Chapter Text
“He's gone.” The words on the other end of the phone were slurred. Ilya didn’t bother answering before hanging up on his brother. He sighed, standing in his dark Moscow apartment. He was not surprised. This had been coming for months, even though Andrei had refused to acknowledge it. Their father’s condition had continously worsened over the years, first gradually, then more quickly.
Ilya wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He had never heard a single kind word from his father, either to his mother or to himself. He had never received any affection; only cold demands and unrealistic expectations. Yet there was an aching hollowness in his chest that he couldn't explain.
He was almost glad that Andrei had spent the last few weeks in a drug- and alcohol-induced haze, leaving Ilya solely responsible for organising and financing their father's final care. With him simultaneously struggling to prevent his hockey performance from slipping, he simply had no time to feel anything. Now he had a funeral to get through and his own future to secure.
Svetlana answered on the second ring.
“Yes, Iljushenka?”
Suddenly, Ilya's eyes stung. Although he knew she loved him deeply, Svetlana wasn’t often one to show her affection openly. Recently, however, there had been a lot more softness in her behaviour towards him, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it right now.
“It’s over, Svetlana. Please tell me you have options.” His voice sounded hoarse.
Thankfully, she understood immediately and switched into business mode.
“Of course I do. I have been talking to my contacts since we knew this was coming. With the time difference I should have the final offers by tomorrow morning. You’re still set on North America, right?”
“Yes.”
---
This had been the plan for years now. The ideas had come to Ilya slowly, silent fantasies about a life in the light, without hiding, without constraints. It started with him going pro, seeing more of the world and catching glimpses of the freedoms that could be possible. The confinements of his life started to feel increasingly oppressive. All the expectations from his sport, his country, his father, without ever being able to fully be himself.
He’d told himself that he had everything he had ever wanted. In his rookie year, he had been drafted as the first pick by HK ZSKA Moscow and had played for them for all eight years of his career in the KHL, most of that time as team captain. His rise in the league and subsequent career was the stuff of legends. He had fame, money and sex. He had the love of his country, if not his family. For a while, all of this helped to silence the nagging doubts in the back of his mind. Casual flings with women and very rare, very cautious, quick encounters with men helped, too. So did the admiration of complete strangers. For a long time told himself that this could be enough. That he could be happy.
(And if there was a quiet voice at the back of his mind reminding him of his mother and the constant air of misery around her, he could simply choose to ignore it. He was not his mother.)
And then Scott fucking Hunter kissed his fucking boyfriend in front of the entire fucking world and Ilya’s reality shattered.
Usually, he would have watched the Stanley Cup with Svetlana. However, this year she had been invited to a watch party by one of her father's wealthy hockey friends. She had asked him to accompany her, but he didn't want to put on a fake smile and let himself be ogled and groped by strangers all night. Instead, he sat alone in his large, empty apartment and watched Hunter make history, not just for the Admirals, but for hockey as a whole.
With his eyes still glued to the TV screen, he called Svetlana, watching New York celebrate their triumphant, openly gay team captain beaming down at his fucking boyfriend. Through the phone, he could hear a strange mixture of party sounds and angry shouting, before she moved somewhere quieter.
“What the fuck, Ilya! Are you seeing this?”
“I need to get out of Russia.”
A beat of silence, then: “What? Ilya, what are you talking about? What in the actual fuck is going on?”
“Not right now. Not until father is gone, but I need you to help me come up with a strategy.”
“Ilya, slow down. I realize that Hunter’s stunt means something to you but listen to yourself! Think about what you are saying!”
“I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT!” Ilya stopped himself and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Svetlana, but I have been thinking about this for years. Maybe I didn’t want to admit it to myself before, but I can’t stay here. It would kill me. It is killing me.”
The silence lasted longer this time. Ilya could feel his heart beating in his throat as he waited for his best friend - his only friend - to respond. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, serious.
“Are you sure about this? If you leave you will never be able to come back again. The entire country will hate you.”
Ilya had to swallow a couple of times before he was able to speak around the knot in his throat.
“I'm sure. Until today, I thought I could do it, could push down all the parts of myself that people didn’t want to see. But it’s destroying me. It has been doing so for years, slowly and surely. But I thought, ‘Here is just as good as anywhere else’. I couldn't see a better option out there. But that was before. Now, Scott Hunter has a boyfriend, and he can kiss him in public in front of everyone. This is real now.”
“One out gay player doesn’t magically transform the NHL.”
“No, but it's a start. At least it will prompt a conversation. Hunter certainly won’t end up in jail or simply disappear. I can’t say the same about here. It’s not just the possibility of being out one day. It’s so much more than that. I'm not living my life here anymore. I'm just a shell for something that others want. A national icon, a sex symbol, an obedient puppet for politicians and investors to parade around. I'm a bottomless bank account for my brother and a son who will never be good enough for his father. They're sucking the life out of me until there's nothing left of me! There is nothing holding me in Russia, Svetlana. I need to get away from here.”
Again, a long silence. This time her voice was unreadable. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for unloading all this on you. The truth is, I could barely admit these things to myself, let alone anyone else. I was afraid that saying them out loud would make them real and that I would never be able to turn back. But now I just don’t care anymore. I’ll never be as brave as Hunter, but at least I can try to be less afraid.”
“Okay.” The word was exhaled with a deep breath. “If you’re really sure about this, I’ll help you. But Ilya? I don't want anything from you, but I need you to talk to me. I’m your friend and I don’t want you to go through this alone, OK?”
She added quietly, hesitantly, “I remember your mother, too.”
Ilya was struggling to contain his emotions. His eyes were wet, and his voice trembled audibly when he answered.
“I promise, Sveta. Thank you. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Iljushenka.”
They were quiet for a while, just breathing on the phone together. Eventually, once Ilya had regained his composure, Svetlana spoke up again.
“Alright, how do you want to do this?”
---
After Svetlana had put the information for his transfer out to her contacts, he essentially had his pick of teams. It turned out that being the most famous hockey player in all of Russia was a strong selling point for most NHL teams, even though the season was already in progress. Some teams couldn’t afford his signing bonus, some considered it too risky to upset the team dynamics mid-season, and some Ilya ruled out because he deemed them below his standards. Teams like the New York Admirals and the Montreal Voyageurs he declined because he refused to play in any position other than center. He was also secretly looking forward to being able to play against the likes of Scott Hunter and Shane Hollander on a regular basis. Ultimately, he chose the Boston Bears. They were a good team, but they had struggled to make it to the play-offs for a while. The team's owners were hoping that, with Ilya as star player and captain, they would be able to turn their luck around within a season or two. Ilya didn’t tell anyone that he wasn’t planning on waiting that long.
In the end, the unravelling of his entire life in Russia was a depressingly simple. As soon as his transfer became public knowledge, Ilya’s safety in Russia could no longer be assured, so only Svetlana and some of the high-ups of the Bears and HK ZSKA knew about it, all of whom were sworn to secrecy. It was his decision to announce it a couple of days after his father’s funeral. He didn’t intend to stay in the country any longer than necessary.
The funeral itself was an ostentatious affair, paid for entirely by Ilya. A sea of black-clad, stone-faced figures flowed by him in a daze. He felt strangely detached from everything. He shook hand after hand without taking anything in. He was grateful for Svetlana, a comforting presence that was never far away. Andrei next to him was barely holding it together, stinking of alcohol and hands trembling in withdrawal. At least he left Ilya alone. He had no desire to ever speak to his brother again. The deed to Ilya’s old apartment had already been signed over, although he would spend his last night in Moscow - in Russia - there with Svetlana. He would have the key sent to Andrei when he left the next morning. The trust fund for his niece had been set up with clear instructions that the money was only to be handed out to her when she turned eighteen. Fuck his brother.
Back at his old apartment, which now seemed even emptier and more echoing than before, despite him having hardly taken anything, Svetlana poured them two fingers of vodka each and made a toast.
“To new beginnings.”