(fic) In Credit (3/6)
Title: In Credit (3/6)
Pairing: Boyd Devereaux / Sergei Fedorov
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Fiction means I made the whole thing up
previous chapters
It is about four hundred years since I left on my first road trip with Sergei. The Wings and I both come out over .500. I played five games of the seven; we won five games of the seven - one in overtime. Those two figures aren’t a total match, but still, it was good.
But I think I am going to fall asleep on the way to Sergei’s house. Our flight was delayed and all I want to do is crash out. I hope he is tired as well.
I step out of the car, half hearing Sergei say ‘watch it’, and smack into something.
I debate quite seriously just sleeping against whatever I am leaning against and when I open my eyes I realise I walked into my car.
“Are you ok?” Sergei looks like he is trying not to laugh.
“It’s way too clean to be my car, whose is it?”
Now he does laugh. “Yeah the valet service I use asked if I was sure I wanted them to get /that/ car. You’re a messy boy Boyd.”
I see a pile of C.D’s on the passenger seat. I realise I never went back to my place to get anything after those clothes the first day. I hate to think what the milk is like.
“Thank you.” I walk over and kiss Sergei. He seems surprised, but kisses me back and puts his arm around me and lets me lean against him. “How did you get the keys?” I stifle a yawn against his shoulder.
“They were in your bag.”
“Ok.” I walk into the house behind Sergei. I don’t entirely realise what it was he said until I am lying in bed.
So, exhausted, when I should be sleeping, I fight with myself. I opened his bag, so what if he opened mine. I roll over and feel Sergei slide into bed beside me. He lies behind me and bites the skin between my shoulder blades. I feel the blunt head of his dick at my ass and stretch as far as I can across the bed. My hand is about a foot away from the bedside table where I stashed the lube.
I try to wiggle forward a little bit but Sergei’s hands are holding onto my hips.
“Sergei,” I hiss, “let me get…” He claps his hand over my mouth.
“God you complain about that stuff, what if I don’t like it.” Sergei speaks directly into my ear, breathing across my cheek.
“I could get a different kind.” I whisper into his hand, my arm still stretched out across the bed.
“What if I think they are all horrible?”
“It hurts without it.” And I kiss his hand when I realise I said out loud something that I should only have thought to myself.
Sergei leans over, pushing me down so I am lying flat on the bed. I hear the drawer open and flinch as he opens the lotion and tips it over my lower back. I feel it slide down between my ass, and I hear the wet slapping noise of Sergei putting some on himself.
“I could do that.” I say. My voice muffled by the mattress and sheets.
“It’s done.” Sergei replies, and slides himself into me. Apart from the lack of preparation and the fingernails I can feel sliding into my skin it isn’t so bad.
Sergei practically falls asleep on top of me and I wiggle over so I am on my side, he slips out as he softens and then wraps his arm around my hip. I want to wash the stickiness I can feel on me off, but waiting for Sergei to let go I fall asleep instead.
In some ways Sergei is a good roommate. He is generous and he has a housekeeper, he knows interesting people and I settle into being with him. Generally I go out one evening with him, stay here the next night. Sometimes he is here as well, sometimes not. It’s not like he expects me to stay here when he is away, just to be back before he goes to sleep.
I am idly washing dishes one evening when he comes back earlier than I expected.
“I do pay someone to do that you know.” I start and drop the glass I was drying, hearing it smash beside me.
“Well, I pay them to wash the dishes, not break them.” Sergei laughs softly.
When my heartbeat gets back to normal I laugh as well. “I’m sorry about the glass.”
Sergei smirks. “Oh no, my glass, whatever will I drink out of now? Don’t move. “ He says when I make a move to walk towards him. He points down. “You’ll cut yourself.” I look at my bare feet.
I look at him, “umm is there a broom?”
Sergei shrugs, “I was hoping you would know the answer to that. Wait there.” For lack of anything better to do I finish the dishes.
He comes back and although I go to take the brush and shovel out of his hands he waves me off. I can see big pieces of glass under the lip of the counter, and I feel the sides of the brush tickle my feet. When I giggle Sergei does it again and he laughs as well. He just shoves the glass out of the way, leaving the mess on the floor and a path through.
“Next time I’m just going to pick you up.” He says pulling me away from cleaning up the mess, and tugging me into the living room. He rolls his eyes and changes the television station from a music channel to the news and pulls me down on the couch with him.
He stretches out along the length of the couch. I lie down on top of him for a while and them slowly work my way down. Sergei wriggles a little bit, resting his hand on my head. He just leaves it there, not playing with my hair or anything. I rub circles on his chest leaning my head on his shoulder, and I feel when he goes to sleep.
I watch him for a while, and then I turn the sound down really low and look at the room. Sergei does like having someone around. Simply that. If he wants me to be there when he wakes up, he likes me to be there when he falls asleep as well.
And he never shuts me out of any part of his life, never bothers to go to a different room when he is the phone with anyone from his family to his accountant.
The wall unit that Sergei pointed to when I moved in is still empty. I try to decide what things I could use to fill it up. I slide my legs between Sergei’s and wiggle around until his hand falls onto my back. I watch George Bush promise to avenge the innocent and I fall asleep thinking about furniture.
Sergei had offered to drive me to my apartment and even though I have my car back I said yes. I hardly ever use it. I am thinking of getting something different, but for now Sergei’s cars are way more fun to use.
He cracks up whenever I drive them and urges me to speed. I felt kind of bad when a light flashed and I knew I had been caught by a cop, but it was 10 miles slower than Sergei’s last ticket, and as I apologised Sergei took the paper out of my hand and laughing encouraged me to speed the rest of the way to his house. He always drives when it’s late at night though, faster than I would dare on a race track. I don’t even brace my hands against the dashboard when he doesn’t stop for the stop sign at the end of the road anymore.
“You play guitar? Not like that god-awful rot?” Sergei gestures to the CD I put in the radio. He didn’t turn it off even though he rolled his eyes at the cover; he is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat.
“No acoustic. But I can play this stuff you know.” The cord changes to Desperately Wanting are easy after practising for months.
“Jesus.” Sergei grins at me. “Is it going to be loud?”
“Not really.”
“Ok. Fine.” Sergei has an awesome stero that he almost never uses. I’m dying to have a play with it. I’ll have to wait until he’s out. I can almost picture his face.
There is a layer of dust over everything. I pretend like it wasn’t there before.
The refrigerator is every bit as gross as I thought it would be. Sergei points out that he could pay someone to do this; and intimates that would make him very happy. But he’s laughing at each new discovery, comparing it horror movies so I just keep going.
“What was that?”
“Pickles.” I say. Then I take a closer look. “Or maybe jam.” I don’t take a third look and Sergei seems nauseated.
“Jesus Boyd you’d make a lousy wife.”
“You’d be worse. There isn’t even food at your house.” I add what I am going to assume was salsa to the collection of dead and decaying things.
“There is coffee and wine and nothing in your fridge could be considered food Boyd.”
“This was food. Or medicine.” I throw something else in the bag. I think I should have done this a long time ago.
“Well, yeah, I think I’d rather bring home the bacon than cook it.”
“Don’t say bacon.” I hold a curling plate of something out to Sergei’s face, and he mocks like he is going to throw up but his eyes are still laughing. Christ it smells bad, I think it was once ham, and drop it plate and all into the bag. “And you can’t talk.”
“For that I’m going to get us lunch.”
“Are you going to cook?” I ask amazed.
“Fuck no, I saw a deli on the corner.”
“Oh cool, don’t get the tuna.”
“Keys?”
I point at the bench and turn back to the fridge. As I drop mushy black vegetables into the garbage bag I wonder what I am doing with Sergei on my day off, why he is driving me around, why I even let him in my apartment. Now I think there will be a memory of him in all the places that are supposed to be mine.
I close the fridge door, I go to the bathroom and lock the door and curl up in the bathtub pulling the curtain across. I leave the light off and turn the shower on as hot as it will go, in my clothes, what the fuck am I doing? What was Sergei doing taking dinner orders in my fucking kitchen surrounded by my fucking dead pot plants taking my fucking keys with him?
I lean back so my face is out of the spray and make myself calm down. I think about kneeling beside a bed and having to get up and walk out. I compare that to how I feel when I can just go to sleep.
I hold my hands out to boiling water. Is my left hand heavier than my right hand? Am I weighing justice in my palms? Left or right, which hand has more drops, which way am I being tilted? And then the water feels cooler so I get out and get changed. I throw the wet clothes in with the rest of the garbage and leave it all out where my ex-super can deal with it. Or not. Maybe the racoons will be hungry tonight. Maybe they will be poisoned, maybe not.
When Sergei comes back, a few hours later I am mostly done.
“Did you bake the bread yourself?”
“Hungry?” He smirks at me. “I was attacked by rogue garbage on the way in. You’ve changed.”
“Yes. The clothes I was wearing were dirty. What took so long?”
Sergei raises an eye at the question. “I wanted to make sure you were done.”
“Done and decided.”
“Decided?”
I start eating so I don’t have to answer that question.
“Do you want the tour?” I ask with manic cheer when I finish, hyped up on the pop and chocolate cake.
“Sure.” I take his hand and pull him up. I wave my free hand around. “Kitchen.” I point. “Refrigerator. Empty. Freezer, full of ice.”
Sergei laughs.
“Are you going to sub-let?” Sergei picks up tins from the shelf and rolls them around so they are facing the same way.
I pause a bit then say “sure. I’ll have to get around to it.”
We step over the boxes in the living room, and I stand in the door of what was once my bedroom.
“I could have someone organise that.” Sergei says. I just shrug back.
“There is no real rush.”
Sergei walks ahead of me and pulls me down onto his lap on the bed. “Ahh you need to shave,” he says rubbing his hand against my cheek.
“I think all the razors here will be dull.”
Sergei shrugs. “What else do you want?”
“Nothing really, it’s all here if I need it.”
“Play something?” I look up at Sergei pointing at the wall and my guitars. I bend my head over it, and don’t look at him as I play something I learned in school.
Sergei leans back against the bed and closes his eyes. I play something slow to warm my hands up, stupid stuff, bits of Radiohead that aren’t connected, things from on the radio. And I close my eyes and I don’t really think about it anymore, just movement and noise, and I don’t even really notice getting notes wrong, just move onto something else.
I travel through music I played in my car, Pearl Jam, and OLP and things I’ve played so many times I know where the skips are.
When I look up Sergei is asleep so I stop.
“Don’t stop.” He just has his eyes closed. I was so sure he was out cold.
“I can’t think of anything else to play.”
Sergei half opens his eyes. “Your bed is tiny. How were you comfortable?”
“I was mostly alone.” I cross my legs and watch him.
“What about Dandy?”
“We weren’t together.”
“Then why?”
“Because we were close in other ways.”
Sergei looks at me and I look at him.
“Do you have any lube in the bed side table here?”
I nod and watch him go through the drawers until he finds what he was looking for.
“This expires soon, we should take it with us.”
I shrug and think that we are us now. We are ‘us’ to the Wings, to my friends. ‘Us’ to the gossip grapevine of the NHL. I don’t know if we are ‘us’ to us though. I think there is him and whatever part of me stumbled into this bargain. I think there is part of me somewhere else that he can’t touch. And if there isn’t there should be.
“Boyd?” Sergei slides his hand onto my cheek, pulling me down. “I didn’t know you could play so well.” He pulls me down so I am straddling his legs.
“You don’t really now anything about me.”
“True.” Sergei grins and pulls me down and kisses me. I close my eyes and let him roll me over and undo my jeans.
“What happened?” His hands rest on my chest, which is still red from the hot water. His palms have lube on them and it makes a layer on my skin, trapping the heat in, reflecting it back until I think I can feel my skin blister under him.
“Shower too hot.” And I push his hands further down. Feeling him undo the buttons on my jeans. I wrap his hand around my dick. Sergei makes a ‘tsk’ing sound but laughs a bit when I say ‘my house, my rules.’
I keep my eyes closed and enjoy the sensation.
When we arrive at Sergei’s house there is a CD case in the lounge, next to his stereo I laugh when I see it. And I turn around and kiss Sergei.
“Thank you.” It is a light wood with glass doors. I think it must hold a few hundred CD.s I always just plonked them down, stacked them in bookshelves and on any flat surface I could reach. Empty cases with uneven stacks of silver on top.
I sit on the floor and try to decide how to organise my music. By year, by genre, alphabetically? I put things in the proper cases, Sergei hindering me by reading out snippets of the lyrics and mocking them.
I forget who I am and what we are.
That night in bed I remember.
“Fedor is arriving in a few days.”
“Who?” I’m not really paying attention to Sergei I’m trying to sleep, wondering if I will be playing tomorrow.
“Fedor.” I can hear Sergei rolling his eyes by his tone. “My brother.”
Fuck, I didn’t ever expect anything like that. I only know Fedor by reputation. Spoiled and not as good a player as his brother. I had a friend who played with him in the ‘peg that said he wasn’t that bad most of the time though. “Do you want me to go away?”
Sergei snorts, “no I don’t give a fuck about him meeting you, it’s just….” He stops.
“What?”
“He’s fucking nosey.”
“Everyone is nosey about this.”
Sergei laughs softly, the sound sending vibrations through his chest and my back. “Fedor is an annoying little brother kind of nosey. And an incurable romantic. Just ignore him, it’s the best way of dealing with him.”
“I imagine he can be charming when he wants to.” I don’t entirely look in Dandy’s eyes. The game finished a couple of hours ago, and Steve decreed that there should be a few drinks between friends.
But we are separated into different groups in the room; only Steve travels between, Stevie and me. I came over here to be hassled by Dandy.
“Yes. He can be.”
“Sergei couldn’t be charming if lives depended on it. Even his own. Give me one good reason Boyd.”
“He appreciates how I play the guitar.” And Dandy rolls his eyes at me, but shuts up about it for five seconds.
And I think that I really don’t have to take this kind of questioning and I tug Sergei out of a conversation with Igor. And I smile sweetly as I do it.
Because in the game I scored a goal and Sergei scored a goal, and I can think of better things to do than be annoyed by lame Wings. And when we get back to the hotel room I shove him against the wall without thinking and kiss him as hard as I can. And Sergei doesn’t freeze or push me away; he kisses me harder until it is a challenge.
I feel shirts get pulled away and Sergei press me against a door, then a wall, then and a bed. And neither of us cares about the other, and I feel so powerful and he is just a pair of hands and full pressure inside of me.
I grab his hand and put it on my dick and it is all over to quickly.
We wiggle apart from each other. “We should go back downstairs.” I say.
“Fuck that.” Sergei replies. “Lets go somewhere better than there.”
And we end up at a club that is hidden behind a furniture store.
Sergei laughs and talks with Slava, they both watch Ilya, like he is Pavel, like he is Dandy, and I remember how Slava played for the Wings once upon a time.
I hold Sergei’s hand and whisper in his ear “do I have to watch my drinks here?”
And he shakes his head and smiles and we all drink buckets of expensive champagne, as the table slowly fade sto speaking in Russian and I drink enough to actually start to understand them.
We get pulled over for speeding and Sergei charms the cop out of a ticket and a sobriety test, and we laugh all the way down the hallway to the hotel, we reek of booze.
And I see lines of light under the doors and I really don’t care. In the room Sergei is a heavy weight, and the sheets are cool under my back, and the air is cooling my overheated flesh and I decide that this is why Sergei has it cold as a breath of air floats across my stomach. Sergei holds my hands above my head I go limp under him, still and screaming, he is breathing hotness in to my ear and I want it.
Sergei catches me staring at Fedor for the fifth time today. He laughs and kneels on the floor next to my chair.
“You’re lucky he hasn’t noticed.” He whispers in a soft voice. “I think you have a crush.”
I blush, “not that. It’s just that…” I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
“”What?” Sergei turns to look at his brother. I run my finger across his hairline, around his temple. I push his hair around his face so it is parted the same way that Fedor’s is. So they could be twins from the right angle.
“You two look so much alike.”
Sergei shrugs and grabs my hand.
“You two are being lovely-dovey in my presence.” I start and see Fedor grinning at us; his bright eyes lighter, looking at Sergei hold my hand against his cheek.
Sergei rolls his eyes and makes a show of kissing my wrist. It must look so romantic from Fedor’s side. From where I am I can see the light bruises that Sergei’s hands left when he held mine down last night. But now I can’t remember if I screamed and was afraid or if I screamed and egged him on when he wrapped his fingers around my arms.
I do remember I pushed my hips up into his, I know I encouraged him to speed long after I had both stopped and started bleeding again. I recall kissing him back. I sort out the memories, I remember the power of him flowing into me, and I try to remember what really happened in the club, I was dancing with a blonde man, and it was whirling lights. As I answer Fedor’s question’s about music, as Sergei stares into space and Fedor’s eyes keep flicking back to Sergei now sitting on the ground, still holding my hand. I see the lights spinning over my head as I sang along to music that was in Russian.
When I see Fedor I wonder what Sergei was like, before. The Sergei that Steve knows and Igor was concerned about. I wonder if he is still under there somewhere.
Sergei announces he is going to bed and I stretch my hand out to be pulled off the couch. And his hand in my hand feels familiar in a way I never expected it to.
Then I think that /I/ used to look like Fedor as well. Not blonde and pretty, but young and fresh. And I don’t know if I do anymore.
I walk into the locker room and Max is kneeling on the floor in front of Pavel. He is talking to him very quickly and softly. I move towards them and Dandy grabs my arm.
“You could stop this.” He hisses.
“No.” I say back. “I can’t stop anything else, I don’t want to know.” And I pull my arm out of his grip and walk away.
I meet Sergei and Brett in the car park. I have come to depend upon going out when we are on the road. Chris takes us to all the scary parts of Chicago and even though I catch eyes on Sergei’s hand in mine, or his arm around my waist, no on here asks what is between us. Stevie smiles, like Fedor smiled, when Sergei kisses me.
next
Pairing: Boyd Devereaux / Sergei Fedorov
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Fiction means I made the whole thing up
previous chapters
It is about four hundred years since I left on my first road trip with Sergei. The Wings and I both come out over .500. I played five games of the seven; we won five games of the seven - one in overtime. Those two figures aren’t a total match, but still, it was good.
But I think I am going to fall asleep on the way to Sergei’s house. Our flight was delayed and all I want to do is crash out. I hope he is tired as well.
I step out of the car, half hearing Sergei say ‘watch it’, and smack into something.
I debate quite seriously just sleeping against whatever I am leaning against and when I open my eyes I realise I walked into my car.
“Are you ok?” Sergei looks like he is trying not to laugh.
“It’s way too clean to be my car, whose is it?”
Now he does laugh. “Yeah the valet service I use asked if I was sure I wanted them to get /that/ car. You’re a messy boy Boyd.”
I see a pile of C.D’s on the passenger seat. I realise I never went back to my place to get anything after those clothes the first day. I hate to think what the milk is like.
“Thank you.” I walk over and kiss Sergei. He seems surprised, but kisses me back and puts his arm around me and lets me lean against him. “How did you get the keys?” I stifle a yawn against his shoulder.
“They were in your bag.”
“Ok.” I walk into the house behind Sergei. I don’t entirely realise what it was he said until I am lying in bed.
So, exhausted, when I should be sleeping, I fight with myself. I opened his bag, so what if he opened mine. I roll over and feel Sergei slide into bed beside me. He lies behind me and bites the skin between my shoulder blades. I feel the blunt head of his dick at my ass and stretch as far as I can across the bed. My hand is about a foot away from the bedside table where I stashed the lube.
I try to wiggle forward a little bit but Sergei’s hands are holding onto my hips.
“Sergei,” I hiss, “let me get…” He claps his hand over my mouth.
“God you complain about that stuff, what if I don’t like it.” Sergei speaks directly into my ear, breathing across my cheek.
“I could get a different kind.” I whisper into his hand, my arm still stretched out across the bed.
“What if I think they are all horrible?”
“It hurts without it.” And I kiss his hand when I realise I said out loud something that I should only have thought to myself.
Sergei leans over, pushing me down so I am lying flat on the bed. I hear the drawer open and flinch as he opens the lotion and tips it over my lower back. I feel it slide down between my ass, and I hear the wet slapping noise of Sergei putting some on himself.
“I could do that.” I say. My voice muffled by the mattress and sheets.
“It’s done.” Sergei replies, and slides himself into me. Apart from the lack of preparation and the fingernails I can feel sliding into my skin it isn’t so bad.
Sergei practically falls asleep on top of me and I wiggle over so I am on my side, he slips out as he softens and then wraps his arm around my hip. I want to wash the stickiness I can feel on me off, but waiting for Sergei to let go I fall asleep instead.
In some ways Sergei is a good roommate. He is generous and he has a housekeeper, he knows interesting people and I settle into being with him. Generally I go out one evening with him, stay here the next night. Sometimes he is here as well, sometimes not. It’s not like he expects me to stay here when he is away, just to be back before he goes to sleep.
I am idly washing dishes one evening when he comes back earlier than I expected.
“I do pay someone to do that you know.” I start and drop the glass I was drying, hearing it smash beside me.
“Well, I pay them to wash the dishes, not break them.” Sergei laughs softly.
When my heartbeat gets back to normal I laugh as well. “I’m sorry about the glass.”
Sergei smirks. “Oh no, my glass, whatever will I drink out of now? Don’t move. “ He says when I make a move to walk towards him. He points down. “You’ll cut yourself.” I look at my bare feet.
I look at him, “umm is there a broom?”
Sergei shrugs, “I was hoping you would know the answer to that. Wait there.” For lack of anything better to do I finish the dishes.
He comes back and although I go to take the brush and shovel out of his hands he waves me off. I can see big pieces of glass under the lip of the counter, and I feel the sides of the brush tickle my feet. When I giggle Sergei does it again and he laughs as well. He just shoves the glass out of the way, leaving the mess on the floor and a path through.
“Next time I’m just going to pick you up.” He says pulling me away from cleaning up the mess, and tugging me into the living room. He rolls his eyes and changes the television station from a music channel to the news and pulls me down on the couch with him.
He stretches out along the length of the couch. I lie down on top of him for a while and them slowly work my way down. Sergei wriggles a little bit, resting his hand on my head. He just leaves it there, not playing with my hair or anything. I rub circles on his chest leaning my head on his shoulder, and I feel when he goes to sleep.
I watch him for a while, and then I turn the sound down really low and look at the room. Sergei does like having someone around. Simply that. If he wants me to be there when he wakes up, he likes me to be there when he falls asleep as well.
And he never shuts me out of any part of his life, never bothers to go to a different room when he is the phone with anyone from his family to his accountant.
The wall unit that Sergei pointed to when I moved in is still empty. I try to decide what things I could use to fill it up. I slide my legs between Sergei’s and wiggle around until his hand falls onto my back. I watch George Bush promise to avenge the innocent and I fall asleep thinking about furniture.
Sergei had offered to drive me to my apartment and even though I have my car back I said yes. I hardly ever use it. I am thinking of getting something different, but for now Sergei’s cars are way more fun to use.
He cracks up whenever I drive them and urges me to speed. I felt kind of bad when a light flashed and I knew I had been caught by a cop, but it was 10 miles slower than Sergei’s last ticket, and as I apologised Sergei took the paper out of my hand and laughing encouraged me to speed the rest of the way to his house. He always drives when it’s late at night though, faster than I would dare on a race track. I don’t even brace my hands against the dashboard when he doesn’t stop for the stop sign at the end of the road anymore.
“You play guitar? Not like that god-awful rot?” Sergei gestures to the CD I put in the radio. He didn’t turn it off even though he rolled his eyes at the cover; he is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat.
“No acoustic. But I can play this stuff you know.” The cord changes to Desperately Wanting are easy after practising for months.
“Jesus.” Sergei grins at me. “Is it going to be loud?”
“Not really.”
“Ok. Fine.” Sergei has an awesome stero that he almost never uses. I’m dying to have a play with it. I’ll have to wait until he’s out. I can almost picture his face.
There is a layer of dust over everything. I pretend like it wasn’t there before.
The refrigerator is every bit as gross as I thought it would be. Sergei points out that he could pay someone to do this; and intimates that would make him very happy. But he’s laughing at each new discovery, comparing it horror movies so I just keep going.
“What was that?”
“Pickles.” I say. Then I take a closer look. “Or maybe jam.” I don’t take a third look and Sergei seems nauseated.
“Jesus Boyd you’d make a lousy wife.”
“You’d be worse. There isn’t even food at your house.” I add what I am going to assume was salsa to the collection of dead and decaying things.
“There is coffee and wine and nothing in your fridge could be considered food Boyd.”
“This was food. Or medicine.” I throw something else in the bag. I think I should have done this a long time ago.
“Well, yeah, I think I’d rather bring home the bacon than cook it.”
“Don’t say bacon.” I hold a curling plate of something out to Sergei’s face, and he mocks like he is going to throw up but his eyes are still laughing. Christ it smells bad, I think it was once ham, and drop it plate and all into the bag. “And you can’t talk.”
“For that I’m going to get us lunch.”
“Are you going to cook?” I ask amazed.
“Fuck no, I saw a deli on the corner.”
“Oh cool, don’t get the tuna.”
“Keys?”
I point at the bench and turn back to the fridge. As I drop mushy black vegetables into the garbage bag I wonder what I am doing with Sergei on my day off, why he is driving me around, why I even let him in my apartment. Now I think there will be a memory of him in all the places that are supposed to be mine.
I close the fridge door, I go to the bathroom and lock the door and curl up in the bathtub pulling the curtain across. I leave the light off and turn the shower on as hot as it will go, in my clothes, what the fuck am I doing? What was Sergei doing taking dinner orders in my fucking kitchen surrounded by my fucking dead pot plants taking my fucking keys with him?
I lean back so my face is out of the spray and make myself calm down. I think about kneeling beside a bed and having to get up and walk out. I compare that to how I feel when I can just go to sleep.
I hold my hands out to boiling water. Is my left hand heavier than my right hand? Am I weighing justice in my palms? Left or right, which hand has more drops, which way am I being tilted? And then the water feels cooler so I get out and get changed. I throw the wet clothes in with the rest of the garbage and leave it all out where my ex-super can deal with it. Or not. Maybe the racoons will be hungry tonight. Maybe they will be poisoned, maybe not.
When Sergei comes back, a few hours later I am mostly done.
“Did you bake the bread yourself?”
“Hungry?” He smirks at me. “I was attacked by rogue garbage on the way in. You’ve changed.”
“Yes. The clothes I was wearing were dirty. What took so long?”
Sergei raises an eye at the question. “I wanted to make sure you were done.”
“Done and decided.”
“Decided?”
I start eating so I don’t have to answer that question.
“Do you want the tour?” I ask with manic cheer when I finish, hyped up on the pop and chocolate cake.
“Sure.” I take his hand and pull him up. I wave my free hand around. “Kitchen.” I point. “Refrigerator. Empty. Freezer, full of ice.”
Sergei laughs.
“Are you going to sub-let?” Sergei picks up tins from the shelf and rolls them around so they are facing the same way.
I pause a bit then say “sure. I’ll have to get around to it.”
We step over the boxes in the living room, and I stand in the door of what was once my bedroom.
“I could have someone organise that.” Sergei says. I just shrug back.
“There is no real rush.”
Sergei walks ahead of me and pulls me down onto his lap on the bed. “Ahh you need to shave,” he says rubbing his hand against my cheek.
“I think all the razors here will be dull.”
Sergei shrugs. “What else do you want?”
“Nothing really, it’s all here if I need it.”
“Play something?” I look up at Sergei pointing at the wall and my guitars. I bend my head over it, and don’t look at him as I play something I learned in school.
Sergei leans back against the bed and closes his eyes. I play something slow to warm my hands up, stupid stuff, bits of Radiohead that aren’t connected, things from on the radio. And I close my eyes and I don’t really think about it anymore, just movement and noise, and I don’t even really notice getting notes wrong, just move onto something else.
I travel through music I played in my car, Pearl Jam, and OLP and things I’ve played so many times I know where the skips are.
When I look up Sergei is asleep so I stop.
“Don’t stop.” He just has his eyes closed. I was so sure he was out cold.
“I can’t think of anything else to play.”
Sergei half opens his eyes. “Your bed is tiny. How were you comfortable?”
“I was mostly alone.” I cross my legs and watch him.
“What about Dandy?”
“We weren’t together.”
“Then why?”
“Because we were close in other ways.”
Sergei looks at me and I look at him.
“Do you have any lube in the bed side table here?”
I nod and watch him go through the drawers until he finds what he was looking for.
“This expires soon, we should take it with us.”
I shrug and think that we are us now. We are ‘us’ to the Wings, to my friends. ‘Us’ to the gossip grapevine of the NHL. I don’t know if we are ‘us’ to us though. I think there is him and whatever part of me stumbled into this bargain. I think there is part of me somewhere else that he can’t touch. And if there isn’t there should be.
“Boyd?” Sergei slides his hand onto my cheek, pulling me down. “I didn’t know you could play so well.” He pulls me down so I am straddling his legs.
“You don’t really now anything about me.”
“True.” Sergei grins and pulls me down and kisses me. I close my eyes and let him roll me over and undo my jeans.
“What happened?” His hands rest on my chest, which is still red from the hot water. His palms have lube on them and it makes a layer on my skin, trapping the heat in, reflecting it back until I think I can feel my skin blister under him.
“Shower too hot.” And I push his hands further down. Feeling him undo the buttons on my jeans. I wrap his hand around my dick. Sergei makes a ‘tsk’ing sound but laughs a bit when I say ‘my house, my rules.’
I keep my eyes closed and enjoy the sensation.
When we arrive at Sergei’s house there is a CD case in the lounge, next to his stereo I laugh when I see it. And I turn around and kiss Sergei.
“Thank you.” It is a light wood with glass doors. I think it must hold a few hundred CD.s I always just plonked them down, stacked them in bookshelves and on any flat surface I could reach. Empty cases with uneven stacks of silver on top.
I sit on the floor and try to decide how to organise my music. By year, by genre, alphabetically? I put things in the proper cases, Sergei hindering me by reading out snippets of the lyrics and mocking them.
I forget who I am and what we are.
That night in bed I remember.
“Fedor is arriving in a few days.”
“Who?” I’m not really paying attention to Sergei I’m trying to sleep, wondering if I will be playing tomorrow.
“Fedor.” I can hear Sergei rolling his eyes by his tone. “My brother.”
Fuck, I didn’t ever expect anything like that. I only know Fedor by reputation. Spoiled and not as good a player as his brother. I had a friend who played with him in the ‘peg that said he wasn’t that bad most of the time though. “Do you want me to go away?”
Sergei snorts, “no I don’t give a fuck about him meeting you, it’s just….” He stops.
“What?”
“He’s fucking nosey.”
“Everyone is nosey about this.”
Sergei laughs softly, the sound sending vibrations through his chest and my back. “Fedor is an annoying little brother kind of nosey. And an incurable romantic. Just ignore him, it’s the best way of dealing with him.”
“I imagine he can be charming when he wants to.” I don’t entirely look in Dandy’s eyes. The game finished a couple of hours ago, and Steve decreed that there should be a few drinks between friends.
But we are separated into different groups in the room; only Steve travels between, Stevie and me. I came over here to be hassled by Dandy.
“Yes. He can be.”
“Sergei couldn’t be charming if lives depended on it. Even his own. Give me one good reason Boyd.”
“He appreciates how I play the guitar.” And Dandy rolls his eyes at me, but shuts up about it for five seconds.
And I think that I really don’t have to take this kind of questioning and I tug Sergei out of a conversation with Igor. And I smile sweetly as I do it.
Because in the game I scored a goal and Sergei scored a goal, and I can think of better things to do than be annoyed by lame Wings. And when we get back to the hotel room I shove him against the wall without thinking and kiss him as hard as I can. And Sergei doesn’t freeze or push me away; he kisses me harder until it is a challenge.
I feel shirts get pulled away and Sergei press me against a door, then a wall, then and a bed. And neither of us cares about the other, and I feel so powerful and he is just a pair of hands and full pressure inside of me.
I grab his hand and put it on my dick and it is all over to quickly.
We wiggle apart from each other. “We should go back downstairs.” I say.
“Fuck that.” Sergei replies. “Lets go somewhere better than there.”
And we end up at a club that is hidden behind a furniture store.
Sergei laughs and talks with Slava, they both watch Ilya, like he is Pavel, like he is Dandy, and I remember how Slava played for the Wings once upon a time.
I hold Sergei’s hand and whisper in his ear “do I have to watch my drinks here?”
And he shakes his head and smiles and we all drink buckets of expensive champagne, as the table slowly fade sto speaking in Russian and I drink enough to actually start to understand them.
We get pulled over for speeding and Sergei charms the cop out of a ticket and a sobriety test, and we laugh all the way down the hallway to the hotel, we reek of booze.
And I see lines of light under the doors and I really don’t care. In the room Sergei is a heavy weight, and the sheets are cool under my back, and the air is cooling my overheated flesh and I decide that this is why Sergei has it cold as a breath of air floats across my stomach. Sergei holds my hands above my head I go limp under him, still and screaming, he is breathing hotness in to my ear and I want it.
Sergei catches me staring at Fedor for the fifth time today. He laughs and kneels on the floor next to my chair.
“You’re lucky he hasn’t noticed.” He whispers in a soft voice. “I think you have a crush.”
I blush, “not that. It’s just that…” I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
“”What?” Sergei turns to look at his brother. I run my finger across his hairline, around his temple. I push his hair around his face so it is parted the same way that Fedor’s is. So they could be twins from the right angle.
“You two look so much alike.”
Sergei shrugs and grabs my hand.
“You two are being lovely-dovey in my presence.” I start and see Fedor grinning at us; his bright eyes lighter, looking at Sergei hold my hand against his cheek.
Sergei rolls his eyes and makes a show of kissing my wrist. It must look so romantic from Fedor’s side. From where I am I can see the light bruises that Sergei’s hands left when he held mine down last night. But now I can’t remember if I screamed and was afraid or if I screamed and egged him on when he wrapped his fingers around my arms.
I do remember I pushed my hips up into his, I know I encouraged him to speed long after I had both stopped and started bleeding again. I recall kissing him back. I sort out the memories, I remember the power of him flowing into me, and I try to remember what really happened in the club, I was dancing with a blonde man, and it was whirling lights. As I answer Fedor’s question’s about music, as Sergei stares into space and Fedor’s eyes keep flicking back to Sergei now sitting on the ground, still holding my hand. I see the lights spinning over my head as I sang along to music that was in Russian.
When I see Fedor I wonder what Sergei was like, before. The Sergei that Steve knows and Igor was concerned about. I wonder if he is still under there somewhere.
Sergei announces he is going to bed and I stretch my hand out to be pulled off the couch. And his hand in my hand feels familiar in a way I never expected it to.
Then I think that /I/ used to look like Fedor as well. Not blonde and pretty, but young and fresh. And I don’t know if I do anymore.
I walk into the locker room and Max is kneeling on the floor in front of Pavel. He is talking to him very quickly and softly. I move towards them and Dandy grabs my arm.
“You could stop this.” He hisses.
“No.” I say back. “I can’t stop anything else, I don’t want to know.” And I pull my arm out of his grip and walk away.
I meet Sergei and Brett in the car park. I have come to depend upon going out when we are on the road. Chris takes us to all the scary parts of Chicago and even though I catch eyes on Sergei’s hand in mine, or his arm around my waist, no on here asks what is between us. Stevie smiles, like Fedor smiled, when Sergei kisses me.
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