Chapter Text
Like a cold, cold sweat, alright
I got the fever for you tonight
And I can't stop, no, I won't stop
How can I stop when nothing is enough?
Band of Skulls
June 2014 - Las Vegas
In the morning, waking up in his own Vegas hotel room, Shane was mortified. He wasn’t sure what was most embarrassing, the please in the filthy bathroom or the I need you as he stroked himself for Rozanov’s pleasure. Maybe the way he’d crawled desperately to suck Rozanov’s cock when he couldn’t stand another second without it in his mouth, or the desperate savage howl he gave when he came untouched on Rozanov’s cock again.
It was all absolutely humiliating, but no, none of that was the worst of it. The worst was the way Shane had dreamed up… what? An emotional connection? Just because Rozanov had been kind about being the first guy to fuck him in the ass?
He’d seen his teammates use the same pattern he could now see clearly: they’d chase girls for months, sending gifts and making promises until she finally went to bed with him and he dropped her flat. Shane had always thought it was gross. Rozanov at least hadn’t promised anything. Hadn’t lied. Hadn’t needed to, because Shane was apparently so fucking desperate to be touched in a way that made him feel something he’d turn clingy on the basis of a couple of hook ups, one solitary fuck, and a goodbye kiss.
He should have got the message in Sochi. Thank God he’d talked himself out of sending we didn’t even kiss last night or he might actually have expired in shame.
The flashes reminding him how incredibly hot it had been, how much he had wanted it, just made the shame bite harder. He’d begged and pleaded and cried out, and Rozanov hadn’t even walked him to the door.
Fuck.
Shane ended up thinking about it all through breakfast with his parents, all through the flight back to Montreal, all through the next three days. His head pounded with the contradictions in the way Rozanov spoke and behaved and touched him until he forced himself to face the fact that he had asked Rozanov outright, what do you actually want from me? And although he hadn’t put it together in that moment, Rozanov had in fact told him, outright: I want you to suck my dick.
Pair it with the We are nothing from Sochi and the picture was crystal clear.
Shane worried his lower lip with his teeth. Maybe Rozanov had been cold because Shane had been so needy. Maybe if he could just relax it would be like that first time again, the endless kissing and the sweet goodbye. If it would mean Rozanov would kiss him again, Shane could prove he wouldn’t be needy, wouldn’t ask stupid questions like with who again. He’d do anything he had to because how could he accept he’d never feel that engulfing, searing pleasure again?
It didn’t make him feel much better when the best text he could come up with to reassure Rozanov that everything was fine, nothing had to change, he wouldn’t be difficult or follow him around or anything any more was a stupid Have a good summer!
After he sent it, he sat with his head in his hands for a good ten minutes thinking about what a fucking idiot he was.
When Rozanov finally replied, unbothered and sarcastic as always, Shane was so relieved he all but hugged his damn phone. Then he felt so stupid he asked a girl on a date.
Shockingly, it didn’t work out.
October 2014 - Boston
The silence in Ilya Rozanov’s condo was a physical thing which pressed thick and heavy against his eardrums, broken only by the faint whir of the ice machine on his knee brace.
It had been four months now since Shane Hollander had looked at him with those wide, desperate eyes and crawled to him so sweet and needy. Since Ilya had lit his cigarette with hands that didn’t shake, he’d made sure they hadn’t, and let Hollander leave without a word, because any word would have been a confession.
He’d flown to Russia and buried the feeling under family obligations and too much vodka, numbing what remained by dancing with Svetlana and fucking her friends. It had been just another summer.
When he was finally back in Boston, worn thin by all the ways that Moscow felt like home and a prison, he’d been so looking forward to getting back on the ice, back to being on the road, back to cycling through cities and sex partners and never having to think or feel too much about anything.
Then came the first preseason game back and a stupid, clumsy collision along the boards in the second period. It hadn’t even been a hit worth remembering. Just a twist, a pop he felt more than heard, and then the world narrowing to a white-hot lance of pain in his knee.
Turned out the unexciting hit had left him with a grade 2 MCL tear, four to six weeks recovery. No skating. No weight. Nothing.
Jane: That looked nasty. How long will you be out?
Lily: Aww, are you worried about me, Hollander?
Jane: Just want to know how easily we’ll beat Boston next time.
Jane: Also don’t use my real name here, wtf
His teammates had come by in the early days to check he had what he needed but now they were back on the road and the boredom was worse than the pain. At first, he watched hockey because it was his job, his life. He streamed games, analyzed plays, took notes he’d never use.
It was natural, inevitable, that his cursor would hover over Montreal’s schedule. It was natural that he’d click.
On screen, Hollander took a face-off, his posture a study in focused intensity. Ilya’s thumb paused the video and zoomed in. There was a new, faint line of tension between Shane’s brows that hadn’t been there in Vegas. Was it because of Ilya?
The thought was absurd, even narcissistic. He dismissed it as he rewound the play to watch the drop of the puck again. He watched the clean lines of Hollander on the power play. The way he gave nothing away on an interception. The crack of his backhand slamming the puck into the net for a 2-1 victory.
Then it was post-game interviews. Hollander, flushed and sweaty in his Under Armor, giving polite, boring answers to inane questions. Ilya watched the way Hollander’s throat worked when he swallowed. The almost imperceptible tap of his finger against his thigh when he was holding back what he really wanted to say.
Ilya palmed himself absently. He hadn’t had sex since he’d been injured, unable to hit the clubs, unwilling to let a casual fuck see him vulnerable like this. He would have called Svetlana but she wasn’t back from Moscow yet, visiting Sasha in Paris instead and sending him pictures of the two of them and a dizzying array of cocktails, bars and sexy pouts.
So what he had was his right hand, and the sound of Hollander’s voice speaking French. It was better when he was speaking French because Ilya could remember how annoying Hollander was, how annoyingly perfect, and how delicious it was to see him crawl, hear him beg, oh fuck, stop, Rozanov, I’m gonna…
There was no denying that helped take the edge off.
Ilya watched porn, too, obviously. It’s just that sometimes he liked to mute it and listen to Hollander’s interviews instead while he watched a dark haired beauty get fucked from behind. Performative porn moans did nothing for him - he knew what it sounded like when a woman or a man was desperate to be fucked and that… wasn’t it.
Since Ilya couldn’t actually jerk off all day every day, he also spent a lot of time scrolling on his iPhone. He created a private Twitter list just for athletes, coaches and analysts and listened to a lot of Man in the Crease because it was hilarious how much those guys talked shit about Hunter.
It was only logical to add Hollander’s verified account. Hollander posted rarely and what he did share was as boring and media trained as his interview answers: a charity event, a generic ‘great game tonight’ after a win.
Still, Ilya refreshed it. Often.
Browsing a hashtag, he found the fan accounts. The stan accounts, rather, and that name confused him a little until he found an explanation and rediscovered the joys of Eminem. He rather liked the Stans, who obligingly created pages dedicated to cataloguing Shane’s every public move. A mention of seeing him out for lunch with his parents. A photo from a grocery store in Montreal: Shane in sweatpants and a beanie, looking unfairly good buying oranges.
Ilya saved the picture to his phone then deleted it immediately, heart hammering.
He fell completely down the rabbit hole one sleepless night at 3 AM, the blue light of his phone etching lines into the darkness of his bedroom until he landed on a six-week-old Instagram post from a Metros party. In the corner of a boozy group shot full of laughing men was Hollander. He wasn’t smiling. He was looking away from the camera, out a window, his expression unguarded and utterly, profoundly lonely.
Ilya’s breath caught. He knew that look. He wore it himself sometimes in the mirror when no one was watching.
He screenshot the photo. This time, he didn’t delete it.
By the time October rolled into November, Ilya knew Hollander’s schedule better than his own rehab plan. Knew when Montreal had a day off, could guess which coffee shop he might hit near his apartment. Ilya watched a grainy cellphone video of him signing autographs for kids outside the practice rink, his smile warm and genuine in a way it never was for reporters. A hot, ugly coil of jealousy tightened in Ilya’s gut. He should be smiling for me.
It wasn’t just desire any more - but then, Ilya had known that. Had known he shouldn’t have fed it until it grew into something hungrier, more invasive. He’d watch a game now and when Hollander scored, a fierce, proprietary pride would swell in his chest, followed immediately by a vicious wave of frustration because that brilliance was on display for millions, not locked away for him alone.
He sat in his silent condo, leg propped up, and cycled through the tabs on his browser: game footage, interview clips, social media deep dives. His knee ached dully. The boredom was gone, replaced by a constant, thrumming vigilance. A need to know, to see, to have.
He didn’t name it. If he named it, it would be real.