the ‘call’ button. It only rang twice before someone picked up.
“Hello?”
Shane’s voice was hard to hear over the din of the background—cheering voices and beer mugs clinking against each other.
He shouldn’t have called. He should have chucked his phone over the edge of the roof. He looked out at the skyline feeling claustrophobic and unimportant.
“Why do you play hockey?” He asked without thinking.
Stupid fucking idiot.
“I. What?”
“Nevermind. Ignore me—I’m drunk.”
“Wait. Hold on—one sec.”
Everything went muffled. He imagined Shane holding the phone mic to his shirt. The sound of heavy steps and then a door closing. When he spoke again, his words were clearer—the background crush went quiet.
“Rozanov, what’s going on?”
Again, he berated himself. Idiot. That was always his problem when talking to Shane. He couldn’t hold anything back. His words flowed out of him profusely like blood from a wound.
“This sport. You’ve dedicated your whole life to it. Body, time, mind. Do you ever think—why?”
All of the sudden, he felt very, very tired. He should go back. Back to the bar and the twins. Or maybe back home. Except he wasn’t even sure where that was anymore.
“I wasn’t a normal kid,” said Shane after a long pause. ‘I didn’t like… socializing. Or watching TV, or hanging out with anyone—well, except with my parents I guess.”
He sounded a bit unsure. Younger. The thought made Ilya’s heart ache in his chest. He would have liked to meet Shane when he was young.
“And then I discovered hockey. And it’s been everything for me ever since. It’s… the only thing I've ever wanted.”
And now? Ilya thought but did not say. Is it still the only thing you want?
Shane coughed, embarrassed perhaps. “I don’t know, maybe that’s stupid.”
“Hollander,” said Ilya, heart pounding in his chest. “Turn on your camera. Please.”
It was stupid. Surely, Shane would refuse.
And yet, several seconds later, his screen went bright, pixels surging to life.
Shane was in a fire stairway of some sort, beige walls surrounded him on all sides, face lit overhead by unflattering fluorescent lights. He was tanner, wearing some ugly grey shirt. His hair was a bit unruly around his neck.
“Hi,” said Shane.
“Hi,” Ilya somehow managed to scrape out.
He needed a cigarette so badly.
“Your hair,” he rasped. “It’s long.”
Shane looked away, embarrassed. When he blushed his freckles darkened. A realization so sharp, Ilya didn’t know how to hold onto it without bleeding.
“Oh. Um. Yeah I need to cut it—” Shane rubbed a hand through the locks, combing through it nervously.
“My hairdresser. He’s been cutting my hair since I was twelve. But his wife is pregnant. Like extremely pregnant. Like any day now. So yeah, I haven't had a chance to get it…”
He trailed off, voice fading.
“Wow,” whispered Ilya.
“Nevermind,” Shane laughed, chagrined, “forget I said anything.”
Ilya’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.
“Hollander,” he rumbled, “you are so fucking boring.”
When Shane looked at him through the screen, his eyes were dark and thoughtful. He couldn’t stand it when he looked at him like that. It would be easier to take a punch in the throat.
“At least turn on your camera if you’re going to insult me.”
“No thank you.”
“Asshole.”
Ilya’s eyes were dry. Perhaps he had forgotten to blink. He could have stared at Shane until his phone battery went to zero.
“Then at least answer the question too.”
“Hm?”
“Why does Ilya Rozanov play hockey?”
Ilya was glad his camera wasn’t on. He wasn’t sure what sort of face he was making. Because hockey is a nasty sport, he thought. A sport for bullies. That was what Ilya was. A cruel lonesome bully. Where most people had a heart, Ilya had blades and ice.
He was interrupted by an incoming call.
He would have ignored it except it was a number he didn’t recognize. He looked at the caller ID and his blood turned to ice in his veins.
“Rozanov?”
“I… I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Ro—”
He didn’t even let Shane finish before hanging up.
When he answered the phone, it felt almost preordained. It was as if he was reading from a script.
“This is Ilya Rozanov speaking.”
“Yes. I understand.”
“Thank you officer. I’ll be there right away.”
—
His father had wandered into the police precinct. He told the receptionist that he was there for an award ceremony. He was to be presented a heroes medal by the commissioner. It was 2 am. He had still been wearing his pajamas.
He had grown irate and confused when the police quietly questioned him about where his family was or how they could be contacted. By the time Ilya had arrived at the station, his father had gone completely non-verbal.
He had refused to go to the hospital and shut himself in his room when they had arrived at the apartment.
Ilya was still awake, sitting in the armchair in the living room like some mafia don when Alexei returned home. Of course they had fought. It had gotten physical. He had a glistening bruise on his cheek to prove it.
That was to be expected of course. Alexei was poison. Ilya felt a piece of himself die every time they touched.
In the morning, there was a long series of physical exams at the hospital. His father didn’t put up a fight this time. It was like he was hollow. An outline of a man but not fully there.
His phone buzzed in his hands. He had received many texts since last night.
Antonia: where tf did you go last night??
Svetlana: heard about your father. I’m so sorry baby
Jane: hey is everything okay
Jane: hello?
“Mr. Rozanov,” said the nurse, “the doctor will see you now.”
Ilya turned off his phone before following her into the examination room.
—
Call started
Call ended
Call started
Call ended
Jane: you always fucking do this
—
There had been a period when he was younger when Ilya was bullied at school. It was before he had grown taller than the other boys, before he had grown strong and mean. A boy had inquired suggestively as to why his mother was so much younger than his father. The result had been a fistfight in the courtyard. A bloody nose for Ilya and a chipped tooth for the other boy.
His mother had picked him up from school. They had driven in circles instead of heading home, completely silent except for what was playing on the radio. They made one final stop at a dessert shop where he had gotten an ice cream. Later, his father screamed at her for coddling him. This is why everyone thinks you are easy and loose.
The dessert shop closed two years later. It had become a hardware store and then just an empty lot. Ilya walked past the barren concrete square as he went into the convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes.
It was a foggy morning and the road was empty. He sat alone on a bench outside, lighting up and watching the smoke drift upwards. He opened his phone and clicked on Svetlana’s contact info.
“Ilya?” she murmured when she picked up, voice groggy. It was nighttime in Boston. Probably, he had woken her up.
“What underwear are you wearing?”
She scoffed. “Pig.”
There was a rustle of bed sheets, a quiet yawn. “What time is’it?” she murmured, “shouldn’t you be training?”
Ilya inhaled, letting the bitter smoke coat his tongue.
“The physical therapist told me to take a week of rest.”
“Physical therapist?” He heard her sit up. “Ilya, what happened?”
“Relax,” he exhaled. “Sprained ankle. Nothing major.”
It had happened 3 days after the incident at the police precinct. His knee had buckled while he had been running. He had been on the east river bank, running for nearly an hour. His muscles had been screaming at him to stop, but he pushed himself and kept going. Going and going. That had been when his legs had crumbled underneath him. If he hadn’t been near the grass he would have cracked his head open on the rocks.
Sergei had visited him later at the emergency room and cursed him out. Judging from the silence on the line, Svetlana felt similarly disapproving.
“A week of rest,” she huffed. “You must be bored out of your mind.”
“Not really,” he leaned back, crossing one foot on top of the other. He looked up at the sky, contemplating its blankness. “It’s almost kind of nice. Taking a break. Maybe I should just quit.”
The line went deadly quiet.
“Ilya,” she said carefully. “Are you okay?”
“I could retire,” he continued, ignoring her concerned tone. “Keep your bed warm every day. We could get married,” he brought the cigarette to his lips.
“I could be your trophy husband. Take care of the house. Raise the dogs. Whatever you wanted.”
“I see,” she said somberly. “And this would make you happy?”
Happy? It was hard to even picture himself happy. To imagine himself happy felt akin to imagining himself as somebody else.
“Nevermind. I’m just. Distracted,” he sighed. “The renovations. They’ve made things…. Hard. I found a box of my mother’s things, you know. It’s in my closet.”
He kept his tone light, but as always Svetlana could sense it.
“Oh, wow…” she spoke to him cautiously, as if he was a spooked animal, “and what was inside?”
“Nothing,” He stamped the cigarette out under his foot. “Nothing but junk.”
He had ripped it open this morning. It had been pretty anti-climactic. A shitty tree ornament he had made in grade school. A bunch of broken Christmas lights. Old t-shirts and blankets nearly eaten through by moths. Stupid, stupid woman.
“It’s all just garbage—” He exhaled hard. For some reason his face was wet, “—and I have nowhere to fucking put it.”
In that moment, he hated his mother so much. She had abandoned him with no explanation, no goodbyes—had left nothing behind but this pile of junk.
But most of all, he hated her because it felt safer to hate her than to miss her.
“Oh Ilya,” murmured Svetlana, voice pained.
He threw away the cigarette, wiped his face and hung up.
—
Call started
Call ended
Jane: just talk to me
Jane: please.
—
Ilya broke the very next day. He knew he was going to eventually. He always did when it came to Shane.
He answered on the first ring, breathless.
“Rozanov–” Shane sounded angry, incandescent. Ilya could listen to him forever.
“It was not an accident,” he said in a rush, speaking over him. It felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. He had to speak quickly or else he would completely lose his nerve.
“When I called you. In the club. Weeks ago.” When he had been at the table with the vodka and girls, when he had been tipsy and miserable and so fucking lonely.
“It was not butt dial,” he said slowly, decisively. “I did it. On purpose.”
Whatever Shane thought he was going to say, this was clearly not it.
“I… what?—” the other man wavered, caught off guard. English was too difficult at that moment. His words, they circled true meaning like water around the drain, like moths fluttering meekly around the flames.
“I’m sorry,” he continued. Resolute. “I have been… ignoring you. Not answering calls.”
Shane was quiet on the other end, but breathing hard as if he had been in the middle of working out.
“I’ve been worried,” the other man finally managed to grit out, “worried about you.”
Ilya closed his eyes. He wasn’t worth Shane Hollander’s worry. He wasn’t worth anything at all.
“It was my mother, by the way. To answer your question.”
Again, Shane made a soft noise of confusion. Which was fair. Ilya knew he wasn’t making any sense. Most days he felt nothing. It was preferable to the days like today where all of him felt like a live bleeding wound.
“Your question,” he cleared his throat. “The reason I play hockey.” He swallowed hard, trying to calm the painful thumping in his chest.
“She signed me up for it. Because I had too much energy and I… was probably a fucking demon. She heard it was a good sport, good for tiring out little kids.”
He was sitting on the bedroom floor, the box of her things still splayed out like a body on the operating table. He closed his eyes, focused only on making sure his voice didn’t shake when he spoke.
“She didn’t know anything about hockey. Could not tell tits from ass when it came to the game,” he laughed, pained.
“But all my games. All my practices. She would go, she—”
At the bottom of the box had been a small green notebook. Every page was covered in her handwriting. Nothing long or serious, just a series of small reminders.
Ask Ivan’s mom about carpool to game
More off-ice training??
10 minutes stretch before practice. This one had been underlined twice.
He imagined her during his practices, notebook flipped open on her knee, scribbling furiously with one hand. In one ear and out the other, she liked to say, I’d forget my own head if I didn’t write down where I put it.
“Wow,” said Shane quietly, “she sounds great.”
It was funny, how he could go for years thinking he was okay. Then the smallest memory would come back and it felt like having his heart ripped out all over again.
“Yes,” said Ilya. “She was.”
They were quiet for a long time. Was. The sentence lingered.
“Hey, um. Rozanov?”
“Yes?”
“I’m ugh–” Shane coughed, embarrassed. “I’m really glad you called.”
Shane Hollander was his arch-rival. So foreign to Ilya–with his happy family and close friends—that he could have come from another planet. And yet, sometimes, the way he spoke to him—looked at him. It was like Shane knew him intimately. Intimate in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the very nature of Ilya’s soul.
Ilya looked up at the ceiling. “Me too,” he finally said.
“And I’m–ugh. Well I’m really looking forward to coming back to… to the season.”
Shane’s voice sounded strangely nervous. Ilya’s mouth twitched up in a grin. “Right,” he echoed softly, “the season.”
Shane coughed and Ilya held back a laugh. He could practically hear Shane blushing.
There was the sound of a door opening, the jangle of keys being hung on a hook.
“Um. Can you hold on for a second? Just finished running and I need to change. I’m all gross and sweaty.”
Ilya huffed, somehow he doubted that. “Only if I can watch.”
Shane snorted. “Shut up,” and then—tone insistent,
“Seriously, okay? Stay here. Don’t leave.”
And perhaps he was imagining things, but for a moment, Ilya detected a small tremor of fear in the other man’s voice.
“I won’t,” Ilya promised.
There was a soft muffled sound. He imagined the phone face down on Shane’s pristine bed in his pristine room. He remembered how he had folded his clothes in the hotel room. How carefully he tucked away and took care of his things. Ilya imagined being one of Shane’s possessions—imagined being held and put away exactly in his place.
“Hollander?”
Predictably there was no response. Something like anticipation grew in his chest.
“Shane?” he asked, soft and quiet. And then again, just because he could.
“Shane.”
He couldn’t remember ever calling him that, not even to just himself. It had been a long time since he had said his mother’s name too. Inexplicably, he imagined her now. He imagined her sitting across from him. Smiling.
Static crackled over the line.
“Hey, I’m back. Sorry about that. Were you saying something?”
Ilya smiled back, soft and secretive.
“Nope.”