Chapter Text
Shane couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t fucking believe it. Rozanov was no stranger to texting him before their Montreal vs Boston games. But meeting in the building beforehand might be his neon sign that Rozanov was a little bit insane.
Naturally, the teams were quarantined to avoid pre-game fighting or sabotage, but there were a couple of facilities that could be shared. A suite for meetings or parties; networking type of stuff. A bathroom. Shane didn’t really want to meet Rozanov in a bathroom again. He could only stomach so many warnings of his own mental health state. Still, frowning over the room label texted to him and then opening the door to the wide expanse of the suite threw Shane’s mind like a boomerang. The room and all its greige and sepia tones had the space for it.
“Do you have a career ending wish?” he hissed when his eyes swept the room before locking onto Rozanov. “We’re on the ice in, like, forty-five minutes!”
“I need to talk to you,” Rozanov said, standing stationary in the middle of it all. He wore his Boston hoodie, but the way it rested on his stacked frame told Shane it was probably team apparel he’d been given the day he signed on. Worn often. Well loved.
Shane couldn’t say what rooted him to the brownish carpet. His anxiety might have bit out more sharply than he meant to, “Okay?” so he tried to soften it. This was Ilya. He was reckless and a thorn in everyone’s side, but frustratingly intelligent and observant. He wanted to meet for something important. “What? What is it?”
Rozanov just…stared at him. He did that sometimes, but with the rest of their teams in the locker rooms prepping for warm-ups, Shane didn’t have the time for him to figure out English or whether he wanted a blow-job or hand service.
“I’m ending it.”
Something in Shane’s brain dinged like a pebble on a bell. The thing about real brass bells: they made a sound that could be felt, not just heard. That nameless pulse rippled through him now, even as he heard himself ask, “Ending what?”
As if he didn’t know. As if he hadn’t thought about this exact topic countless times.
“This. Us. No more hookups,” Ilya said. Shane knew his English was better than this. He could actually speak very well now.
Us?
“There’s never been an us,” Shane said before he meant to. Because the lines of the room should not be going blurry. His eyes should not be vibrating in his skull, unable to fully focus on Ilya. Rozanov. He was not going to disassociate because of this bastard right before a game. He just had to pick up whatever organs fell out of his body first.
Ilya sniffed, “Right,” and cleared his throat. “So. This should be easy.”
“Easy?” Shane barked. “You’re doing this—right before a fucking game—and you think this is easy?”
He really hoped Montreal’s coach didn’t order him to give a speech in the locker room. A silly concern to have in the middle of this.
“What is the problem?” Ilya—Rozanov—said in his infuriatingly indifferent way.
Shane’s nostrils flared as he remembered to inhale. “Nothing, I guess. A problem resolved, more like. Good luck in the game.”
He wrenched open the door knob and marched through the corridors. Shane felt itchy; too big for own skin, and too small to matter to the person he wanted to matter to the most. Christ, he’d invited Rozanov to his summer cottage. That was shot to hell now, but that had been as close as he’d come to outright dropping some stupid fucking words that Shane could never get back. He supposed Rozanov had spared him that embarrassment, at least…but just because Shane had never confessed to being in—in—
Shane stopped just short of the dressing room. He could hear his team through the door, but he turned his back to the cinderblock and sank into a wall-sit against it. For some reason, he knew that if he didn’t at least admit to himself one clear thing, he wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at playing this game.
He hated that Ilya Rozanov was the closest he’d ever gotten to knowing what being in love is. Because he did, he reckoned. Love him. Nothing else could occupy his mind and body so fully, right? He thought he knew what an all-consuming interest was, but Rozanov had one-upped him on this front. Ilya was the one who wore a golden cross, and Shane had never considered himself a spiritual person, but the abstract thing inside of him that Rozanov had figured out and controlled so thoroughly…mind, body, and spirit. Shane didn’t know how else to say it. Only love permeated all those layers, right?
He felt so stupid, even more so finally acknowledging it after the fucker broke up with him. He had the love, but he had no idea what to do with it now.
Ilya stepped into his team’s locker room. Someone, a voice he recognized but could not be bothered to look for the face, called out, “Roz, where you been?”
“None of your business,” he answered, and it was enough. He could dress himself faster than anyone here, and he did. Not a minute lost as they all skated into warm-ups on time.
Business as usual. The game commenced, and Ilya was on fire. The hardness he could see in Hollander’s eyes from across the rink, and the distinct set of his mouth did nothing to ruin his game. If anything, Ilya played better. Possibly a…what the hell did the doctors call it? Somehow, it always sounded like Thank You in his ears. Spacibo. Placebo. Maybe it was placebo. He could usually look forward to Hollander’s grumpy game face dissolving into lustful furrows and open moans.
The puck slid right under his stick. “Fuck! ” he said and skated after the person on his other side who took it.
“The fuck, Rozanov!” a teammate chastised. Ilya cursed back in Russian and made sure to get the fucking puck back. More, he took it to the fucking goal.
“DA! ” he bellowed, letting his momentum take him in a lazy line across the ice. Vindicated twice over, making a goal and correcting his mistake.
Shane sat down in a huff in the locker room with his team. The coach was doing his thing with the whiteboard. Markers, lines, and circles, a lot of circles around a certain letter R on the board, and more and more lines connecting it to a certain letter H. Like a really fucked up constellation.
“I want you to stay on him, Hollander. If that puck so much as strays towards Rozanov’s orbit, it’s your job to get it back.”
“Should I trip him?” Shane sassed. It earned a few quiet laughs, despite the mood in the room.
“I don’t care what you do, as long as you stay in his way.”
Shane didn’t want to see Rozanov at all, much less to be within reach of his hockey stick.
Something in his face must have given away his wandering thoughts, because the coach ordered, “Do you understand?”
“I understand,” he said with his chest. Rozanov this. Rozanov that. Circles and lines and Shane was just about sick of Ilya Rozanov. He understood it was his coach’s job to strategize, but Shane Hollander knew every play in hockey history. It was insulting to insinuate that he didn’t understand a single thing about hockey. Ilya Rozanov was a problem. Shane understood that better than this entire fucking team.
Montreal vs Boston stood currently at 1 - 4. So, they finished intermission, and Shane scored the first goal. And then he dog walked that puck into another. The crowd was going nuts. They had time. So much time, for a tie, and then a tie breaker.
Shane swung his legs over the wall to sit down. Sweat fell down his face as if his hairline were an open tap. He removed his helmet and rubbed a towel all over his head and neck. He needed to be careful. Overheating and getting himself out of the game would serve no purpose. His head rocked on his shoulders as teammates eagerly shoved him back and forth, proud and grateful that he brought them back up so fast. On the other side of the wall, Hayden caught his breath and said, “Most impressive. Who lit a fire in your ass?”
Not his preferred choice of words, but whatever. He answered, “I just don’t feel like losing today,” and squirted a dose of water into his mouth.
“Well listen, don’t push yourself too hard, all right. Let us carry the rest.”
“Yeah,” a teammate on Shane’s left laughed. “Don’t pull a hammy. We’ve gotta be in Colorado on Saturday. And then it’s back to these Bostonian fucks, if they win their game after this one.”
Again? Shane would have to see him…
He pressed his towel into his face again, hiding and rubbing some sort of sense into his brain. Of course he’d have to see Rozanov again. That’s how the season worked. That’s how a decades’ long rivalry between their teams worked. It was Montreal versus Boston, again, again, and again. Constantly, even if they weren’t playing against each other. It always came back to Montreal versus Boston. Hollander and Rozanov.
“Hollander! You staying put or going in?” their coach beckoned. Shane and Hayden exchanged looks. Hayden’s mouth fell in a clear, Don’t, expression. Shane knew the smart and safe thing to do would be to rest now. Maybe return to the game later.
He stood up. They needed two more points. He believed his team could do it, but whether he was earning goal shots or keeping Rozanov busy, his team needed him. “I’m in.”
Hayden skated backward for Shane to have room to swing his legs over the wall. He didn’t say anything about Shane’s choice, but his silence carried weight like a vacuum cloud in this arena of ricocheting noise.
Whatever. Shane would take an ice bath after this game and be extremely gentle with his body until Saturday.
It seemed Rozanov did not feel inclined for a break either. They came together in the center of the rink for the faceoff. They both crouched in silence. A rare game when Rozanov said nothing. He always liked to rile up whoever he faced off against. Shane did not make eye contact. He focused on the referee, the puck in his hand…
A millisecond. He only needed a millisecond to peek. Rozanov was already staring at him. Just by the look on his face, Shane knew he was not winning this faceoff.
The micro expression change on Hollander’s face told Ilya he knew he was not winning this faceoff. He was right. Ilya easily flicked it where he wanted to go, and off he went—
He felt himself checked into the wall, no doubt by Hollander, who seemed the only one able to keep up with Ilya tonight. Or ever. A little shit in the wrong color jersey took the puck. Ilya cursed in Russian, whereas Shane twirled and lunged into formation with his team. Like a fucking dancer.
Ilya loved it. He knew Hollander’s silly nerd brain moved like lightning in moments like this. When the heat of the game made him feel alive. When he was incredibly pissed off. Hockey honed him in, whereas sex fuzzed out his brain completely. A glorious drug, the game and then a night of good sex. The unquestionable sense of purpose, followed by total oblivion…
Several sensations happened at the same time. Objectively, Ilya knew he skated in front of Hollander. He could see Hollander’s intentions as easily as a map, and Ilya intended to mark his place on it.
He miscalculated Hollander's intentions.
He knew the puck hit him in the ass cheek. Maybe more so the thigh, but after his leg went numb and failed to hold his weight, he collapsed on the ice. Then warmth gushed up and down his entire leg and it didn’t matter where the fucking thing hit. His leg felt as if it vibrated with nerve pain, as numb as it was alight with electricity.
The game kept going around him, because it had to. Because the rest of the world needed time to catch up that something had just happened to him, and he wasn’t able to get up fast enough to either contribute or to get off the ice—
“Oh, fuck,” a familiar voice said through the noise. In the bedlam of figures skating around him, one stood like a fencepost next to him. A singular, albeit strong, force against the storm. “Il—aghh! ”
One of Ilya’s teammates tackled Hollander onto the ice. A loyal, if stupid move.
It was a perfect shot.
Shane’s eyes widened, disbelief of what just—what he—just did.
Everything, all of the fucked up layers of today condensed down into a single thread of thought. A problem. A problem with a solution. Shane’s turmoil of feelings, his team losing, Montreal’s progress to the playoffs, white-board strategies that weren’t working, their best players getting too exhausted to keep up what the team needed…
Hamstrings. An incredible collection of muscles. Some of the worst to injure, because healing took forever.
Shane never lost the All-Star goal shoot-outs. He hit what he aimed for, and he hit it with enough intention as if he could break through a goalie’s hand.
Rozanov went down like a skyscraper, in one big leaning heap. He could catch himself and land safely, but his face manipulated with as much confusion as pain.
“Oh, fuck,” fell out of Shane’s mouth. His hands gripped his hockey stick but his arms hung limp in front of him. His skates moved on their own. The back of his brain warned he shouldn’t approach. Let the refs handle it. Play the game.
What game? his brain worried. There wasn’t a goddamn plan or historical precedent for shooting the puck into the hamstring of—
“Ilya?” he’d tried to say, but it wound up getting pronounced like his lungs were crushed between a man and the ice. Between the initial tackle and the landing, Shane couldn’t breathe. His lungs struggled to recover from the impact and fill back up. Hell, if he couldn’t disassociate in the communal suite, maybe now would be a good time to pass out.