Chapter Text
When Shane Hollander was number two after Ilya Rozanov in the draft, you’d think he would’ve been used to the feeling considering he’d been number two since the day he was born. And yet, it still stung.
It wasn’t the ranking itself. Second overall was nothing to be ashamed of. It was the echo of it. The way it slid neatly into a familiar groove carved years ago, polished smooth by repetition. Close, but not first. Exceptional, but not quite enough.
It’s not easy being an identical twin to Henry Hollander. Henry had always worn confidence effortlessly. Innately. He laughed loud, smiled wide, took up space without asking for permission. When Henry walked into a room, he made it feel warmer, brighter, louder—like something exciting was just about to start.
Shane had never had that kind of sparkle. Shane was steady. Dependable. The kind of person coaches trusted and teachers praised with phrases like solid and reliable. Where Shane prepared, Henry improvised. Where Shane was clean, cultivated skill, Henry was wild talent. He was patchy—brilliant in bursts, careless in the in-between.
It felt absurd that they’d both been drafted to the Montreal Metros. It was a cosmic joke, really. Same jersey. Same city. Same last name stitched across their backs in identical block letters. Shane sometimes wondered if the universe had done it on purpose, just to see how long Shane could stand it.
So yeah, being drafted after Rozanov should have felt different. Ilya wasn’t his brother. Ilya wasn’t the person Shane had been measured against since birth. But the hurt didn’t care about logic. It settled in anyway, familiar and aching.
***
September 2016
Six seasons with the Metros and not once has the press room changed in all that time.
Someone has cranked the AC too high, and Shane can feel it through the thin fabric of his Reebok jacket, goosebumps pebbling up his forearms. The clicker banner behind him says METROS WIN 4–2 in flashing letters.
Shane takes a sip of water and sets the bottle down carefully. He crosses his ankles under the table and waits for the first question.
“How did it feel getting that goal in third period?” someone from the back asks.
And then it starts. The questions, like the room itself, remain the same.
“Take us through that power play in the first— what was going through your mind?”
Shane’s good at this part. He’s always been good at it, which is why he keeps being the one stuck with it despite not being team captain. The script is simple: Keep it polite. Keep it boring. Say “we” instead of “me”; there’s no “I” in “team.” Don’t say anything that can get pulled out of context and slapped onto Twitter with a side-eye emoji.
A woman in the second row lifts her hand. She doesn’t wait to be called on.
“Shane, you’ve had a pretty consistent season so far. Does it ever get frustrating watching other players let off-ice distractions affect their game?”
Off-ice distractions? His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
“I’m focused on the Metros,” Shane says easily. “We had a solid win tonight, and that’s what matters.”
She smiles indulgently, like she’s agreeing with him, and then speaks over another journalist.
“Right, but I meant something a little more close to home. Your brother, Henry, has been in the news a lot lately. Parties, late nights, social media. Do you worry about how that reflects on him, and by extension, the team? Especially given that he is captain?”
The room changes temperature. Phones tilt up. Pens stop scratching.
Shane tightens his lips. He rolls his shoulders back, posture perfect. “Henry’s an adult. He can make his own choices. Tonight was about the Ottawa Centaurs.”
Another reporter jumps in, eager to join in. “Have you talked to him?”
Shane shifts in his seat, clears his throat.
“Brothers talk.”
“What did you tell him?” someone else asks.
“That I appreciated the assist in the third,” Shane says, and hears how thin the redirect sounds.
There’s a ripple of movement; the press scent blood in the water.
“People have always compared you two,” a guy near the aisle says. “You’re known as the steady one. Why do you think Henry struggles with that?”
Shane bites the inside of his cheek. He imagines the locker room. The ice. The way the puck felt coming off his stick tonight. The puddle of back-slapping teammates after his goal in the third. He imagines literally anything besides being fifteen years old again, watching Henry charm an entire party while Shane stands quietly by the wall.
“Everybody has strengths and areas where they can still grow,” Shane says. “That’s why I enjoy playing a team sport. You have other people around who can support you.”
There’s a pause. Someone coughs.
Then the first woman speaks again, her voice sharp, “Does it bother you that he gets more attention?”
Shane exhales through his nose. “I don’t play for attention. I play because I love this sport.”
Shane twitches the corners of his mouth into the politest smile he can manage. When he was little, he’d practice this exact smile in front of a mirror.
A Metro staffer shifts in the wings. “Last question,” he calls out quickly to the crowd.
“Yeah—are you worried Henry’s lifestyle could hurt the Hollander brand?”
Shane stands before he realizes he’s doing it. The chair legs scrape jarringly against the floor.
He leans into the mic just enough to be heard.
“If you want to know about Henry’s lifestyle,” Shane says quietly, “you should probably ask him.”
Silence.
“Thanks, everyone.”
He steps away before anyone can stop him. Shane hopes that the speed of his retreat looks normal.
The hallway outside feels dim after the lights of the press room. Shane’s shoulders drop like someone cut his strings. He presses a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes until he sees sparks.
The win against the Centaurs already feels far away.
*
Afterwards, Henry snags Shane by the elbow just inside the locker room.
Shane is genuinely startled. Henry hasn’t spoken to him directly in weeks. Not since his first bender of the season—the one that had ended in blurry Instagram stories and a call from Yuna at three in the morning. Shane had tried to talk to Henry about it then. Tried to say something helpful, something brotherly and supportive. But Shane has never been good with words, and Henry has never been good at hearing them. Whatever Shane said had landed wrong, sharp instead of soft, and Henry had clammed up tight.
So this—Henry grabbing him now, eyes bright, energy too loud for the quiet of the locker room—feels almost unreal.
“What’re you doing?” Henry asks.
“I’m hitting the showers, and then I’m going home.” Shane shrugs out of his shirt and jacket, irritation simmering under his skin. Of course Henry picks now. After the reporters. After the comparisons. After Shane has already been dragged sideways through Henry’s mess. But still—there’s a traitorous flicker of relief in being noticed at all.
“Actually, we’re going somewhere.”
“No, we’re not,” Shane says firmly, shucking out of his shoes and pants and heading toward the showers.
“Yes, we are—” Henry follows him straight in, leather boots slapping against tile, hopping from foot to foot to avoid the worst puddles.
“No—”
“Yes. Your hair is getting long, and I called Janelle to squeeze you into her schedule today. C’mon, she misses you!”
“You’re using her against me?” Shane says, pausing despite himself. Janelle has cut their hair since they were little. Since peewee tournaments and missing baby teeth. She’s friends with Yuna, remembers all their childhood disasters, and at this point is basically family.
“Yes, I am. C’mooooon, as a good brother, I simply cannot let you get that same damn haircut one more time.” Henry’s lips tighten, and he flattens his voice in a slightly insulting impression of Shane: “Uhhh yeahhh, kinda short on the sides and keep the top long.” Then he makes a pshh noise with his mouth and says, “Not again! We have to get you laid before the playoffs. And you’re not getting laid with that fuckass haircut.”
Water hisses to life around them. Steam curls up, fogging the air, blurring their identical outlines until they are indistinguishable from each other.
Shane frowns, lifting a hand to touch the hair above his ears. It’s true—it’s grown past neat now, shaggy enough to annoy him when he pulls his helmet on. Shane could dig his heels in. He could tell Henry to mind his own business. He could remind him about the press conference, about the headlines, about how tired Shane is of cleaning up Henry-shaped messes.
But that’s the thing about brothers. The anger is never simple; it's a sailor’s knot of affection and love and jealousy tied up into it.
Henry’s watching him now, pretending not to. Pretending this is about hair when really it’s about dragging Shane somewhere, anywhere, instead of letting him disappear into his routines and silence. It’s the same move Henry’s always had: act careless, but orbit close.
Shane exhales through his nose.
He runs the calculations. How long Henry will sulk. How many texts he’ll send. How many passive-aggressive jokes will get lobbed across the locker room if Shane refuses. How many days until Shane caves anyway.
Not worth the fight.
Shane drops his hand, shoulders sagging just a little, and sighs.
Henry grins like he’s just won something.
*
“And… we are done!” Janelle says, whirling Shane around in the chair with a flourish.
The cape swishes loudly at the movement, and suddenly, Shane is face to face with a reflection that is familiar in the wrong way.
Shane studies the cut, the gentle taper, the artful mess of it. He lifts a hand and grabs the chunk of hair hanging across his forehead, testing the weight of it between his fingers.
It’s not that it looks… bad. Janelle is too good at her job for that. The cut is fashionable; it’s the kind that’ll look great under club lights but terrible after two hours of sweaty helmet.
“I just look like Henry,” he says, flatly.
Henry doesn’t look up from his phone. His thumbs are flying, screen glowing blue against his face. “A vast improvement, dude.”
Shane looks at his reflection again and feels that quiet, off-kilter sensation—like wearing borrowed skates: right size, wrong balance.
Janelle is beaming, circling him like she just finished sculpting The David. She runs her fingers through his hair, fluffing it, nodding to herself with maternal satisfaction. There’s pride there, tender and familial.
It’s that more than anything that does it; Shane just doesn’t have the heart to tell her he already misses his old cut.
So he just shrugs, thanks her, promises he’ll come by more often even though both of them know he won’t.
Outside, the air hits cold and bitter after the warmth of Janelle’s salon.
Shane and Henry step onto the sidewalk and stop.
Shane searches for something to say to the person who used to be the other half of him. He can’t think of anything.
Henry tucks his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket, shoulders loose, restless energy barely contained.
“You wanna get a beer?”
“Can’t.” Shane grimaces. “Performance diet, remember?”
“Right,” Henry says.
There’s a second where it feels like he might say something else. Then he just shrugs. “Okay. See you at practice on Thursday.”
He turns and walks off without looking back, bulky headphones already over his ears.
Shane stays where he is.
He watches Henry go until he blends into the crowd, until the gap between them feels wider than the sidewalk should allow.
Then Shane exhales, touches his unfamiliar hair once more, and heads the opposite way.
***
And the thing is—really, truly, all of this starts because of the stupid fucking haircut.
Because Shane keeps getting mistaken for Henry.
On the street. In coffee shops. In the locker room. A shoulder clap meant for Henry, a grin that slides into confusion when he turns around. It hasn’t happened in a while, not since Henry pierced his ears and started dressing like he belonged on the red carpet. For a few years, their images had untangled.
Then Janelle happened, and their angles are starting to match again.
Every time someone clocks him as Henry, a cylinder misfires in Shane’s brain. It reminds him of when they were interchangeable–when being a twin meant safety. When he could borrow Henry’s confidence and Henry could borrow Shane’s steadiness, and neither of them felt like they were stealing.
It’s only a few weeks after the haircut that Yuna calls Shane, and the frantic tone in her voice is the one that’s always been tied inextricably to discussions of Henry. “Shane. I hate to ask you to do this, but your brother is not picking up his phone. A car is meant to pick him up from his place in a few hours. Can you please go over there and check on him?”
There is a fear that goes unspoken. So Shane goes without complaint, as he always does.
He drives across town with his jaw set, mentally preparing himself for the possible scenarios he might find inside when he lets himself in with the spare key.
He enters into Henry’s apartment and calls out, the empty space answering back with silence and the sour smell of vomit, the unmistakable ghost of last night.
Shane finds Henry in his en-suite upstairs, shaking and pale and puking his guts out.
The sight hits harder than Shane expects. Relief and worry and fury crash together in Shane’s chest.
“For fuck’s sake, dude! You seriously cannot be this hungover right now! Did you forget the Armani shoot is today?”
“Fuck off,” Henry says, voice wrecked.
“You fuck off! I’m not the one with my head in the toilet!” Shane bursts.
Henry wretches again, and Shane gags too, sympathetic nervous system lighting up.
“I can’t go,” Henry says miserably.
“You have to go. It’s the fucking— bad-boy ad campaign or whatever the fuck!” Shane had only been listening vaguely when Yuna had brought it up months ago. Something about Armani wanting to go for an edgy angle, and that’s why they had only wanted Henry, not Shane.
It had honestly sounded stupid to Shane… but most of this sort of thing sounded stupid to Shane.
They lock eyes. Henry’s are red-rimmed, a blood vessel burst in one from puking all morning, lashes clumped, skin gone slightly gray. The moment stretches.
“Shane.” Henry looks him up and down.
Then it suddenly clicks, what Henry is silently asking—
Oh.
Oh no.
“No,” Shane says, already turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom.
He hears the toilet flush as Henry scrambles after him.
“Wait!”
“No!” Shane calls over his shoulder.
He marches downstairs and pulls a red Gatorade out of the fridge. It’s step one of crisis protocol. When he turns, Henry is at his heels, sweating, bare-chested, looking two seconds from passing out on the very expensive Venetian marble he’d had installed in his kitchen.
Shane shoves the Gatorade into his chest.
“Not. Happening,” Shane says with as much steel as he can muster.
“C’mon.”
Henry cradles the bottle but doesn’t drink.
“No!”
“Look, it’s not that hard, just go be cool for a few hours, and if you get stuck just ask yourself: WWHD—What Would Henry Do?”
They used to swap places all the time as kids. At school, at the playground, at practice. For fun. It had been easy then—like a quick changing of jerseys between periods. That was before the invisible fork in the road that had inexplicably parted them in their teens. It's been over a decade since they’ve done this bit. And Shane doesn’t want to do it. Not because he can’t do it, but because he is so, so tired of playing clean-up crew for Henry’s fuckups.
They snipe back and forth, a familiar pattern, until Henry finally pulls out the big guns, voice quiet and lethal.
“Think of all of the people who are working hard to make this happen. You’re going to be the one denying them this opportunity. And Mom and Dad will be disappointed.”
That last one still works. It always has.
Shane hesitates, jaw tightening. Then he slowly exhales through his nose.
“Do you. Still have. The clip-ons?” Shane grits out.
Henry’s shoulders sag in instant relief. He leaves the room and comes back with earrings in his palm.
Shane stands perfectly still as Henry fastens them to his ears. Henry draws back and gives him an appraising once-over.
Shane scowls. “Dipshit.”
“Asshole,” Henry says, eyes sparkling now, though still red-rimmed. “You’ll be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?”
*
It’s certainly not how Shane wanted to spend his rare precious day off. But it’s not horrible either, pretending to be cool and more confident than he really is. It doesn’t exactly fit well, but it does fit—like jeans he’s shrunk in the wash. He can manage it for a few hours.
It’s like taking a vacation from himself. Almost.
Shane greets the crew, smiling until his cheeks ache, shaking hands like he belongs here for real. He steps onto the soundstage, posture loose instead of careful, and then turns too fast and collides directly into someone solid.
“Oh sorry, I—” he says as he glances up. “Rozanov?”
Rozanov cocks his head, blond curls shining like a halo under the intense photoshoot lights. “Hollander. You were not expecting me?”
No, he wasn’t. Mainly because this isn’t his shoot, so no one briefed him on anything beyond where to stand and how to scowl at the camera. Shane recovers the way Henry always does—by smiling first and thinking second. He grins, runs a hand through his hair, lets his weight settle cocky on one hip.
“No, I was, I just didn’t see you there.”
Rozanov clicks his tongue. “Right. Okay,” he says, sauntering off to his mark.
And honestly fuck Henry for not telling Shane that Rozanov would be here.
If Shane wanted to be fair to Henry—he doesn’t, for the record—it’s not as if Henry could have known that Shane had had… thoughts about Ilya Rozanov since they were first drafted together. It’s something that Shane has only recently reconciled with himself. And it’s only a kernel of attraction really.
Just that Shane has eyes and a professional respect for athleticism.
He’s suspected since he was a teen that he was at least a little bit gay—there’d been a moment with another boy when he was in high school—It had been agony coming to terms with himself that he might not be, in the strictest sense of the meaning, the most straight.
Rozanov is here, and it’s fine. Shane is determined that this is fine.
They run the shoot over and over and over.
Armani wants drama. Danger that feels a little sexy. The cameras creep close as the director shouts for more swagger, more attitude, more Henry. So Shane gives it to them. He smirks, slouches against the backdrop, flips his hair back carelessly.
At one point, they stage them like a duel: Shane—Henry—posititioned close together, rolling shoulders, fists aloft. He and Rozanov stare each other down, say nothing, just simmer there. It feels absurd. Shane thinks Rozanov might feel the same, if the smirks and the choked-back laughs are any indication.
But something strange happens to Shane the more he does this shoot as Henry.
It feels… good.
Because pretending to be Henry means shedding the expectations of Shane Hollander. Shane, who is well-mannered and contained and always just a touch out of sync with everyone else. And Shane realizes, with a quiet, unsettled twist in his chest, that part of him likes how invisible he can become while wearing this guise. He likes that the part of his brain that is always asking if he is enough is, for once, quiet.
He flashes the crooked, dangerous almost-smile of Henry’s, and it feels like armor. The crew murmurs approval. Someone says, That’s it. That’s our Henry Hollander.
Photoshoots like this are usually intensely uncomfortable for Shane, but something about lounging around the set with Ilya is easy in a way Shane isn’t used to. Henry and Ilya aren’t pitted against each other the way Shane and Ilya had been early in their careers, so the air between them is less tense. It’s looser. This version of Rozanov laughs more, dances around in lazy circles in between takes.
He looks less like an adversary and more like a real person. It’s a good look on him.
They take five, and Shane drops onto a chair beside him, shoulders bumping lightly.
“How do you like Boston?”
Rozanov leans back, arms spread wide across the top of the chairs, fingers splayed, the tips drifting perilously close to the back of Shane’s neck. Close enough that Shane feels it without being touched, a phantom heat.
“Ehh, is okay. People are crazy but mostly nice.” He pauses, then adds, “They have a love of bad coffee. Tastes like coming out of a toilet. I have done commercials for them many times now. Dunkin Donuts, it is called.”
Shane snorts before he can stop himself and has to smother the sound behind his palm. “I’m— I’m familiar with the brand, yes.”
Rozanov’s mouth tugs into a small, private smile, like he’s pleased to have made Shane laugh. “Is disgusting, but I respect this level of loyalty. It is…” He chews his thumb, eyes tipping up toward the ceiling while he searches his memory. Then he pulls out his phone, taps quickly, nods at the screen. “Endearing.”
Shane leans in without thinking, shoulder brushing Rozanov’s arm. The phone glows between them. Google Translate, letters curling in Cyrillic he can’t make sense of. “How do you say that in Russian?”
Rozanov turns his head to look at him fully, like Shane just surprised him. “Ocharovatel'nyy.”
“Ochero-va-tingly?”
Rozanov repeats himself slower, careful, almost gently.
Shane concentrates too hard, mouth shaping around unfamiliar sounds. His brow furrows as he tries again, tripping less this time, closer to the mark.
Rozanov doesn’t look away.
There’s something different in his expression now—less joking, more focused. Like he’s looking at Shane more closely. “You are not what I expected, Hollander.”
Shane stills. The easy posture drains out of him all at once. For the last few minutes, he’d forgotten he was supposed to be acting, forgotten whose skin he was wearing. He’d been laughing like himself. Listening like himself. Sitting too close.
He opens his mouth, unsure whether Henry would joke or deflect or fight in response to such a comment.
Before he can choose, a PA claps their hands, and the crew calls them back from break.
The moment fractures.
Rozanov pushes to his feet, smooth as ever. Shane follows half a beat later, heart thumping strangely against his ribs, mask sliding back into place just a little crooked.
*
The shoot is finally over.
It had been fun to be Henry, but Shane is grateful it’s done. He ducks into their shared greenroom to take off the absurdly expensive clothing they’d been dressed in for the ad. With each item of clothing removed, Shane feels his muscles unclench.
When Rozanov joins him, he doesn’t think anything of it. It’s a shared greenroom, after all, and Shane has shared a locker room for most of his life at this point. Rozanov starts by ripping his tie off and unbuttoning his shirt, revealing an inch of skin at a time. He slips out of it, tossing it carelessly to the floor.
Shane lets his eyes linger on Rozanov longer than what could be considered strictly platonic—which would have been fine if Rozanov hadn’t just caught him looking.
Fuck!
Shane quickly averts his eyes to the wall, pulling on his own shirt in jerky movements. When he chances a look back, Rozanov is still staring at him. Only this time, he quirks an eyebrow and smirks.
Shane would probably react to something like this by saying, “fuck off” or “are you out of your fucking mind?” But Henry probably wouldn’t. He’d probably play it off.
So Shane swallows around his panic and forces an eyeroll. “You wish, Rozanov.”
There’s a hard grip at his shoulder, and suddenly, Shane is being spun around, pushed back into the wall, Rozanov crowding close. Shane can feel the warmth of Rozanov’s body pressed against his, can smell the heavy musk of cologne he must have dabbed on this morning.
“What the fu–?”
“–I think, you wish, Hollander.” Rozanov’s eyes are burning as they bore into Shane’s. They're suspended there for a moment. Shane licks his lips nervously and regrets it when he sees Rozanov’s gaze snap to them at the motion.
For one hysterical moment, Shane cannot believe this is happening.
But then it hits him.
Rozanov thinks he’s Henry.
Of course this insanely hot man wants to come onto Henry— the Hollander twin famous for sleeping around, thinking of fun first and consequences second. Sure, Henry has only ever been out with women, but maybe it’s not that huge a leap to assume thrill-seeking Henry might be up to experiment a little. Why not?
Rozanov might well interpret the raging boner Shane has pressed against his thigh as a confirmation of such an assumption. Shane’s entire face turns a splotchy red. He has literally never been so hard so quick in his life.
But Shane absolutely cannot do this. Shit, Shane can’t sleep with Rozanov as himself—can’t even imagine what would happen if they were caught at it—and definitely can’t as Henry. That would be. Unethical. For so many reasons.
Shane ducks under Rozanov’s arms and skitters to the other side of the room, reaching clumsily for the rest of his clothes. With single-minded determination, Shane grapples with laces of Henry’s stupid Gucci boots and wills with all of his might for the throb in his dick to subside.
Rozanov saunters up to him. He’s put a shirt back on (thank fuck) but it doesn’t do anything to disguise the strength corded through his arms. Or the intensity of his eyes. Or the quite obvious bulge in his pants.
Shane sniffs, returning his gaze firmly to the boots. Why do they have so many fucking laces?!
“U-um. We can totally forget that just happened, man, it’s uh. It’s cool.”
“Why?” Rozanov asks simply, tucking a gold chain back under his shirt.
Shane’s fingers fumble around the knot he’s tying. “Because…? It’s a bad idea…?” Shane says, incredulous that he needs to say it out loud.
“Oh?” Rozanov’s smile turns wicked. “I thought maybe you liked bad ideas.”
Henry likes bad ideas. Shane likes routines. Likes safety.
But Shane can’t deny that there's a thrumming in his veins that is asking, what would Henry do here?
Fuck it, Shane thinks suddenly. Henry would say fuck it and do what he wants. That’s what he always does.
And something wild deep inside Shane wants to try it. Just once. Wants to say fuck it just once and do something not because he has weighed all the pros and cons or because it’s the right thing to do. He wants to do one thing just because he wants it.
So Shane finishes lacing up Henry’s boots, finally looks Rozanov directly in the eyes and asks, “What hotel are you staying at?”
*
On the elevator ride up to the sixteenth floor, Shane’s doubts start to creep in. The higher they go, the heavier his stomach feels. By the time he is knocking on the door, Shane already has rehearsed several excuses as to why they can’t do this.
Rozanov swings the door open wide, and he is beautiful in his black singlet and sweatpants, curls combed neatly back.
Shane hesitates. “M-maybe we should talk about—?”
He doesn’t get the chance to finish the thought.
Suddenly, he’s being tugged inside, the door slamming shut behind him. His back hits the wood, Rozanov’s knee sliding up against his dick, the pressure of it enough to steal the air from his lungs. It’s an echo of their position in the Armani greenroom.
“I don’t feel like talking.” Rozanov’s massive hand spans Shane’s jaw, tilting his face up. He leans in and gives him a filthy kiss that leaves Shane breathless, heat coiling low in his stomach. “Do you?”
No.
He really, really doesn’t.
Rozanov hikes his leg even higher, the pressure firm against Shane’s cock.
“Move,” Rozanov orders.
Shane cants his hips back and forth, rubbing himself along the hard line of Rozanov’s muscular thigh. He can’t stop the thin, high-pitched whine that slips out of the back of his throat.
Rozanov’s gaze sharpens at the sound. He leans in, teeth catching at the hinge of Shane’s jaw.
“Yes, like that, Hollander.”
God. Shane can feel where he’s getting wet in his briefs.
“Fuck. I can feel how hard you are. Could you get off like this? Fucking against my leg like a dog?”
Shane whimpers, cheeks burning. Yes. Yes, he probably could—just from this. The thought spikes arousal and embarrassment in equal measure. He tucks his face into Rozanov’s shoulder, and startles when that firm hand finds his jaw again.
Rozanov roughly tips his head back up, forcing Shane to look him in the eye.
“Don’t hide. Is fucking hot.”
Shane doesn’t think. He just takes Rozanov’s thumb into his mouth and sucks hard.
“Hollander.”
Shane thinks he must have made a mistake because suddenly Rozanov is withdrawing his thigh. “Stop. I will come in my pants if we keep going. And I want—” Rozanov’s eyes search his— for what, Shane isn’t sure.
“I want your mouth. Can I have your mouth?”
Shane doesn’t trust himself to speak. He just nods, pretending his cock doesn’t throb at the mere idea of getting his mouth on Rozanov. Rozanov’s thumb pops out of his mouth, drawing a thin line of drool.
Rozanov’s grin turns wolfish. He grips Shane by the forearms and steers him back to the bed, pushing him down and crawling over him. His shirt comes off, then Shane’s, fast and clumsy, neither of them willing to separate long enough to make it smooth. The rest of their clothes follow in awkward, tangled motions.
Rozanov flings everything into a heap beside the bed.
Shane can’t stop the small frown that crosses his face. At the look, Rozanov stills.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Shane says, reaching for Rozanov.
“No.” Rozanov leans back out of range. “Why do you make that face.”
“It’s nothing,” Shane repeats through gritted teeth.
“Hollander.”
“Oh my god, fine!” Shane drops his head in his hands. “It’s just— if you leave them like that they’ll wrinkle.”
The silence that follows feels damning. Shane screws up his courage and peeks through his fingers. Rozanov is grinning at him.
“Shut up,” Shane warns.
Rozanov’s smile only widens. “I said nothing.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
Rozanov clicks his tongue and crawls off the bed. He makes a production of bending over to retrieve their clothes, tossing a playful look over his shoulder. Rozanov makes a show of neatly and precisely folding each of Shane’s pieces of clothing, approaching each movement as if he was doing a striptease, and then stacking them on the TV stand.
Shane knows he’s being mocked. Knows that Rozanov is playing; parodying seduction with his dramatic show of tidying Shane’s clothes. But Shane can’t help but be a little bit… charmed by the whole act. Rozanov didn’t have to fold those clothes; he could have laughed. Could have told Shane to grow up. He didn’t.
Rozanov leaves his own clothes in a careless heap and pads back to the bed. “Did that do it for you? Do you have housekeeper kink?”
“Shut up,” Shane says, already reaching for the warm skin of Rozanov’s chest. He isn’t going to admit that he stayed hard through the entire performance—he doesn’t have to. The evidence is there for Rozanov to see.
Rozanov’s eyes are bright with it. Shane tilts his head up, and Rozanov obliges, leaning in. The kiss lands softer than Shane expects. Sweet in a way that makes his chest ache.
Something in the folding had taken some of the heat out of this encounter. Made it softer.
Rozanov pulls back, breath ghosting across Shane’s lips. “No, Hollander, I want to know. Should I get a little maid outfit?”
“Has anyone ever told you you talk too much?”
Shane expects Rozanov to laugh, or to fire back an insult. Instead Rozanov winces, then seems to try to cover it up by kissing Shane hard and pinching his nipple.
Shane groans, but he pushes Rozanov back. Rozanov tilts his head, confused. Shane shakes his head and nudges him again, firmer this time, until Rozanov finally gets it and sinks back into the pillows.
Shane pushes Rozanov’s knees apart, dragging his hands down his calves, feeling Rozanov’s leg hair tickling his fingertips.
And there it is. Standing proud. Looking him in the eyes. And sure, Shane isn’t small. But. Rozanov’s dick is… a lot. Intimidating in a way that makes his stomach flip with want and fear.
“Hollander. Your face is scaring me. You look like you’re going to bite it off,” Rozanov says, reaching out to smooth a hand through Shane’s shaggy hair.
Shane realizes he’s been scowling at Rozanov’s cock. He quickly attempts to school his features into something less ferocious.
He’s not sure he succeeds, because Rozanov says: “Is just cock, Hollander.”
“I am aware, thank you,” Shane says primly.
And if Shane had known this was how his day would end, he would’ve prepared. Read something. Watched something. Taken notes. But when Shane had woken this morning, none of this had been anywhere remotely on his schedule.
Well. People say the best way to learn is by doing. And no matter how bad he is at it, surely Rozanov will at least appreciate the effort.
He hopes, at least.
“Hollander. Is okay. You don’t have t—oh!” Rozanov makes a punched-out noise when Shane’s lips meet the head of his dick.
Shane takes that as encouragement. He presses a little closer, tonguing the slit, tasting the bead of precum waiting there.
Shane tries to sink all the way down Rozanov’s cock and gags halfway. He pulls off, eyes watering, coughing into his hand. Okay. So that probably hadn’t been very sexy.
“S-sorry.”
Rozanov reaches up and wipes away the tears that leaked from the corners of Shane’s eyes, thumb gentle against his cheek.
“Is okay. Go slow. Is not a competition.” Rozanov quirks a small smile.
Shane nods and leans back in, shallower this time, careful with the angle. He focuses on the head instead of trying to conquer the whole thing at once. Quality over quantity, Shane thinks absurdly.
“Good. So good for me, Hollander.”
Shane’s entire body shudders at the praise, heat rolling low in his groin.
“You like it when I say that?”
Shane pulls off with a wet pop and furrows his brow.
“Yeah?” Shane says, surprised he has to say it. “Direct feedback leads to better future outcomes.”
Rozanov’s answering grin is blinding. “Hollander. You—” He cuts himself off, scrubbing a hand down his face before shaking his head. “Let’s focus on this ‘outcome’.”
Shane resists the urge to roll his eyes and reapplies himself. He bobs his head, slow and deliberate, swirling his tongue where he’s learned it matters. Before long, Rozanov’s breath starts to hitch.
“Fuck fuck fuck, Hollander, I’m going to—”
Shane pulls off and slides up Rozanov’s body instead. Rozanov’s huge hand reaches down, wrapping around both of their lengths and working them together, quick and urgent.
Rozanov grunts and spills; Shane follows seconds after.
They collapse against each other, sticky and sweaty and sated.
“Fuck,” Shane says, with feeling.
Rozanov laughs, breathless.
They lie there for a moment, the room quiet except for their panting, before Rozanov slips out from under Shane and pads to the bathroom. He comes back with a wet washcloth and gently wipes at Shane’s stomach.
The small, practical tenderness of it catches Shane off guard.
“This was your first time with a man?” Rozanov asks, wiping at his own mess on his abs.
“Yes.” Shane says. He pauses and then says, “No.” Another pause. “Yes.”
Rozanov snorts. “Which is it, Hollander? Is yes or no question.”
“Shut up.” Shane grabs at his clothes. “I mean yes, it was my first time, like, properly. I kissed my buddy Chad once when we were in high school?” Shane anxiously tugs his hair at the memory. “He drove me home from a house party, and I’d never been drunk before. He’s not… like that, but he was super nice about it.”
Rozanov snakes his arms around Shane and places his lips to the shell of his ear. “Oh okay. So this… Chad did not make you come so hard you see Christ?”
“Nobody has ever made me come so hard I saw Christ,” Shane says, omitting the fact that no one has ever made him come before today.
“Okay, so I have goal for next time.” Rozanov shrugs.
“This can’t happen again,” Shane says as he pulls his socks back on
“Why not?”
“You mean besides the obvious?”
“Boring.” Ilya blows a raspberry. “Try a different excuse.”
Because I’m not the man you think I am. Literally. Shane thinks hysterically. But he can’t think of a lie quick enough. He must have been silent too long because Rozanov smirks triumphantly.
“Give me your phone, Hollander.”
Shane’s is handing it over before the thought has fully processed.
Rozanov is tapping away.
“What are you putting yourself in as?”
Rozanov chucks the phone back to Shane.
Shane catches it deftly and glances down to see a text:
Hi Holly this is Rosie ;)
Rozanov is dressed now, efficient and unbothered, like the last hour hadn’t rewired something fundamental in his brain like it had in Shane’s. He steps in for one last lingering kiss before gently—but firmly—steering Shane toward the door.
Later that night, as Shane mixes up a syringe of cat medicine, he tells himself this was a one-time thing. He carefully draws up the prescribed three milliliters, tapping the barrel, pushing the air out. He plunges it down his cat’s throat and watches her make the same highly offended, goofy face she always does.
Shane tells himself he’s smiling just because he’s in a good mood. Not at the memory of Rozanov’s hot breath, calling him good.
Sex is sex. He’s done it once, and now he’s gotten it out of his system. Shane can stop now, before anyone can truly get hurt.
By the time Shane crawls into bed, his two cats soft lumps on either side of him, he’s almost convinced himself it meant nothing.
Almost.