Work Text:
“You gonna cum for me Rozanov?”
“Ah! Fucking make me Hollander.”
“Spit.”
Ilya does, and then the glide between their dicks is so much nicer he’s crying out, his head falling back as Shane pumps them faster. He's so close, so so close. “Fuck,” he warns, he can never last when Shane is touching him. “Shane!”
“Ilya…”
Ilya blacks out from the raw intensity of his orgasm. When he comes back to earth, he’s chuckling, pressing kisses into Shane’s mouth, his cheek. I love you Shane. I love you so much. It's practically bursting from his lips.
He wants to tell him. He feels ready. Now seems like as good a time as any. But he can’t find Shane’s eyes. And then the other man is moving away from him.
“I’m sorry… I- I have to go.”
Shane’s words drop on him like a bucket of ice water.
“Go?” Ilya is shattering inside. His heart feels strangled, his stomach kicked. What happened? What did I do wrong? I’m sorry Shane, please, please don’t leave. Maybe I shouldn't have asked him to stay? Maybe that's what ruined it all.
“Yeah, I forgot about a team meeting.”
“You forgot team meeting?” Shane’s lie is obvious, which is all the more insulting. Did he break a rule? Did he misinterpret something? Everything?
“Yeah, I, I'm sorry.”
“Hollander...” Please don’t go.
“Thank you, for the tuna melt. But I- have to go.”
“Hollander,” Ilya repeats, just to really send it home. See, things are normal, you don't have to leave. Please don't leave me Shane. Not like this. We can go back. This doesn’t have to be serious. It can be casual. Enemies hate sex or whatever you’ve been calling it that’s clearly so much different than how I interpreted the events.
“I’m sorry,” Shane says again, “I can't do this.”
And then he leaves.
Shane fucking leaves and he takes Ilya’s heart with him.
Ilya doesn't follow. In fact, he doesn’t move from his spot on the couch; eyes still locked on the hallway Shane left through. Like maybe, Shane will come to his senses halfway back to his hotel and come running back. Begging forgiveness. But that never happens. Not in the three hours Ilya sits there, catatonic.
When he’s finally given up all hope of Sh- Hollander returning, he walks into his bedroom, pulls out the hollowed-out Bible that holds his emergency cigarettes and stuffs one in his mouth.
He had cut down significantly since dating, hooking up with Hollander. But it wasn’t ‘serious.’ Just like he told Svetlana. And now that it's definitive he’s not coming back, Ilya doesn’t really see the need to not smoke them now.
So he does. One after another. All the way down to the filter until he’s finished the pack.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed, only that it’s evening now. The sun set a while ago. His stomach begs for food. His head, muscles, and body beg for water. Instead, he showers and brushes his teeth to get the thick layer of tar off and then passes out on his couch.
He doesn’t miss practice. Even if he woke up this morning feeling like he was hit and then repeatedly run over by a tank. If he misses practice, things will be worse for him. He may not have Shane anymore, but he still has hockey. At least for a little while.
Two weeks later
Things have been up up up for the great Shane Hollander, hands twisted on every local news station with his newest lover, Rose Landry. Ilya feels sick every time he sees them together. It's not even just the jealousy of being picked over, but the fact that they can be out in ways he and Shane could never be. He could never hold Shane’s hand like that in public. Shane could barely handle him saying his first name in private…
Fuck.
He gets off the exercise bike in such a huff he stubs his toe.
“Fuck!”
He has cigarettes and vodka for dinner again.
Three weeks of treating his body like shit is starting to catch up with him, and he’s not the only one who notices.
“Hey, are you alright?”
“Mm. Course,” Ilya says, not even gracing his best friend of almost two decades with a glance.
“Ilya.”
“What?”
“Пожалуйста, не лги мне.” (Please don’t lie to me.)
Ilya finally looks at her, just for a second. She’s always been too observant for her own good.
“Tired,” he eventually yields, “And,” what’s an appropriate word? Hollow, empty, numb. “distracted.”
“Because of Jane?”
“No! Because I am lazy, mediocre player fucking it all up!”
“Who the fuck said that?”
Ilya shoots her a look. There are two people in his immediate circle who are constantly telling him that. She knows that.
“It’s not true,” she insists.
Ilya shrugs.
“Maybe it is.”
“Maybe, it's not.”
He wishes he could give her that. He really does… “Have you called him?”
“Who? Alexi?”
“Jane.”
His head snaps up from his phone, a sharp, painful anxiety building in his chest. How did she know? How long has she known? What does this mean? Will this change everything? He can’t lose her too.
She only gives him one of his favorite knowing smiles and squeezes his hand reassuringly.
Tears push their way down his face. He takes his hand back to wipe them.
“…He doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“How do you know?”
Ilya has to force down a hateful scoff. It will sound like he is mad at her, which he isn't. He just can’t afford a second anxiety attack this week. He’s still mentally recovering from the first. But he knows. Oh, he fucking knows. Every time he opens his phone, email, or fucking social media, he’s smacked with the reminder he will never be good enough. No one will ever want him. Everyone he loves will eventually leave him.
He grabs his necklace subconsciously. He wishes he could talk to his mom.
“Ilya-”
“Trust me,” he huffs, “I know.”
Today's the first day his cigarettes-and-vodka diet finally catches up with him. He's in so much pain that he’s physically unable to get out of bed. Every time he attempts to stand, he is brought to the floor by a dizzying nausea threatening to spill his guts.
He has to call in sick. He gets screamed at by his coach for a good half hour, but he knew that was going to happen anyway.
He doesn't leave his bed. All week. He misses three practices altogether. His paycheck, personal stock, and ego take a massive hit. His father and brother haven't stopped calling to bitch him out. He wants to cry, but he can't spare the fluids.
On day 9, the news must have broken containment because he’s staring at the first text he’s gotten from ‘Jane’ in weeks.
[Are you okay?]
Ilya laughs hatefully at the text. Months have passed. Not one word. Not one text, email, call, or word through the grapevine. Ilya feels insulted that he bothered to text him now.
He fires off a,
[Fine.]
Before tossing his phone onto his bed and moving to the living room to sulk some more.