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Ilya was half-hard and panting into the open mouth of Mikhail Voronin, the goalie of the opposing team from Kazan that would not stop eying him during their match. Or before. Or after. Ilya had taken a gamble when he’d seen the boy lingering behind his team afterwards, and it had paid off. With father away on a work trip and Alexei consumed with his own blooming life doing whatever the fuck he did, Ilya had their whole grand home to himself and a single plan to chase away the emptiness of the place. His head was buzzed with the vodka Ilya had procured, the cheap shit he’d gotten himself so that his father wouldn’t notice him stealing the good stuff any more, and his body was on fire as he and Mikhail tumbled against the wall, hands clumsy and shaking with desperation.
Ilya tore at the button on Mikhail’s jeans and let his fingers sink below his waistband, curling around the boy’s hips and pulling them against his own. As Mikhail groaned, his teetering voice echoing against the cold walls around them, Ilya let his mind shut off and focus only on the heat of skin against his own, the tangle of nerves and excitement and anger and need that made his head spin and his stomach twist. He got a hand in Mikhail’s short hair, doing what he thought he was supposed to be doing, and crashed his lips into his in a kiss full of youthful determination and a lack of experience to make it smooth. He felt lips catch and teeth clack, reverberating throughout his jaw and skull - but not half as hard as the way his bedroom door hit the wall.
He blamed the vodka, then, for the way both he and Mikhail still took a second to react, both of them half-jumping out of their skin and throwing one another across the room as they turned to look at the doorway. Alexei Rozanov stood there, his eyes red and lined by shadows, and his work uniform was askew, as if he’d run right there after work. Ilya stared at him, sobriety hitting him like a truck and stomach sinking as Alexei held his gaze for what felt like eternity, his brain slowly working to process the sight before him. Then his dark gaze slid to the boy on the other side of the room, who had gone tense and pale against his windowsill. Ilya saw his fingers scratch absently at his window, but they were a floor up and the walls were tall. The fall would disable him, probably. Kill him if he landed wrong. Ilya wondered if he’d still try anyway, knowing that.
Alexei didn’t give him a chance, of course. He crossed the room in two long strides, grabbed the back of the boy’s neck, and tossed him into the doorway. Ilya tried not to grimace at the way Mikhail’s shoulder collided with the frame, but Mikhail said nothing, to his credit.
“Out,” Alexei said, his voice low, scarily calm for a moment. “Get out of my fucking house.”
Whatever further threat was locked and loaded on his tongue needn’t be said, because Mikhail was already scurrying down the hall. Ilya didn’t try to stop him. He did, however, gather the boy’s shirt from the ground and walk over to the window to toss it outside. Hopefully he’d get it, but maybe he’d just grab his coat and make do with that. The cold air that drifted in was bitter and unforgiving against Ilya’s exposed skin and he let it sink into his muscles as he turned, facing his brother.
They had not spoken much since Alexei moved out. Alexei visited home as much as was strictly necessary to please their father, but he’d never come there to see Ilya. He hadn’t gave a flying fuck about Ilya since hockey took a serious turn for him, like he was jealous of his younger brother. It wasn’t Ilya’s fault that he’d committed himself to the path father had set out for him, but they both knew Alexei couldn’t stray from that. Ilya didn’t envy him.
“Why are you here?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest and trying to will himself neutral. Tried to still his racing heart and sinking stomach. He couldn’t, however, quite bring himself to meet Alexei’s narrowed eyes, but his brother had no problem staring him down. Yet he was quiet for several moments, as if debating how to address the elephant in the room. Ilya hoped he simply wouldn’t. It wasn’t any of his business and he could just play dumb and drink it from his memory, which he was sure he would. When he found the courage to look up, Alexei was stiff and maybe a little paler and his eyes said a hundred things, all of which Ilya could read without the other speaking them aloud.
“This is my house too,” Alexei finally said, voice strained with the effort to keep it calm.
“Hardly, anymore.” Ilya shrugged and looked out of the window, jaw clenched tight. “You know papa is not home. You don’t need to be here.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Ilya sucked his teeth and ignored the reflex to look back at Alexei, instead glaring a hole into the night sky outside. So much for casual. Alexei stepped into the room, laid a broad hand on Ilya’s shoulder, and whirled him around to face him. Ilya smacked his hand off of him on reflex and Alexei’s hand lingered in the air between them as they glared at one another, air suddenly tense, suffocating. Alexei slapped him anyway, hard, and then paced to the other side of Ilya’s bedroom as Ilya let the pain in his cheek tingle. It was then that the nerves began to fester a little too much for Ilya to ignore, though he refused to let it show on his face.
“It… is not what it looks like,” he said, eyes following his brother’s figure as he leaned against his wall opposite him. He looked tired, suddenly, as if slapping Ilya had sapped the strength out of him. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not. It really better fucking not,” His brother dragged a hand down his face, then shook his head and snorted to himself. “I came here to make sure you hadn’t broken shit while papa was away.” Liar, he thought, but both of them knew that already and it didn’t need to be said. “You should’ve just broken shit.”
“Next time,” Ilya said, dryly, and ignored the glare from his brother. Tentatively, he peeled himself from the window and moved to sit on the edge of his bed, looking forwards. “I mean it. It won’t happen again.”
Alexei was silent for several moments. His footsteps were softer, slower, as he approached and sat on Ilya’s bed, leaving a gap between them. He leaned forwards, elbows on his knees, and ran a hand through his hair. He needed a haircut desperately.
“This is not the first time though, is it?” Alexei asked. He didn’t need an answer and Ilya didn’t give him one, and listened to his brother sigh all the same. “You are a fucking idiot. Really, a fucking idiot. That’s almost worse than you being a faggot.”
“Almost.” Ilya scoffed, turning his head to glare at his brother, defensive and angry and worried. “I’m not-”
“Ilyusha.”
The words died in Ilya’s throat. He suddenly felt twelve years old again, back when Alexei was a different person and maybe so was Ilya. The room was cold and Ilya’s cheek stung. He deflated, shoulders slumping, and he turned his face away from his brother.
“You cannot do this.”
“I know.”
“Papa will kill you.”
Probably not that much of an exaggeration, either. “I know.”
His brother sighed again, sounding almost pained, and Ilya turned to see his face screwed up in frustration, eyes covered by a hand. “I don’t…” he began, hissed, and then looked over to glare at Ilya. “You fuck up so much, Ilyusha. For no good fucking reason. I don’t understand you anymore.”
Ilya rolled his eyes and pretended not to swallow against the tightness in his throat. That had been a running theme for the past few years, but it wasn’t as if Alexei did anything better. He tried, but their father couldn’t care much for Alexei’s textbook behaviour and only saw the cracks and failure in him. Alexei was a waste of an older brother and Ilya wasn’t man or perfect enough to make up for it, either.
“Runs in the family,” he muttered, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand as he turned back to look at his brother. He had changed so much in the past four years, too. Alexei had always had a stick up his ass even before everything got worse, but now - Ilya wasn’t even sure. He wouldn’t have recognised Alexei four years ago. He wouldn’t have recognised himself four years ago.
“Probably,” Alexei conceded, sighing, and leaned back on Ilya’s bed, head tilted back and eyes staring up at the distant ceiling. Ilya thought he might be spared more from him, but fate had never been so merciful to him. “But you are too old for this now. You can’t fuck things up now.”
“Like you did?”
Alexei’s hand smacks the back of his head, not as hard as earlier, but his glare is somehow worse. “I should save papa the trouble and throttle you myself.”
“Mmh, I die and you get to be his favourite son again. Sounds like the best case scenario.”
Another smack, and Ilya’s hand snapped out to hit back, landing somewhere around his shoulder. “You won’t die,” Alexei hisses, but the intended edge to his voice doesn’t quite land. He supposes it is still a sore spot for both of them. Ilya sighed, dropped onto his back on the mattress, and stared up at the ceiling. He was tired and he wished Alexei would leave and go back to his own home so he could go to sleep. “Which is why you cannot do this anymore. I don’t care what you want or if you don’t care. Get your shit together. Focus on your stupid hockey. Find a nice girl and be normal. I don’t care if you like her or not, but you’ll do it.”
Ilya’s jaw clicked. He liked girls too. It would be easy to do. But it’s not so easy to agree with Alexei, and maybe he doesn’t want to act like everything is fine and that he’s normal. He’s not felt normal for years and this is hardly the worst of it, he thinks. Ilya said nothing and Alexei let him for a while, silence stretching on between them. Ilya hated him. He hated Alexei for so much and he wanted to reach up and shake his brother by his shoulders and tell him what a waste of space he was and ask him why he’d allowed that to happen. But then again, Alexei had never had passion so much as he simply had expectations that he met without protest. He wondered how long Alexei had been hollow for.
“I’m going to leave,” Ilya said, suddenly, his voice quiet, eyes cold. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it. Hockey was becoming more serious quickly, and he was lined up to slip right into the KHL and make a blazing career out of it. That was what papa expected of him, too, and probably what he should do. It was what would be easiest. But Ilya had felt, for a while now, that he would choke if he did that. He could become the best player in the KHL and find a nice girl to marry eventually and maybe not be a complete disappointment to his father and everything would be fine. Would be normal. Good, if he allowed it to be.
But he had a feeling that normal and good would kill him. It would choke him over the years and Ilya would claw his way into the empty plot of ground right next to mama’s grave. On quiet nights he could already feel the soil falling around him, like faint raindrops, weighing him down. If Ilya wanted to live, he could not stay here. Not in this grand, empty house; not under his father’s gaze; not within his brother’s reach; not on this soil. It would bury him and he would not be able to stop it.
When he realised several moments had passed, he turned to look at Alexei. His head was nodding absently, just a slight, barely perceptible movement that stopped a beat after he realised Ilya was looking at him. He looked back from the corner of his eyes, his hands clasped against his lips like he was in prayer.
“Okay,” he said. His voice was cold, yet the shining amber of resentment in his eyes had faded, if only for a moment. His head tipped, caught the light, and his eyes were wet. Ilya realised his were too. Alexei stood, rolling his shoulders back. “Good. Get far away from here.”
He held Ilya’s gaze for a moment longer until Ilya nodded, just once. Satisfied, Alexei sniffed, scratched at his nose, and headed for Ilya’s door. “I won’t tell papa how disgusting you are if you promise that you will not come back,” he said, and Ilya, despite himself, grinned, all teeth, at his brother’s retreating back.
“Fuck you, Lesha.”
Ilya stood by the window as they waited for the plane to start boarding. He could see it just outside, set up against the tunnel they’d walk through to reach it. So tauntingly close that he had the urge to yell at the attendants to hurry up and let him on; that everyone else could wait, but Ilya needed to be on that plane. His heart was beating heavily beneath his chest, thumping beneath the golden cross hidden beneath his shirt.
He still wondered if this was the right choice. Papa was furious. More disappointed in him than he had been before, somehow, but perhaps that was the single indicator that this whole thing was worth it. It was daunting though, still, and so freeing that he thought he might be sick with relief the moment the plane took off from the ground.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out just as the speakers around the terminal crackled and announced that his flight would be boarding, and the people around him began to fumble with their bags and rush to be first in line. Ilya opened his phone, expecting a message from Sveta, maybe.
ALEXEI: Goodbye. Keep your word. Do not come back, pidor.
Ilya doesn’t smile, but he feels his nerves ebb ridiculously. It is the first message he has had from his brother in six months - and the one before that was equally insulting. His brother had been a mess the last time he’d seen him, and any genuine conversations between them had not existed for the same amount of time. Maybe longer. It was hard to have one when Alexei seemed high more often than not these days. He was surprised he could conjure the thought of Ilya at all, let alone a conversation they’d had so long ago.
The plane was boarding. Ilya turned his phone off and tucked it into his pocket. If they were both lucky it would be the last thing Alexei ever had to say to him. For a moment, as he crossed the threshold onto the plane, he almost felt bad. Almost wished that Alexei could come. Almost did not hate his brother. He wished that almost could outweigh everything else and erase several years of bitterness between them, but neither of them would ever let it and he knew that. Ilya stepped onto the plane and did not look back.