Work Text:
Ilya doesn't know love.
He doesn't know about love.
He does not know anything related to love.
Or at least, not anymore.
He thinks he knew about love before. Love was his mother.
Irina.
мама.
She always meant love.
In the difficult and painful way that a broken home with a broken mom could mean love.
It didn't make it less love, just a difficult and painful love. Love wasn't just the warm hugs and the playful smiles his mom gave him, but also the heartbroken sobs he heard through the night, the cold bed he slept in after she died and the knowledge that he wasn't enough to make her stay.
Grieving was love. All the love he didn't get. All the love he still had to give her.
Maybe love was Sveta. Friend. Lover. Warm.
Sveta who was just like him. Broken.
Sveta who couldn't get him to talk about anything unless she got him worked up enough. Sveta who kept trying to reach him, to caress him only with the tips of her fingers. Sveta who always gave him anything he asked for, either being a fuck or a warm hug.
She was everything, for a while. Until he understood how fucked up both of them were. Both from broken homes, both with broken hearts.
They would've never made it.
Love, then, was hockey. His true passion. His calling.
The only thing he was good at.
The adrenaline which made him forget how broken he was.
The thrill of winning.
Lucky in game, unlucky at love. Shit was true.
He quickly understood it was just a façade. Hockey wasn't love.
At least, not anymore.
Hockey was just money.
Love wasn't easy.
Love didn't come easy to him.
He was so sure it didn't exist. It was just bullshit. Probably all his teammates were lying when they babbled about girlfriends and their loves.
He didn't want any of it.
At least, not anymore.
He just wanted sex.
So that's what he did. He had lots of sex. And it felt so good every single time, that each fling reminded him how he really wasn't made for it.
Even if the girls called him back over and over.
Even if they were so insistent about teaching him about love.
Even if they could have been love.
He wasn't made for loving.
But maybe Ilya was just stupid. Maybe was so scared of it (and so eager for it) that he couldn't even recognize it when love approached him by itself.
He was blind, as for when Love actually tried to come around he just didn't kiss him that night.
And he was deaf, because Love actually screamed his name atop of every roof in the city of his heart.
Love just showed up, his taste bubbled up inside him and left some marks with his fingertips.
Love came to his house and gave him his all, and when Ilya sat where he had lie down, he cried.
He cried because he couldn't believe it. Love was finally here, and yet... He wished he didn't want it so bad.
He wished love could just be with him, alone with him, alone.
Just the two of them. And no one else.
But with everybody watching them, their every move. They both had reputations.
Rivals.
So they kept it secret. Love was a secret.
And Ilya wasn't sure if Love was supposed to be a secret. Loving was something to be proud of, wasn't it?
He burned with desire, and for once in his life, once again, he burned with love.
Love came again to taught him about a different love. And Love took his hands in his, and whispered nothings and gave him pinky promise kisses.
Love told him he was actually a very good lover.
And Ilya knew he was made for loving, not anyone, but loving only Shane Hollander.
Cause Shane Hollander was Love.
And Love was the freckles in his cheeks, the glow of his eyes and the warm in his hands.
Shane was Love and he was an idiot for not recognizing it sooner.
Shane held him, shared his home, his life, trusted him with his heart.
And there was nothing Ilya wouldn't do for love. Nothing he wouldn't do for Love. Once more to see him.