Chapter Text
Ilya had only been in Boston for a week, but he swore if anyone tried to speak to him in English again today, he'd kill them.
When he had built sandcastles of the MLH as a kid, it had always been about escape. He had imagined the pleasure of being away from his father and brother. He had imagined having the money to buy anything he ever wanted. He had imagined it as this perfect freedom from everything awful in his life with no downsides. Hell, he'd still been dreaming when Shane Hollander walked up to him at the World Junior Hockey Championships to nag him for smoking.
And then draft happened, and Ilya woke the fuck up.
The people here didn't speak with the same accent he'd practiced the language with. They had weird slang, randomly slurred their words, and talked too fast. The city was tiny compared to Moscow, with food his stomach hadn't grown used to yet and so, so many hockey fans. Even as a rookie, Ilya was still stopped on the street nearly every day to take a photo with a random fan. It was awful. He just wanted to wake up in a world where he magically spoke perfect English. At least a couple of his teammates were also Russian, although that didn't mean they wanted to hang out with the new guy all the time.
He holed himself back in his rental apartment immediately after practice, thankful for once that nobody cared enough to invite him out after. The balcony was the only thing he cared about in the place they'd stuck him in. He would definitely care more about details when he started looking for an actual place, but for now all he needed was immediate access to fresh air and a small folding table to hold his ashtray when he inevitably polluted it. So there he sat, in a too-small rickety wrought-iron chair, smoking a menthol that tasted close enough to Russian winter for him to blame homesickness on the nicotine. Ilya stared listlessly out at the unfamiliar skyline as he rested an arm against the table. It was too much. He was so out of his depth, nineteen and alone in all the ways that mattered, and without the control he'd expected from finally being a fucking professional hockey player.
The ash from the end of his cigarette missed the ashtray and landed on his arm. It stung, enough to drag his attention back to the present. He brushed the gray flecks from his arm, but paused, marvelling at the sting it left behind. It felt like control. He stared at the cigarette, slowly burning out in his hand.
Ilya was no stranger to pain. He'd grown up in a strict household, with a father who was quick to anger. But despite all the punishments he'd acquired as a child, not a single one had left a permanent mark on him. Father knew better than to leave evidence of a crime, even one so commonplace as household correction. Even in a sport as rough as hockey, Ilya had somehow come out of the junior leagues mostly unscathed. Everybody joked about his pretty face, but it was true. Compared to a lot of other his age, he still had all his teeth, an unbroken nose, and not a single scar above the neck. Ilya had supposed that made him lucky. But now, as he considered just how good pain felt, maybe he hadn't been. Maybe it was everyone else, who had gotten the chance to be knocked around and marked from their experiences, that were the lucky ones.
In the hot air of the New England night, Ilya had stripped down to just a tank top and his boxers. It meant he had a lot of visible skin to pick from once he'd made his decision. He carefully scanned his exposed legs, then his arms, trying to decide where the most inconspicuous spot would be. After all, he didn't want the team to notice in the locker room. He didn't want the attention, nor the speculation about his ability to play that was sure to follow. He picked a spot on his inner bicep, just above the elbow. It was high enough that most sleeves would cover it, but low enough that he could play it off as an accident if someone noticed.
Taking a deep breath, steeling himself for the impending pain, he quickly jabbed the hot cherry into the meat of his arm.
"блять," he yelped. It burned. Of course it did, he would chide himself later. One of his legs kicked out in surprise from the pain, still.
He pulled the butt away and blew the ash off the wound, prodding at the now-raw skin. It stung, but now he could actually think again. The hazy exhaustion that had plagued him for days dissipated in an instant. In that clarity, Ilya suddenly regretted his actions. It was stupid and impulsive, and solved nothing in the long run. He stared at the red welt slowly appearing on his arm.
How mortifying would it be if someone saw it when he fucked them? Even though the thought popped up vaguely at first, the faceless stranger suddenly morphed into Hollander. It had only been once, a quick fuck to get the pent-up teen horniness out of their systems, but for some reason it stuck out in his mind. The bitchy look on Hollander's imagined face solidified his resolve to never do it again.
Even if it had helped, Ilya hated how much he hoped to see the other boy soon.