Chapter Text
When Shane wakes up, he’s mourning the abrupt end of his most restful sleep in weeks. Though he’s used to waking before the sun rises, the moonlight streaming through his window (no, not his-) makes it clear that this isn’t just his body’s annoying tendency to jerk him awake the moment the clock hits 5:30. Something has poked him awake, along with (he tries not to think it, but it is a bit too fitting) the Russian bear beside him. Shane’s always had unfortunately good night hearing, but he’d have to be deaf to miss the sounds of sneaker-clad feat padding against floorboards, the thump of a clearly unsteady body leaning against a door, the click of an ancient lock as it’s pried open. They’re not footsteps he recognises – Shane picks up on it quickly, the combination of shoe choice, tread depth and pace that defines a person’s walking noise, and this isn’t one he knows.
Shane cranes his neck, in the process locking eyes with Rozanov, who mouths ‘Outside’ at him from his own twisted position, eyes locked on the balcony in the corner of the room. Shane is confused for a moment – is Rozanov asking him to leave? – before he hears an enormous body heaving a very familiar sigh as it plops onto the ground. Shane had been so worried about the soundproofing in this hotel, and it seems he was right to be. That’s Scott Hunter alright, creeping into his room’s balcony at – there are no clocks in the room, but Shane’s phone is on the nightstand and the darkened screen reads NIGHT MODE: 2:32AM – and every one of Hunter’s breaths echoes in time with the pounding of Shane’s rabbit heart.
“Are you listening?” Hunter asks, and only Rozanov’s firm hands on his shoulders stop Shane from sprinting out of the room like a five-year-old worried his mother would notice him sneaking an extra cookie before bed. Considering the sprinting was most of what alerted his mother to his presence when he was growing up, it was probably a wise move on Rozanov’s part, though he somewhat resents the feeling of being managed. “I know you’re probably not, but it’s ok. I can pretend, right? Everyone else has their family here, and I have you guys, right?”
The silence that follows is broken only by the sound of heavy breathing. Hunter doesn’t sound drunk – at least, he’s not slurring – but he doesn’t sound wholly with it, either. Is Hunter talking to them? Does he know they’re in the next room? Shane imagines the alternatives. Either the massive, hulking figure of Scott Hunter is curled up on a hotel balcony talking to himself, unaware his every word is being listened to, in which case Shane is a voyeur. Or else someone else is the intended audience, and Shane’s a voyeur and an eavesdropper too. Either option inspires an irrational guilt, but he’s not got too many options. Rozanov figured it out before he did. If they can hear Hunter, then Hunter can hear them, and so they’re in the same boat: hope he doesn’t say anything that’ll make them unable to look him in the eye tomorrow, and ignore that this ever happened.
“New rookies this year. They designed the whole event around having them on separate teams, can you believe it? I can already imagine what you’d say, Ma. You’d try and take them both and hide them. You’d look tiny next to them, but I’d like to see Crowell try and take you on.” Hunter sounds wistful, and Shane can imagine he’s cold, sitting outside on a night like this. He doesn’t know why it strikes him, the idea of Scott Hunter, outside in the cold whilst Shane’s in here curled up in his rival’s arms. Maybe because it’s the dead of winter, the kind of weather that has the memory of Yuna Hollander’s voice shouting ‘Don’t forget your coat’ in his ears every time he exits the warm hotel for the brisk walk to the rink. See, Shane knows about Hunter’s tragic backstory, everyone in hockey does, but he doesn’t often think about it. Hunter himself leads the charge there, always understates it, talks about how it shaped him and made him who he is, but makes it clear: I’ve moved on, no need for pity! Maybe it’s true, if he's feeling bad for them. But Shane’s heart breaks a little, and he resolves to hug his mother extra tight the next time he sees her. Rozanov, meanwhile, is inscrutable. Probably he can’t fathom why Hunter would pity him for getting lots of attention. He basks in it, usually, the sensation of every eye on him.
“There’s this kid Hollander. Nice guy. You’d like him, dad, he’s like you. Doesn’t know how to chirp, keeps quiet, but his slapshot… God, it’s good. And then the other one, Rozanov. The opposite, really. Fast, lean, mean… He fucking hates me. Don’t know why. Don’t really blame him. I’d hate me too. Every time I hear someone bring you two up, like I’m the specialist boy just because… well. Anyway. He’s kind of awful to everyone, so maybe he’s just an asshole, I don’t know. Hollander seems to think so, at least.”
Rozanov rolls his eyes at Shane, who’s too busy feeling more uncomfortable than he ever has in his life to respond. They shouldn’t be listening to this. They shouldn’t be able to hear this, what kind of cheap hotel is this, where every single word is reverberating as clearly into Shane’s ear as if Hunter had shouted it? He tries to gesture to Rozanov, but he receives a quelling look in return, and he can’t blame him. Hunter is at least choosing to say these things, even if he doesn’t know he has an audience. Neither Shane nor Rozanov have any desire to do the same.
“I miss you. Both of you. I think this is going to be another one of those seasons, you know? The team isn’t clicking. Zullo’s an asshole. I should be doing more, to get things working, but… I’m just tired. I’m not even that old. I’m 28. I should be in the prime of my life. But…” Scott trails off abruptly this time, like he’s self-censoring, and Shane hopes that it’ll end here. He’s heard too much already, he knows that, but other than humanising a player that he’s looked up to for a decade, none of it has been incriminating. Maybe, in a few years, they’ll laugh about it. “But I’m gay.” Well, fuck.
“I don’t know if you’d have accepted that, or if you wouldn’t. I’d like to think you’d love me no matter what, but I know it was a different time back then. God, if I’d said that at school… forget losing my scholarship, they might have thrown me in a hole somewhere. It’s not like anyone would have noticed. The worst part is that I’m a coward, too. I’m alone because I’m too afraid to tell anyone, and I’m too afraid because I don’t want to lose what little I do have.”
Shane feels a tear prick at his eyes, at that, but it’s nothing compared to those openly pouring down Rozanov’s face. It’s almost frightening, how quickly and silently Rozanov can cry. Shane doesn’t cry often – he found his tears drying up somewhere around his tenth year and they’ve been sporadic at best since then – but he could never manage this stillness. He wonders if Scott is crying, all alone next door. There’s nothing hinting towards it in his voice.
“Still, things aren’t too bad. The attention’s off me, at least. I bought a place, in New York. Figured I’ll be staying a while, so why not? It’s nice. No room for guests, but it’s just for me, so who cares? It’s private. I’ve had it eight months and I don’t think anyone’s knocked on the door. Just me and my thoughts. I had to stop billeting, but honestly, Vaughny was enough for a lifetime. And don’t worry – I’ve sealed off the balcony. Not taking that risk. Besides, Jessup – the neighbour’s cat, remember him - he’s got dibs on eating me when I die. Probably shouldn’t be out here either, but I’ll be fine. It’s a special occasion, right? Not many people get to All Stars once, let alone ten times. I’m not going to ruin the spectacle.”
Shane is shaken by Rozanov, who is now sliding off the bed with all the precision and expertise of a man who has often had to leave without a sound. In another setting, perhaps that would invoke very different emotions in Shane, but he follows Rozanov’s cue. The rate at which Scott is revealing his inner demons promises to haunt them both forever if they don’t get a move on, and Shane honestly thinks he’d rather be caught fucking (or being fucked by) Rozanov than have to admit to one of his childhood heroes what he's overheard today. Shane slinks his way slowly out of the bed, and Rozanov hands him a pile of clothes – his own, neatly folded – which he oh so gently eases his way into. It’s a tough balance, getting dressed quickly but without being heard, and he resigns himself to hearing yet more undeserved vulnerability creeping through the thin glass wall separating the balcony of room 1221 from its next-door neighbour.
“I just wish I had… I don’t know. You guys back would be nice, but it’s been years now. I wish I had someone, you know? It doesn’t have to be a guy. Just someone I can talk to about something other than hockey. Someone who notices when I’m sick, not because it’ll mess up my game, but because they care about me as a person. Someone in the stands to watch me… a friend, maybe. Vaughny, Eric, Huff… they’re great, but they’ve got families. They don’t need me mooching around making things weird. Vaughny was talking about Christmas with his folks last year, and it’s stupid, but I kept hoping he would invite me… don’t worry, I didn’t invite myself. I wouldn’t do that. But… I mean, there’s gotta be something wrong with me, right? Plenty of people lose their parents, but most of them manage to find someone-“
The door closes without a sound, leaving Shane and Rozanov in a hotel corridor in the dead of night, and shutting out Scott’s monologue. Shane recalls, a few scant hours previous, how terrified he was that someone would see him out here. Now, he feels vaguely unclean, knowing he’s borne witness to something he was never meant to hear. Rozanov, it seems, has no such hesitations. He walks straight to the door of 1223, and only Shane’s hand stops him from knocking.
“What are you doing?” Shane hisses, his voice reaching a pitch that only dogs and idiot Russian hockey players can hear.
Rozanov looks at him like he’s crazy. “Helping. You can leave, if you want.”
Shane struggles at what to say. Obviously knocking is the worst possible thing they can do. Scott – well, he doesn’t want to be alone, he was pretty clear on that, but he’d be humiliated knowing he’d been overheard by two rookies. He settles on “He thinks you hate him.”
Rozanov rolls his eyes again, and Shane really hates it when he does that, like Shane is the one being stupid. “You have one minute. Leave or stay.”
Shane does not want to stay. He has no desire to even look at Scott Hunter right now, let alone basically announce that he and Rozanov are… doing whatever it is they’re doing. But he’s not leaving Scott alone with Rozanov, whose cutting comments and blunt demeanour often cross the border into cruel with or without him meaning to. So he drops his protesting arm, and lets Rozanov knock twice on the door.
It takes at least a minute before the sound of footsteps reaches Shane and Rozanov, an in-between period as affirming as it is awkward. Yeah, it’s weird, maybe, but they’re doing this. They’re going to tell the saddest man in the MLH that they heard him talking to his dead parents on a hotel balcony and… what? Want to be his friend? Shane plots it out. They’ll find a nice neutral opening, conveniently tiptoe around the context. They heard him on the balcony, couldn’t make out what he was saying, but maybe he wanted some help? Or no, maybe don’t mention the balcony-
Shane is interrupted by a shirtless Scott, and a memory-echo of a hundred half-forgotten dreams knocks Shane briefly off-kilter. He very fixedly stares at Scott’s face rather than the smooth plane of skin across his indecently cut abs. He does look cold, paler than usual and his teeth clenched a little. That’s all Shane can register before Rozanov has buried Scott in a hug that looks bruising. Shane almost passes out. Of course Rozanov would ruin everything, coming on way too strong. Shane braces for Scott to freak the fuck out, the way he would if someone groped him at quarter to 3 in the morning, but to his shock, Scott hugs back after a mere moment’s hesitation, clinging to Rozanov like a drowning man around a life buoy. Shane doesn’t understand it, and rather than trying to, he decides to make himself useful. He tiptoes around the two men into the room, then half jogs, half sprints to the still open balcony door, and other than briefly freezing his nuts off – what the fuck, Scott, where is your shirt, the view was nice but the guy has to bordering on hypothermic right now – he stays only long enough to confirm that Scott’s on the building’s corner, and besides Rozanov’s, there’s a long gap between his and the next nearest balcony. Based on the way the room is designed, a glass barrier splitting the balcony unnaturally in two, Shane thinks that maybe the two rooms were once one big suite, and the soundproofing suffered when they were separated. He breathes a sigh of relief as he firmly shuts the balcony door behind him. Scott’s secret – and theirs – was safe, for now.
Rozanov and Scott are still hugging, when he’s back inside. The sound of the balcony shutting is enough to break them apart, and when they turn, Rozanov’s red face is a contrast to Scott’s empty one. There are no tears on the older man’s face, no red streaks. Just a bone deep weariness and big brown eyes that wouldn’t be out of place on an abandoned puppy seeking a warm place to bed. “You two want to tell me what this is about?” Scott’s eyes follow Shane’s to the balcony, and he pieces it together surprisingly quickly. “You heard me.” He blushes, and looks a little angry, though nowhere near as much as he should. “If this is a pity party-“
“No. Is compassion.” Rozanov’s voice brokers no compromise, and he gently tugs Scott by the pocket of his black sweatpants towards the bed. Scott follows instinctively, and Shane squashes a moment of arousal at the easy acquiescence, knowing this is not the time. Scott is indecently handsome, yes, and apparently both gay and available, but they can’t take advantage of him in this state. Not to mention he’s almost a decade their senior and would probably feel awful about it the next day, the exact opposite of what they’re hoping to achieve. Instead, he joins Rozanov in sandwiching Scott on the enormous hotel bedspread. “We sleep here tonight.”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure you guys have your own rooms-“ Scott’s protest is so weak, so clearly reluctant, that even Shane can sense its insincerity, and so he literally waves it away. The gratitude in those puppy-dog eyes makes his knees weak, just a little. Big, handsome men should not be so sad and lonely, Shane decides. It’s bad for his heart and also probably his complexion, all these tears. Rozanov manoeuvres them carefully, as though he’s done it a thousand times before – him at Scott’s back, Scott at Shane’s, the three of them forming a surprisingly compact pile of muscle on the King-sized bed. It’s a bit weird to shuck out of his shirt and pants whilst Scott Hunter is pressed against him, but he still takes the time to fold them into a neat pile on the right nightstand as Rozanov kicks his away with impunity. “Ok, this is nice,” Scott whispers into Shane’s neck. “You can stay.”
“Glad we have your permission, old man,” Rozanov says, but the tight squeeze he gives them both must take any sting out of the insult, because Scott basically melts into Shane’s back. Shane was right – Scott is cold, but between the blankets and their body heat, he doubt that’ll stay an issue for long. He also has the softest skin Shane has ever felt, and he makes a mental note to ask about that later. Does he moisturise his chest? That seems like overkill to Shane…
“We’re going to have to talk about this in the morning,” Scott says, but the warning in his voice is already giving way to a sleepy yawn. The All-Stars Match isn’t until the evening, and no one will think anything of the three of them skipping the hotel’s breakfast, so ‘morning’ is more of an abstract, far away concept. Still, Shane thinks he should probably be thinking of it with a bit more dread than he can currently manage. Scott knows, now – or at least, he should put the pieces together soon – and somehow, it doesn’t scare Shane. They were in this together now, the three of them, and if that meant cuddling Scott into never mentioning his own corpse again, well. There were worse ways to end a night.
When Shane wakes, he realises he’s moved overnight, so he’s now staring at Rozanov over Scott’s sleeping head. Rozanov is awake, staring at Shane with vague distress in his face. Is the reality of the night before crashing onto him? Is he regretting their impulsive efforts of comfort? Shane tries to extricate himself from Scott’s grasp long enough to ask.
“Nrrrrgh!” Scott protests, pulling Shane closer, clutching him in both arms like an oversized teddy bear and not a taller-than-average, well-built hockey star. Shane tugs weakly at the arms holding him steady, but he’s fairly sure only Scott’s own will or the Claws of Life are digging him out of here.
Shane locks wide-eyes with Rozanov. “Can you move?” he whispers, the words ghosting over his lips so quietly that they might as well be breaths.
As if to demonstrate, Rozanov detaches an arm ever so slightly from Scott’s flank. Scott, in response, makes a sound like a baby seal being pulled from its mother, and Rozanov instinctively drops his hand back to where it was. The little furrow that had been forming on Scott’s brow in response to the loss of touch settles back into contentment.
That they’ve now been trapped in bed by Scott twice in a few scant hours, and neither is the pleasurable way he’d dreamed of in his youth, is an irony not lost on Shane. Are they seriously going to wait until Scott wakes up? He’s a grown man. He can deal with- another move, another downright inhuman noise, and who was he kidding. Shane could wait a little longer. Still, he’s wide awake now, the sunlight streaming into the room reminding him it’s well-past time for his protein shake and morning run. He hopes Scott’s also an early riser, even on days when he creeps into his hotel room at half past two in the morning, because there’s only so long he can ignore the heat of three bodies pressed plum against one another, and the frankly terrifying morning wood indenting more than half of Shane’s thigh.
He passes the time counting the moles on Rozanov’s face, imagines the other is doing the same with his freckles. It was shockingly kind of Rozanov to do this, all things considered. Shane isn’t naïve: if it had been up to him, he would have left it alone. Not completely – he would have made an effort to check in with Scott, tried to find some way to make him feel less alone, maybe sicced his mom on him – but comforting people in their times of need is not something he knows instinctively. Not like Rozanov, it seems, who managed to make more progress in getting Scott to open up in ten minutes than Shane could have managed in a week. He knew Rozanov didn’t hate Hunter, that Rozanov shows affection through scorn and contempt through silence, but if he’d misheard someone misunderstanding his intentions so thoroughly, he might have licked his wounds before trying to help. He also didn’t think Rozanov liked Hunter: theirs seemed, to him, the kind of weird back-and-forth banter that some people slipped into with their (male) friends, but without the warmth to balance it out. Clearly he cares enough to risk his career, reaching out. Scott may be gay, he might have practice hiding this stuff (he carefully doesn’t think about what this stuff is) but he’s also Mr Hockey himself, he of a thousand endorsements and, for many years, the poster boy for the league, a star that’s only just beginning to fade. It’s a risk, for sure, and he hopes it pans out. Hayden’s great, but Shane’s never been great at making friends, let alone friends who are almost as good as he is at hockey.
It’s an indeterminable period – it could be ten minutes or ten hours, but is probably closer to the former – before Scott wakes up too, yawning softly and rubbing at his eyes clumsily with an entire fist. He smiles softly, straight at Shane, and his sleep rumpled face and hair do things to him that he will spend at least a few days unpacking later. “You stayed.”
“Yes, Room Service?” comes Rozanov’s voice, breaking up the moment. Shane hadn’t even noticed him get up. “I will have two servings of pancakes, two breakfast sandwiches, a large Coke, and…” he tucks the ancient corded phone into his breastbone “What will you two have?”
Shane is, once again, completely horrified. He’s never seen Rozanov eat before, but he still imagined something healthier – athlete or not, surely no one sane is actually eating that much food this early in the morning? “The same, with a coffee,” Scott says, and no, apparently he’s the weird one here. He asks for poached eggs and yoghurt, and Rozanov relays the order, though not without making a face.
Rozanov returns to the bed, in a seated position facing the two of them, and the three of them fit surprisingly well together in the space. Scott’s still smiling softly, like he’s not quite sure what’s happening but is enjoying it nonetheless, and Shane tries not to wonder how long it’s been since someone has comforted him after a rough night.
“You are depressed.” Rozanov kills the mood the way only he can, reminding them all abruptly of the reason why they’re here.
Scott puffs up briefly, defensive, before the fight seems to leave him all at once. He crouches into a surprisingly small ball on the bed, runs a hand through his perfect hair, floofing it into a tall pile. “Yeah. Since I was a kid. No big deal, I’m handling it.”
“Talking to your dead parents and trying to jump off balcony is not handling it, Hunter.”
“Rozanov!” Shane tries to shoot a message with his eyes, something like are you trying to make this worse, stop it, but Shane’s never learned how to shut the guy up and he doubts he ever will.
“Alright, maybe last night wasn’t great, but I’m. You know.” Scott gestures absently with his hand, as though this was his version of an explanation. “I’m fine. And I didn’t try to jump!”
“My mother was fine, too. Then oops! Whole bottle of pills. Tragic.” The silence after that declaration is cutting. Scott opens his mouth and closes it a few times, but just when it seems he’s finally going to speak, there’s a knock on the door, and Rozanov leaves to collect their room service as Scott and Shane lock eyes.
By the time they’re all sitting with their breakfasts, Scott appears to have calmed down some, though Shane still feels shaken. How could he not have known? “I’m sorry to hear that, Ilya. But I swear to you, I’m not going to do that. I’ve got a Stanley Cup to win first.” Scott deflects so easily, like it’s second nature to him, and Shane starts to get an inkling of how he’s kept his secret all these years. Brutal self-abnegation, to the point of rejecting the thing he most wants as it’s being literally handed to him.
They eat in silence for a few minutes – apparently serious topics are not enough to keep the two men from devouring their food – but there’s a tension in the room that wasn’t there a few minutes ago, and Shane feels… awkward. He’s always hated this feeling, like being a kid and trying to pretend he can’t hear his friend’s parents fighting in the next room. He’s not sure who’s going to speak first. Scott is sitting cross-legged on the bed, pensive, but Rozanov is glaring at Scott between oversized bites of pancake, and Shane feels caught in between. He’s suddenly grateful for his parents, who never put him in the middle, and then has to consciously remind himself that neither Scott nor Rozanov is his dad, for fuck’s sake.
Finally, their meals are done, and Scott takes a breath. His eyes still speak of gratitude, but the downturned tilt in his mouth speaks of a man about to face all his nightmares in unexpected technicolour. “Look, I appreciate both of you coming here. It must have taken a lot of bravery, and I’m honoured that you trust me with the truth of your relationship.” Shane cringes a little at ‘relationship’ but he can’t imagine many things more uncomfortable than correcting Scott to ‘fuckbuddies’, so he lets it lie. “But let’s cut the crap, alright? Shane, you look like you want to vibrate out of your skin, and Ilya, you’ve made it very clear that you can’t stand the sight of me-“
“No.” Rozanov interrupting what it very clearly is taking Scott a great deal of effort to say isn’t surprising, at this point, but what comes out of his mouth next certainly is. “I like you. Would be sad if you died.”
Scott looks truly moved by that, as though Rozanov had declared his undying love instead of stating the barest minimum, and so Shane can’t help but chime in. “You were one of my heroes, growing up. I wanted to get your poster for my wall, but my mom’s a Montreal fan and I was afraid to ask her.” He doesn’t mention that the particular poster he wanted inspired some extremely inappropriate feelings in him, or that he filled his wall with players who were a little less good at hockey but also far less objectively pretty. Some things did not need to be said, ever. Admitting to having a dildo had been far too much for one 24-hour period.
“If you feel like this again, you call.” Rozanov’s phone brokers no argument, and he unerringly points at Scott’s left nightstand, where his phone is just barely visible from where Shane is sitting (but probably easier to see from Rozanov’s higher vantage point, the bastard). Scott passes it obligingly, taking a moment to key in the password with a single index finger like an old man. “You don’t have WhatsApp? Dinosaur.”
“You want me to message you whenever I’m sad? We live in separate cities-“ Scott really is determined to find a reason this won’t work, huh? Sucks for him. If there’s one thing Rozanov and Shane share it’s a refusal to ever lose.
“And when you are lonely. Or sick. We will send soup. We will be much richer than you soon.” Rozanov throws the phone back into Scott’s chest, harder than necessary by the sounds of it. It bounces straight off Scott’s naked pecs and into his waiting arms. Shane’s pocket, meanwhile, gives off the telltale buzz of a group chat developing. It’s a sound he has learned to fear, knowing how often it leads to him in his underwear repping a brand he’s only barely heard of and saying things like Unleash Your Essence.
“And you can come around to dinner at mine when you’re in Montreal.” Rozanov glares at that, and Shane realises he hasn’t invited Rozanov to his home yet. Oops. “Both of you.” Rozanov grins. Shane crosses his legs.
“And me too. I can even teach you how to play hockey!” Scott leans back and throws a pillow at Rozanov, and it elicits a surprisingly loud yelp. Shane takes that as his cue, pulling Rozanov with him to the door and scanning to ensure the hallway is deserted.
It almost goes unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of departure – and in Rozanov’s whining, like he’s been shot in the face instead of having a cheap hotel pillow tossed at him – but Scott’s quiet “Thank you,” brings a soft smile to Shane’s face.
“Rest, old man,” Rozanov says, and though Shane is closing the door behind him and can’t hear Rozanov’s parting blow, the sound of a second pillow thunking into the wood tells him it hit its mark.
Shane shakes his head as he walks down the corridor, entering the safety of the elevator and pressing the button for his own floor. He pulls out his phone and sees the title of the groupchat – The GOATs, because Rozanov will always be the cockiest motherfucker on planet Earth – and sees that Rozanov and Scott are already trading barbs in multiple languages (and seriously, since when could Scott speak French?). He doesn’t quite know what he’s got himself into, but he can’t fight a little grin as he turns to face the day. They did a good thing, he and Rozanov. And – he can’t help but feel giddy about it – he’s friends with Scott Hunter.