〚 SUBJECT 𝄈 NOTHING BUT VULNERABLE 〛

@capthollsy 𝄈 ╰ ✦ ⸺ ❛  it’s  not  safe  for  people  to  see  us  together .  ❜

ah, yes, there it was — the rejection. ilya should have known better, should have expected it. it was fine for shane hollander, hockey prodigy and mhl captain, to show up at his apartment in boston, or for him to show up to his hotel room, when they were both traveling for their chosen career paths. it was fine for them to kiss, to suck each other's dicks, for ilya to fuck him senseless and all kinds of cuddling, canoodling, etc to happen afterwards, but to be seen in public? unacceptable. unsafe for the hockey captain to be seen in public with the male russian ballerina. the straights would riot, the world would end, the mhl would fire shane...

ilya should have known better, but for a moment, for one post-orgasm, pleasure-hazed moment, he'd thought -

he didn't know what he had been thinking. something stupid, something reckless perhaps. blush framed and sweat shined freckles blowing through his walls like well-placed dynamite, leaving the twenty-four year old russian ballerina in shambles. proposing stupid fucking ideas as he watches hollander wander away for his routine post-sex cleanup. bruised and sweaty and gleaming and beautiful — and limping a little, maybe.

ilya grins a little, hiding his disappointment beneath his asshole persona. he kicks the ruined covers off the bed and onto the floor (a move shane will hate and bitch about when he's clean and ready for bed), and stretches out across the clean sheets.

"i know, was just silly idea. wasn't thinking. am hungry now." he offers the excuse because he knows it'll be accepted. shane will accept anything as long as it isn't the truth — that the secrecy of their tryst was beginning to lose his charm with ilya, that he wanted sunlight and to do normal couple activities with shane now that his work visa had been settled, and russia was a hopefully only just a footnote in his history. "this hotel doesn't have overpriced snack fridge."

It's a little embarrassing how quickly Scott flushes. He finishes tying his laces, swallowing back the delight that he feels. It's so stupid. And he can't explain it, but the way that it lands gives him that burst of relationship pride. Even though Shane didn't mean it like that and it's literally just an observation. But it feels like a compliment about Kip. Cute socks that'd been given to him by his very cute boyfriend. It's rare for him to get these moments, this mixing of worlds. Rare to have the opportunity to reference Kip without it being suspicious or leading to more questions.

Rose hadn't intended on staying over so late, but these things just happen, don't they? She's happy to still be Shane's friend, which means impromptu hangouts like right now, just watching a movie and talking about what's going on in their lives. She's flattered that Shane even offered to let her stay because she was definitely prepared to just get an Uber back to her place.

[ SMALL AS FUCK RANDOM STARTER CALL ]

@capthollsy

[ RECEIVED ASK: A GAME OF TELEPHONE ]

@capthollsy 𝄈 ╰ ✦ ⸺ [ TXT ] : even if you called 6 months later at 3am, i'd answer.

june 2017 ⸺ boston

his mother's cross is in his mouth. ilya doesn't know when he picked this habit back up again, but he knows it's self-soothing. something he'd done at twelve-thirteen-fourteen, before his father had noticed, before his brother had started mocking him. before, before, before — before he'd been old enough to have another coping mechanism that wasn't hockey, or sucking on his mother's cross like a baby.

ilya doesn't know what he's doing it for now. doesn't know what's got him out of sorts. why he's got his mother's cross between his lips and the chain between his teeth.

it's just a text, ilya, there's no reason for this.

the phone backlight turns off in his hand, but still shane's text is visible in his mind. seared into the back of his eyelids because, whether he intended to or not, shane had hit a nerve. a well deserved hit on an already aching nerve.

even if you called six months later at 3am, i'd answer.

a memory rises up from the depths of his mind unbidden, unwanted. june, 2014. las vegas. not the first night he'd tried to cut shane out of his life, but the first night that he'd really almost fucked it up for himself, for them, for shane. that argument rolling to the forefront of his mind, every word, every moment, every breath one of those things he'd been ashamed of, was still ashamed of, because he'd hurt shane. not for the first time, not for the last time but -

it had been different then, that vegas hurt, that realization that shane had bewitched him and he could do nothing about it. 'why does it have to be you?' he'd asked later that night, during sex that somehow lacked the intimacy they both desired. a silly question, because ilya had known why it had to be him, why it had to be shane.

⸺ there had been nothing else but shane hollander since a rink in saskatchewan.

ilya closes his eyes. breathes. turns his phone screen back on and stares at shane's reply for another solid minute, finger touching the screen to prevent it from going dark once more. he types out a response, in russian, erases it and then again, in english.

[ STARTER CALL ]

@capthollsy

When exiting a sporting at a massive venue that promised to disgorge crowds of hundreds of people stirred into a frenzy, many drunk, and many more hot under the collar and raring to dig into the opposing team with all the beer-fueled violence anyone could imagine. So, acting a little on the sly, Svetlana had decided to sneak out the back where the lights droned loudly and flickered forlornly in the back lot where tour buses and trucks waited, thankfully divorced from the ruckus occurring out front.

When the back doors' hinged whined, presumably someone else, Svetlana wheeled back.