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It was cold, that night. His fingers were stiff with it, barely able to type. His last message would be with typos, letters smashed together under reddened finger tips. He wanted it to be better. He wanted to be better.
He just wanted to go for drive.
Cant tlak right now. Ill call. I promise
The morning had started out how most of his mornings did.
The sunlight cuts through curtains he always swears he shuts tight. It splashes across his face and his alone. The other side of the bed is empty. He splays his fingers wide over the empty space between him and the start of the day. The cool of the sheets under his palm. He'll get up. He'll eat breakfast, go for a run. Smile, laugh, curl his fingers around a hockey stick and lie through his barred teeth. Yes, I had a good a weekend. Yes, I feel good today. No, my teeth do not quake in my gums from the constant want to bite.
And god did he want to bite. To sink his teeth into something and lock his jaw, never let go. He always has. First it was hockey, young and shivering with pumes of stolen cold breath puffing in front of him. The joy of it. The anger it allowed. Like nothing else he had felt before.
Then it was leaving Russia. Thankfully he didn't even need to loosen his jaw to achieve that one. He got to sink his teeth in until blood and bone was all he knew. He worked harder than anyone else. He drowned the rest of his life in heated kisses and cold vodka. He teeth marks left in the side of his glove from whenever he needed to keep himself from crying.
He used to sink his teeth into the side of his arm. Bite down harder and harder, staying on this side of permanent damage. Never breaking skin, wanting to. No one but him to see how long the indents stayed.
Shane Hollander came barrelling into his life when Ilya had his teeth firmly locked into the side of his own throat. There was no one to take care of him except for himself. It was easy, almost. It was almost easy to get on the plane with the memory of Alexies harsh eyes. To sling his bag over his shoulder, digging into the bruise his father had left. To kiss Svetlanas finger tips, smearing spit across the pristine surface of them.
Ilya was here for Ilya. It was really as simple as that.
Then suddenly, he was here for sun kissed cheekbones. He was here to press open mouth kisses along sharp collarbones. To push and push and push until he felt the empty space between his teeth be filled. To hear that laugh, the laugh that said that Ilya was being a dick but Shane liked it.
Because Shane loved him. Ilya was sure of this, even though they still only pressed desperate hands between their chests in the gasping places in between where no one else goes. Only people like them could find them and it seemed they were alone.
A plea of more pressed itself so sharply into Ilya's throat he thought it might kill him.
He only wanted to go for a drive.
Cant tlak right now. Ill call. I promise
It was dumb to want more now. He'll get it one day, this he knows, so why does the yawning cavern in his chest grow? Why does he want to bite? He should know, how much it hurts. The damage it causes. Hockey couldn't scream and fight against his teeth. Shane can. Shane should.
It was dumb, really, that Ilya felt so god awful today. Today was a normal day. It was absolutely freezing cold, normal for Ottawa this time of year. Snow filtered gently down from the clouds, choking itself on the heat of Ilya's bared throat. He's had his head tipped back, eyes closed under the stormy gray sky for god knows how long. His phone vibrates in his pocket again. He knows who it is. He should answer the fucking phone.
Cant tlak right now. Ill call. I promise
The car's engine turns over beautifully, like she always does. The rumbling under his feet soothing like it always is. He shouldn't drive this car but the snow was barely sticking. Winter had not bitten fully into the flesh of autumn, surely a drive wouldn't hurt. He just wants to feel good for a little. To carve out the hollow sound he knows will leak out of his throat if he answers Shane's calls right now.
Shane was calling because he loved Ilya and Ilya reasonably should be having a normal day. He should be normal and smiley and answering the phone call with an immediate joking demand for phone sex. But he can't, so he doesn't answer.
It was a normal day.
It was the anniversary of his mothers death.
He's never told Shane what day he found his mother. He's not convinced it should matter. It's been years, she's been cold under Moscow dirt since before his voice dropped an octave. She's buried, Ilya isn't. It should be a normal day.
He puts the car in reverse before he thinks to send the text. His foot is braced solidly on the brake, keeping the car from rolling backwards when he slides his phone from his pocket.
7 missed calls from Jane
Ilya huffs a laugh at the name. He always does, it's why Shane stays Jane. Even though him and Shane are public friends, even though Shane could call him whenever and no one would bat an eye. His teammates whisper sometimes that they've seen a Jane pop up on Ilya's phone. That she must be an uber secret Russian spy and that's why Ilya never mentions her. It makes Ilya laugh. Sometimes, he desperately needs that laugh.
The engine is rumbling under his braced foot. He types as well as his fingers can manage. He'll call Shane when he gets back, when the cold air has whipped away the lingering ghosts. When he can say Shane's name with the reverence he deserves. When he won't burst into tears upon hearing his voice.
-
The rolled down windows allow the cold biting air to whip Ilyas curls against his stained red cheeks. The slap of hair against the freezing skin hurts. Ilya bares his teeth and nudges the volume of the already thundering music up. The bones in his hands vibrate with the bass.
Loud, obnoxious, reckless. All the things he supposed to be. All the things that have kept his blood singing, pushing and pumping against the sluggish pull of death.
Because that's what he wants. Ilya wants to die. But not really.
Ilya wants to die so his brain can be quiet. He wants to die so he can't hurt anymore. Ilya wants to die so his bones can be laid to rest next to his mothers. He imagines his skeletal hand reaching through the dirt and pressing pristine white bone to the side of Irina's cheekbones.
A silly thought, it makes him snort at his own dramatics as he downshifts. The car comes to a purring stop at the stop sign he knows well. On nights he needs to clear his head, he always ends up here.
If he hooks the left, he can navigate back to his own driveway. He'll cut the engine, press his forehead against the steering wheel before going back inside. Call Shane and laugh. Normal.
If he goes right, the road will weave towards the heart of town. There's a bakery he knows that he can pick up flaky croissants from. He'll jokingly flirt with the woman behind the counter who's old enough to be his grandmother, she'll smack at him with her beautifully wrinkly hand and he'll over pay. He'll wake up tomorrow with a treat waiting for him and his partners voice rumbling in his memory.
If he goes straight, it eventually leads out of town and away from home. The roads get sparser, the cars more uncommon. It gets quiet out there. He can drive and drive and drive until he worries he's lost. Until his gas meter warns him to turn back. Until his brain peters out into muffled whimpers.
Ilya pushes the car forward, straight ahead.
-
"Sir, I need you to keep your eyes open."
He didn't mean to. He didn't mean to.
"Sir, what is your name? Do you know where you are?"
I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to.
"He's non responsive, he's gonna need an air lift to a tramua cent-"
-
Here's what Ilya remembers.
He remembers going straight, out of town. He remembers pressing his foot down on the gas, weaving through roads with the precision he is known for. He is a fast driver and a good one. Normally to survive past your twenties driving a fast sports car, those need to go hand and hand.
Ilya remembers humming along to a song, the vibrations soothing on his vocal chords. It had felt like practice for when later he would call Shane, his chill nipped skull leaned back against the arm of his couch.
He remembers looking around, no other cars in sight. His foot pressing down on the pedal, kicking his speed well above speed limit. The wind whipping through his open windows with a vengeance. It felt good, it felt freeing, it felt like biting.
There was a curve coming up, he knew this. He knew this road. The road would curve sharply left and then a pull off was a couple hundred feet past that. Ilya would whip through the curve and push his car into a skidding stop at the pull off. He would breath through the adrenaline, huffing out panicked breaths and laughing all the same. Then he would shift back into first before whipping a u-turn. Going home.
Except this time the car wheels didn't bite into the asphalt like they should've. Or maybe he didn't ease off the gas fast enough. Or maybe the small, barest sprinkle of fresh snow was what did it. Regardless, there would be no u-turns tonight.
Ilya would not be going home.
He remembers the fear, sharp and acidic in the back of his throat. He remembers the squeal of the tires as he tried to course correct. The hunk of metal his suddenly fragile body was in careening over the side of the road. He remembers little else.
-
They buried him on a tuesday.
It should've been a normal day.
There were no games scheduled today. The grass of the cementary was packed, the body heat melting some of the frost off the blades. Tucked near the back, clothed in black like everyone else sat Ilya's greatest and last secret. Shane Hollander stared red eyed at the casket. A fur wrapped Svetlana was staring not to different from Shane at the gleaming dark wood.
She should be up front with Ilya's teammates. Instead her shoulder brushed against Shane's everytime he took a breath. They had not spoken since she had taken vigil by his side. They didn't need to.
They had matching weeping red teeth marks on the inside of their hearts. They were the only two people in the world who understood what it felt like to truly and fully love one Ilya Rozanov.
Biting teeth and all.