Chapter Text
23 December 2014, Hong Kong International Airport
Shane
Moving forward in Russian without butchering the grammar makes a Michigan goal look easy. That’s precisely why Shane clicked on this lesson when he scrolled through the familiar episode list of Slow Russian: Grammar in Focus. The patient voice in his earbuds explains that Russian motion verbs encode directionality relative to a goal, repetition, or habitual motion. идти – walking in one direction – is not the same as ходить, which means walking back and forth. Or was it the other way around? Shit. Shane, currently ходить (probably?) between a frightfully symmetric 20-foot Christmas tree and the far end of Hong Kong Airport’s luxury gift lane, stops the podcast.
The departure board still shows yellow “DELAYED” notices for most of the North American and Europe flights. A sharp winter monsoon surge has slowed landings to a cautious drip. The throng of tired passengers has swelled for hours and now every seating area in the concourse is occupied. Plenty of people are sitting on the floor. Phone chargers are spiderwebbed across the few available outlets.
Shane should probably get back to The Pier, the ludicrously swanky first-class lounge, where the other seven stranded recruits of the MLH’s glitzy mid-season Asian Showcase have almost certainly reached the bottom of the cocktail menu and are working their way back up.
He doesn’t want to join them. He can’t.
Shane knows shit about thermodynamics, but he knows that whenever he’s forced to enter a closed space that also holds Ilya Rozanov, his chest tightens and his nerves snap to painful attention. He’s okay on the ice and he can also deal with Rozanov in most other big, open spaces. After all, he’s managed to survive the batshit circus of this showcase that’s included visits to training camps, chaotic fan meetings, and too many events with multinational sponsors in Seoul, Tokyo and now Hong Kong than he wants to remember.
But whenever he’s forced to enter Rozanov’s radius, everything, every little thing becomes an ordeal. Smiling. Keeping up with conversations. Moving like the athlete he is, while somehow holding back self-consciousness and the deep, gnawing sense of wrongness and hurt that makes him feel alien in his own body.
It’s been like this ever since he slinked out of Rozanov’s suite in Vegas. He remembers staring at his bewildered, pale face in the mirror of the hotel elevator, thinking with nonsensical circularity Who are you, Who are you, Who are you, not knowing whether he meant Rozanov or himself. Not that it made any difference because one implied the other.
There is always a Shane before and a Shane after Rozanov – and, well, there is the fleeting, intense ecstasy of being with him, which makes Shane feel like a wild thing, half-incoherent with need and lust and desperate longing for something he can’t even name. Before Vegas, each of their encounters had left him feeling more like himself - more at peace, more at home in this body he pushes relentlessly yet seldom allows himself to take pleasure in.
Stepping into the hotel elevator that night in Vegas, there’d been none of the elation he’d experienced after some of their former encounters. Instead, he’d felt humiliated by his own eagerness to make himself available to Rozanov, to give himself away – heedlessly and utterly – when Rozanov seemed to like the danger and convenience but little else about Shane. This is the come down, he’d thought, limbs stiffening, coldness settling low in his belly. He is still coming down, six months later.
So why listen to Russian Grammar podcast whenever you’re anxious? a smug, accented voice whispers in his mind.
Fuck you, Shane answers silently. He likes grammar. Always has. Grammar has structure. It consists of logically built subsystems. It makes sense. When his mind swarms like a nest of beetles, memorizing grammar rules helps him to settle.
“Hollander.” This time, the deep purr is not in his head, but it takes Shane a breathless, hot-cold second to process this. “I”, the voice behind him continues, “brought you –”
Shane turns and steps away at the same time but maybe wearing the earbuds has thrown off his sense of hearing - or maybe Rozanov moved the exact same moment. Instead of putting distance between them, Shane barrels straight into him. Something hot and wet splashes over him, dripping down the front of the bland, expensive sweater his mom bought him, leaving dark, steaming stains that hurt his skin and smell sharply of coffee.
“Fuck!” Rozanov switches to Russian to keep cursing. Shane peels the drenched fabric away from his skin and stares at him - just stares.
Over the past week, he’s perfected the art of directing his gaze over Rozanov’s shoulder whenever looking his way becomes unavoidable. He seems to have lost the trick.
Rozanov is glowering at the now empty coffee cup like it betrayed him. His honey-brown curls are peeking out from underneath his beanie. He’s still in the sleek black team zip hoodie he wore to the meet-and-greet in Kowloon earlier today.
“Ah…restroom,” is what he says when his gaze snaps back to Shane’s drenched sweater. “Right there.”
Before Shane can get a word out, Rozanov clamps a hand on his elbow. He hustles him around a pop-up kiosk selling mooncake gift sets and into the accessible restroom tucked behind. The steady drone of the terminal dies away the moment the door falls shut behind them. Rozanov flicks the bolt over and turns to face him. Shane’s pulse skitters.
Another swing of the pendulum. They’ve been here before. Shane remembers Rozanov bolting through the door of the Vegas restroom - the strain around his eyes that hadn’t disappeared all night. The sound of his laughter, joyless and not exactly kind, while Shane had been grasping and grasping for something that probably had never been there to begin with.
Here they are again. Ready to play out the same farce. He’s tired of getting knocked around by Rozanov’s momentum.
Rozanov looks at him with a slight frown, lips parted but silent like the English words he summoned didn’t present themselves in time. He snaps his fingers. “Take it off.”
Shane steps back and knocks his elbow into the side rail. It hurts. “What?”
Rozanov tilts his head to the side. “You want to keep bathing in coffee, yes?”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Mine,” Rozanov says slowly. Shane can’t figure out the tone of his voice.
Rozanov takes a step toward him. Another one. Shane can smell the cigarette he snuck in behind the windbreak outside arrivals. Suddenly, Rozanov’s warm knuckles brush against his belly. Shane feels Rozanov’s fingers curl around the hem of his sweater, tugging it upward over his head – gentle and firm, like you’d peel a sweater off a stubborn five-year old.
“What the… I don’t…” Shane’s protest is vehement, but not exactly eloquent. He watches Rozanov flip open the tab. Without another look at Shane, he starts rinsing the sweater in the sink.
“Um.” Shane crosses his arms in front of his naked chest. He tries to breathe past the tight, jittery lump in his throat. “How the fuck am I supposed to get back to the lounge now?”
“Easy. But this is first.” Rozanov is still running the sweater under water. “Or your boring pullover will be ruined.”
Shane scoffs, but he snatches little glances at Rozanov’s reflection in the mirror. The glare of the fluorescent headlights picks out little details that Shane missed earlier. Rozanov is hollow-eyed, probably from partying too hard. His features are sharper, cheekbones more pronounced. There’s a tense set to his mouth that is new.
Done with wringing out the sweater, Rozanov drapes it carefully over the rail. Then he rips off a couple of paper towels, wets them, and turns to Shane. He stops himself right before touching him.
“Okay?” he asks.
There’s a flicker of uncertainty in Rozanov’s eyes when Shane doesn’t respond. He’s still clutching the towels in his hand, dripping water on the floor.
There’s only one possible answer and it’s No. Shane is going to say No. He should say No. He will say No. It’s not difficult. One syllable even he can do.
Shane presses his lips together, inclines his head. “Yeah.”
Rozanov is so close that Shane can see the soft fall of his chest as he exhales. He touches the towel to Shane’s skin and starts methodically wiping the remaining sticky film of coffee off Shane’s skin.
“Sorry this is cold”, he mutters. The tiny hitch in his voice before the final word tells Shane that Rozanov remembers it too. He’s done this for Shane before, cleaning him up after Shane blew him and Rozanov came all over his chin and chest. Shane remembers Rozanov’s hands wrapping around his wrists and pulling him up. How careful Rozanov had been with him then: wiping him down with a cloth, snatching kisses in between, gently biting at Shane’s swollen lip like he couldn’t help himself.
Rozanov is careful now, too, but he keeps his touch brisk, utilitarian. It’s no help: Shane can’t stop the small shiver that wends itself down his arms.
“I know you don’t like dirty”, Rozanov says, voice quiet. Shane’s gaze cuts to his face, sure that Rozanov is messing with him. But there’s none of the tell-tale glint, none of the minute pursing of his lips that usually telegraph Rozanov’s shit-talking on and off the ice. But I do like it, Shane thinks. That’s the whole problem. I like how dirty you are, and how tender. You could ask me to perform the most depraved filth for you, and I’d do it in a heartbeat because I know you’d kiss me afterwards, probably in the middle of it, too. You used to, as least. Before Vegas.
When Rozanov presses another towel to Shane’s chest, a droplet escapes and traces a ticklish path down his stomach. Rozanov hums and stops it with the tip of his thumb. Rubbing away the wetness, he traces the tiniest shape on Shane’s skin. Shane sucks in a breath and Rozanov snatches back his hand.
“Sorry. I… sorry.” He steps back. Throws the towels into the bin.
“No... um...okay.” Shane lifts his shoulders, trying and failing to sound casual. “What happens now? I don’t exactly carry around spare clothes.”
“Good thing I do.” Rozanov nonchalantly pulls the team hoodie over his head. Beneath it, he’s wearing a tight black workout tank that shows off his bare toned shoulders. The familiar gold cross glints at this throat.
Shane looks away – just long enough that the hoodie Rozanov flings at him smacks him in the chest. He barely snatches it before it hits the floor. “Not in a million years!”
“Sure,” Rozanov shrugs. “See you back at the lounge.” He makes a show of twisting the latch before wrenching the door wide open.
Shane lets out a screech of terror and Rosanov hoots with laughter.
“Close the door, asshole!”
“It’s not like regular people recognize us,” Rozanov points out sensibly. “They do showcase for a reason, yes? MLH is no big deal here. They introduced you as Scott Hunter how many times? And fans confused me,” Rozanov shudders, “with Hayden. Strange place. I do not want to return.”
Shane swallows. Surely, this is a nightmare – he’ll wake up, any moment now. He keeps telling himself that this is in fact the worst of all nightmares, even worse than his recurring dream of having all his frontal teeth knocked out right before being sent down to the minors.
He’s still monologuing in his head about the nightmarish horror of it all when he pulls up the zipper of Rosanov’s hoodie and turns to the mirror.
To be fair, the design is discrete: like all the team gear they’ve been wearing for the showcase, the hoodie is black with a small event patch on the chest. The number 81 appears on the sleeve in a muted gray, Rozanov’s name in capital letters above it.
This is wrong on so many levels. Shane is the Metros’ captain and hockey is his religion: wearing another team captain’s gear feels nothing short of sacrilegious. Disorienting, too. Shane fights a sudden, childish longing for a scrap of fabric that has his number, his name stitched into it.
But that’s only half the story because Rozanov’s hoodie carries his scent – the fresh, piney body wash that he uses, a hint of cigarettes, and something else that always reminds Shane of the faint metallic chill you get from walking in the icy wind. Rozanov smells like winter, but his hands are always warm.
The hoodie is warm, too, and Shane, who’s been cold and miserable for hours is still miserable but well… he’s no longer cold.
Shane shoves his damp sweater into his backpack and shakes his head at the absurdity of it all. It’s only when he moves toward the door that he notices the odd look on Rozanov’s face.
“What is it?” Shane snaps.
Rozanov’s thumb grazes a small cut above his lip, but he doesn’t answer.
Ilya
This has been a terrible idea from start to finish - but, as with all of his bad ideas, Ilya has homed in on the worst part and cranked it up just a notch. There’s really no other explanation for why Hollander is currently wearing Ilya’s team hoodie, eyes stormy and cheeks pink with the telltale flush he gets whenever he’s provoked – or turned on – two states that, on this and plenty other occasions, seem to arrive hand in hand.
Ilya stamps out the urge to provoke him just a little more - nudge up Hollander’s chin or whisper in his ear. This is not what he’s here for.
Ilya loathes airports. Searching for Hollander, he’s just spent an hour wandering this spotless, sterile wasteland, built to funnel money and bodies with the same smooth, indifferent precision. Once he’d found Hollander, he’d stopped at one of the fancy-schmancy pop-up kiosks and bought coffee that came in elegantly understated, serious cups – a world removed from Ilya’s personal taste and style and therefore exactly right for the understated and serious (aiming for elegance was clearly out of the question) conversation he meant to have with Hollander.
The thing is, he fucking hates this – he’s never had to cough up polite words in Russian let alone in English to end a fling with someone. Perks of being always in transit, crisscrossing the MLH landscape, and feeling at home nowhere, neither in Russia nor the States. What’s been happening with Hollander is not even a fling - just a string of hook-ups, happening at maddeningly irregular intervals, like the world’s most painfully slow train crash.
Ilya likes trouble, yes. Doesn’t mean he likes to be distracted by stupid stuff – like spending far too much time thinking about why Hollander hasn’t replied to a single text he’s sent him since Vegas. Ilya’s texts weren’t exactly epistolary art, rather a carefully staggered chain of escalating filth. Because what else is Ilya going to send him?
Hollander can’t know – doesn’t want to know – the other things. Exhibit 1: Hollander’s fucking freckles haunt him. They are everywhere. Ilya sees them in the dark peppering on the pucks when he gathers them after a brutal practice. In the constellation of raindrops scattered across whatever plane window he happens to be staring through. It’s ridiculous.
Exhibit 2: The fact that literally nowhere is safe. Ilya can’t even walk into a KFC branch these days without thinking of Shane, staring at him with such hunger and trepidation on the night of their first hookup before announcing in this trembly, determined voice of his: “I’m not a chicken!” It should be funny, but it’s not. It’s mostly annoying, though not as annoying as the painful lurch in his stomach whenever he catches sight of Hollander smiling at someone. Never at Ilya, of course. No, Hollander has spent the past week ignoring him with fastidious care. Look at me, Ilya has wanted to shout every minute, every day of this damned showcase. Smile at me.
Now, Hollander is looking at him and it’s terrifying. Hollander’s arms are crossed, a slight crease between his eyebrows. His head is tipped with the same courteous patience he uses when fielding onerous interview questions. He puts on a convincing façade, but there are little cracks: Ilya isn’t blind to the way Hollander’s gaze keeps drifting back to his bare shoulders, his throat, as if he can’t help himself. His breathing is shallow, and he’s in Ilya’s hoodie, wearing Ilya’s number like a brand. It shouldn’t be such a fucking turn on. But. It. Is.
Ilya takes an unsteady breath. Arousal settles warm and tingling into his lower stomach. He wants to crowd Hollander against the bathroom wall. He wants to kiss him, lick him, bite him, spin him around so that Hollander can see himself in the mirror while Ilya takes him apart. He wants to – But no. No.
Ilya rubs a hand over his face. Calls himself to order. This is precisely what can’t happen again. He had a plan, didn’t he? Find Hollander. Apologize for being a dick in Vegas. End whatever this is and walk away a free man. It’s a great plan. Fucking fantastic.
The only problem is that while Ilya knows exactly how he can make Hollander come in three minutes flat, he doesn’t know how to talk to him. It’s not something they do. They compete on the ice; they see each other at functions; once in a blue moon when the stars and logistics align, they fuck. That’s it. Maybe he should leave it at that. Just walk away.
But just then Hollander, holding himself so carefully, makes a nervous little sound – a shaky, quick inhale – that Ilya has heard before, in very different circumstances. He remembers Shane’s upturned face, his warm, taut body underneath Ilya’s. Shane had made that same sound right before he’d rocked back against Ilya for the first time. Ilya remembers the look of awe on this face. The way Shane had tilted up his chin then, wordlessly asking to be kissed.
Ilya presses his hands against the cool tiles of the bathroom wall and takes a deep breath. He’s got to make this right somehow. He will.
Hollander fiddles with one of his sleeves. “What now?” he asks.
Ilya flashes him his best smile, bright and flawless, as real as the perfectly even teeth behind it. “Now is time for airport shopping.”
“What?”
“Or you just keep wearing my hoodie,” Ilya explains patiently. “You prefer?”
“No! Of course not! No!”
Ilya grabs the door handle, and of course Hollander has to be the first to exit the bathroom, shoulder colliding with Ilya’s as they jostle out of the restroom and step back into the surge of tired holiday travelers.
Ilya shakes his head at Hollander. He tells himself that spending an hour with him – not battling on the ice, not tangled in the sheets – might be curative. It might make this whole thing a whole lot easier by giving Ilya proof that really, Hollander’s just an awful guy. After all, he’s best friends with Hayden, so there.
“Look.” Hollander points to a tiny boutique with a dark-wood façade, tucked between a brightly lit electronics store and a Kee Wah Bakery branch.
Hollander’s shop is called “Knit Knacks” and it must have gone out of fashion two centuries ago. The windows have been painted to look frosted with snow. In the display, two cheerful wooden sheep wear cozy knitted sweaters and tiny knitted hats. It looks like the kind of shop where grandfathers debate the pros and cons of their preferred techniques for folding sweaters.
“Can we go there?” Ilya can tell from the tone of his voice how carefully Hollander is trying to hide his excitement.
“It’s not like it could make your personal style any worse.”
Hollander is already on his way, but he glances briefly over his shoulder, a slight smile tugging the corners of his mouth upward.
God, Ilya’s fucked.