Work Text:
October 7, 2010
Ilya always leaves the TV or radio on when he’s at home. No matter what he’s doing, even (especially) while he’s asleep, having a low level of background sound is comforting. Thankfully, it seems every hotel room in America comes a large TV.
He does not watch American news, the news casters’ voices are eerily saccharine and their smiles verge on predatory; he usually turns on NBC Sports or ESPN and ignores it until the hockey games begins to air. The Raiders have spent the past two weeks in intensive training for the start of their season, and as it is his first match with the NHL, and as Ilya is still learning English (and learning Boston, and life in America, and how to be away from his family when he is never quite far enough) Ilya has not had time or a thought to spare for tedious things like the news.
But today, after the first match of the first season of Ilya’s career, after the post-game interviews about their loss to New Jersey, after the bus back to the hotel, after a one-on-one debrief with their head coach, he walks into his shared hotel room and turns on the TV.
The room is too hot and dry for early October, the central heating cranked high in anticipation of the cold spells yet to come. Adams is in the bathroom getting ready to go out with the team. Ilya can’t legally join them at bars here in America yet (at least not anywhere they might be noticed), so they promised to take him out for drinks after their first game against Montréal at the end of the month.
The hotel room’s previous occupants had left the TV on one of America’s many, many news stations. Ilya collapses onto his bed and grabs the remote to change the channel. The reporter speaks before he presses the button.
“—update on the case of the 18 year old Rutgers student who died last month of suicide…”
Like tuning a radio, every sound in the room suddenly comes into startling clarity. The hum of the heater, the running bathroom faucet, the professional yet pitying voice of the newscaster. Ilya’s post-game fatigue evaporates. His body tenses. His vision sharpens. He scans the TV screen, eyes dashing back and forth to catch captions moving too quickly.
The faucet shuts off.
“What’s that?” Adams asks, lumbering out of the bathroom. He glances at the screen as he grabs his jacket and wallet off of his bed, “jeez, that sucks.”
”after his roommate live streamed video of the two men kissing—”
Ilya doesn’t breathe. He does not move a muscle. He clenches his jaw tight enough to ache.
Ilya has a clear path to the door. The bedside lamps are not attached to the desk. They’re light, easy to swing. Adams has a weak ankle and he favors his right side. He’s slower than Ilya but packs a wallop. Ilya’s switchblade is in his pocket.
“Oh, another fag,” Adams looks away from the screen dismissively, “Who cares?”
Ilya’s eyes track Adams’ movement around the room. He watches as Adams shrugs on his coat. Ilya breathes out slowly, silently, through his nose and does not move. He watches Adams open the door.
“Later, Rozanov.”
“Later,” Ilya replies, his voice steady through years of practice.
The door shuts and Ilya creeps his hand over a few inches to press mute on the remote. It takes two to four minutes to walk down the hall, summon the elevator, and reach the ground floor. Ilya waits. He hears the elevator ding. He waits.
He breathes out through his mouth. His knuckles are white, he unclenches his hands. His room is too silent, he unmutes the TV. He reaches over to the nightstand for his carton of cigarettes. He will pay the smoking fee.
He fails to light his cigarette the first time.
It has followed him here to America. It was waiting for him here the entire time. He did not get away at all. Not from clammy hands around his neck, or a colder hand hanging motionless over the side of the bed. He did not escape the eyes in every school courtyard and bathroom and back alley, watching. Always watching.
On the TV they are interviewing another student. She is shocked and upset, and the same age as Ilya. Now they are interviewing the police. He is a gruff policeman with a stern expression.
The cigarette lights. The room does not smell like urine soaked into bed sheets over several hours of school and practice. It does not smell like white roses. It doesn’t smell of her perfume either. It smells like menthol and smoke. He is safe here. It is okay.
He breathes out.
The TV cuts back to a picture of the man playing his violin before he passed.
Ilya had a man in his arms three months ago, after the CCM endorsement shoot. They did more than kiss. The late student smiles like Hollander. Ilya had a man in a park bathroom in Philadelphia last weekend. When took Ilya in hand he had callouses on his fingertips. Maybe he was a musician too.
“Fuck.”
Ilya stands up and crosses the room. He yanks open the mini fridge and takes out a tiny bottle of vodka. He will have to pay for this too.
”—more after the upcoming court date in the spring.”
Ilya holds the bottle aloft and tilts it towards the screen in a toast.
He sits down on the edge of the bed and squints through the blue light at the wide grins of the newscasters. They do not care, the news has already moved on.
***
September 23, 2010
Scott removes his earbuds and tucks the white wire under the armband for his iPod Nano. The sounds of early fall in New York chase after him as he nods at the doorman and walks through his apartment lobby.
He rolls his shoulders and neck as he waits for the elevator. He’ll never be fully over his old injury, but he’s had full range of motion for a while now, and it feels amazing. He had a great run. And now he has more than enough time to get through his routine before heading out to practice.
Scott mentally runs through his schedule as he walks down the hallway. He unlocks the door of his new condo and removes his beat-up running shoes, placing them on the shoe rack next to his casual sneakers. He locks the door, unlocks it, then locks it again.
After two years on the Admirals, Scott has his morning routing down to an art: early jog, shower, stretch, breakfast, administrative tasks, check the news, read for half an hour, then leave for practice. He mixes it up every once in a while to keep things interesting, but why change something that works?
Scott showers, then stretches in the middle of his living room. He checks the lock on the door on his way back to the kitchen, and takes out the breakfast and bowl of fruits he prepared earlier in the week. He pulls out his laptop and goes through his budget, savings fund, stocks, and both his public and anonymous donations while he eats.
He rinses off his plate and grabs his notebook. He sits back down at the kitchen island to review his notes from training so far. He pulls up the footage of their rookies’ U20 matches to compare them to what he’s seen of their playing so far. Scott glances at the door, it’s locked. The new guys are still wet behind the ears, but it seems like they’ll step up when the team needs them.
He feels good about the new team they’re building. They’re still butting heads too much to call the synergy good, but they’re light-years ahead of where they were when Scott joined. Plus, their asshole of a captain will be retiring in a year or two, and Scott’s in the running for his spot. He could do so much. He could put a stop to the hazing and the locker room talk, he could get the new guys more time on the ice, maybe even kick interviewers out of the dressing rooms.
Scott opens a new tab and clicks on the bookmarked news homepage.
He skims the first article. Last night… suicide… 18 years old… outed
Scott feels the blood drain from his face. His saliva is rot-sweet with the aftertaste of fruits and fear.
The kid is so young. Scott has lived a lifetime in the past two years since he turned 18. Two years this kid won’t have. And it could have been him.
Scott turns to glance at the door, it’s locked.
He’s been so careful. He’s been careful with the guys from Craigslist, cautious with the men on vacation. Never the same man twice, never the same bar twice, never too close to a gameday or a sporting event where he might be recognized. And still, it could have been him.
The doorman. His house cleaner, Lisa. The cameras in the elevator. The men he’s met discreetly. Carter. Ms. Sally, or anyone with the St. Thomas scholarships. Jacob. His laptop camera. Any one of them could expose him to a crowd of millions. They could set him up. Or they could notice a small change in his schedule and mention it to the wrong person. Any one of them could tell the team and he’d end up like Mark from varsity or like this Clementi kid and—
Tires squeal and a car horn brays angrily. Scott blinks. He’s staring at the front grill of a car, mere inches away from his kneecaps. He’s standing in the middle of an intersection. He was almost hit. He was almost hit.
He jogs back to the sidewalk and looks around. He’s a few blocks away from his apartment, about fifteen minutes along the route of his normal run. He’s wearing his nice sneakers, not his running shoes. He’s in his street clothes. It’s almost eleven. He should be on his way to team practice. He doesn’t remember if he locked the door.
Scott hurries back to his apartment. He doesn’t have time for this right now. He can deal with this later, when there’s more time, when he’s not on a campaign to win the spot of captain.
They’re counting on him. Scott has to set a good example.
***
March 17, 2021
"In the background of the video, allegedly uploaded by Pike without their knowledge, the two men kiss…"
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