Chapter Text
Everyone who found out about Shane’s job usually gave him a look. A “you’re crazy” look. A “I could not deal with that nonsense” look. A “when are you gonna sleep though?” look. But really, working the late-night shift at the dinky 7/11 was boring, easy. A perfect time to get reading for class done. Sure, occasionally some drunk idiot came in and threw a fit over their particular brand of cigarette being out of stock. And yeah, on more than one occasion, Shane had to grab the bat from behind the counter to run some losers off. He’d only been held up once since he started a few weeks back, and the guy didn’t even have a gun (Shane found out after the guy tripped out the door and a Pez dispenser popped out of his pocket.)
Shane knew that it wasn’t the best neighborhood – smack in the middle of Brighton Beach. He’d seen plenty of weirdness outside the door of the shop, but whatever went on out there was frankly none of his business.
He’d seen the fancy cars with their dark tinted windows; men in suits stepping in to them after leaving innocuous looking restaurants or storefronts. But… that was none of his business. Shane knew. He knew that the Russian restaurant four blocks down never had real customers but had been open for decades. He knew that the laundromat on 14th was perpetually closed yet somehow never shut down. He could do the math. But he also knew that none of the dudes in suits ever bothered him. Never caused trouble when they popped in and bought dinky paper cups of bad coffee at 2am. So, Shane Hollander simply did not care that he worked in the dead center of what was no doubt Bratva territory.
*******
“Dude, you’re falling asleep into your latte,” Hayden’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“No, I’m up. Sorry.”
“When are you going to quit your weird ass job? It’s barely been a semester, and it’s obviously murdering your sleep schedule.”
“No, what’s murdering my sleep schedule is coming to this coffee shop with you every day after practice so you can pretend to not remember the pretty barista’s name instead of getting a couple more hours of sleep.”
Hayden immediately glanced over his shoulder at the petit blonde behind the counter before shushing Shane.
“Will you just ask her out already? It’s getting pathetic, Hayd,”
“She’s just so out of my league, you don’t get it!”
“I don’t get it?”
“No, you and your Bambi eyes and your jawline don’t get it.”
“Hayd, are you trying to ask me out?”
“Ugh, no, I just. You could get any guy you wanted and just choose not to – ”
“Yeah, because I have so much time for that.”
“Ok, maybe you could get any guy you wanted if you didn’t work at some shit ass convenience store all night.”
“Maybe I’m just meant to marry creepy Denis. He came in to ask for candy buttons again last night. Like it’s a 1950s soda shop. I don’t think he knows what year it actually is.”
“That’s because he’s not a creepy regular. He’s a time traveler. We just have to figure out his mission and then we can help him.”
“I’m not letting you hang out while I’m working anymore. You’ve got to stop coming up with backstories for the regulars. Creepy Denis literally just wants candy and cigarettes. That is his only mission.”
Shane was glad to laugh and start off on another story about the regulars at the store, but he knew Hayden could be right that working there was killing Shane’s sleep schedule. But grad school was expensive and NYU didn’t offer sports scholarships. He could’ve gone to a D1 school and maybe been better off. Shane didn’t want to admit it to anyone – not to Hayden, certainly not to his mom back in Longueuil – but he’d seen what injury and ultimately washing out of college sports had done to his dad. He wanted to be somewhere where he could still play hockey. He could even go see the Rangers from time to time. He just didn’t want to pin his entire future on the gamble that his body wouldn’t betray him before he turned 30. Really, maybe it was better this way – it was less pressure to be playing low level hockey as a grad student and focusing on school. It was better for him. It let him still love hockey.
So, NYU it was. And he told himself that even if he didn’t play hockey professionally, he was still on a path to be in sports in some way. He’d thought about going somewhere else after he’d finished his undergrad degree in biology, but the physical therapy faculty at NYU had ties with the athletic training staff at the Rangers. It seemed like a no brainer to stay there and work those connections. It would pay off. Shane worked too hard for it not to pay off.
“Did you hear a word I said, dude?”
“Sorry, Hayd. You’re probably right, I need more sleep. I’m gonna run and catch a couple hours before I have to go to work.”
“You’re insane, Hollander. But I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”
He saw Hayden going up to the counter as Shane went for the door, and he tossed up a silent prayer that Hayden would find the courage to ask the girl out finally so he could stop hearing his pining.
*******
Shane knew the regulars. Knew creepy Denis who wanted outdated candy and weird cigarettes. Knew Margie who came in every night to buy the largest bottle of Voss water that the cooler held (it was for her ancient poodle). Knew which regulars were harmless and which ones needed him to be a little harsher. He didn’t know who the guy he’d seen for the last couple weeks was. The guy was begging for someone to notice him – hanging out underneath the metal stairs just across the sidewalk from his front door that led up to the Brighton Beach station. The guy kept poking his head out from the shadow of the steps, glancing around, giving away that he didn’t want anyone to notice him.
But Shane had.
The guy had never come in, had never given him any trouble. But it was still weird.
Shane knew that he was dealing. It wasn’t hard to spot. There were plenty of dealers around – all of them had come in at one point or another, and none of them had bothered Shane so he left them alone. But this one was new, and he was nervous. And Shane knew that nervous people doing something they weren’t supposed to meant trouble.
It had been about an hour since the guy slunk from below the stairs, heading east toward who knows what, when the chime on the door let out its pathetic jingling noise.
Shane’s mouth went dry when he looked up. He’d seen plenty of the mysterious guys in suits, and they all looked pretty much the same – usually stocky, dark hair, usually some strange scars, but overall nondescript, not memorable.
The mysterious man in a suit who just walked through the doorway was anything but nondescript. Everything about the man from the obviously custom-tailored suit to the quietly luxurious watch was so expensive. He was all angles – sharp cheekbones and jaw, expensive fabric hiding hard muscle – cushioned by the softest dark blonde curls. Shane wanted to pitch a tent in his defined cupid’s bow and camp there for a week.
“You’re new.”
He’d only said two words, but his heavy Russian accent wrapped around Shane like a snake making his breath catch a little bit.
Jesus, get it together, Hollander.
“I’ve been here a couple months.”
“New,” the man nodded.
“Fine, new. What do you need?”
The man didn’t answer, instead strolling up and down the aisles of the tiny shop. He moved smoothly, silently. Shane briefly and ridiculously felt like he was watching a nature documentary – a sleek cat stalking its prey. But then he realized that would make him the prey, wouldn’t it? He glanced toward the door; a dark car was parked on the street right outside the door, one of the usual nondescript suited men leaning on the passenger door smoking.
“Is nice view.”
“Subway stairs and a stack of trash that never gets taken? Sure.” Shane tried not to show how startled the voice had made him. The man had made his way silently back to the counter while Shane had been looking outside.
“You see things from here.”
It wasn’t a question, but Shane could tell he expected some kind of answer.
“I don’t see anything from here.”
A smile crept onto the man’s face, sharp just like the rest of him.
“Good boy,” it was practically a purr, and Shane could feel his face turn red. “But I need for you to have working eyes. For this conversation.”
“Look, I come here, I ring people out, I put sodas in the cooler. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Hm, you look like trouble though,” his voice purred again.
“I’m not.”
“We will see.”
The man’s eyes were boring a hole through Shane, and he needed the interaction to end.
“What do you want?”
“You see a man here.” He jerked a thumb toward the door, toward the station stairs.
“I see a lot of people here.”
“You know who I mean.”
Shane did. Shane knew exactly who he meant.
“Are you a cop or something?” Shane knew it was a ridiculous question, but it brought another smile to the man’s face, and he was willing to ask any number of ridiculous questions to see that sharp toothed smiled again.
“Ehh, no. But I would like to know what you see this man doing.”
“Look, man, if you’re having a problem with one of your dealers, I would love to be left out of it. It’s none of my bus – ”
“One of my dealers?”
“Look,” Shane sighed. “I’m not an idiot. You rocked up here in a suit, with your Russian accent, asking about the guy who’s under those stairs almost every night. I can put two and two together.”
“Wow, so good at math.” His voice was flat.
“I’m more than a pretty face.”
A smaller, gentler smile crept up for a moment before the man settled his face into something more neutral.
“This man is here every night?”
“Almost every night. Always Wednesdays and Thursdays. Not always Fridays, not ever weekends.”
“You’re helpful.”
“I didn’t say anything to you. Like I said – ”
“Yes, yes, not your business. Good trait to have.”
Shane didn’t have a chance to respond before the man swept out the door, motioning to the suit who immediately got in the driver’s side and took off as soon as the back door of the car had closed.
“What the fuck…”
*******
Shane didn’t see the man in the suit for the rest of the week, but the dealer he’d been asking about was back like clockwork. He briefly wondered what the issue was – was the guy not collecting on debts? Not meeting his quota? Did drug dealers have quotas? Shane shook his head. He minded his own business. Always. He wasn’t going to think about the man in the suit. He wasn’t going to remember his smile and feel warm from his ears down. He wasn’t going to think about how his name might sound in that accent.
Whatever fantasy world Shane was starting to drift toward disappeared in an instant when he heard yelling from outside. The dealer. It had to be.
Shane knew that he should just stay inside the store, mind his business, keep his head down, but the voices were so close, he worried the commotion was going to come inside. He left the worn wooden bat behind the counter but took a step outside.
The dealer was there – screaming in Russian at the man Shane had been daydreaming about. Two nondescript men stood by. Shane wasn’t a small man; he could hold his own, but he didn’t think that he’d be able to stay as motionless as the handsome man in the suit if someone was screaming in his face like that. It wasn’t threatening screams though – whatever the man was shouting about, he seemed desperate, pleading. One of the suits moved as though he was going to grab the dealer’s arm, pull him away, when the dealer noticed Shane had come out onto the darkened street.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You fucking snitch, what did you say?”
His accent was as heavy as his breathing. He got close enough to Shane to grab his upper arm before he was abruptly pulled away.
“Этого достаточно.”
The voice was almost soft – certainly not as loud or as desperate as the dealer. It was a voice that knew its owner was perfectly in control of the situation. Shane didn’t think the man’s expensive suit had even crinkled when he’d moved fast to pull the dealer away from Shane.
He spoke quietly to one of the other men with him, shoved the dealer toward them, and turned away as they shoved the man in the back seat of a car and drove off.
Shane wanted to ask what the fuck that was, but he was torn between being annoyed at himself for coming outside in the first place and being glued to the spot by the stare of the handsome Russian man. There was something in it that he couldn’t parse out. Not threatening, but not comforting in the least.
“I didn’t see anything,” the words fell out of Shane’s mouth in a rush.
“No, you didn’t.”
Another car pulled up and the man got in the passenger seat – disappearing without another word to Shane.
*******
He’d been thinking about the man all damn night and into this morning, and it had eaten away at the precious few hours of sleep he needed to get before class today.
Class was a blur too. How was he supposed to focus on biophysical agents when he couldn’t get that voice out of his head?
The man had said probably all of two dozen words to him both times Shane had seen him, but he was absolutely mesmerized. And also annoyed as hell. Where did that guy get the nerve, coming into Shane’s job, asking him questions, making some drug dealer hold a grudge when Shane didn’t want anything to do with the whole situation.
The guy was mesmerizing. Attractive as hell. And more trouble than Shane wanted to deal with, he was sure.
Shane stayed feeling like he was underwater through his classes, through lunch with Hayden and Jackie (the barista did have a name!), through practice, and through a sad dinner of microwave ramen noodles.
Shane was still in half a fog when he went back to work. At least putting candy bars on a shelf didn’t require a lot of concentration or wherewithal. Maybe if he was less tired, the chime of the door would have registered. As it was, the voice behind him made him fall back on his ass when he heard it.
“You’re jumpy.”
“You’re quiet.”
“Door makes noise, you want me to blow trumpet too?”
“Do you need something or do you just enjoy making my life weirder?”
“I need a Coke.”
The man walked away from Shane toward the coolers holding endless bottles of soda, plucked one out, and walked lithely toward the counter. Shane scrambled off the floor to get behind said counter.
“Who even are you?”
The Russian man raised a single eyebrow at him.
“What’s your name, I mean.”
“Ilya. And you’re Shane.”
His name sounded just as good in that accent as he’d imagined, but his annoyance wasn’t completely erased.
“Why do you know my name?”
He froze as the man, Ilya, lifted a hand toward Shane. He lighted tapped Shane’s chest, and he looked down confused. He was wearing a goddamn nametag. Of course.
“Ha, right. Just the soda then?”
“Keep the change,” Ilya put a bill down, grabbing the soda, and retreating gracefully out the door. Shane noticed the chime this time.
He glanced down to see that Ilya had left a hundred-dollar bill on the counter.
What the fuck.
*******
“So, this dude has been in every night for a week?”
Hayden’s voice was half muffled with the croissant that he was talking around.
“Hayden…”
“Sorry, Jacks.”
Shane had never seen his friend as whipped he had been in the couple weeks since he and Jackie finally went out. He loved it for Hayden. And it added another voice of reason to the conversation that Shane found himself having.
Because Ilya had been coming in every night for the last week. He never said much. A handful of words at most. Bought a Coke, paid with a hundred-dollar bill, and told Shane to keep the change.
He shouldn’t complain – he could certainly use the money. But he couldn’t deny that it was weird.
“Maybe he likes you,” Jackie spoke up. “You said he was young, didn’t you?”
“Not like… young young. Maybe 35?”
“And you’re 25? That’s dateable,” she nodded her head decidedly.
“If he likes me, he’s doing a piss poor job of showing it. I think he just likes fucking with me.”
“I wish someone would consistently give me almost a hundred bucks to fuck with me,” Hayden snorted.
Shane grimaced a little.
“What if he decides he needs like… a return on his investment?”
“You think that’s the goal? It sounds like the guy has more money than he knows what to do with to me. I’ve gotta get back behind the counter now though. You boys behave.”
Maybe Jackie was right. It was clear that the man had more money than god – constantly pulling up in different equally expensive cars, never wearing the same custom suit twice, with watches and jewelry that screamed money. Maybe he just had so much money that he really didn’t think twice about blowing almost a thousand bucks in a week on some convenience store clerk. Shane hoped that was the case anyway.
“Maybe he feels bad about the weird dealer thing.”
Shane wished Hayden hadn’t said anything. Or maybe more accurately, he wished he hadn’t told Hayden.
“I told you not to say anything about that.”
“Oh my god, Shane, the Russian mafia is not camped out in Chelsea spying on you, relax.”
“I don’t know that he’s in the Russian mafia! Or that that dealer is either.”
“Yes, the impossibly wealthy and handsome Russian man in a custom suit who ordered a drug dealer to be disappeared is totally not in the Russian mafia.”
“Ok, when you put it like that…”
“Look, he at least seems like he’s not doing much of anything besides being annoying and leaving you money. Just be careful and hope it stays that way.”
Shane didn’t say it out loud, but part of his problem was that it had only been a week and he was starting to look forward to Ilya coming in. And that was something he had to be careful of.