Chapter 1
Liam's phone chirruped for the 7th time that night.
Naturally, Mikhail was set to bypass his 'do not disturb', a fact which was being exploited to the maximum it seemed.
After the 8th chirrup, Liam rolled over to check it was just his extraordinarily drunk husband and not a dire emergency.
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: come partyyyyyy#
Not an emergency, then.
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: I will not make yu drink
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: or talk to peopl that are not me
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: I know y are not looking fr more friends is okay
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: mr popular
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: mr popular-rozanov-hollander
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: all thes
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: all these models arund but I am missig prettiest face of all?
It was a line, but the corniness made Liam smile.
Judging by Mikhail's ability to type, the launch event was a resounding success.
It was for a vodka company, !
noir .
Their entire branding centred on animalistic, masculine aesthetics and they seemed to have found their dream spokesperson in Mikhail.
Liam had seen a few sneakpeeks of the marketing launch; it was Mikhail lounging, looking menacing yet devastatingly sexy, like an adonis with a vodka in hand.
Liam had saved the photos despite the fact he was technically contractually obliged to delete them.
Something about Mikhail just made him behave like that.
noir were launching their product to much fanfare and what appeared to be six thousand cubic litres of vodka.
Mikhail had spent the day swanning around adoring fans, posing for pictures and soaking up the attention of the launch event.
It did make something ache in Liam, knowing he couldn't be there to see Mikhail in his element.
Liam had his own event the next day, a skincare brand releasing their triple step process.
It was tame but they didn't expect Liam to do anything beyond sit for a few shoots and claim to use their products (which he actually did, applying the lotion dutifully every night and the serums every morning)
Liam's event would be boring and not even in the way Liam liked.
Especially since his husband wouldn't be there to pull ridiculously provocative faces behind the camera whilst Liam was trying to focus on the shoot.
Mikhail's launch event was some 3 hours drive away in Beaumont and, judging from these texts, Liam suspected Mikhail wouldn't be in any fit state to make the drive early the next day.
Liam Volkov-Beckett: go find a mirror if you need something pretty to look at
It wasn't the best, but Liam was confident Mikhail would delight in how lame Liam was being.
Sure enough, a reply quickly came through.
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: why arnt y9u here being cute
Mikhail Volkov-Beckett: prety face cute here
Liam shot over a quick '?
' to the last message knowing that even Mikhail's inhuman tolerance to vodka was reaching a peak.
Seconds later, his phone rang.
"Liam!" Mikhail slurred, sounding as though he was king of the world.
"Hey everyone, is my husband!
Is Liam Fucking Beckett!"
Mikhail must have been holding his phone out the room as there was a sudden roar of cheers.
Liam rolled his eyes but smiled, entirely certain that Mikhail had every person in that room eating out of the palm of his hand.
"Good night?" Liam asked breezily.
"Fun.
Vodka is actually not bad, Mira picked good brand.
Everyone telling me I am incredible, so clearly a room full of very smart people.
But none of these people are my Liam." Mikhail's english took a backseat when he was drunk.
"'Your' Liam?" Liam asked fondly.
"Yes, the Liam, the husband.
None of them are him.
Awful."
"That's because he has an early start for an event where he needs to look well rested and not hungover."
"I am going to be hungover," Mikhail said mournfully.
"I thought this wasn't possible for Rovians?"
"Something in Nordish water changed me."
"Something about passing thirty changed you, more like," Liam muttered but he still couldn't help another smile.
"I miss you." Liam wondered, not for the first time, how they'd managed to spend entire seasons apart when just a few nights were making something ache within Liam.
"I miss you, chashka."
"uh, chashka, that's, uh," Liam thought for a moment, clicking his tongue.
"Teapot - no, wait, teacup!"
"Teacup," Mikhail confirmed happily.
He then sighed, "come here, be with me."
"You come here and be with me."
"I said first."
"I actually said it earlier, when you called me and you were sober," Liam supplied helpfully.
Mikhail seemed to think about this for a second before conceding defeat.
"You are right.
I am sorry.
I will come to you and you will come for me, da?"
"Da," Liam repeated, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah head right on over, I'm sure you'll rock my world."
"You'll see me soon," Mikhail breathed.
There was a chance he was trying to sound sexy, but the slurring did make it seem he was having some kind of medical episode.
"I'm going to bed," Liam informed him.
"If you remember this conversation in the morning, rest assured I have no sympathy for your hangover.
The hangover you are certainly going to have because you are thirty four."
"But I will have made it home by morning and you will be my adoring nurse!
You will have sympathy!"
"Yeah, good luck with that.
Goodnight Mikhail.
I love you."
Mikhail's voice suddenly grew low, serious, "you are my love, too."
Though Mikhail had definitely not intended for it to come out like that thanks to a combination of vodka and English versus said vodka, Liam's heart still fluttered.
As he hung up, he began mentally tallying how long it would be until he could see his husband again.
Not long now.
Liam's alarm awoke him only a few hours after his conversation with Mikhail. 5am was getting to be a more difficult time to rise in the mornings, but Liam had a quick shoot before the launch event and needed to be painfully early for make up.
At least Mikhail would get a kick out of seeing photos of Liam all made up.
When he was watching in person he would inevitably take a million photos of Liam on his own phone, cooing delightedly every time an artist applied another brush of blush.
Eventually the shoot director would get pissed off and Liam would act pissed off but he could never quite hide his smile.
Liam swung out of bed, idly scrolling through his phone as he wandered to the bathroom.
Reminders, emails, more drunk texts from Mikhail promising he'd see him soon.
A photo which was potentially meant to be a nude but the camera was severely blurred and unfocused.
Then Liam stopped.
He did not follow any gossip sites and rarely checked social media.
The only site he had notifications for was Ice Edge Report, a relatively trust worthy source which tracked all players.
It was useful for keeping tabs on potential transfers and Liam liked the simple, clean interface.
Liam would usually scroll through the notifications to take mental note of any pertinent topics or rumours for the locker room.
But this notification was different.
It wasn't about a surprise transfer or an out of left field signing.
It wasn't mundane.
It wasn't white noise amongst the loud chatter of the hockey world.
It was Liam's worst nightmare in a single line.
Reports circulating Mikhail Volkov dead at 34 in RTC - more to follow
6am came and with it, the weak beginnings of a sunrise.
Liam's phone did not fall silent for the next hour.
Slowly, texts and calls began to come through.
Panicked.
Concerned.
Hysterical.
He didn't respond to any of them.
The one person he needed to speak to wasn't answering their phone.
It was going to voicemail.
The line was dead.
Liam paced restlessly around the house as though it would expend the sheer anxiety bubbling up in every pore of his skin.
Misha followed him from room to room, understanding that something was wrong and not wanting to stray too far from his side.
She had always preferred Mikhail, but Liam was seen as an acceptable substitute in his absence.
There was a sudden knock at the front door.
Liam nearly jumped out of his skin before bounding for it.
Mikhail?
It must be.
He forgot his key or he lost his phone and this was just a horrible mistake.
"Mr Beckett?" a cheery man in a cap greeted him.
"I'm Callum, I'm driving you to your shoot today."
"No."
"Pardon?"
"No," Liam repeated, furious at this man for the sheet audacity of not being Mikhail.
"I'm not going."
"But - "
"I'm not going," with that, he slammed the door shut.
It was probably terrible for his carefully cultivated image and his mom would be unimpressed.
Mikhail would find it hysterically funny.
Because Liam was going to be able to tell Mikhail all about it, he just had to come home.
Liam swallowed feeling the panic fast setting in and his mind churning with the words from the article - articles, plural as he'd not been able to stop reading once he'd started.
Reports are coming in of an RTC involving Mikhail Volkov's Lucent Viper S9.
Eyewitness statements reveal the vehicle had been travelling at high speed heading westward on the NHN when it collided with debris on the road.
The vehicle rolled several times before bursting into flames.
Emergency services were called to extinguish the flames, but the vehicle appears to be a total burnout.
There are no reports of the occupant(s) of the vehicle exiting before the flames engulfed it.
This is believed to be a single fatality event.
More to follow.
'More to follow' was how every outlet ended it.
More to follow. Like Liam's life wasn't slowly being chipped away with those words.
Even the reputable news stations were reporting on it, but none of them had committed to naming Mikhail.
They were all waiting.