Chapter 8: Last Goodbye Fuck
The message appeared on Leona’s screen two hours after dawn, stark and simple against the clutter of team group chats and reminder alerts.
Come break me properly before we’re done.
He read it once.Twice. The words didn’t change. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, a dozen crude or deflective replies forming and dissolving. None of them fit. The truth was a hard, hot knot in his gut. He deleted the half-formed words, shoved the phone in his pocket, and walked out of his own room without a plan.
The corridors of the athletes' village were quiet, the post-medal hangover still holding most people in its grip. Leona’s footsteps were too loud. His pulse was louder. He didn’t think about what he was doing. He just moved, a direct line to Vil’s building, his access card swiping him through security gates on muscle memory.
He didn’t knock.
He shouldered the door open, the lock giving way with a cheap, splintering crack that was swallowed by the room’s dense silence.
Vil was there, waiting.
He stood naked before the wall of frosted glass that led to the balcony, a pale statue against the grey daylight filtering through the snow flurries outside. He didn’t turn. He didn’t flinch at the sound of the breaking door. His posture was impossibly straight, his hands loose at his sides, his gaze fixed on the falling snow. The only warmth in the sleek, cold room was the expanse of his skin.
Leona kicked the door shut behind him. The broken latch didn’t catch; it hung open a sliver, a wound in the perfect isolation.
No words. There weren’t any left that mattered.
Leona crossed the room in five long strides. The air shifted, charged. He could smell Vil’s soap, something clean and expensive, undercut by the sharper scent of anticipation. He didn’t touch him at first. He stopped close enough that the heat from his body would bleed into Vil’s back. He saw the fine hairs on Vil’s nape stand up.
“You asked for it,” Leona said, his voice a low rasp.
“I did,” Vil answered, still not turning. His tone was clinical, but a faint tremor ran through the words.
Leona’s hands came up, not to caress, but to claim. He gripped Vil’s hips, his fingers digging into the delicate bone, and spun him around. Vil went willingly, his back meeting the cold glass with a soft thud. A gasp escaped him, sharp and involuntary. His eyes, wide and impossibly blue, locked onto Leona’s. There was no performative desire there, no practiced seduction. Just a raw, terrifying openness.A challenge. An invitation to ruin.
Leona crushed their mouths together.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a collision. All teeth and desperate, shared breath. Vil’s hands flew up, tangling in Leona’s hair, not to pull him closer but to hold on as the world tilted. Leona leaned into him, his body pinning Vil against the window. The cold from the glass seeped into Leona’s clothes, a shocking contrast to the furnace heat building between them.
They broke apart, gasping. Vil’s lips were already reddened, his perfect composure shattered. “Do it,” he whispered, his breath fogging the glass by his head. “Or get out.”
Leona’s answer was to shove a hand between them, fumbling with his own jeans. The denim was tight, the button stubborn. He swore, a harsh, ragged sound, and yanked at it until it gave. He didn’t bother with gentleness or preparation. He spat into his own hand, a crude, wet sound in the quiet, and slicked himself. He watched Vil’s face as he guided himself to his entrance, pressing against the tight, clenching ring of muscle.
Vil’s eyes fluttered shut. His head fell back against the glass with a quiet tap. His body was rigid, bracing.
“Look at me,” Leona growled.
Vil’s eyes opened. They were dark, stormy.
Leona pushed in.
It was a slow, brutal invasion. Vil was tight, impossibly so, and dry despite the crude spit. A sharp, pained sound was torn from his throat, his fingers clawing at Leona’s shoulders. Leona held still, buried to the hilt, feeling the frantic pulse and clench around him, watching the pain and surrender war on Vil’s face. The cold glass against Vil’s back, the heat of Leona’s body against his front—he was trapped between extremes.
“This what you wanted?” Leona breathed against his ear, not moving. “This real enough for you?”
Vil’s answer was to hook a leg around Leona’s hip, pulling him impossibly deeper. “Stop talking.”
Leona began to move. It was hard and fast from the start, a punishing rhythm fueled by years of frustration, of watching from the sidelines, of seeing that perfect smile directed at everyone else. Each thrust slammed Vil into the unyielding glass. The window began to fog in erratic patches from their panting breaths and the sweat beading on Vil’s skin.Vil took it. He took it all, his moans swallowed by Leona’s mouth, his perfect nails leaving crescent moons in the fabric of Leona’s shirt. He was passive for only a minute before a fire seemed to ignite in him. He started pushing back, meeting each thrust with a roll of his own hips, his movements becoming sharper, more demanding. He was participating now, not just enduring. Fighting for control within the surrender.
“Turn around,” Vil gasped, shoving at Leona’s chest.
Leona pulled out, the sudden emptiness a shock. Vil turned, pressing his chest and cheek to the fogged glass, presenting himself. The view was obscene and breathtaking. Leona lined himself up again and sheathed himself in one smooth, deep stroke. This angle was different. Deeper. Vil cried out, a ragged, broken sound that went straight to Leona’s core.
He set a brutal pace, one hand splayed on Vil’s stomach, holding him in place, the other braced high on the glass. Vil’s world was reduced to the cold flat plane against his cheek, the hard heat spearing him open, and the relentless, driving force of the man behind him. His elegance was gone. This was pure, animal need. His chanted pleas were a messy, desperate litany against the window. “More—right there—don’t you fucking stop—”
Leona didn’t. He chased his own release, but more than that, he chased the sight of Vil coming completely, gloriously apart. He watched the powerful muscles in Vil’s back cord and flex, watched the elegant line of his spine bow. He leaned over, covering Vil’s body with his own, and bit down on the junction of his neck and shoulder.Vil shattered.
His orgasm ripped through him like a seizure, his whole body locking tight before collapsing into violent tremors. The tight, pulsing clutch around Leona tipped him over the edge immediately after. He came with a choked-off groan, burying his face in Vil’s sweaty hair, his hips stuttering through the waves.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the soft hiss of snow against the balcony. The glass was utterly steamed up, their world now a private, wet haze.
Leona slid out, his knees suddenly weak. He stumbled back a step, bracing himself on the back of a sleek, low sofa. Vil stayed pressed against the glass, head down, his body sheened with sweat and marked with red patches from the impact. He was trembling.
The silence stretched, filled now with the aftermath. The room smelled of sex and sweat and broken things.
Vil slowly pushed himself upright. He turned, his movements stiff. He didn’t look at Leona. He walked, with a slight, telling hitch, to a small kitchenette and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. He drank half of it in one long pull, his throat working. Then he tossed the bottle to Leona, who caught it on reflex.
Leona drank, the water shockingly cold.He watched Vil. The marks on his pale skin. The utterly undone mess of his blond hair. The proud, damaged set of his shoulders.
“So,” Vil said, his voice hoarse. He finally looked over, his gaze wary, exposed. “Now what?”
Leona capped the water bottle. The heat of moments ago was a banked fire, leaving an eerie calm. He looked at the broken door, at the man standing naked in the middle of the ruined room. He saw the boy from Prague, the partner he’d left, the impossible icon on the ice, and the raw, pleading creature who’d just taken him against a window.
“We’re not done,” Leona said. It wasn’t a question.
Vil’s breath hitched, just once. A crack in the newly rebuilt facade. He shook his head slowly. “No.”
Leona nodded to the bedroom door, visible beyond the living space.“Shower. Then I’m going to taste you. All of you.”
A faint, real flush spread across Vil’s chest. He didn’t argue. He just turned and walked toward the bathroom, his pride in his stride returning with every step. Leona followed, stripping off his own clothes as he went, leaving a trail of fabric on the polished floor.
Later, much later, they were a tangled mess of limbs in Vil’s rumpled bed. The sheets were damp. The room was dark, the only light the ghostly glow from the snow-covered world outside the now-clear glass.
Vil lay on his stomach, his head turned away on the pillow. Leona traced a line down the knobs of his spine with a single finger. He felt languid, heavy, his body humming with a deep satisfaction that went beyond the physical. Vil had been pliant under his mouth, had arched into his tongue with a broken, grateful sob, had ridden him later with a fierce, focused intensity that felt like a claim of its own.
“Montreal’s in three weeks,” Vil said into the darkness, his voice sleep-thick.
“I know.”
“The short program is to ‘Never Enough.’ It’s… dramatic.”
“Sounds obnoxious.”
A faint huff of laughter from Vil. “It is.”
Leona’s finger stopped at the base of Vil’s spine. “I’ll be there.”
Vil turned his head, his profile just visible. “In the cheap seats?”
“Where else?” Leona said. He shifted, spooning up behind Vil, fitting his body against the long, elegant line of him. Vil stiffened for a second, unused to the casual intimacy, then slowly relaxed back into the curve of Leona’s chest.
The broken door let in a slender draft. The snow continued to fall, blanketing the silent village. Leona closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of Vil’s shampoo and their shared sweat. For the first time in years, the quiet didn’t feel like loneliness. It felt like a held breath. Like the moment before the puck drops, when anything is still possible.
The morning found them in a tangle of exhausted limbs, the pale winter sun exposing the wreckage of the room and the peace on their sleeping faces. Vil woke first, his mind cataloging the aches before he even opened his eyes—a deep, pleasant throb in his hips, a tenderness along his back, the ghost of teeth on his shoulder. Leona’s arm was a heavy, warm weight across his stomach. He didn’t move.
He listened to Leona’s breathing, felt the steady beat of his heart against his own spine.
For the first time in years, the silence in his head was complete.
Leona stirred an hour later, his body tensing for a split second in陌生 disorientation before settling, his arm tightening almost imperceptibly. Vil felt the exact moment he came fully awake. The hand on his stomach didn’t retreat. It splayed, fingers pressing lightly into his skin as if mapping new territory.
“Your door’s broken,” Leona mumbled into his hair, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“I noticed.”
“They’re gonna charge you for that.”
“Worth it,” Vil said, and meant it.
They didn’t speak much. Words felt dangerous, capable of shattering the fragile truce they’d forged with their bodies. Leona used Vil’s shower, steam billowing from the bathroom while Vil called down to the front desk with a perfectly concocted story about a clumsy collision with a piece of luggage. His public voice was back, smooth and assured. It felt like putting on a costume over a fresh tattoo.
When Leona emerged, dressed in yesterday’s clothes, the domesticity of the scene was jarring. He picked up his discarded shirt from the floor. “I’ve got a team flight.”
“I know.”
“Montreal,” Leona said, not a question.
“Yes.”
A nod. Leona finished dressing, his movements efficient. He stopped by the ruined door, his hand on the splintered frame. He looked back, his gaze traveling over Vil, who stood wrapped in a sheet by the window. “Skate like you did against the glass,” he said, the words rough. “All the way through.”
Then he was gone, the broken door swaying slightly in his wake.
The three weeks were a study in surreal disconnect. Vil’s world snapped back into its high-definition focus: brutal training sessions, choreography tweaks, media appearances where he smiled and discussed the “artistic journey” of his “Never Enough” program. His body was a machine, finely tuned. His mind, however, kept drifting to a specific, impossible playlist: the crack of a broken door, a ragged breath fogging glass, the quiet truth of I was just in love.
Leona’s world was impact and noise. Board-rattling checks, the shriek of whistles, the stale beer smell of locker rooms. He played with a ferocity that earned him a two-game suspension for unnecessary roughness. His coach called it “focus.” His teammates called it a death wish. In the quiet of his condo, he’d stare at his phone, at the last text thread, and think about a silent skate at dawn.
Montreal’s Bell Centre hummed with a different energy than the Olympics. This was the fortress of Vil’s home circuit, a cathedral where his perfection was expected, not hoped for. Leona found his seat, high up and off to the side. The “cheap seats.” The ice was a distant, glaring sheet. He felt absurdly large and out of place in his worn leather jacket, his hands empty while those around him clutched programs and fancy digital cameras.
Then the lights went down.
A single spotlight carved a circle out of the dark. Vil glided into it, costumed in shattered-mirror patterns that threw light like thrown knives. The first haunting notes of “Never Enough” swelled. Leona’s breath caught.It was different. The familiar, impossible grace was there, the razor-sharp lines, the explosive jumps that defied physics. But underneath it, woven into every extension, every desperate reach of his fingers, was a new strain of raw hunger. It wasn’t pretty.It was brutal. It was the culmination of every silent scream Leona had ever seen trapped behind his eyes.
He watched Vil carve the ice, not as a spectator, but as a confessor. He saw the frustration in the twist of a spin, the loneliness in a held pose, the sheer, unadulterated rage in the power of his step sequence. This wasn’t just a performance. It was a transfusion, Vil bleeding every feeling they’d reignited directly onto the ice. The audience gasped at the technical majesty. Leona saw the crack, gloriously wide open, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed.
The final pose was not one of triumph, but of exhausted, hollow yearning. Vil’s chest heaved, his head bowed as the last note echoed into silence. The arena erupted. Leona didn’t clap. He just watched, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. He’d missed this. He’d missed him. Three weeks had felt like a geological age.
The scores were a foregone conclusion. When Vil’s name was called for the gold, the noise was deafening. Leona watched him accept the medal, that perfect public smile back in place. It didn’t reach his eyes from this distance. Leona moved, pushing his way through the dispersing crowd toward the bowels of the arena.
He found a vendor selling bouquets wrapped in cellophane, ridiculously overpriced. He grabbed one at random—a mix of deep red and white blooms—and ignored the vendor’s cheerful comment. He followed the signs for “Media & Athlete Mix Zone,” flashing an old Olympic credential with a confidence that bypassed security.
He found him in a sterile hallway outside the flashing lights of the press area. Vil was still in his costume, a team jacket thrown over his shoulders, talking quietly with a tall, elegant man Leona recognized as his current skating partner. The partner said something, touching Vil’s arm. Vil smiled, a different, softer smile.
A hot, familiar twist shot through Leona’s gut. It was ugly and immediate.
Vil’s eyes flicked past his partner’s shoulder and locked onto Leona. The soft smile vanished, replaced by pure, unguarded shock. He said something quick to his partner, who glanced back, eyebrows raised, before nodding and walking away.
Leona approached, the flowers feeling stupid and obvious in his hand. He thrust them forward. “These are… for the performance. Or whatever.”
Vil took them, his fingers brushing Leona’s. He looked down at the bouquet, then back up, his expression unreadable. “You came.”
“Told you I would.”
“You’re in the cheap seats.”
“Best view in the house.”
A beat of silence hung between them, filled with the distant roar of the exiting crowd. Vil’s public mask was gone, leaving a cautious, hopeful fatigue. “The crack,” Vil said quietly, echoing Leona’s words from the village. “Was it…?”
“It was everything,” Leona interrupted, his voice low. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You were… fuck, Vil. You were terrifying.”
Vil’s chin lifted, a flicker of that old pride in his eyes. “Good.”
They stood there, two planets in a private orbit amid the chaotic stream of officials and caterers. Leona cleared his throat, the words sticking. “So. You hungry?”
“They have a sponsors’ dinner. I’m expected to—”
“Skip it.” Leona’s gaze was direct, unwavering. “Come have dinner with me. A real one. With… talking.”
Vil studied him, searching for the joke, the deflection. He found none. He slowly brought the flowers up, inhaling their faint, generic scent. A tiny, real smile touched his lips. “Are these your version of a white flag?”
“They’re my version of ‘I’m an idiot with flowers.’” Leona shifted his weight.“The village. That wasn’t… I don’t know what that was. But this?” He gestured vaguely between them, at the cold hallway, at the lingering echo of the performance. “I missed you. The whole three weeks. It was…”
He struggled, the admission physically painful. “It was quiet. And I hated it.”
Vil’s breath hitched, just a slight tremor in the bouquet’s cellophane. The noise of the arena faded to a distant hum. All he could see was Leona’s earnest, frustrated face, all he could hear was the raw confession hanging in the antiseptic air.
“Quiet is overrated,” Vil whispered.
“Yeah.” Leona’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “So? Dinner?”
Vil looked down at the gold medal around his neck, then at the cheap, sincere flowers in his hands. He thought of perfect scores and broken doors, of staged smiles and the brutal, beautiful truth of a skate at dawn.
He let the jacket slide from his shoulders, hooking it over his arm with the bouquet. “Let me change,” he said, and the smile he gave Leona was neither perfect nor performative. It was simply, wholly, real. “Take me somewhere loud.”
Vil emerged from his hotel room forty-five minutes later, and Leona’s brain short-circuited. He was used to Vil’s curated perfection, the on-ice costumes, the effortless streetwear. This was something else entirely. Leona had spent the time waiting in the hallway arguing with his own reflection in a gaudy wall sconce, trying to tame his hair into something that didn’t scream ‘just left the penalty box’. He’d settled on a high ponytail, a few stubborn strands escaping to frame his face. His black button-up was new, the starch in the collar already annoying him, and the slacks felt foreign.The door opened.
Leona’s breath just stopped.
Vil’s blond curls were artfully piled, half-up, half-down, with delicate tendrils brushing his neck. His eyes were shadowed in a smoky, sensual blend of grey and black, making the blue of his irises look almost luminous. His lips were a perfect, pretty red. The jumpsuit was black sequins, a cascade of tiny mirrors catching the hallway’s low light and throwing it back in scattered sparks. A thin white belt cinched his waist. The back was a breathtaking plunge of open fabric, revealing the elegant, powerful line of his spine down to the base. Black heels added inches to his height, and silver earrings glinted as he turned his head.
He was devastating. A carefully weaponized kind of beautiful.
Leona’s mouth went dry. Every rehearsed, casual greeting evaporated. All he could manage was to shove the bouquet of red roses forward, the cellophane crackling obnoxiously in the quiet hall.
Vil’s perfectly painted lips quirked. He took the roses, bringing them to his face. The deep red petals looked artificial against the vivid red of his mouth. He peered over the blooms, his gaze knowing. “Flowers again?”
“Shut up,” Leona mumbled, the words rough with a warmth he couldn’t control. He wanted to kiss the smirk right off that gorgeous mouth, to smudge that perfect lipstick and unravel that perfect hair. He shoved his hands into his pockets instead, fists clenched. “You look… ridiculous. People are gonna stare.”
“People always stare,” Vil said, as if commenting on the weather. He handed the roses back to Leona.“Hold these. I need my clutch.” He turned, presenting the open back of the jumpsuit—a breathtaking landscape of pale, smooth skin and toned muscle. Leona stared, utterly captive, the roses dangling from his hand.
“You made a reservation?” Vil asked over his shoulder, picking up a small, sparkling bag.“Yeah. Soon as you said yes. Some French place the concierge swore by. Hope you’re hungry.” He realized he was still holding the flowers. “What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Carry them,” Vil said, slipping his arm through Leona’s. The contact was electric, a jolt through the layers of fabric. “It’s charming. In a caveman-brings-trophy sort of way.”
The restaurant was all dark wood, intimate lighting, and the low thrum of polite conversation. Leona felt every eye in the room track them to their corner booth. He saw the glances—the recognition of Vil, the confusion at his companion. He resisted the urge to slouch.
A waiter materialized, smoothly guiding them to their table. Vil slid into the booth with a practiced grace, the sequins whispering. Leona sat opposite, feeling enormous and clumsy. He shoved the roses onto the seat beside him.
“Wine list, monsieur?” the waiter asked, looking at Leona.
“Uh. Sure.” Leona took the leather-bound booklet, its contents a blur of foreign names and dizzying prices. He pushed it toward Vil. “You pick. You’re the one who knows… grape words.”
Vil raised an eyebrow but took the list, his eyes scanning with efficient speed. He ordered a bottle in fluid French, the language rolling off his tongue in a way that did something complicated to Leona’s nervous system. The waiter vanished.
Silence settled, thick and immediate. The last time they’d been alone in a quiet space, words had been unnecessary. Now, with a table between them and the expectation of conversation, the air felt charged with everything unsaid. The broken door, the fogged glass, the shared shower, the trembling stillness of waking up tangled together—it all hung in the space between them, shimmering like the sequins on Vil’s sleeve.
Vil traced the rim of his water glass.“So. Two games for unnecessary roughness?”
Leona blinked. “You follow my stats?”
“The internet exists. It was a very dramatic highlight reel. That check on the Toronto defenseman was…” He searched for a word, a faint smile playing on his lips. “Educational.”
“He had it coming.”
“I’m sure he did.” Vil leaned forward slightly, the table light catching the silver in his ears. “You played angry.”
“I played.” Leona’s defense was automatic, weak.
“You played like you were trying to exorcise something.” Vil’s voice was quiet, devoid of judgment. It was simply an observation, sharp as a skate blade. “Did it work?”
The waiter returned with the wine, performing the ritual of the cork and the taste. Vil nodded approval, and their glasses were poured. The interruption was a welcome reprieve.
Once they were alone again, Leona took a fortifying swallow. It was deep and dark, tasting of expensive things he didn’t understand. “No,” he finally admitted, the word dragged out of him. “It didn’t work.”
Vil said nothing, just watched him over the rim of his own glass.
“That morning,” Leona continued, his voice lowering. “After. You were so…” He gestured vaguely, struggling.“Calm. You just called about the door. I went back to my room and I felt like I’d been run over by a bus. You were just… scheduling repairs.”
A genuine laugh escaped Vil, soft and surprisingly warm. “You idiot.” He shook his head, his curls bouncing. “I was vibrating. I think I re-scheduled my entire week’s training because I couldn’t hold a thought. I convinced my nutritionist I had a virus because I couldn’t keep food down for two days. The door was the only concrete thing I could actually fix.”
Leona stared at him, processing this. The unshakable Vil Schoenheit, brought to a state of productive dysfunction. The idea was bizarrely gratifying. “Huh.”
“Your eloquence is, as ever, breathtaking.”
Their food arrived—seared scallops for Vil, a steak for Leona. The conversation stuttered and found a new, easier rhythm over the meal. They skirted the deep waters, sticking to the shallows. Vil complained about his new choreographer’s obsession with “emotional vulnerability.” Leona grumbled about his rookie linemate who couldn’t take a pass to save his life. They argued lightly about the merits of different pre-game rituals. It was almost normal.Almost easy.
Leona found himself watching the way Vil’s hands moved as he spoke, the precise cut of his knife. He watched the way the smokey eye makeup made his expressions more dramatic, more intense. He was so painfully, obnoxiously beautiful it was like a constant, low-grade attack on Leona’s senses.
As the plates were cleared, the silence returned, softer now, but still heavy with potential. Leona signaled for the check, a decision solidifying in his gut.Vil eyed him. “So. This loud place?”
“This is the prelude,” Leona said, pulling out his wallet. He paid without looking at the total, a number that would have made him wince any other time.
They stepped out into the bite of the Montreal night. Vil shivered slightly, the open back of his jumpsuit offering no protection. Instinctively, Leona shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over Vil’s shoulders. The gesture was too big, enveloping him, carrying Leona’s scent and body heat.
Vil pulled it closed, his fingers brushing the worn collar. He didn’t thank him. He just looked up, his eyes searching Leona’s in the neon glow of the restaurant sign. “Where now?”
Leona took a breath, the cold air sharp in his lungs. The city’s pulse thrummed around them—cars, laughter, distant music. He’d made the dinner reservation the moment Vil said yes. But for what came after, he had no plan. Only a need.
“My hotel’s closer,” Leona said, his voice rough. “It’s not the Olympic Village. The walls are probably thinner.”
Vil’s smile was slow, knowing. It reached his eyes, crinkling the perfect makeup at the corners. He tightened Leona’s jacket around himself. “Lead the way,” he said. The words were simple, but the acceptance in them was a seismic shift.
He didn’t take Leona’s offered arm this time. Instead, he laced their fingers together, his grip firm and sure. His hand was cool in Leona’s warm one. The physical connection was a shockingly public claim, there on the bustling sidewalk. Leona’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, hopeful rhythm.
They walked, just two figures in the night, one in sequins and borrowed leather, the other in a button-up that was already coming untucked, their joined hands swinging slightly between them. The sound of the city was a loud, living thing, but inside the space they occupied, there was only the sound of their footsteps, their breathing, and the deafening, wonderful promise of what was waiting just a few blocks away.No more cheap seats. No more fogged glass between them. Just the night, and the terrifying, exhilarating quiet they would make together.