Chapter Text
The first time he’d sensed it, they’d been three goals up, winning a game they didn’t really deserve to win. Fremont, Boston’s goalie, was having the kind of game where the only thing you could do after was try to forget it. A couple of easy bounces, light shots, and halfway through the second it was 5-2 Montreal, the Raiders becoming increasingly unsettled, jagged, so that even the blocker patches all the guys had stuck to their necks weren’t quite able to keep up, and the low roiling sense of a coming thunderstorm was itching at the back of Shane’s neck.
It was the smell of anger, of unease, of alphas at the edge of their tether. It made him want to bite something, to fight, to cling and claw and turn and face whatever danger was coming.
Coach Theriault had pulled them back during a commercial break, grabbing one of the young rookies, a kid looking a little shaky, and scruffing some of the wild out of his eyes; hand on the back of the kid’s neck, gentle with it. ‘Let’s keep it together, boys,’ he said. ‘You’re playing a good game, a fucking good game. Fucking shitty for the other team, right now, and they’re gonna try to start shit. Just try to keep your heads on straight, yeah?’ He looks at Shane, raising an eyebrow, and Shane bristles. ‘All of you,’ Theriault says.
‘Rozanov, he has been too quiet,’ J.J. mutters to Shane. ‘He should be starting shit, no?’ J.J’s not wrong. Rozanov is probably the forward proponent of the idea that a good fight could kickstart a team’s momentum (something Shane doesn’t necessarily agree with). It’s the kind of Alpha bullshit Shane doesn’t subscribe too, even when he feels the heat of it, the pulse, drag through him: the anger shivering his muscles, the low scent of ice and bodies, human sweat, blood pulsing, the faint chemical sting of cleaners and the paint used on the benches. It’s not as bad here, in Montreal - in some of the newer arenas, in Utah, in Seattle, it makes his head dizzy, the smell of everything still too new, too unsettled. The Climate Pledge Arena had given him a migraine so bad he’d almost been scratched the next game. He’d always had a sensitive nose, for an alpha: everyone knew omegas were the ones with the better noses.
J.J.’s right, though. Rozanov hasn’t had even a single penalty the whole game, no fights, no hits just this side of legal. He’s been playing slower, too, and for a moment Shane had thought maybe he wouldn’t come back out after the second intermission. They’d only had one face-off against each other, only one time where Shane was close enough to look, and even then they hadn’t really been close. And Rozanov hadn’t looked at him, or said anything at all.
The commercial break ends, and they’re out again, face-off at centre ice. It’s Rozanov and Shane. The Boston crowd, subdued, still manages a good cheer at this; Shane, unsettled by the angry alpha scent around him and the general roiling feel of dissatisfaction coming from the crowd, feels his teeth ache as he skates up to the other man.
‘Rozanov,’ he says, his stick tapping the ice. The forward just grunts, nostrils flaring. His face is pale and sweaty, his eyes a little wild.
Shane leans in, and for a second a feeling almost like worry catches at the pit of his stomach. He does his best to shake it off, even though something in his alpha instincts is screaming at him, a low discordant buzz at the back of his skull. Rozanov shifts, adjusting his stick, just as Shane leans in again, bracing himself for the puck drop - and a waft of a low, crisp scent hits him right in the nose. He jerks back, unsettled, waves an apologetic hand at the ref, staggered. Because the scent might have been faint, it might have been tinged with acrid chemicals and sick, bad, wrong - but that was the scent of an omega, unmistakeable, fresh thick snow and deep pine trees, a breath of winter in the middle of this fucking arena.
The ref is a beta. All MLH refs are, and the other players are all too far away for Shane to get a scent like that, the faint scraps released by a failing blocker patch and, he’d bet, chemical blockers as well, the kind of pills doctors warned about on posters with blood red fonts in clinic waiting rooms - the last ditch kind, the no-other-path kind, the can’t-be-on-them-for-too-long kind, the ones used only in the worst of situations.
Or, Shane thought to himself, when an omega really, really, couldn’t be discovered. Rozanov’s watching him, and Shane reads it in his eyes. Rozanov knows that he knows. He glares at Shane, and Shane backs up a little, led by his instincts, by the edge to Rozanov’s eyes that says: no. This isn’t for you. You have no right, not to this.
Fuck, Shane thinks. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He doesn’t know Rozanov all that well. Despite the fact that they’d been drafted second and first overall, their relationship to each other has been shaped by the media, by the narrative of their rivalry. Shane can think of one time - before the draft, before Montreal, before he’d presented - where they’d interacted like they’d just been two people, two hockey players. The International Prospect Cup. He’d been 17, he thinks. They’d said hello, but that was it, two opposing players and yet already connected by virtue of their talent. Rozanov had been closed off even then, eyes darting around, cigarette shaking slightly in his free hand. Shane remembers seeing that, seeing the dark circles under the other boy’s eyes, his chapped lips, the hoodie that couldn’t hide the thinness of his frame, and being slightly disappointed at what he saw. This was the great Ilya Rozanov everyone was speaking of? There was no way this kid could keep up.
Then Russia had won, and Shane had seen Rozanov skate for the first time. He’d never doubted him after that. Whatever problems he’d had off the ice, they disappeared once he had his skates on. Since then, he’s spoken to Rozanov only on the ice, in aggression and chirps. Rozanov’s a dick, an asshole, famed in the league for it. He’s won the most-punchable face in the MLH for the past two years running. He’s got a wicked mouth on him and worse, he’s got the skill to back it up, so he’ll be jawing at you one minute and putting the puck in the back of the net the next.
He’s good at drawing penalties, and Boston’s PK is good enough that he can take them, too, sit in the box with that smug little smirk on his face, the bruises, the bloodied noses, the fights - Shane doesn’t think there’s a captain, a star forward, who fights as much as him. Rozanov is a mix of contradictions, and Shane loses the face-off, watches the rest of the game play out through the mass of winding thoughts in his head.
The Metros win 6-2, thanks to a late empty-netter. Shane leaves the ice, clambers over the boards, drops heavily into his stall, his instincts running haywire. Rozanov had smelled sick. He’d smelled bad. Did he have an alpha? Probably not, right? There was a sick omega out there, probably alphaless, probably without anyone to help him.
Angrily, Shane strips off his gloves. It’s none of his goddam business is what it is. None of his business at all.
There are a couple of omegas in the MLH, sure, - Crosby, famously, the first and the best, Makar, some rookie defenseman in Vancouver whose name Shane is blanking on, and he’s heard a rumour that there was an omega in Edmonton as well, a sort of not-so-secret secret around the league at least, though Shane has never ventured a guess at who it might be. But there aren’t very many, and there aren’t any who play like Rozanov does. The brute, the bad boy.
He hasn’t really paid Rozanov that much attention, visually at least, since the IPC. But the new knowledge sits heavy at the back of his brain, scratchy, his instincts unsettled - he’s too close to his rut, maybe, Shane thinks - so maybe it’s not surprising that weekend when he puts on the game that Boston’s playing, watching idly, perking up a little when it’s over and it switches to media. Boston lost. They’ve been doing that more recently, Shane thinks. They’re interviewing the poor goalie and then Rozanov, sitting slumped slightly in his stall, shirtless and pale and tired. He’s filled out some, from that first time Shane saw him. He’s not a teenager anymore. But - he’s skinny, under the muscles. Skinnier than he should be, they’re not even halfway through the season yet, this isn’t playoffs, for god’s sakes. Even Shane, who fights to put on muscle and keep it, isn’t shedding weight like he did when he was 18, barely able to eat enough to keep up with the rigorous schedule of the MLH. But Rozanov’s clavicle pokes up from his skin, and when he shifts, his ribs ripple as well, showing clearly.
The skin of his lips is red and raw, and there’s dark circles embedded in his pale skin. He - he looks like shit, Shane thinks, and he knows Boston’s been having a less than stellar run of things - 3-5-2 in their last ten - and that wears on a player, but this isn’t that. Shane’s hackles rise, some restless instinct pricking at him. Shut up, he thinks irritably, hating that part of him that looks at Rozanov differently now that he knows.
But - well - Rozanov’s shirtless, here. There’s no marks, nothing on his skin outside of the usual hockey bruises, the most noticeable of which is an angry purple-blue mark just above his elbow. He took a puck in the game against the Metros, Shane remembers. But - he’s not marked. He’s not mated, and he’s certainly not collared. Shane can’t help but wonder if anyone knows, if he has anyone to help him, if he goes down for anyone. Omega space is important. He remembers that much from health classes in school. If Rozanov doesn’t have that… he must, Shane reasons. He must have presented a while ago, maybe after he was drafted, like Shane. He wouldn’t be doing so well if he didn’t have someone… but he hasn’t been doing as well, a voice in the back of his head whispers. You’d noticed that, already.
Shane shakes his head, ignores the growl of worry that’s biting at the back of his throat, and turns off the tv. It’s none of his business.
He goes into rut a week later, spends it sweating in his Montreal apartment, and figures ok, there. That’s why he was being so strange, why the sight of Rozanov had triggered some sort of worry in him, some alpha sense that had picked up the sight of Rozanov’s pale face, of his scent, and refused to let go of it: like a dog with a chew toy. He’s determined to forget he’d ever known it. It’s not his to know. It’s none of his business.
********
‘There’s a reason for this,’ Rozanov says, gritted out through blood-stained teeth. Shane thinks it’s only partly a lie, watches the way the omega shakes slightly, hands tucked up under his armpits like the pressure will stave off his drop.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what Rozanov wants from him, and that might be the worst part. He thought he’d known the part he was supposed to play, to hide it, to pretend like he didn’t know what he knew.
It’s the Olympic break, and insanely, improbably, Shane is playing for Team Canada. To everyone else, picking him had probably seemed like a sure thing. But there had been a small part of him that had wondered, just a little, especially after the fall he took a few weeks ago that left him with a slightly injured elbow - nothing serious, but for a while, he’d thought he’d be told not to go, to rest it, and he’d spent hours pacing angrily around his house, instincts fucking haywire, every part of him focused on this final goal - the Olympics! Everything every kid dreamed of, representing their country on the world stage. But he’d been cleared to go, and now he’s here, in fucking Russia of all places, and every single instinct he’s ever possessed is screaming at him that this omega needs help.
Shane’s never been the most traditional alpha. He’d prided himself on never feeling the urges so many of his teammates had, growing up - on never losing his mind over an omega, never feeling the inexorable pull to protect, to cherish, to put himself as a shield between them and the world. He kept telling himself that, until he’d caught that first whiff of Rozanov’s scent on the ice. It doesn’t help that the omega does truly smell sick, and that it’s worse than the last time.
‘Aren’t you going to fucking say something, Hollander?’ Rozanov bites out. His eyes are reddened, and the skin at the corner of his mouth is chapped and bleeding.
‘I’m not sure what you want me to say,’ Shane says, even. They’re fairly hidden, above the rest of the crowd, and it’s not like there’s many people watching the speed skating anyway. He leans on the railing, tries not to wrinkle his nose too obviously as he takes in another breath of Rozanov’s scent. ‘You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not gonna tell anyone.’ There’s no judgement in his voice, at least he thinks there isn’t, but Rozanov bristles anyway.
‘Fuck you, Hollander, that’s what you think this is about?’ he turns away, mutters something in Russian. Shane stares at the back of his neck, where the curls of his hair are stuck to his skin, slightly damp with sweat, and feels time stretch away from him for a moment. ‘I should not be talking to you, even.’
‘Why are you, then?’ Shane asks, and he’s not pissed off, exactly, but he’s not gonna lie and say that his hackles aren’t up, a bit. Rozanov just shakes his head, then his hands, stretching them out and placing them on the railing, a hockey player’s move, his wrists flexing.
Shane takes in another breath, lets the winter-snow-cold-trees-safe rush over him, ignores the hint of sick and chemicals. Rozanov’s chewing at his lip. That must be where the blood is coming from. ‘What’s the reason?’ Shane asks. ‘Crosby does it.’
‘I’m not fucking Sidney Crosby, for one,’ Rozanov grits out.
Shane shrugs. ‘You’re good, though. Number one pick.’ He thinks. ‘Did Boston know, when you were drafted?’
Rozanov glares at him, a minute before his face crumples slightly.
********
Ilya presents when he’s thirteen. It’s early, for an omega. Sometimes, in the lowest moments, he imagines a world where he hadn’t presented until later, maybe even until after he’d been drafted. A lot of alphas don’t present until after they’ve been drafted, until they’re seventeen or eighteen or even twenty.
He’s cold, all the time, and hungry, but for a week he can’t eat anything without it coming back up, shivering in the corner of his bed with his blankets piled all around him, the world’s worst attempt at a nest. His dad is furious. His brother won’t look at him, won’t touch him. His mother is dead.
He scrapes himself together enough to tell his father - beg him really - that they won’t tell anyone, that Ilya will pretend to be a beta or an alpha or unpresented, that it won’t affect his hockey. His father strips him down and beats him bloody with his belt, then makes Ilya put his clothes back on, hands him some blocker patches, and sends him out to play hockey. Ilya plays harder than he’s ever played in his life: it’s not even an important match, and he wasn’t even supposed to be playing; everyone thought he was still sick. But he gets a goal and two assists, playing through the shakiness of presenting and the pain of his back, and when he gets off the ice all his father does is nod, and it’s then and only then, in a bathroom stall at the rink, that Ilya lets himself cry: because he has lost so much, but he has not lost hockey.
His father finds some doctor, in Moscow, who will look the other way, who prescribes Ilya the chemical blockers that he will be on for the next decade and more of his life. Thirteen is too young, but when he’s fourteen the doctor fakes the paperwork to register him as an alpha, and the combination of Ilya’s size, his personality, and the blocker patches and pills make it so to the rest of the world. His brother cannot look at him and his father spends each moment they are alone reminding Ilya of how useless he is now as an omega, but Ilya still has hockey.
He is tall and broad, and he works as hard as he can to pack on muscle, forces down as much food as he can stomach, but he can’t keep on the weight like his alpha teammates can. Even his muscles are different, his waist slim, not quite as defined. He works out as much as he can and wears loose hoodies and prays no one looks too closely. He’s a teenage boy, a hockey player, he’s still growing, right? That’s why he’s so skinny, no matter how much he eats. It’s not because of his hormones, low due to the years of medication. It’s not because he has to spend evenings shivering under the hot water spray, trying to stave off drops. It’s not because he’s never actually gone through a heat, because he’s fighting his body’s natural tendences. It’s easier, sort of, when he’s drafted and comes to America. His quirks are passed off as ‘European’, and he can shrug and pretend he doesn’t understand if someone asks him something he doesn’t want to answer.
The blockers don’t only block his scent; they pretty effectively block out the rest of the world as well. It’s all dull, for Ilya; the scents of ice, of fuel on the runway when they’re boarding the team plane, of the wind when they play near the ocean, like in Vancouver, heavy with cold-salt-mud-fish and the deep northwest coast forests; and most of all, alphas, scents heavy, overlapping, on the bus and in hotel rooms, in the locker room and on the ice, even, after he scores, bodies pressing heavy against him. Those moments are the ones where he feels the most alive; that, and winning the cup, bright-hot-heavy and iron-sharp-warm from where he’d bit his lip, teammates slinging arms around him, a heavy press of a hand on his neck, so brief but sharp enough it nearly made his knees go out.
A handful of years since he’s been drafted, and the rest of the time, he’s mostly just tired. He hasn’t been this bad since the first time he was in Canada, all those years ago, in the middle of fucking nowhere Saskatchewan. Leaving Russia, leaving the familiar, leaving the haphazard nests he’d managed to construct first in his childhood home and then the home his father had moved them in to, unwilling to take the risk of Ilya staying with a billet family - it had been hard for his omega. His instincts had not liked it, and he had shivered his way through the plane ride, dropping, spent the night before the tournament puking. They’d still won. Ilya never let his own problems affect his game.
He’s a good player. He’s a fucking great player. But sometimes he wonders how good he could be if he wasn’t playing through all this shit, if he wasn’t hiding who he truly was. Hasn’t he proven himself by now? Proven that it doesn’t matter that he’s a sub? There are subs in the MLH, a couple at least. But not in Russia. If he told everyone, his father would never speak to him, or his brother, or his niece, the only family he has. He would likely be punished by the Russian government, if he ever returned, for the multitude of smaller crimes he’d commited in the pursuit of hiding his true designation. He certainly would not ever be asked to play for Team Russia again, to represent his country.
He would lose many things. Would he still have hockey? He likes to think that Boston wouldn’t care enough to do anything about it, or perhaps more accurately, would realize the benefits of keeping him around would outweigh the downsides. Public opinion towards omega rights is shifting; it would be good publicity. And besides, he’s their captain. He’s led them to one Cup and he’s got at least a couple more left in him.
Most of the time, though, he’s too tired to even think that much about anything.
He hates it, but it’s easier when Boston’s doing well, because then he can feel like he’s being good: for management, for the owners, for the fans, for his teammates. He hates it, but it was better when he wasn’t captain, because then, sometimes, especially when he was younger before the MLH, he could pretend that the captain of whatever team he was playing for was his alpha, so that when he played well he was pleasing his alpha. It’s not that he doesn’t think omegas shouldn’t be in positions of leadership. It’s just that it was so much easier to hide when he wasn’t.
So when they start playing - not bad, not exactly, it’s not like they’re on a losing streak or anything but they can’t seem to win more than two in a row, and they’re fighting for the wins they do get, and it’s a slog, it’s a fucking battle every night - well, it wears on him. The travel starts to prick at him in a way it hasn’t for years, every roadtrip leaving him more strung out than the one before, until nests in hotel bathtubs, towels and laundry and a hoodie he stole from Marleau, increase in frequency. Thank god he gets his own room, now. He’d done it as a rookie, hidden his designation from alpha roommates on long roadies, but it had been fucking miserable.
Maybe the memory of how long he’s being doing this for makes him cocky, or maybe the fact that his life has narrowed down to hockey and nothing else, the world shoved away so that every ounce Ilya has left to him he can use on the ice, is why he doesn’t notice his blockers are failing. He’s careful, uses the pills and patches on every gland, categorizes every look a teammate throws his way, replaces the patches each intermission.
He’s playing shaky tonight, the atmosphere in the arena stifling: the crowd seems wild with it, even though Boston’s losing or maybe because they are, a rippling, rolling wave of discontent pouring from the stands. Fremont probably should have been pulled on that last goal, but Seddy’s out and that means their backup is some kid from the AHL, untested and painfully young, and coach isn’t gonna put him in unless they have to. (Ilya thinks maybe they have to, but he’d never say that out loud). He’s playing fine, as well as can be expected, the burgeoning alpha scents cloying around him, sticking in the back of his throat. They smell of anger, like pitch-charcoal-vinegar, like musty gear that’s been left in a shed all winter. It makes him itchy in his own skin, shaky with it. He knows he looks bad, almost goes down on a barely-there hit from one of Montreal’s rookies, almost doesn’t keep playing. The trainers look at his face, the circles under his eyes, the weight he can’t keep on, and it’s gently suggested that he sit the rest of this game out.
Ilya shrugs them off. Hockey is the one thing he hasn’t lost. That’s not gonna change now.
Maybe it’s because it’s been so many years of the blockers and patches, so many years of showering with the scent-blocking soap; or maybe it’s the pervasive smell of alpha-anger-submit, but Ilya doesn’t notice his own scent rise. Doesn’t notice how the patch on the right side of his neck is peeling, just barely. Doesn’t notice the way he’s swaying, just slightly, towards Shane fucking Hollander, golden-boy alpha-extroardinare, tries to play his shakiness off by adjusting his stick - but then Hollander flinches, a clear, full-body thing, reeling back - waves the ref off - swallows deep: and Ilya knows even before the alpha meets his eyes. He can smell it now, just barely, the snow-cedar-cold scent that reminds him of the forests back home, of pond hockey in the winter, of chapped lips and reddened cheeks. His own scent.
It isn’t fear which hits Ilya first, but a gut-wrenching, bone-deep sense of loss. How dare he? How dare perfect fucking Hollander be the one who notices? There’s concern in Hollander’s eyes, just barely, and it makes Ilya want to punch him. He hopes some of it comes through in his gaze, the fuck-off, the how-fucking-dare-you - this is Ilya’s. This is all he has. This knowledge, this secret, held tight to his chest like a burning coal.
Somehow, Ilya plays through the rest of the game. They lose, of course. Ilya almost can’t bring himself to care. He slogs through taking his gear off, through showering, speaking as little as he can get away with, counting down the minutes until he can escape back to his apartment, to the nest he’s built in the walk-in closet.
Hockey is all he has. Will Hollander tell anyone? Hockey is all he has. It’s all he is. If Hollander tells - will Ilya lose that too?
He thinks that will break him.
Ilya plays the next game, and the game after that, but it’s through a thick haze he can’t seem to shake off. Dimly he’s aware that he’s dropping, that he’s probably been in low level omega drop for a while now. Since that game, really, since Hollander figured out what he is. Hollander hasn’t told anyone, or at least hasn’t told anyone who cares enough to do anything about it, because no one’s confronted Ilya about it.
They lose to the Ducks on a Tuesday and Ilya’s father calls him, spends an hour telling Ilya every single thing he’d done wrong, and after he hangs up Ilya empties the contents of his stomach into the toilet and then spends an hour sitting under the cold spray of the shower, until he can’t tell if the shivering is from the drop or the freezing water. It helps, sort of. It’s one of the ways he copes.
They don’t have a game Wednesday; it’s a travel day. Ilya thanks a god he doesn’t believe in for small mercies, but he’s scratched Thursday, he can’t hide his shaking hands and feverish skin well enough. He gets away with calling it a flu, and the eyes of the team doctor are kind, not suspicious. Ilya holes away in his hotel room and feels guilty about the game, even though he shouldn’t. It’s an easy win for Boston, against a team much worse than them. The hotel room smells wrong, chemical-dust-detergent, the faint scents of previous inhabitants clogging up his nose. He hates it. He doesn’t get to hate it. This is it, the cost of hockey, the cost of everything he’s ever wanted. The cost of the only thing that’s truly his.
It’s a high price. Ilya knows it isn’t normal, isn’t right, medically, to do what he’s doing. He knows the toll it will take on his body, on top of the already high toll demanded by MLH level hockey. He knows that when he retires, he might be left with a body that can’t do much of anything, anymore. A body already broken, before he’s even forty. He pushes aside the flash of mate-pups-home, puts it in the box labelled things-he-can’t-have. He’s got no delusions that he’ll still be fertile when this is all over, if this is all over. The instincts that tell him he wants a family, pups, are usually easily pushed away. The true desires of his heart, though? The steadily increasing knowledge as he grows older that he would, in fact, want children one day? That’s harder. But he’s already tallied it away as part of the price he agreed to pay before he was even a teenager, so long ago now that he doesn’t even grieve what he’s lost. He did that long ago.
Maybe the emotional turmoil is why he doesn’t notice his scent changing, become thicker, even through the blockers and chemical suppressants. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t think to worry.
********
The thing about his methods is, they work. Mostly. They have in the past, always, but suddenly it’s a lot harder when he’s home, in Russia, his father’s looming presence ever-close, the suffocating walls of the Federation all around him. He’s trying to captain a team which manages to be even worse than Boston is right now, which is saying something. Their chemistry is worse, too, with too many alphas and no betas to smooth over the cracks, the weight of their country’s expectations hanging heavy over all of them. Most of the Russian team’s top players - aside from Ilya - are in the KHL, so they know each other, but the rest of them are flying in from America, in the small time the Olympic break has allotted in their schedules, and even in the first practice Ilya can tell: it’s not going to be enough. The ice smells like iron-sweat-charcoal, frustration thick and pulsing. They don’t have enough time to create team chemistry, and Ilya’s pretty sure their goalie, a young alpha he doesn’t know, is nursing an injury he’s pretending isn’t as bad as it really is. The smell of his pain leaks out even around the blocker patches and it unsettles Ilya, makes him antsy, makes his inner omega want to comfort the alpha.
He bites his lip so hard it bleeds and wishes he was anywhere but there. Wishes mean nothing, but if he had them, he’d also wish to be anywhere Hollander isn’t. It’s like his perception of the alpha is heightened, every sense attuned to his exact location. It’s paranoia, the knowledge creeping under Ilya’s skin that Hollander knows. He knows, and there’s nothing Ilya can do about it.
He’s watching the speed-skating, doing breathing exercises to try and calm his scent (he swears he can smell it, even under the blocker patches and chemical suppressants and it’s driving him crazy) when he hears footsteps. He knows it’s Hollander and hates that he knows, hates that he hadn’t noticed Hollander was at this event, hates that he lets himself be cornered. Maybe that’s why he comes on so strong, blood smearing from the lip he can’t stop biting at, his hackles raised. It’s like all the omega instincts he works so hard to suppress come to the forefront around Hollander.
For his part, Hollander just looks worried,and a little on his back-foot, and like he’s suppressing alpha instincts as well. Of course he would be, some small, pleased part of Ilya’s brain thinks. He knows you’re an omega. He wants to help you, please you. It’s driving him crazy that he can’t do anything. Hollander’s clenching and opening his fists, repeatedly, at his sides. His eyes are a little wild. For a moment, Ilya indulges himself in a fantasy where he lets Hollander take care of him; somewhere warm and safe, not this fucking cold rink full of the smell of stress-ice-chemical; Hollander would keep Ilya warm, run him a bath, maybe; he’d tell Ilya how good he smelled; he’d sleep with Ilya in the nest Ilya had built for them. It’s pathetic, because Ilya would really take anything. He thinks even just Hollander touching him - grasping his wrist, maybe, or putting his hand on the back of Ilya’s neck - would be more than - more than anything. He tries to imagine Hollander hugging him; Ilya’s a little taller, so he’d have to bend down, but that would be ok. He could tuck his face into Hollander’s neck and hide there. Hollander would put his hand on the back of Ilya’s neck, not scruffing him or anything, just holding. Even the thought of it is almost more than Ilya can handle. He thinks he might be swaying towards Hollander slightly and bites his lip hard enough to start the bleeding again. He feels warm, flushed. There are shivers running down his back.
He turns, trying to escape Hollander’s scent. He’s not wearing patches; they’re not required outside of games, and it’s considered odd for an alpha to wear one. Like they’re hiding something. So Ilya isn’t either, because he can’t draw attention - he’s relying solely on the chemical suppressants. But Hollander smells warm, ginger and freshly cut grass and something else Ilya can’t quite place - firesmoke maybe? It’s driving him crazy. He puts his hands on the railing and flexes, stretching his wrists. Then he realizes what he’s doing and flushes, abruptly. Had Hollander realized? Showing his wrists like that, putting his glands on full display - it would have been considered a blatant come-on, to most other alphas. Hollander isn't like most other alphas. Ilya doesn’t think he’s even noticed. He pushes down the irrational disappointment.
Somehow, Ilya’s holding up his end of the conversation. He’s not entirely sure how, which isn’t good, because it’s a veritable minefield. He’s never openly talked about his dynamic like this before. Hollander is comparing his situation to Crosby, which is so ridiculous Ilya almost wants to laugh in his face about it, except that would require looking at the alpha, and he’s not sure he could handle that right now.
He’s handling the conversation pretty well though, he thinks, at least until Shane says, ‘Did Boston know, when you were drafted?’
Did Boston know about you, is what he means. And Ilya can’t, can’t sit here and have this conversation, can’t figure out a way to lie to Hollander, can’t stand the pity he knows would be in the alpha’s eyes if he knew the truth of just how long Ilya’s been hiding his designation. Though Ilya can only imagine what Hollander’s thinking, at this point. It surely can only be the worst.
He turns again, rubs a tired hand over his face. ‘We can’t be doing this, Hollander. Not here.’
‘Rozanov - ‘ Hollander cuts himself off, takes a step closer. It takes everything Ilya has not to step back, not to cross his arms over his chest, not to bare his neck in submission (jesus christ). ‘I’m worried about you.’
‘Fucking don’t be,’ Ilya snaps. ‘Fucking christ, Hollander. Don’t - ‘ He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Don’t care? Don’t think about me? Don’t tell anyone? Is there anything he can say that Hollander isn’t already thinking? Hollander isn’t stupid. He would have thought about the ramifications of this, though Ilya’s not quite sure he thought about what it would mean to approach Ilya like this, where there are so many eyes watching.
Another wave of heat shudders up his spine and Ilya gives himself a barest second to just close his eyes, pushing away the misery. He cannot be getting sick; he just can’t, but he feels awful, like the dismal last few weeks are now peaking - tired and achy, feverish, wanting nothing more than to wrap himself up in a blanket and hide in his closet, in his apartment in Boston. He’s simultaneously too cold and overwarm, and he hopes Hollander can’t see how his hands are shaking slightly.
‘Rozanov - ‘ something on his face must have given away how truly terrible he feels, because Hollander is stepping closer, a look of concern etched over his features. He bites back his words - Ilya sways, just barely, dizzy all of a sudden - and Hollander gets out ‘Ilya,’ the name low and far too intent. Hollander smells worried, rain-charcoal-loam, a thick miasma.
Ilya chokes back a noise of pain as his stomach cramps, deep pain low in his pelvis - another wave of heat flushes over his cheeks - and it’s then that he feels the first trickle of slick and realizes, horribly and suddenly, what must impossibly be happening. What has been happening.
Theoretically, the chemical suppressants Ilya’s been choking down since his preteens dull his hormones, and make it impossible for his body to go into heat. But the ones he’s on were never meant to be used like this, and even regular supressants usually require a break at least once a year for a maintenance heat, to let an omega’s hormones cycle properly. Ilya’s never done that. This must be the punishment, the cost he was waiting for. His body has said enough.
He’s going into heat. He knows Hollander can smell it, sees the way the alpha’s eyes widen with sudden understanding. Ilya cannot do this. He cannot. Pushing away Hollander’s reaching hand, he bolts.