Work Text:
Julien’s POV
Julien checks his email more often than he’d like to. Ok, so truthfully speaking if Julien had his own way, he’d never check his email, he’d shut himself off from the world. But occasionally, his agent has something for him, or his accountant. So he tries to check it every other day, in case there’s something which needs reading.
He reads the email three times, and it doesn’t go in even then. He closes out of outlook, which he’s been told repeatedly that only “old people” use. He is an old person, he can use whatever the computer offers him. He opens it again. Double checks who the email is from, and then switches his computer monitor off.
He goes and makes himself a coffee – the espresso machine in the kitchen the only piece of technology he actually likes. When he has a mug of steaming hot, bitter caffeine in front of him, he turns the monitor back on and sits back to try and digest the email.
Dear M. Perrault
Firstly my apologies for sending you this email without prior contact, your agent kindly gave me your contact details. You do not know me, but many years ago, you played hockey with my husband Alexei when he played in Canada. I am writing his memoirs for him, and am hoping to come to Canada to better enable me to write about the time when he lived there. I was wondering if you would be able to meet up for an interview, or perhaps introduce us to some other teammates from your time together. You were so integral to his career in Canada that I know it is important for me to understand you in order to write about this time of his life.
Kind Regards
Katya Konstantinovicha
Julien gets out his phone and dials Noel’s number.
“You gave Katerina Konstantinovicha my email?” he blurts out as soon as Noel picks up the phone, without even announcing who he is.
“’Hello Noel, how are you, it’s your client and good friend Julien here, I have question for you’.” Noel teases him. “And yes, I did.”
“Why?” Julien pouts.
“Because she is writing a book, and she was very polite,” Noel reasons, “I like her.”
“You’re a shit,” Julien tells him bluntly, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?” Noel asks him blandly.
“Trying to get my to ‘process my past’ or some such therapy bullshit. I don’t need to process shit Noel, I need to forget…” he stops himself before he says ‘him’.
“Well, you don’t have to say yes,” Noel points out pragmatically.
“And if I say no, no doubt you’ll offer her a place to stay here.”
“Did I say that?” Noel smirks down the phone.
Julien rolls his eyes. “I hate you,” he says, “And I’m only doing this to shut you up.”
Which doesn’t quite explain how he ends up emailing Katerina back and not only saying he’s happy to speak to her, but offering her somewhere to stay while she’s in Canada. Although, he supposes, they do at least have one thing in common – even if it is love of the same man.
--
Katya’s POV
Katya opens her google calendar and makes an appointment to have a discussion with Alexei that evening. She can’t be the only wife in the world who has to make an appointment to speak with her husband, but whenever she does the stark reality of her marriage comes back to her. She’d known what this was when she married Alexei, she’d known it was nothing more than a business arrangement, and now she’s known him for so long she knows why it’s nothing more than a business arrangement, but it never feels more like one than when she has to put him in the calendar in order to actually have a conversation with him.
It does mean he’s home for dinner however, and when they sit down, he looks expectantly at her.
“Is this about the book?”
“Of course it’s about the book.” She smiles fondly, the book is taking up most of her time these days, ghost writing Alexei’s memoirs is a feat unlike any she’s undertaken so far. “We need to go to Canada.”
“Out of the question.” He takes a swig of his drink. “No.”
“I can’t write about your life there Alexei, if I don’t know anything about the place.”
“So you go to Canada.” He pouts at her, his displeasure evident on his face.
“Of course…” Katya shakes her head. “That will look so wonderful to the press, your wife, going back to the country where you used to live, without you.”
He seems to take it in, if there’s anything that a Konstantinovich understands, it’s how things appear to the press. It’s the only reason they’re married after all. “Fine,” he concedes eventually, “we’ll go in the off season.”
Katya smiles to herself, it’s not like she hadn’t known he’d have to agree. “I booked the tickets for the first week of May.”
Alexei rolls his eyes. “I presume you’ve already sorted us a hotel?”
Katya hums to herself. “I’ve sorted accommodations yes,” she doesn’t quite say that she’s sorted a hotel, because she hasn’t.
--
Julien’s POV
Julien doesn’t arrange to go and collect her from the airport. Part of him is still sulking that she’s coming at all. He knows he invited her, that doesn’t matter, he’s never claimed to be a rational man. On top of that, he knows that whilst he’s not the biggest star in the world, he’s still recognisable here in Quebec and picking up Aloysha’s wife at the airport could either be noticed by no-one, or could end up on deadspin with god-knows-what rumours attached. Instead, he sends her links to car rental companies and cab companies from the airport.
He keeps half an ear out for a car pulling in through the gates, and steels himself when he does. He takes a moment just inside the front door, willing himself to open it, hating himself for still being so weak, until he hears the car door slam, and he forces himself to put on a smile, and open the door to greet the woman who got to live the life he always wanted.
He’d seen photographs of her, so he knows what she looks like. In his mind she’s like every other stunningly beautiful Russian hockey wife, so he’s not expecting to be shocked. What shocks him however is the man standing behind her when he opens the door to her.
He opens his mouth to speak, and closes it again, no sound coming out.
For a moment, no-one talks. The three of them stand there in complete silence. He’s staring at Aloysha and Aloysha alone. He’s not the same Aloysha that walked away so many years ago, of course he’s not the same. He’s older, he’s got much less hair, his body has lost the definition it had when they were young, the muscle turning soft in his old age. But the eyes staring back at him are the same startling blue that he fell in love with. For a moment, they stand there, staring at each other. He’s no idea what Katerina is doing – she could be talking for all he knows, she could have taken out a gun and be firing shots into the sky, Julien can see nothing except Aloysha.
It’s Aloysha who breaks the silence, always the bolder of the two of them. “Really? Here?” he asks his wife, in Russian.
Katerina smiles beatifically, “Yulien Perraoolt has been so kind to let us come and stay,” she says in Russian and while Julien’s Russian is rusty, he follows it nonetheless. He definitely hadn’t downloaded duolingo in anticipation of this visit, definitely hadn’t spent hours with that judgemental owl staring at him, definitely not.
“Perreault,” Aloysha corrects her, his pronunciation flawless as always, but he doesn’t stop staring at Julien, even as his wife speaks.
“Come in.” Julien remembers his manners eventually, speaking in halting Russian that he hasn’t used in years.
Katerina looks startled, when she’d emailed him they’d spoken only in English, although she must know he speaks French. “I didn’t know you spoke Russian.” She smiles kindly.
Aloysha snorts. “Barely,” he mutters under his breath.
“Let me show you your room.” Julien ignores him, even as he can’t stop sneaking glances at him.
“Thank you,” Katerina says, and then, in halting French, “Is it that you have more that one guest room? I don’t share with my husband.”
--
Katya’s POV
Of course Katya notices the falter in his step as she reveals that she and Alexei don’t share a bed. Confirming her suspicions even further.
Julien huffs, “Of course,” he says, and then, switching to French, he says something which she thinks is about Alexei snoring. His French is nothing like that which she’d studied before she’d come over here, having brushed up on Quebecois, that itself, being little like the Parisian French she’d studied in school, but even so, what Julien says is barely intelligible.
He waves them towards the guest rooms, and then mutters something about the tea, and disappears down the stairs.
“Really Katya?” Alexei glares.
Katya shrugs. “You were so close with him during your time in Canada, who best to tell me about your life then.”
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing Alexei?” she asks him, her best innocent smile spread across her face.
He rolls his eyes and shuts the door to the room he’s picked out, effectively finishing the conversation.
Katya takes her bags into the next-door room, and takes a few minutes to unpack, hearing the sound of Alexei stepping into the shower, something he always does after long plane journeys. She on the other hand, simply refreshes her make-up, and heads back downstairs.
Julien has prepared tea for them, to her surprise, in a traditional Samovar, jam out ready to be stirred in.
“You did not have to prepare this for us,” she says politely.
Julien shrugs, looking even more gallic as he did so. “I owned it.” He pulls a face, and turns to his coffee machine, brewing himself a coffee.
She pours herself tea, but doesn’t pour any for Alexei. She used to try, the first year of their marriage, but he complained every time that she hadn’t made it correctly. To her surprise however, when Julien has poured himself a coffee he goes about pouring a tea for Alexei, getting milk from the fridge and spooning in more sugar than she thinks is healthy.
It’s not long before Alexei appears, his hair damp, and he slides into the seat beside her, taking a long sip of tea, his eyes never leaving Julien’s.
“Jules,” he says softly, it’s the first words he’s spoken to his old friend.
“Aloysha,” their host replies, just as soft.
What Katya had suspected before, she knows for sure now. Alexei has always been adamant that nobody is allowed to call him Aloysha, and from the soft smile tugging at his lips, it’s because he associates the name with Julien.
--
Julien’s POV
Tea is awkward, Julien knows it’s awkward. He can’t stop looking at Aloysha, and any conversation is halting. Aloysha’s French is better than Julien’s Russian, but Katya speaks little French, so they substitute English in, which they’re all terrible at.
“I think today I am not working,” Katya informs him, “But tomorrow, if we could…” she waves her hand, searching for the word “Interview, I would be very grateful.”
Julien nods, he can’t bring himself to speak. He’s sure his voice will crack and betray the longing he feels every time he looks at Aloysha.
“And in the evening, we shall take you to dinner. As thanks.” Her tone brokers no argument, but the widening of Aloysha’s eyes shows how he feels about the matter.
“We can’t go out!” he hisses in Russian.
“Of course we can.” Katya smiles beatifically, “What would be problematic about you taking your wife out for dinner with your old friend.”
The look on Aloysha’s face when he realises he’s lost an argument is a familiar one and Julien has to hide his smirk behind his coffee cup.
He’s grateful when Noel calls him, but less so when he realises the purpose of the phone call is to grill him about Aloysha.
“I’ll hang up on you.” He scowls down the phone, even if it isn’t visible.
“No you won’t,” Noel laughs with confidence.
“It’s fine,” Julien sighs
“Of course it is.” Noel doesn’t say, ‘I told you so’, but Julien hears it anyway.
--
The next day, he wakes up early as he always does, and goes downstairs to brew the tea and the coffee for breakfast. Katya appears, made-up, flawless and looking every bit the perfect WAG she is, and he can’t help but hate her a little bit for it.
Still, when Aloysha appears, face still slack from sleep, eyes barely opened, shuffling through the kitchen half on autopilot, it’s Julien he makes grabby hands at, muttering about tea, not Katya. For half a moment, Julien is thrown back in time, to Aloysha sliding his arms around Julien’s waist, pressing a cold nose into Julien’s cheek, muttering about tea directly into his ear. Julien slides the tea across the counter to him, and then leaves without even bothering to excuse himself. He can’t deal with sleep soft Aloysha, not anymore, not when he doesn’t get to keep him.
It takes a few moments to compose himself, and by the time he’s returned, Aloysha’s had enough caffeine to return to his usual self, and Julien feels like he can breathe again.
Breakfast is quiet, but less awkward than dinner the night before had been, and then after breakfast, he leads Katya through to his sun-room to sit and drink tea, and talk about his life with Aloysha, whilst simultaneously managing to mention absolutely nothing about his life with Aloysha.
It should say more, that he doesn’t even notice when soft piano music starts to drift through from one of the other rooms.
“I did not know you owned a piano,” Katya smiles at him, “Do you play?”
Julien laughs bitterly. “No,” he answers simply. He never has. He’d bought it for Aloysha many years ago, and he’s kept it tuned religiously ever since, but nobody’s touched it.
--
Katya’s POV
Katya fixes her hair in the mirror, working through her plan for the fourth time. It will only work if she leaves it late enough she thinks, if she cancels on them now, the two men just won’t go out for dinner, she’ll have to leave them there, and she’ll have to do it in such a way that means that they won’t want to accompany her back.
The restaurant is just as she’d hoped, she’d read all the reviews of places in Quebec (with the help of google translate) and picked somewhere luxurious but also discreet. They’re seated in a quiet corner, and she excuses herself to go to the bathroom almost as soon as they’ve ordered drinks. When there, she takes the powder out of her bag, a few shades lighter and makes her face look even paler and gives it a few minutes before heading back out to the table.
“Alexei,” she whispers, bending over, “I am feeling unwell, I’ll have to head back.”
He pushes his chair back, going to stand, “We can all head back.”
She’d been anticipating that and knows just the thing to say. “No,” she says firmly, “It’s women’s issues.” Just as planned she sees the look of horror flash across his face, and a matching one across Julien’s a second later as he translates what she’d just said. Men are so easy, and she has to fight not to laugh at the pair of them, one mention of menstruation and they want to be on a different continent.
“Will you be alright to get back by yourself?” Alexei asks her.
“I’ve already called a cab,” she assures him, and taking her handbag, heads out of the restaurant, trying to hide the spring in her step in delight that her plan has worked quite so seamlessly.
--
Julien’s POV
For a moment, Julien sits there in silence, staring at Aloysha across the table. Eventually he brings himself to speak, “We can leave if you want.”
Aloysha thinks about it for a moment, before speaking slowly, carefully. “No.” He offers up a surprisingly gallic shrug, “Katerina has organised this to thank you for your hospitality.”
Julien nods, and they fall into an uncomfortable silence once again. He racks his brains to try and think about what they used to talk about, did they even have anything in common that wasn’t hockey and fucking each other’s brains out? Eventually he finds something to say, “Is she going to meet with anyone else?”
Aloysha shrugs again. “She doesn’t tell me.” He pulls a wry face. “Who else is nearby?”
Julien can’t help the snort of laughter. “You think I’m more in touch with our ex-teammates than you are?”
Aloysha rolls his eyes, and the smile tugging at his lips looks deceptively fond. “I’m not sure you were in touch with any of them when they were our teammates.”
Julien has to laugh at himself, because Aloysha isn’t wrong, and with that the dam is broken. Tentatively at first, but with growing confidence, they start talking in the combination of Russian and Quebecois that only the two of them can understand, swapping memories, catching each other up on the parts of their lives that they’ve missed. It’s not until they’re sitting there, Julien sipping his coffee, watching Aloysha savour a dessert that he realises that he and Aloysha have never actually been on a ‘date’. This is the closest they’ve ever had, and he almost says something, but he bites his tongue, he doesn’t want to fight, and he knows if he mentions it, they will.
They end up walking through the streets of Quebec for nearly an hour, in the dark, before getting a cab back to the house, because it feels like neither of them want the evening to end.
“Drink?” Julien offers as they walk through the door.
Aloysha nods, and heads through to the living room.
Julien grabs a bottle of vodka from the freezer – sure, drinking with your ex that you’re still madly in love with isn’t the best plan he’s ever had, but he can’t honestly be expected to make sensible decisions all the time, can he?
Aloysha inspects the bottle when Julien hands it over and makes an approving face at the label. “You get this in for me?” he asks with a laugh.
Julien shrugs.
“It’s like you missed me,” Aloysha teases him unnecessarily.
Julien shoots him a look, one that silences him instantly. It’s a look that says ‘I never stopped missing you’, but also, he hopes, simultaneously, ‘shut the fuck up’.
“Sorry,” Aloysha at least looks a little abashed, and then, to Julien’s great surprise, he adds “For all of it.”
Julien scoffs. “Sorry for having anything to do with me I expect,” he can’t help but add for him, taking a swig of the vodka in his tumbler.
“Jules, no.” Aloysha is shaking his head now, reaching out towards him, but stopping just breathes away from touching him. “Never that. I’m sorry for the way I left… for being afraid,” he winces, “For still being afraid.”
Julien scoffs again, but he leaves his hand on the couch, in easy reach of Aloysha’s.
“Jules,” Aloysha says quietly.
“I did miss you,” Julien admits, because he wants to give him something, but he can’t bring himself to give him everything. “Of course I missed you.”
“I know.” Aloysha sounds infuriatingly smug, it’s as irritatingly attractive as it’s always been, “You kept my piano.”
For the first time, Julien stops staring at the tumbler in his hand and drags his gaze up to look into Aloysha’s bright blue eyes. “Of course I did.”
There’s a moment of still, a moment where they’re caught in time, blue eyes staring into brown, not even breathing. Time stands still.
Julien doesn’t know who moves first, if it’s him, or Aloysha, or if they’re pulled by some magnetism that has always pulled the two of them together and they’re crashing against each other, Aloysha’s lips as familiar against his as they’ve always been. They’re clutching at each other, too hard, hard enough they’ll probably bruise, but it won’t be the worst they’ve done to each other, so it doesn’t feel like it matters.
Aloysha’s tongue against his feels no different than it did when they were barely more than children, the taste of him hasn’t changed, coloured only by the sweetness of the dessert he’d had at the restaurant. Julien wants to climb inside of him, wants to be devoured by him, wants every inch of them to be touching each other.
He's not sure which of them moans, but the sound in the silent room startles him, and Julien pulls away.
“Jules,” Aloysha says, his hand reaching out to cup Julian’s jaw.
Julien flinches away. “Your wife,” he hisses, “Your wife is asleep upstairs.”
Aloysha pulls a face, “She’s my wife in name only. She knows who I am, how I am.”
Julien had wondered as much, with the two of them sleeping in separate rooms. He almost mocks Aloysha for not being able to say the words aloud, instead only alluding to them, but then he realises that he never says anything of the sort aloud either. “She knows that you’re…”
Aloysha nods.
“And me?”
Aloysha offers up a shrug. “I don’t know.”
Julien lets his head thunk back against the couch, his hand reaching over to brush against Aloysha’s thigh. “God I want you Aloysha,” he admits, unable to even look at him.
Aloysha covers Julien’s hand with his own, threading their fingers together. “Take me to bed Jules,” he says softly.
Julien knows he shouldn’t, knows that at the very least he should put some sort of distance between them, to stop Aloysha breaking his heart, again. But Julien’s never been very good at saying no to Aloysha. He places the tumbler of vodka on the table, a problem for the morning, and stands, tugging Aloysha by the hand towards his bedroom.
--
Katya’s POV
Katya deliberately slept with her earplugs in, perhaps she’d been being hopeful, but it also means she has no way of confirming when the two men got back the night before, or what they’d been doing. Instead, when she wakes, she tiptoes quietly to the room where Alexei had been staying. The room is empty, the bed unslept in, and she smiles a little to herself, before going back to her own bed for a few more hours.
When she gets up a second time, she can hear noises from downstairs, so she dresses, fixes her hair, and heads down, to find Julien making breakfast in the kitchen.
When she enters, and says ‘Good Morning’ in her halting French, he flushes, and avoids meeting her gaze, which confirms what the empty bed in Alexei’s room had implied. When Alexei comes down, and can’t keep his gaze from flickering towards Julien, she knows she made the right call.
“So,” she says, when they are all sat, in awkward silence around the breakfast table, “I like Canada.”
“Good?” Alexei makes a face at her.
Katya takes a sip of her tea, and hums thoughtfully, “I think I would like to spend the off-seasons here.”
“You…?” Julien stammers, looking up at her.
“And of course,” She smiles across the table at him, “We could hardly accept hospitality from you Julien, without inviting you back to stay in Russia, for at least part of the season.”
He blinks at her in confusion.
It’s Alexei who realises fastest. “You planned this.”
Katya smirks into her tea. “Of course I planned this Alexei, I booked the tickets.”
“No.” He rolls his eyes. “I mean…” he trails off, clearly unable to find the words without incriminating himself.
“Had I planned for you to reconnect with your dear old friend whom you so dearly missed?” she asks him, unable to risk smirking at him completely.
Alexei scowls, but he’s clearly delighted. “Meddling old woman,” he mutters at her.
To her amazement, Julien is surprisingly sincere when he says a simple, “Thank you.”
“I think,” she smiles at him, and does her best not to butcher his name this time, “M. Perrault, you and I should work on becoming friends with each other. I think we will see a lot more of each other from now.”
Julien’s gaze flickers between her and Alexei, before he slowly, tentatively nods.
“Good.” She stands, taking her tea with her. “Now please excuse me, I must go work on Alexei’s memoirs.” She can’t help but pause in the doorway to add, “I’m sure the two of you will find some way to occupy your time.”
--
Julien’s POV
Julien steps off the plane in Moscow, and he can feel his heart hammering in his chest. It doesn’t help that even the signs seem unfamiliar – and he never feels more like an uncultured country boy than when he’s flying to large international airports.
He’s expecting them to have sent a car for him, or perhaps Katya will have come herself. Over the summer she’d morphed from being “Alexei’s wife” to “Katerina” and then to “Katya” and he finds that they have more in common than just a love of Aloysha. It’s neither of these things waiting for him on the other side of baggage claim however, but Aloysha himself, wrapped up in one of his big coats, collar turned up to hide most of his face, hat pulled down over his ears to hide the rest, but Julien would recognise those startling blue eyes anywhere.
He lets Aloysha pull him into a hug, breathing in the scent of him for the first time in months.
“Welcome home,” Aloysha mutters in his ear, breath hot against his skin.
Julien lets out a sigh of relief, because he may be further away from Gaspé than he’s ever been in his life, but here, in Aloysha’s arms, he is finally home.