Chapter Text
When Ilya steps off the plane from Russia ahead of his very first season with the Boston Raiders, Cliff Marleau is already waiting for him. He’s wearing a bright green baseball cap and holding a handmade cardboard sign that says #1. No name, no logo, no fanfare. It’s nothing like the official welcome committee Ilya had imagined when management told him someone would come get him from the airport. The vise around his lungs loosens a bit.
Hidden in the stream of people rushing to get to connecting flights, to work, or home to their loved ones, Ilya takes a moment to observe. Why did they send a player, he wonders. Marleau isn’t the captain. He doesn't even have the A, so it’s not like collecting rookies from the airport would be his responsibility. And he doesn't look excited to be here. But he’s paying attention, at least. His eyes are roving over the passengers. Searching. He misses Ilya the first two times. The third time, his eyes catch on the curls before they skip to Ilya’s eyes. It feels a bit like a trap snapping shut. No going back now.
“Hey, rook!”
Ilya forces his feet to travel the last few steps, even though they feel like lead now. The smile comes on its own, broad and easy. Even though his head is in overdrive, his body still remembers that he’s excited. That this is a good thing that he wants.
“Hey, man! Nice to meet you!” Ilya says, already halfway enveloped in a very backslap-y bro hug that slightly muffles his words. Then, hands seize his shoulders.
“Ilya Rozanov, in the flesh. Look at you! Been working out even more since the draft, huh? You’re massive. Your mom feed you well before she had to let you go into the land of fries and sugar?”
Ilya’s smile freezes on his face, but he takes a deep breath. “Russian food best food. But America such a big country, can’t be all bad.”
For just a tiny moment, Marleau's brows knit together and Ilya worries he’s said the wrong thing. But then, something brightens his new teammate's expression. “Soul food! Soul food is amazing, we gotta get you some of that at some point. New Orleans doesn’t have a team right now, but that’s what off days are for. Right?”
New Orleans. What is it with Americans and just naming their cities for cities that already exist? New York and New Orleans are bad enough. But there are cities in this godforsaken country that just have the same name as their original counterparts. They have a Paris. They even have a Moscow. It’s tiny. Ilya's never been there, is determined never to visit out of principle. They probably don't even have snow. Pathetic.
“New Orleans? Where is this? Is close?”
Marleau laughs. “Depends what you think is close. It’s about a day's drive from here. But Russia is pretty big, too, right? Our distances probably won’t confuse you as much as they do the Europeans.”
There’s a joke in there somewhere, Ilya can tell. But he can’t tell what it is. Thankfully, Marleau only lets him flounder for a moment. “Right. Did they tell you you’d be living with me for the first few months?”
Years of dealing with an unpredictable father have taught Ilya to control his facial expressions. He’s suddenly intensely grateful for that. “No, they didn't.”
“Oh well.” Marleau shrugs. “They always do that when rookies come from far away, even across the country. That way, you don’t need to worry about getting situated first. You can just meet the team and start playing hockey. The rest comes later, when you’ve already got a social life and know the city a bit better.”
Always. Okay. Ilya can deal with this. Always is good. It doesn’t mean they don’t trust him. Still, he has to push down the frustration that wells up in him. Frustration at himself, for not having asked. They had told him there was a room waiting for him. A room. Just one. He’d assumed they meant a hotel room. Clearly, that was wrong.
“I just move into your guest room?” he asks.
Marleau nods enthusiastically. “Yeah! It’s a nice big room, so you can spread out a bit. My flat’s pretty big too. And I don't have a wife or girlfriend, that’s why they put you with me. No one else in there you need to worry about, as long as you keep your mess out of the living room and clean your dishes. It’ll be just like college roommates!”
He says it like it’s supposed to be a good thing. But the idea is too new for Ilya to tell if it is. He’d been looking forward to being on his own for the first time in his life. No one to monitor his comings and goings, to judge him for skipping a single workout, to call him a lazy failure on the days when he can barely manage to feed himself. But there’s something else.
“Put me? You have no choice?”
“Oh no, not like that. They asked me. I could’ve said no and they would’ve asked someone else. But I’m finally at a place where I felt I could say yes, you know? The dude who took me in when I got first drafted was great. I’m still really thankful it worked out that well. And now I want to pay it forward.”
Pay it forward. Ilya lets the words circle in his head a few times before he decides that, no, he definitely doesn't know what that means. He knows what the individual words mean, but together... must be an idiom. Stupid English.
“Okay,” he says.
“If it doesn’t work out, you don't have to stay,” Marleau hurries to add. “Some people just need to live alone, I get that. Think of it as a launching pad. Just a place to get your feet under you so you can focus on hockey from the start. And then, when you’re ready, you can move out.”
About a third of that is absolute gibberish to Ilya. Fuck. He’ll have to take them up on their offer of remedial English classes, won’t he? His father was right, he was too lazy with it in school.
“Okay,” he says again.
“Alright, Rozanov.” Marleau pats Ilya’s shoulder with a massive hand. “Want some freedom fries for the road?”
Ilya laughs because he feels like he’s expected to, but he doesn’t answer and instead starts walking in the directions the signs say the parking lot is. What the hell are freedom fries? It’s probably something stupid obvious, and Marleau will laugh when he finds out Ilya doesn’t know. No, thank you. He’s already going to have enough language difficulty where it counts - in the locker room and on the ice. He’s not going to admit weakness this early, for something that’s probably inconsequential. Even if he’s really fucking hungry.
Marleau has a dozen cousins. Not in the way where people use that word to mean too many. No, a literal dozen. Twelve. At least one of them is always around. Ilya quickly gains the impression that is at least part of the reason Marleau offered up his guest room. He doesn’t like being alone.
These cousins are nothing like Alexei. Ilya has to remind himself of that frequently, when they make him flinch with their boisterous presence and put his teeth on edge with their teasing. They mean well. They’re happy people who were raised by other happy people who don’t expect anything bad to ever happen to anyone. That’s why they touch so freely. It’s why they laugh when they call each other names and don’t get mad. When Alexei says cocksucker it means if you don’t do what I say, bad things will happen to you. When they say it, it means ask before you take the last donut.
There’s another way in which they aren’t like Alexei: They aren’t asking for money. When Alexei had heard that Ilya wouldn’t need to pay rent the first few months, he’d immediately assumed Ilya would send more. After all, he’s getting married. He needs to buy an apartment now, for him and his wife to live in. Big enough for children, once they arrive. When Marleau’s cousins visit, they sleep in one of the other two guest bedrooms not occupied by Ilya. That’s free. But they pay for their own gas to make their way to Boston, and they insist on paying for the food half of the time.
Every time one of them leaves, Marleau thanks them for the visit. Like, actually says thank you. Like they’re doing him a favor. The cousins think this is as weird as Ilya does, at least.
“Some of them live on the other side of the country,” Marleau explains when Ilya finally dares to ask. “And even if they don’t, they live hours away. They take time out of their lives to visit me here, specifically because they know I love it when they do that. That’s not something I take for granted, and I want them to know that. It’s important to me.”
Ilya leaves for his room pretty quickly after that. Can’t have Marleau see him cry. By now, Ilya is sure his teammate wouldn’t react badly, but the thought still makes his skin crawl. He does his best to appear normal in all the ways he can. Once a week, he tidies his room so it can’t get too bad. Once a day, he washes all of the dishes he used. He covers his flinches at sudden touches with laughter and leaves when he unexpectedly finds himself tearing up at something that Marleau seems to think is completely normal.
That still leaves his moods, but Marleau seems to be happy to accept that those are just because Ilya is still a teenager. It feels weird, but whatever. If it means he can just stare into empty air for a few days after a loss, he’ll take it. And if it means Marleau isn’t too suspicious when Ilya returns from the CCM shoot practically buoyant, all the better. Marleau doesn’t even ask about Hollander. Still, Ilya finds a girl to fuck the next time they all go out together as a team. Just in case.
One of the cousins is named Vincent, but Marleau only ever calls him Vinnie. This, apparently, is reason for much hilarity.
“This is my cousin Vinnie,” Marleau said the day they met, already giggling before he even got to the name. Ilya has no idea what was so funny. But Vinnie just rolled his eyes and shook Ilya’s hand, so maybe it’s another one of those American inside jokes.
Vinnie lives in Boston too, so he’s over much more often than all of the other cousins. He also likes to cook. Fancy stuff, like filets and gratins and mussels and vegetables Ilya has never heard of. But he says he doesn’t have the right kitchen for it, and so he does it at Marleau's place.
“Plus, there’s someone here to share,” Vinnie confides once. They’re watching a hockey game while he waits for some dough to rise in the kitchen. “It’s not just cooking. It’s cooking for people. I love doing that, but I don’t really have many other people to cook for. And Cliff eats anything, right? Works out.”
Cliff is giddy anytime Vinnie comes over to cook, which is usually once a month. He always asks for the recipes in advance so he can have all the ingredients ready. Once, Vinnie asked to make sure he had a big enough dutch oven. Marleau didn’t have any dutch oven at all, and so that evening saw him and Ilya bumbling their way through a conversation with a sales representative in a kitchen store. The one they left with was purple, Vinnie’s favorite color.
Vinnie is a bit different from the other cousins. He’s much quieter. The first time he comes over to cook after Ilya moves in, he apologizes. Talks like he’s expecting Ilya to find it weird that he likes to cook. The name calling makes him uncomfortable, too. They never call him names, but once, Ilya watches him flinch violently at his brother calling their cousin Jeff a sissy for not wanting to tell their mother he broke one of her vases. Ilya knows what that means even before he looks up the word.
The way Marleau talks about Vinnie makes Ilya suspect he knows too. He’s careful about it, but stern. Explains that Vinnie is sensitive and that Ilya can’t just treat him like one of their teammates. Says that things might be different in Russia, and that he respects differences in opinion, but that under his roof, everyone will be treated with respect. Ilya isn’t allowed to say any words if he’s even unsure whether they might be bleeped out on television. Except fuck. He’s allowed to say that.
It takes Vinnie two dinners to get accustomed to Ilya. Or, well. It takes him until Ilya has enough of Vinnie assuming the worst of him and does something about it. It’s reckless - completely stupid when considering that he's still living in Marleau’s apartment and expects to do so for at least a few more months. He doesn’t think it through nearly well enough. But somehow, it still turns out okay.
“Why you never date?” Ilya asks Marleau after Vinnie has served them some delicious mousse au chocolat for dessert. “I’m here more than two months, not one date.”
It’s true. They’ve had the talk about bringing people over when they want to hook up - it’s fine, but always with a heads-up and no being loud on purpose - but Marleau has spent most of his free time with Ilya. He’s not even seen the man make out with anyone at a bar or in a club. And they’ve been in a few of those by this point.
“Two months is hardly a long time. I’ve got other things to focus on.” Like the dessert, apparently. Marleau moans around his spoon like he'd deepthroat it if he could.
“Ah.” Ilya nods sagely. “You are getting old.”
The spoon clanks against Marleau's bowl. “I’m twenty-three! That’s hardly old.”
Next to him, Vinnie snorts. That emboldens Ilya. “So then what? You’re a young guy, still got all of your teeth. Almost handsome. But no dates? No girlfriend, no boyfriend? Is sad, Marleau. You should get out more.”
“Boyfriend?” Marleau’s sharp tone makes everyone at the table tense up. And it’s in this moment that Ilya realizes he may have miscalculated. Maybe Marleau is one of those guys where it’s okay as long as it’s anyone else. Maybe other guys can be gay, but it’s an insult if anyone thinks he might be. Or if they hit on him. Fuck. Well, too late now.
“Boyfriend. Is legal in this country, yes? No big deal. I see posters. You Can Play.”
It’s tempting to maintain eye contact, but Ilya looks back down to his mousse. Drags his spoon around the bowl as much to affect nonchalance as to get the last remnants of chocolate-y goodness. This really is delicious. Vinnie is good.
“Of course it’s legal,” Marleau blusters. Like it's a given. “I was just surprised. But no, no girlfriend or boyfriend. I... I've never been on a date with a man.”
Now that’s interesting. Ilya has to bite down on the grin that forms on his mouth. Never been on a date with a man is not the same as would never date a man. Vinnie’s wide eyes show Ilya that he’s not the only one who caught that. The question is just... why? Why is Marleau saying it like this? Is it because Vinnie is sitting right next to him and he doesn’t want to say anything that might sound like he wouldn't accept his cousin? Or is this genuinely a distinction that is important to Marleau himself?
Either way, Ilya has no right to ask. So he just grunts. “Better that way, maybe. You’re so old, better to disappoint woman. Other man could tell you don’t know what to do with your dick, no? Embarrassing at your age.”
The laughter that follows feels cathartic. And afterwards, Vinnie is much more relaxed. He doesn’t apologize as much, doesn’t seem as scared to push Ilya around if he’s in the way in the kitchen. Doesn’t even hesitate when Ilya asks him to teach him the basics of cooking, because he’s never done it on his own before.
He does ask if he can cook Ilya borscht one day. His lips are tight and there’s a furrow between his brows, but he doesn't look scared. Just... nervous, maybe? Ilya is a bit too distracted by the question to look more closely. Borscht. It’s been half a year since he had it. And he desperately wants some, but can it even taste the same with ingredients from this continent? He’s scared to say yes and then not like it. Not just because of Vinnie but also because just the thought of it is heartbreaking.
Saying yes is the right decision. It doesn’t taste quite right, but it’s still borscht. Beets are beets and dill is dill. The soup warms something deep in Ilya’s bones. And the fact that someone even wanted to try... This one time, Ilya doesn’t hide the tears glinting in his eyes. He tries his best to say thank you to Vinnie the same way Marleau says thank you to his cousins. And he sees the flush high on Vinnie’s cheek bones and thinks oh no.
Ilya moves out after half a year, but still has a standing invitation to Vinnie’s dinners. The very next one after the move would have coincided with the All Star Game, but Marleau pushes it back without even a second thought. Which means he has to sit at a table with him and Vinnie not even a week after his second hookup with Shane Hollander.
It shouldn’t be a big thing. It’s just sex. Ilya has plenty of it, with plenty of people. And it wasn’t even... On paper, it wasn’t anything spectacular. Hollander is clumsy, clearly not much more experienced than the first time. Judging purely by technique, he doesn’t give the best blowjobs. But what happened still feels monumental. The way Hollander just went to his knees when Ilya asked. The enthusiasm. Even the hesitation over taking it further, clearly based in inexperience. It’s one of the hottest things Ilya has ever experienced.
And now, he has to sit at a table next to his two best friends outside of Russia and pretend like it didn’t happen. He knows they can’t tell just by looking at him. But it still feels like any little thing might give him away.
Like when Vinnie says: “That Hollander guy is really something. You absolutely nailed the accuracy competition, and then he comes along an one-ups you, just like that. You must’ve been so mad.”
Just the mention of the name has Ilya’s mouth dry out. Opposite him, Marleau leans forward. “You watched that? I thought you didn’t like hockey.”
Vinnie flushes. “It’s the All Star Game, not an entire hockey season. I can watch one game.”
“And the competitions, apparently.”
“Yeah, well... if it’s all the best guys, then it’s more interesting, right? I figured it would be a good time to figure out what it was all about.”
“What, you’ll watch Rozy but not me?”
“I…” Helplessly, Vinnie’s eyes trail over to Ilya. Fuck.
“Hollander is very good player. Boring little church mouse, but interesting to watch on the ice. Good choice for game to watch. Entertaining, when he is up against me. Doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
It feels both far too true and like a complete lie. Hollander knows exactly what to do with himself in any way that isn't social. He’s focused on the ice. He’s focused in bed. As long as he doesn’t need to talk. That’s when things can go sideways for him, when he gets insecure. But he can handle a stick. And he can handle Ilya’s stick. Zero complaints.
“He’s also kinda handsome,” Vinnie says. “I mean, if you’re into that look.”
The silence that elapses is so loud that Ilya wants to plug his ears. Handsome. If Vinnie weren’t so clearly panicked at having said it, he’d think this was targeted. But no.
“What look is this?” he asks. “Pretty boy who apologizes to door for bumping into it?”
Calling another guy pretty, Ilya has learned in the months since he came here, generally doesn’t sound queer so much as it sounds like an insult. It’s convenient now. Even though Ilya means it. Hollander is very pretty. Especially pretty spread out on his back and panting. He hopes that, if he ever says it again, Hollander will understand him.
Vinnie snorts. “He does look like he'd do that. Is he very polite?”
“Very. Is Canadian stereotype, but is also Shane Hollander. Say please and thank you. Never call you worse than asshole, even on the ice.”
“I think we should all be a little more like him when it comes to that last part,” Marleau says. “All of the slurs get really tiring. Like, really? You have nothing better to you than to insult things people can’t help? Maybe play better hockey and then you won’t feel like you have to distract your opponents.”
Ilya blinks at him. “Maybe you should say this to your cousins also.”
“What?”
Ah, fuck. Here he goes speaking without thinking again. Ilya shakes his head at himself. “Your cousins say slurs all the time. Cocksucker, faggot, retard. Like is fun. They say it and they laugh. You tell me I cannot say such words, but not them. You never say stop. If you don’t like, maybe you should.”
Marleau looks genuinely baffled. “When do they say that?”
“Here. All the time. To each other, to refs and players on TV. Not Vinnie, Vinnie does not say this. But all the others.”
“I've never noticed that. Vinnie?”
Vinnie looks uncomfortable to be included in this conversation, and the look he throws Ilya is indecipherable. But he nods. “Maybe you don't notice because it’s always been that way? I mean, it’s how we grew up. You just stopped at some point, but they didn’t. I guess they just never grew out of it.”
Marleau swallows. His throat must be dry, Ilya can hear it make a slight clicking sound. It’s hard to tell what he's thinking. But his brows are furrowed, so it can’t be good. “I'm sorry. That’s not... if I’d noticed, I would have stopped it.”
“I’m sure they don’t mean anything by it.” Vinnie’s looking down now, hands clutched together in his lap. "It’s not like on the ice. They don’t mean harm, they’re just ribbing each other.”
“No one should ever say those words,” Marleau says, his voice husky. “That’s not okay. I don”t want that in my home.”
Fewer cousins come over after that. But Vinnie still visits every month, like clockwork.
Ilya has his first serious downswing after losing the rookie of the year award to Hollander in Las Vegas. The prospect of having to go home again to be criticized and picked apart after the peace he’s felt in Boston is nothing short of horrible. So he drinks to forget. And then he doesn’t get out of bed the next day, because why should he? The season is over for him. Two more weeks and he'll have to cope with being around his father again.
If he’s going to be called lazy for the minor things in two weeks, he may as well be lazy about the big things now. At least that way, it’ll be true. So he stays in bed for three days, doesn’t shower, and only gets up to pee once his bladder hurts. When the delivery drivers arrive with his take out, twice a day, he simply puts on his silky robe. Everyone always thinks he has his life together when they see it. It's like the shininess blinds people to the dark patches in his soul.
It would be okay, except for the fact that his third day of wallowing is a Vinnie dinner. Ilya has never missed a Vinnie dinner before because Marleau and Vinnie don’t let him. They schedule around away games and sponsorships and appointments. This time, Ilya doesn’t give them the chance. He cancels the day of. At noon, when Vinnie has probably already started preparing things. Marleau, immediately calls him.
“What gives? Our boy’s making beef wellington this time. You don’t like that?”
“I’m not good company right now, Marleau. Leave it.”
“I’m not asking you to entertain us,” Marleau says. “We just want your company. Come and eat. You don’t even have to say anything. We’ll miss you if you’re not here.”
“I’m not coming.”
Immediately after hanging up, Ilya turns off his phone. Wishes for the days where you could still take the battery out because that would feel more complete. Safer. Fucking iphone. It’s sleek, and Ilya enjoys all the extra features and funny apps, but it makes him nervous sometimes. Everything is so fragile. When he dropped the first one, he tried to get it repaired, but that wasn’t possible. He had to get a new one. It was the most American thing that happened to him since that one time his health insurance fucked up and he was sent a massive bill that he had to dispute.
He gets to wallow one more day. When his alarm clock shows the time he should've arrived at his friend’s place, he turns the other way and tells himself they're off better without him. The sun goes down, but Ilya doesn’t sleep for a long time. He’s tired and everything feels heavy, but he can’t sleep. His mind is churning. Vinnie probably hates him now. They had way too much food. Or did they invite someone else? Someone who'll be more considerate in the future?
Between one blink and the next, it’s light outside. He must have slept, then. But he doesn’t feel like it. His thoughts are slow and sticky like syrup. The big bottle of water he put on his nightstand yesterday is empty, but it feels impossible to get up and refill it. Ilya knows he should drink. But if he can’t make himself get out of bed, maybe it’s not bad enough yet. Fittingly, he’s not hungry either. It’s fine.
What’s not fine is how shrill his doorbell sounds. The very first ring hits Ilya like a screwdriver to the eardrum, and the second one isn't much better. Fuck. That has to be Marleau. No one else would just show up without announcing themselves. Although - huh. His phone is off. No one would be able to announce themselves.
Smothering himself with a pillow doesn’t help. Ilya can still hear the doorbell. After some time, it stops. But not in the way Ilya wants it to stop. Marleau simply escalates to knocking and shouting.
“Hey, asshole, I know you’re in there! Open the door!”
His booming voice cuts through the emptiness in Ilya’s head, leaving behind a budding irritation. It’s not much, but Ilya clings to it. Because it’s something, at least. Irritation is better than nothing. He’ll take it. The problem is just... what does he do now? He can’t just let Marleau keep making a racket, he’s got neighbors. Neighbors who have previously called the police on him for parties. Marleau’s not gonna stop unless Ilya stops him. Well, fuck.
Even just sitting up in bed makes his head spin. All of a sudden, there’s something hurting in his left temple. Like someone’s pushing their thumb directly into his brain. Delightful. But Marleau still hasn’t stopped making noise, so Ilya gets on his unsteady feet and uses the walls to guide himself to his front door. Which isn’t even locked.
“What?”
Ilya means for it to come out sharp, but it’s more of a croak. Pitiful and weak, even comical when pitted against the fury on Marleau’s face. Fury that is very quickly replaced by surprise and then something else, something that puts little creases next to his wide eyes and between his eyebrows.
“Fuck, man. When was the last time you showered?”
Ilya’s mind, already whirring to try to come up with a good excuse for why he had to miss the dinner, stalls. “Um. Tuesday?”
Marleau blinks. “Right. Tuesday. And what day is it today?”
“Fuck off. I know is Saturday. What do you want?” The fog in his head, Ilya notes with almost detached amusement, sharpens his Ws until they’re almost Vs. Now, he sounds more aggressive. Just what he needs.
“I want to see how you’re doing, asshole. Are you gonna let me in?”
No, Ilya wants to say. But he knows it would be useless. Marleau is already here. He’s already seen him. May as well show him what a horrible slob Ilya really is. Complete the picture so Marleau feels better about leaving him behind. He can at least do that for his friend.
Except the look on Marleau's face when he sees the chaos, the piles of dishes everywhere and all the other messes, isn’t disgust. Ilya isn’t sure what it is, exactly, but it isn’t nearly ugly enough. He just stands there with his hands hanging by his side as Marleau takes it all in.
“You really aren’t doing well right now, are you?” is what he finally says.
Ilya has to swallow around a lump in his throat, but he can’t make himself say anything. So he just nods. Marleau bites his lip.
“Is this normal? That it’s this bad? I don’t think I saw anything like this when you lived with me.”
“No,” Ilya croaks. “I tidy a lot when I live with you. Good roommate.”
“I know you were, bud. I meant for living alone. Is this normal?”
Ilya shakes his head.
“Right. And you’re not doing too good? With, like, your head?”
Another head shake.
Marleau takes a deep breath. “Do you want help?”
Everything gets blurry all of a sudden. Ilya closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see it. How humiliating. “Help with what?”
“Well, with the mess. I'm not so good at the other stuff. But I can help you clean. That way, you don’t have to do it alone. How does that sound?”
It sounds like an absolute nightmare. Marleau hasn’t been in his bedroom yet. Hasn’t seen the half-eaten take out containers pile up, or the empty vodka bottles. Hasn’t smelled it. The sweat and vomit and sad farts from eating cheese when he shouldn’t. Every time Ilya resurfaces after one of these phases, he's disgusted with himself.
But it also sounds like a lifeline. It sounds like getting out of this hole a little earlier, like being able to compose himself before he has to face his father and his taunts. So Ilya nods a third time, tears tracking heat down his face. Marleau stays quiet until he manages to look at him again.
“Okay. We can do this. I'll help you. Why don’t you hop in the shower first? You smell rank.”
Ilya can only imagine. But he does as he’s told. The water is punishingly hot against his skin, scalding sweat and sadness in equal measure. When he gets out, he feels marginally more human. By that time, Marleau has ripped all the windows wide open and put everything even mildly suspect into a garbage bag by the front door. Even the bin Ilya vaguely remembers having thrown up in at some point. It’s brutal, but it’s efficient.
They work slowly, but not quietly, always in the same room. Marleau refuses to let Ilya alone with his thoughts. Not physically, and not mentally. He’s constantly babbling. Apparently, their captain is expecting another baby. There’s a betting pool. Marleau has twenty bucks riding on it being a boy, and another twenty on said boy being named Tanner. A reasonable assumption, given that the first two boys are called Hunter and Mason.
Marleau won’t leave until every last little task is dealt with. By the end of it, they’re just sitting there waiting for Ilya’s dryer to be done with the sheets.Well, Ilya is waiting. Marleau is trying to come up with a way to start a conversation that won’t make Ilya want to run away. Ilya can hear the gears turning.
“I won’t make you talk about it,” Marleau finally says. “I know these things are difficult, but I trust that you know what you’re doing. I haven’t seen you let it affect your game, so I’m sure it’s mostly fine. But I want you to promise me you’ll reach out if it gets to this point again. Yeah? I don’t like the idea of you being alone when you’re like this.”
Like this. Marleau doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. What does he mean, like this? Untidy? Dirty? The things he can see? By the time it got that bad, Ilya had already been feeling like shit for weeks. But okay. That’s a promise he can make.
“I promise,” he says. His voice is hoarse like he’s the one who’s been chatting away all afternoon.
“Thank you,” Marleau says. “And I promise that if you reach out, I’ll come. I’ll sit with you, I’ll listen if you need to talk, I’l clean if you need to clean. I’ll be there, okay? You’re not alone. I love you.”
Ilya hasn’t had anyone say those words to him since his mother died. The only reason he doesn’t break down crying is that he’s still kind of numb.
Things are better, after that. Then, they’re horrible in Russia. When Ilya gets back to Boston after the summer, he loses himself in women and booze. He hooks up with so many women that Marleau asks him what he’s running from. Ilya doesn’t have a good answer for him. But he goes to get tested. That’s something, right?
He’s been writing back and forth with Hollander even in Russia. Nothing much, just little messages. The day he realizes his heart skips a beat anytime he sees Hollander sent him a text, he goes out and has a threesome. Simply because he’s young and horny and that’s what people do when they’re young and horny. No other reason at all.
Looking at their text thread, it would be easy to think that Hollander is trying to back out of their agreement to fuck. He’s noncommittal, vague. Makes small talk and sometimes flat out refuses to respond to innuendo. But Ilya knows that’s not it. He knows Hollander wants this as much as he does, could feel it in the line of his back at the All Star Game. He’s unsure about the details, maybe. But he wants. And fuck does Ilya want to give him what he needs.
He thinks about it a lot. Thinks about it to a point that he doesn’t even go out to hook up some weeks. And when they finally have a date they both agree to meet up again, he makes a plan. What he’ll say, how he’ll ask. How long he’ll take to open him up, to make extra sure that he has a good time. Because he has one chance. One chance to ruin Hollander for other men right from the start. And fuck it if he’s not going to take it.
They take it slow until Hollander has enough of slow. Lots of kissing before, during and after. Ilya normally doesn’t kiss people this much during a hookup, but Hollander’s mouth must be magnetic or something. He’s always drawn back to it. Or to any other part of his body, if his mouth happens to be out of reach currently.
It’s the best sex Ilya has ever had. So good that it feels like he must be making it up. It can’t have been that good, right? It’s ridiculous, but he has to ask.
“Was worth the wait?”
His hair is still dripping wet, and he’s making an utter fool of himself, but the way Hollander looks at him makes something inside him just break open and oh. Oh fuck. He can barely keep his cool as Hollander kisses him - gently, like they have all the time in the world. It’s an asshole move to leave so quickly after that, but Ilya has to. There’s no other way. If he stays, he’s going to be too honest. He can’t afford that.
So he goes home to his apartment where he has a normal amount of pillows on the bed and just sleeps for an entire day. Almost misses practice the next morning. Marleau looks concerned, but at least has the good sense not to say anything in the locker room.
It’s time for a Vinnie dinner again and Ilya really doesn’t want to go, but he psychs himself up anyways. It’ll be good for him to leave his apartment and to talk to people he’s not trying to fuck. Even though he’d really prefer to go out and fuck someone right now. Loose himself in a woman so he can forget about Hollander for half an hour.
In the end, he gets to do that anyway. Vinnie is sick, says Marleau. Influenza. For a ridiculous moment, Ilya asks himself if that means they should cook something for Vinnie for once. Chicken noodle soup seems to be an American favorite for sick days. The recipes online don’t look difficult. But that would be weird, right? That’s not what their relationship is like. Vinnie wants to cook for other people. Ilya is other people. Simple.
The next day, Ilya comes to practice with hickeys on his neck and scratches all down his back. Some of the guys whistle at him in the shower. Marleau is still worried. Catches him in the parking lot.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem… different.”
“I’m fine.”
“Rozy, you can’t possibly expect me to believe that.”
Ilya takes a deep breath. “Is not bad like before. Just… a bit sad. Okay?”
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Ilya frowns. “You said you wouldn’t make me.”
He says it with such force that Marleau raises his hands and takes a step back. “Okay, okay. Relax. I won’t. I just want you to know I’m here for you, yeah? You’re a big boy, I know you can handle yourself.”
He leaves him alone after that, and Ilya pretends to himself that he’s relieved. It’s better this way. If he doesn’t talk, Marleau doesn’t have to listen. Not that Ilya could be honest about his problems anyway. What’s he going to say? I fucked Hollander in the ass and now I can’t stop thinking about him? Yeah, fucking likely.
It’s okay. Life goes on. Ilya goes to the next practice. And the next one. Sometimes, he’s even on time. He doesn’t talk, but he doesn’t need to. No one makes him. And then, the week after that, Vinnie kills himself.