Chapter 3
Did you find someone?
Did you find some guy to blow you in the washroom stall of a bar?
Did you let a fan jerk you off behind the arena after a game?
Did you let another player take you to their house?
Did he bend you over his kitchen counter—
He also just wants to—
talk to his boyfriend.
Normally.
Wants him to answer back honestly how his day was.
Wants to ask him which species of bird diet he is copying today, and if he'll finally give himself a cheat day.
He wants Darren to go back to texting him OpenView videos of "animals unlikely to become friends," just so Kostya can reply, "is us," and a billion hearts, like some love-sick fool in college.
Wants to talk to him about this Volgarian movie called
The Blackout
that Irina has been yelling at him to watch for months now.
Kostya thinks it's mainly because they have an actress named Irina in it.
He wants to shit-talk with him about Vince Hardwick and come up with the 40th way they can call him ancient without using the word old.
Vince Hardwick is so old he probably helped bury Stalin.
Vince Hardwick was still alive when gold was used as money.
Vince Hardwick was probably friends with Jesus.
He wants Darren to send him thumbs-up emojis and knows he
means
it.
Kostya can tell when his heart isn't in it.
They're trapped in a cold and dark chasm, one wrong move and they'll crumble the foundation both of them are standing on.
But Kostya is already falling.
He lives in the same country as his boyfriend, travelling to the States, then back to Laurentia, and they're forced to go weeks without seeing each other.
These stolen moments are all he had, all he could get to fill the lonely hollows of his chest where Darren had filled.
And now, even that has been snatched from him.
Or maybe Kostya was the irresponsible one and lost it himself.
Let it slip right from his fingertips.
Kostya can't name the creature that's possessed his body, it's lit an inferno in him, and it's causing everything around him to set him off.
It took three days for his team to figure out that something was wrong, because whenever he entered the locker room, everyone went uncomfortably quiet.
He's snappy with his replies; his team prep talks edged a little too bitterly to amount to any inspiration.
Enough that Coach Donovan interferes half the time to smooth the sting of his words.
Riggs, who would have otherwise called him out and asked him "what the fuck his problem is", has resorted to gently talking to him like he's a hostage negotiator and Kostya has a bomb strapped to his chest.
Whatever crush Nico was harbouring for him seems to be momentarily put on pause as well.
Never meet your heroes
He's angry,
furious, and
aggressive when he plays.
And it worked for the first game, being an even bigger asshole than he already is on the ice.
But it's very short-lived; when the next game he's banished to the penalty box more often than not, and by the time he's let out, it's too late for even a player like him to make up for it.
Not when the team still so heavily relies on him.
There's a sick sort of satisfaction he gets when he catches relays of Darren and the Bayfield teams' games.
They're still winning more in contrast to his team, but Darren is clearly distracted, an observation noticed by both fans and commentators.
A sign, he wants
sign that this is affecting Darren as much as it's affecting him.
The Darren who stormed away from his house during the fight is the Darren Whitfield he knows.
The Darren Whitfield who sent him 25 questions on OmniCorp Forms (fuck you, Sam Holt) to establish boundaries for a one-sided open relationship is also, uncomfortably, accurate to who Darren is.
And he hates it, even though he feels like it should subdue his anxiety that Darren is able to look at this so... clinically.
There's no care or love in that form; it doesn't feel like Darren copied and pasted their sex life and is neatly arranging him in between rows of other people.
And yet, nothing helps.
Nothing quells the feeling that everything is
His body doesn't feel like his own; someone else has hijacked it.
Someone younger, childish, throwing a tantrum because the bad man stole his favourite candy, and he's half a second away from going over and beating the thief blue and purple for taking what's his—
He is possessed, and he feels possessive.
The heat in him is stifling, and it only further agitates the monster, banging behind his chest to escape and run after Darren, sink his claws into him and hide him behind his ribcage.
Never let him out of his sight.
Never let anyone else dare look at him.
It disgusts him how viscerally he feels the need to do this.
Ashamed at how hypocritical he's being.
He was the one who told Darren,
I don't believe in cheating, I don't own you
He doesn't.
He does not.
Not mine, not like that
, he drills it over and over in his head, hoping any day now, it'll stick.
Wants to believe in it so bad, wants it to stop the fire burning in him, the migraine-inducing screeching in his head.
Wants it to uncoil every muscle in his body, that's twisted and bracing for a blow that never comes.
The final straw comes when Darren stops texting him.
Glenwood is playing New Jersey at home, and Bayfield is playing Washington at home as well.
For two weeks, even when his and Darren's communication had been abysmal to say the least, even after Darren sent that form that was clearly signed by Satan himself, they were still messaging each other.
Even though any outsider reading their texts would think they were nothing more than cordial business partners.
But still,
something
Darren doesn't text him all day, and Kostya doesn't know who else to fucking reach out to.
If Darren doesn't want to talk to him, he doubts Nash will let him know where he is or convince his boyfriend to talk to him.
He doesn't want to worry Mina and Evan either, wouldn't even know how to explain why Darren could be ignoring him.
Glenwood wins, and he barely registers it, despite the fact that a win for his team is rare to come by, but he can't bring it in himself to care.
The team doesn't even seem surprised when he declines their offer to celebrate.
Bayfield wins against Washington as well, and he watches Darren's team cheer on his phone, watches them tell the reporters they'll be celebrating all night, watches Darren shake his head and offer a small smile in assent.
Then, Darren's location stops updating, and everything comes crashing down.
He waits for a second, a minute, then thirty.
And Darren still won't reply to his godamn messages, won't pick up his calls.
LILY
good win whitfield
winning shot was impressive
copying my moves?
not as good as me but acceptable
something wrong with your phone?
wont offer congratulations to me? polite Laurentian thing to do
location turned off?
hasnt updated? still at arena?
He bites the bullet and calls Nash, who lets his call ring out before Kostya's calling again, and again till he finally picks up.
"Jesus, did someone die?
What the fuck, Morozov, it's late—" Travis's voice booms through the phone as a way of greeting.