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Chapter One: Snort

Ilya stared at the small bag in his hand, his fingers slowly moving the powder around in the plastic. He swallowed sharply, his eyes blinking as he looked around the empty alley. No one was there. He'd checked twice before he'd allowed himself to stop walking, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting to find. Someone watching him, perhaps. Someone waiting to tell him that this was a bad idea. Someone to care. There was no one. Just the cold night air, the distant hum of traffic, and the muffled noise of the city carrying on without him.

Ilya looked back down at the bag. It was stupid. That's what he kept telling himself. Stupid, reckless, unnecessary. He wasn't going to do anything. He was just holding it. Just looking at it. That was all. That's all this was. Just… he was just looking.

He'd spent the last few days telling himself a lot of things. He was fine. Everything was fine. Shane was behind him now, and whatever had happened there was over. He had survived it, just as he'd survived everything else. He'd been through worse. He'd always been through worse and come out the other side.

But the problem with telling yourself that you could survive anything was that, eventually, you started to wonder how much surviving a person could actually do. Eventually, you started to push the limits of this never-ending luck, wondering just how far you could go before your luck finally ran out. Would this one tiny bag be the edge? Would this one tiny bag be the end of his luck? He had used a known dealer, but who knew what was actually in this bag? Would it bring salvation, or would it finally be the thing that destroyed him?

Ilya slipped the bag into his coat pocket and immediately felt the weight of it against his side. It was barely anything, but it seemed to pull him down all the same.

He should leave. He knew that. He could turn around, walk back to his car and drive home. He could throw the bag into the nearest bin and pretend he'd never seen it. Tomorrow, he could wake up and go about his life as though tonight had never happened. That was what a sane person would do.

Ilya remained perfectly still.

The problem was that he hadn't gone looking for this. At least, that's what he told himself. It had been a coincidence. An accident. Something that had simply appeared in front of him at precisely the wrong moment. He hadn't planned it. He hadn't thought about it. He hadn't spent the last several nights lying awake, wondering what it would feel like to stop thinking for just a few hours. A few hours of not being haunted by those eyes or the memory of the brush of his fingers against his skin.

He could take it all.

The thought came so quietly that Ilya almost missed it. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the alley wall.

For weeks, his mind had refused to give him any peace. Even when he was exhausted, sleep wouldn't come easily, and when it did, it never lasted. He'd wake up with his heart pounding and his thoughts already racing, as though some part of him had been waiting for the chance to drag everything back to the surface.

The pressure. The expectations. The constant feeling that he was one wrong move away from watching his entire life collapse around him. The things he'd spent years burying that had suddenly begun pushing their way back to the surface.

And Shane.

Ilya's jaw tightened.

He didn't want to think about Shane. He didn't want to think about what had happened or the thoughts it had dragged out of him. He didn't want to think about the things he'd spent so long trying to convince himself he didn't want.

But the mind was a cruel thing.

It followed you.

Ilya opened his eyes and stared at the darkness ahead of him. His reflection was faintly visible in the window of a parked car across the alley. He looked tired. Older, somehow. His hair was a mess, his face drawn from too many nights without proper sleep and too many drinks.

He wondered when he'd started looking like that.

He wondered if anyone else had noticed.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Ilya flinched before pulling it out.

A message from his agent.

Something about his schedule. A reminder about tomorrow. Another obligation that needed his attention, another place he was expected to be, another version of himself he was expected to put on for everyone else. Something for everyone to pick apart.

He stared at the message without reading it properly.

Tomorrow.

There was always a tomorrow.

Another practice. Another game. Another interview. Another room full of people watching him and expecting him to be exactly who they thought he was.

Ilya locked his phone and shoved it back into his pocket.

He was tired.

That was all.

He was just tired.

Maybe that was why this seemed so tempting. Not because he wanted to return to the person he'd once been, but because he wanted a few hours where he didn't have to be anyone at all. A few hours where he could float away, his mind completely empty, where he wouldn't have to think about anything or anyone.

He looked down at his pocket.

The bag was still there.

His heart began to beat faster.

Ilya took a slow breath, forcing himself to stand still. He knew what this was. He wasn't stupid. He knew exactly where this road led, and he'd spent years making sure he'd never have to walk down it again.

He remembered the person he'd been.

He remembered the fear.

The lies.

The shame.

The way he'd learned to become an expert at hiding things from the people around him.

He remembered promising himself that he'd never go back.

Never. Ilya's fingers curled into a fist.

He should throw it away. He should leave. He should do anything except stand in a dark alley with his hand pressed against his pocket like the thing inside it was the only thing keeping him upright.

For one brief moment, he considered it.

Then the exhaustion came back. The weight in his chest. The noise in his head. The relentless, suffocating feeling that he couldn't keep doing this.

His shoulders sagged, and his breath started to come out in uneven pants.

"Fuck."

The word came out quietly.

He looked towards the mouth of the alley. The city continued around him, completely indifferent to the struggle his brain was fighting. Cars moved through the streets. Music spilled from an open doorway somewhere nearby. People laughed as they walked past, their lives carrying on in a world that seemed impossibly separate from his own.

Ilya stood there and watched them.

Normal people.

Normal lives.

He wondered what it would be like to have something that simple. A life where he could just be. A life where he could be with Shane, openly. Where he wouldn't have to hide or pretend or constantly measure every word that came out of his mouth. A life where he didn't have to choose between the person he loved and the person everyone else expected him to be.

Shane.

His hand disappeared into his pocket.

The decision came quietly. There was no dramatic moment, no final battle between right and wrong. There was only a man who had spent too long trying to hold himself together and had finally become too tired to keep pretending he wasn't falling apart.

Brown eyes.

Gentle hands on his.

The memory came suddenly, painfully vivid, and Ilya squeezed his eyes shut against it, his head shaking as she sobbed. He could almost feel the warmth of those hands, the quiet reassurance in them, and for one fleeting second, he wanted to reach back towards the memory and let it pull him somewhere safe.

But the moment passed.

Ilya opened his eyes and looked down at the small bag in his hand.

"Just this once," he whispered desperately.

Then, before he could give himself another reason to stop, he made the choice he'd been trying so desperately not to make. The powder burnt his nose and he cough as he felt it in the back of his throat.

The aftermath was almost immediate. Ilya stood perfectly still, waiting for something to happen. For the world to change. For the weight of what he'd done to come crashing down on him all at once.

Instead, there was only silence and euphoric head rush.

The alley remained empty. The city continued moving around him, completely unaware of what he had just done.

Ilya swallowed and stared at the pavement, the tiny bag now empty fluttered the ground.

Tomorrow, he would fix this.

Tomorrow, he would be better.

Tomorrow, he would make sure it never happened again.

He would wake up and put this night behind him. He would pretend that this was nothing more than a moment of weakness, an isolated mistake that would never happen again.

Just this once.

That's all this was.