Chapter 1
Twenty five seconds on the clock.
That's all they made it to.
Vadim Cherkov can't even remember who he was before that twenty five second mark hit.
A whole other person surely.
Someone that could stand to be parted from Kai Maddox's side for a single moment.
Someone that spent years turning over and analysing and suppressing his feelings.
Feelings that Vadim hid and grew deep within his chest, like a pearl in an oyster
Twenty five seconds of the Havenport vs Lakeridge game pass before Kai is off his feet, his body cutting through the crisp air.
First shocked, then braced for impact.
Before the contact, Kai's eyes were on Vadim.
The corner of his mouth turned up in amusement.
His freckled cheeks flushed pink.
Kai didn't see Brock Tillman coming.
Now Vadim has to watch in horror as his paramour's body slams chest first into the ice, head ricocheting against the surface as his momentum carries him further away from Vadim.
When Kai stops finally, his back rises with one heaving inhale, collapses with a rattling exhale, then falls into complete stillness.
Vadim stops moving the second he sees the impact sweep Kai away. the abrupt loss of eye contact feels like a winding punch to the stomach.
It's the strangest moment. Sudden, absolute silence.
It feels fundamentally wrong—like pushing on a pull door or gasping for air underwater.
He's stricken into a stupor as the screams, the shouts and the skates against the ice fall silent in his ears.
At first, the absence of noise makes his ears ring a deafening pitch.
And, when the ringing fades, he's left with the overwhelming sensation of his own blood thumping rhythmically in his ears with a swooshing and throbbing sound.
Damon Cross is the first to move, his eyes falling on Tillman immediately.
It's what he's trained to do.
If your captain, your franchise player goes down, you throw fists first and ask questions later.
Cross's gloves fly off his hands as he lunges forward to clutch at Tillman's jersey.
He drags him down to the ground with a brutal tug, and Brock doesn't fight back.
The few Havenport fans that travelled for the away match jeer and cheer on Brock.
Lakeridge fans stomp their feet as they encourage Damon in his show of defence.
It's a short lived fight.
A Referee pulls Damon off of Brock's back and drags him away as a number of the benched Skyline pool onto the ice, their eyes on the Glaciers, ready to start a full brawl.
They don't.
The Glaciers are too busy watching Kai's limp body.
Like sheep, the ref herds them away from the motionless form.
They tap their sticks on the ice, encouraging Kai to get up as they skate themselves back and out of the way.
Not Vadim, though.
He stays in place.
The medics pass Vadim in a blur.
For the first few seconds, he tells himself it's nothing.
That it's just another hard hit.
Just another moment where the crowd holds its breath, and then cheers when the player gets back up.
Maddox always gets back up.
He's built for this.
He's sure as hell survived worse than this.
Before anyone says it, though, Vadim knows something is very wrong.
After the first couple of seconds with no movement from Kai, Vadim's body fills with a deathly sense of dread.
A dread he hasn't felt in a very long time.
Not since he was twelve years old, looking into the unmoving eyes of his mother, while calling out "Мама...
Пожалуйста, проснись." Mama...
Are you sleeping?
Mama ...
Please wake up.
Just like his mother in the bathroom of his old Zorinsk home all those years ago, Kai does not move.
The Comet's medical team jumps into action.
Three of them pushed a stretcher along the ice over to Kai's body.
Next to him, they kneel and focus.
He watches as they flip Kai onto his back and press two fingers against his neck.
Vadim is frozen in silence—his face pale as though his body had been drained of blood—his feet locked in place, unable to move closer yet unable to move away.
A whistle, shrill and endless, screams from behind him.
It brings a swift end to the hooting and hollering of the crowd.
His fellow players drift towards each other in silence.
Helpless, like they've forgotten what they're supposed to do with themselves.
Cherkov inches himself closer to Maddox.
He needs to be closer.
An official steps into his path, gripping firm hold on his arm restricting him from moving on.
Vadim distantly registers that the man is speaking to him, but he cant make out the words meaning.
He blinks away, shrugging off the linesman's grip and pushes closer, stopping just six strides away from the love of his life.
Maddox's helmet is off.
His eyes are closed.
Vadim drops his gloves to the ice, his stick already abandoned somewhere behind him.
Then unclips his helmet, pushing it back carelessly off from his head.
He doesn't want a visor between his eyes and Kai's face.
His heart pounds so hard it drowns out the crowd.
No. No.
His bottom lip juts out, his chin wobbling with emotion.
"Kai," he says, just a whisper.
An instinct.
The name slips out the way it always does when it's just the two of them.
When no one is supposed to hear.
The Linesman is back, his grip tighter now on Vadim's arm.
"I've told you already!
You need to move back, Cherkov!
Now!"
Behind him, he registers the echo of his teammate's voice calling to him, "Cap!
Over here!".
Vadim ignores them, but he doesn't pull away from the ref. Not yet.
He doesn't have the capacity to yet.
For a moment, he watches the medics work.
A medic has two fingers pressed back to his throat, staring at their watch with a tense grimace.
The medic's eyes snap up to meet the others with sharp concern, shaking their head.
The third medic cuts open Kai's jersey and the straps of his gear.
Fuck.
They begin CPR.
Elbows locked, pushing down on Kai's chest in steady compressions.
Another medic secures a mask over Kai's face, careful fingers curling under his jaw, while the third medic bolts off the ice with the order to find a defibrillator.
There's a faint voice somewhere behind him.
Vadim doesn't recognise it.
It must be a Skyline.
A whisper in sharp disbelief to the next man, "Is...
Is Maddox fucking dead?"
That's when Vadim's world crumbles.
His vision tunnels, and for a moment all he can hear is his own panting—harsh and uneven in his ears.
His mind is impossibly loud and impossibly silent at the same time.
All moisture in his mouth evaporates.
He can barely swallow.
A tightness sticks in his throat.
He's dead.
Kai is dead.
The heart that Vadim felt race under his lips when he pressed his face against Kai's chest just hours ago.
The pulse he felt under his fingertips as he held Kai's wrists, now gone.
The thump he felt against his nose as he sniffed against Maddox's neck, ceased.
The powerful impact of Tillman's body and subsequent landing stopped his heart.
The man who he's loved for so long - a love that he denied existed.
He never even told Kai.
Not in a language that Kai would understand.
He never allowed himself the liberty of baring his soul.
The gravity and weight of the pure desire, hopes and affection that he has for Kai is paralysing.
It is the kind of love that keeps him up at night, that makes his bones ache in anticipation, that gives him goosebumps thinking of the possibilities of a life they could have.
If Kai really is dead—then what will Vadim do?
How can he go on living without him?
Where will he put this love without someone to receive it—without Kai to receive it.
Vadim is powerless, but he can't help himself.
Like a man being puppeted by an outside force, his body surges forward, shoving past the official.
Louder now.
Fuck, Maddox!
No!"
Someone grabs him from behind, a set of hands on his shoulders, but it doesn't matter.
He can't stop staring at Kai's body, at the unnatural stillness of his face as they pump his chest.
"Kai! please," Vadim shouts, his voice cracking.
This is not funny."
His vision blurs as tears spill over.
He doesn't care who hears him.
He doesn't care about the cameras, the crowd, the league, the rules they spent years obeying. His knees feel weak.
"Please!"
Like one of those tiny wooden toys whose string-legged body collapses when you press against the mainsprings, his legs slacken at the sight of Kai's freckled cheeks.
He collapses onto his knees, his hands pulling at his own hair.
Tears streak down his face.
"Fucking wake up!
Kaya.
Моя любовь" My love.
The medic pressing a breathing mask against Kai's mouth pumps air into his lungs in a steady, cyclic rhythm.
Breath.
Pause.