Work Text:
Svetlana scrolled through page after page of desperate internet scrambles, reading the pleas of those who’d been failed by the system. The so-called social safety net, with holes big enough for a 190 cm Russian man to fall through.
Svetlana kept watching Ilya fall—finding every crack, every pitfall, almost seeming to dive in headfirst. And she knew that wasn’t fair. Ilya was not looking for the holes; he just found them with such a knack that it felt like he was.
Life failed Ilya long before Svetlana ever met him. A desperately sad mother, doomed to leave him with a father who never loved him—who didn’t even try to replace love with money.
Instead, Ilya fell straight through his first safety net like it was nothing more than a spider’s web and thanked his father for the honor.
Battered and bruised, it was no wonder to her that his knee gave out and he slipped straight through Canada’s safety net.
“There has always been an agreement that as Canadians, we will take care of our neighbour when they have the need,” the government loved to claim.
Unless you were a dubiously undocumented immigrant sex worker. Then, they let you fall. Didn’t even notice, honestly.
Each time Ilya fell, Svetlana tried to help pick him up, hoping the next time something would catch him. That someone would care enough to fix what kept breaking. To hold him and stop him from falling even farther.
She could not pick Ilya up. She was, at best, a crutch. And Ilya—who had never known what life was like without falling—wouldn’t let himself admit that someone strong enough to catch him, and rich enough that fixing every one of his problems would look like a rounding error, was right at his fingertips.
But Ilya was proud. And stupid.
Svetlana was rapidly growing more desperate than Ilya was prideful. So she turned to a solution she’d always thought was uniquely American, but it turns out desperation didn’t respect borders.
She knew there was a chance that Ilya would never forgive her, but he hadn’t been at work in two weeks. She knew the money from the pawned watch was almost gone, even though he wouldn’t admit to selling it in the first place. That meant he’d push himself back to work soon and likely make everything worse in the process.
Ilya swore up and down that Hollander only wanted him as a dom, but Svetlana hadn’t believed him when he first said it. And her doubt had been confirmed when she took his phone and saw how many texts Ilya had left unanswered after cancelling his last session with him. She added his number to her phone in the process.
So her options seemed to be: “shame” Ilya or let him continue to destroy himself. She was going to pick the option that could at least solve his money problems if not his interpersonal ones. She changed a few details, found a picture of a stranger who looked enough like Ilya to get the message across, but hopefully not identify him. She didn’t craft the story to appeal to the masses for donations; she just needed to get the attention of one Canadian hockey player. Once she was done, she sent the link to a few of her friends and a few others who worked for Wolfbird and already knew the outline of Ilya’s story. She wanted just enough donations to come in to make it look like it wasn’t targeted at Hollander
Shane’s phone buzzed on the counter. His heart leapt into his throat like it had every time his phone had buzzed in the two weeks since he’d last heard from Rozanov. He knew he shouldn’t keep getting his hopes up, but he couldn’t help it.
Something was wrong, but Shane couldn’t figure out what.
He’d even gone by Wolfbird one night, but Rozanov wasn’t there and neither was Svetlana. He sat there for an hour nursing a drink, declining several offers of company before he gave up and went home.
Shane opened the link and was greeted by a picture of someone who looked so much like Rozanov but was off just enough to be uncanny.
He stared at the photo.
What did Shane even really know about him?
Not his name. Not really.
He'd met a mask.
You know he tried to kiss you.
But they kissed all the time.
“This tonight. This was not a session.”
But it had to be a session. If it wasn’t a session, then they didn’t kiss. He knew he was paying Rozanov to do a job. He, his anxiety, his fucking inability to be a normal person, was the job. Rozanov only kissed him, touched him, told him what to do because Shane paid him for it. If he didn’t pay, then Rozanov would need to find someone who would.
This wasn’t Pretty Woman. Rozanov was not Vivian.
“I have been thinking, and, since this is not a session, you should call me Il—”
His voice was deeper, more resonant in Shane’s head. Words ringing through him like a bell. Shane missed it the first time but played on a loop constantly once he realized it.
Il– what?
Elijah?
Ilya?
Shane tried to let it go, and just like all the times over the past two weeks failed.
He finally read the post.
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Help Elias R’s Recovery and Immigration Process
Svetlana Vetrova is organizing this fundraiser.
Elias R’s story is hard to tell quickly in its entirety. Elias recently re-injured himself on his way to work since he was not able to afford proper care after the original hockey injury. Doctors have told him he doesn’t need surgery but does need extensive, expensive physical therapy that will leave him unable to work for weeks.
Elias works a manual labor job and is physically unable to work until he recovers. Because of the nature of his work and pending legal status, he doesn’t have insurance or access to the social safety most people take for granted.
In addition to supporting himself, Elias’s job supports his ailing parent and sibling, who acts as a caretaker in his home country. Elias’s inability to work means his parent won’t be able to afford medication and treatment.
When Elias is not at work, he has volunteered at a dog shelter for many years. He is very good with shy, scared dogs who come from bad situations. He helps them feel comfortable and loved until they find happy homes. He has recently become a huge Voyageurs fan and wants to be able to root for them in person soon.
All money raised will go toward his recovery, legal bills, and his parent's care. Please donate so he can get back to cheering on the Voyageurs and walking dogs.
Organizers 1
Svetlana Vetrova
Organizer • Montreal, CA
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Shane stared, unblinking at his phone. What the fuck?
All this, and he hadn’t even returned Shane’s texts?
He called him.
No answer.
He called again.
Still no answer.
Ilya’s phone was buzzing on the kitchen counter. It had been buzzing all morning with a peculiar ferocity. He’d purposely left it there, out of reach, so he would stop staring at Hollander’s texts.
He’d composed and deleted a hundred responses.
What could he even say? He was still useless to Hollander. Useless to all his clients. To his family.
After two weeks, he could barely walk from his bed to the couch.
He was doing exercises he had found on google and it wasn’t enough.
I am still here.
He’d kept telling himself that, but wasn’t sure how much longer that would be true.
The math wasn’t working. Hadn’t been for weeks. Or years, really.
And the buzzing hadn’t stopped.
He steeled himself to see what Andrei needed now. Or really, how much Andrei needed now. He half limped, half hopped over to his phone.
A text from Hollander was stacked on top of the rest of his messages. He unlocked his phone with the care he imagined people did when defusing bombs.
Icy dread hit him. What had Sveta sent him? What had Hollander done?
He had several texts from an unknown number and one from Sveta. In addition to too many missed called from Hollander.
The phone shook in Ilya’s hand. He could hardly read his screen. Ilya pressed the call button next to Hollanders contact.
He was going to kill Svetlana.
Blyat.
Svetlana smiled at her phone as she got the text that the GoFundMe she’d set up had been fully funded. She hadn’t doubted that Hollander was the kind of person who would use his money to solve other people’s problems but she still almost wept with relief.
Hollander wasn’t saving Ilya. Ilya didn’t need to be rescued. He just needed to catch one fucking break in a life that had only ever hurled him off one cliff and then another.
Ilya had made an art of falling—bringing beauty where others flailed. Graceful enough to convince everyone watching he was riding an updraft. His form should be studied in school.
But he'd hit the ground all the same. Each time more battered, trying to convince himself and everyone around him that this was exactly how he planned his landing. Ilya watched everyone else fall into the embrace of friends, family, community while the arms of everyone he knew tore like wet paper beneath him. No one was meant to go through life alone.
So Hollander could catch Ilya right now the way she suspected Ilya had already done for Hollander.
And if she’d trampled straight through the personal and professional boundaries she was supposed to maintain, then she was only following the path that Ilya had blazed.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and saw a new message from Hollander
Svetlana put on her coat, grabbed her keys, and pulled on her boots. She needed to go to work. She got one more text, from Ilya and felt her lips turn up as hope filled her once more.