Chapter Text
A welcoming party.
Shane Hollander stared at the closed elevator doors in front of him and tried to unclench his jaw. He shook himself, then stabbed at the elevator button. It took a moment for the elevator to descend from the rooftop bar the team had rented out, which gave Shane more time than he wanted to glare at himself in the polished brass doors of the elevator shaft.
He looked… fine. Tired, a little hollow beneath the eyes, shoulders not as muscular as he’d prefer but serviceable. Good enough for meeting the Centaurs, considering how recently his PT had signed off on him returning to his regular exercise schedule. Really, what Shane presented as his regular exercise schedule; the one time he’d explained, in detail, his full training plan to his first PT, the concern in her eyes had left him backpedaling.
Nothing exciting about his dress: a black button-up with the interior tags clipped off, the way he did with all his clothes; the least-faded of his jeans that still had seams worn enough to not monopolize his attention; sensible black tennis shoes from a sponsor.
‘Can you not be bothered to put in a fucking ounce of effort?’
A Rolex on one wrist. There. Effort demanded and given.
The elevator doors opened and he forced himself to step on, turning to keep his line of sight on the closing doors. They'd only made it halfway when a man forced his way between, head down, cursing in some language - Russian, maybe - around the cigarette stub jammed in the corner of his mouth and typing furiously on a phone.
The abruptness of the approach raised Shane’s hackles, and it took everything in him to not shift away as the man’s thumbs flew over the keyboard. The dim lights of the elevator and the man’s focus on his phone made him difficult to identify, to say nothing of the lingering effects of the PCS; dim lighting was easier on his eyes, but it didn’t make some sights easier to decipher.
He should have brought his glasses, but he had always said the glasses made Shane look like an accountant, not a hockey player.
The man spat something beneath his breath, shifting the cigarette to the other side of his mouth. What could have made him so pissed? Was it something Shane needed to be aware of, a landmine he could trip over? His stomach churned, even as he kept his face deadpan with effort, readying himself to move.
“Ah,” said the man as he raised his head from his phone and turned his attention to Shane. Eyes of some indistinguishable color in the dim light of the elevator bored into the side of Shane’s face where he gazed ahead at the button panel. “Shane Hollander.” His accent seemed to curl about the shape of Shane’s name, lend it a weight and shine Shane had never managed in English or French, and Shane ignored the roll of heat in his chest with long practice.
“Ilya Rozanov.” With his head up, it was impossible for anyone to miss the captain of the Centaurs: blond hair, a face chiseled as if from granite, mouth curling into the same smirk Shane had watched a thousand times from his couch while recovering. Russia’s greatest export since Beluga vodka, as Rozanov liked to say; only a year free from the KHL and already putting up stats that matched Shane’s.
“We finally meet,” Rozanov said, and the sheer gravitas with which he delivered the line had Shane struggling to remain straight-faced, the tension in him cracking beneath the weight of Rozanov’s apparent missed calling at being a Bond villain.
‘Wow. How long have you been waiting on that line?’
“Nice job with your assist percentage last season,” Shane said instead. He shifted his weight onto his far hip, tracked the placement of Rozanov’s hands around his phone before daring to add, “Too bad your individual goals didn’t match it.”
Rozanov grinned. His eyes flashed as he turned towards Shane, broad shoulders seeming to take up all the space in the tiny elevator car with the way they filled out his leather jacket. “You followed my stats?”
“I follow everyone’s stats,” Shane said, flat. “Statistical analysis is just as important as reviewing film.”
“Just as boring,” Rozanov dismissed. “You had time for both, no?”
“Nothing but.” The lie rose easy to his tongue. For all that Shane had been forced to sit out last season, he had been busier than ever: coping with migraines, attending PT for the dizziness and OT for the light and sound sensitivity, working out as much as he could get away with, managing, managing, managing-
Managing him, until-
Until.
“You plan to take my job!” said Rozanov, sheer delight in his tone. His eyes flashed with what Shane hoped to be good humor. “Oh, good, I can be free-”
Shane smothered a smile. "I'm perfectly happy wearing an A instead of a C." Suited him better, too; he'd never had Rozanov's skill with people, at least from the press coverage he'd read of Rozanov's tenure as captain.
The elevator slowed to a stop, the doors opening to admit thumping music into the contained space.
Rozanov pocketed his phone and gestured. "After you."
Shane stepped in front, skin prickling with the heat of him, the awareness of Rozanov's gaze, how close he was to Shane's unprotected back.
Rozanov came up beside him, already talking. "You'll have to excuse the rookies, they are idiots. I have told them not to be starstruck, but do they listen?" He lifted a hand, set it to the small of Shane's back to propel him forward.
The touch burned: broad strength, casually possessive, callused fingertips dragging across the cloth of his shirt. Shane was six feet and near ninety kilograms of muscle, and Rozanov touched him and steered him like he expected to be obeyed, and Shane-
He leaned back, caught by the unthinking pull of Rozanov's dominance. Leaned into Rozanov's hand before his brain could even come online and beg for the silence submission promised, body too stupid and touch-starved to know any better. Too easy.
Shame welled hot in his throat. He controlled the instinctual jerk away and covered it with a step forward, allowing Rozanov's hand to slide off his back as he ducked towards the bar entrance.
He glanced back at Rozanov, who looked back, eyes wide. His hand hung at his side, fingers still loosely cupped. Fuck. Had he felt it? Knew what Shane was, conditioned to respond, his body not his own, or worse, had he mistaken it for some inkling of desire on Shane's part?
A cool hand on his thigh, twisting out of his grip, insinuating itself beneath his waistband -
'Come on, don't pretend you don't want this.'
He swallowed down bile. Whatever Rozanov had felt or not felt, Shane would not let himself be caught again. His freedom - his autonomy - was worth more than anything, and he'd learned that price well.
"You coming?" Good. His voice sounded normal, at least.
Rozanov blinked. Shook himself. The easy grin found its way to his face once more, though now tinged with something Shane couldn't read: curiosity, maybe? Confusion?
"Da." He caught up in two long strides and walked at Shane's side into the bar, hands in his pockets.
Music pounded through the floor and into Shane's bones. Flashing lights illuminated a few Centaurs and WAGs already on the dance floor, while around the perimeter, small groups stood and chatted, hands cradling drinks.
The beginnings of a headache tightened its grip around his temples, but it'd be fine. He could manage it. Besides, training camp started tomorrow, and that would be a good excuse for leaving early. He could make a round, introduce himself to the team and management he hadn’t already met, and then escape after an hour or so claiming he needed to rest for the beginning of camp. Perfect plan; no need to draw attention to himself-
That thought died beneath what felt like the weight of a hundred gazes and a roar of "Captain!" and "Rozy!" that nearly drowned out the music.
Rozanov's grin widened as he spread his arms like a king accepting his dues. His ridiculous green silk shirt gaped at his neck, exposing a gold cross glinting in the club lights. "Now the party begins!"
Another cheer went up, and Rozanov turned to Shane. "You want a drink?"
Shane met Rozanov's gaze: guileless, one eyebrow cocked in question. Not a face that screamed danger, but when had Shane ever been right about that? Was the offer even meant in earnest, or was Rozanov picking up on Shane's dynamic, trying to lay claim early?
Fuck. Focus.
"Sure."
He followed Rozanov to the bar, getting waylaid at every turn by players and staff wanting to shake his hand and welcome him to the team, and let himself retreat into his PR mask: polite, approachable, never revealing anything objectionable. It was a role he'd learned to inhabit early, and it fell back over his shoulders with ease. Withdraw. Deflect.
He was two minutes into listening to some assistant nutritionist lecture him about supplements before Rozanov nudged himself between them.
"Sorry, I must steal him from you. Very important we get Hollander watered, otherwise he will dry up and die."
'I'm not a plant' fell down his throat and into the numb void in his chest.
"Of course," said the nutritionist - Layla? Leona? - as she gazed up at Rozanov with metaphorical hearts in her eyes. He seemed to have that effect on people, effortless in a way Shane had never learned to be. "Talk to you later, Shane."
Shane managed a nod and followed Rozanov to the bartender.
"What can I get you two?"
"Vodka, straight," Rozanov said, and before he could attempt to order for Shane or turn to him in question, Shane cut in.
"Ginger ale on ice, please."
"You got it." The bartender turned away to make their drinks, Rozanov taking the pause as a chance to stare at Shane with raised eyebrow.
"You do not drink?"
Control his expression. Ignore the urge to let his shoulders rise up around his ears as he watched the bartender pop open the can and pour it. They were in a bar, rented out for the team's use; no one, no matter how drunk they were, was going to use alcohol as an excuse for touching him and go unremarked upon. It still didn't pause the anxiety ticking through his mind.
"I drink in the off-season."
Rozanov nodded, turned to the bartender as she slid two glasses across the bartop, both filled to the brim with liquid and the large spherical ice cubes Hayden swore made some kind of difference to the drink. Shane had never understood it himself.
Rozanov's massive hand curled about his glass, and his eyes shone dark in the flickering lights of the club, their directness prickling down Shane's spine as he took up his own drink.
"Za tvoyo zdorovye," Rozanov said, words rippling low and sinuous off his tongue in a way that made Shane nearly shiver, that made something unwanted roll over in his stomach, and tapped his glass to Shane's before lifting it to his mouth. His lips touched the rim, pursed there.
Shane jerked his gaze away and mumbled, "Cheers," before taking his own sip. Canada Dry, familiar and comforting as ever, popped across his tongue, dispelled the habitual numbness he existed in with a momentary burst of sensation.
For the next while, more people came and went - introducing themselves to Shane, shaking his hand, cracking jokes with Rozanov that had the cadence of old lines - while Shane watched them all from within himself, folded back behind his mask. Secure. Contained. Nothing to object to, nothing to draw attention. Smiling when the occasion called for it, an arrangement of muscle and skin and teeth that felt utterly foreign to him now.
"See you, Hollander, Roz," one of the rookies - Pelletier, who had an amazing slap shot but needed work on his backhand, from what Shane remembered of his film - said, toasting them both with his beer before fading onto the dance floor.
"They like you," Shane said. "Not all captains do so well with the rookies."
"I," Rozanov said, gesturing grandly with his drink, "am very charming."
'And so humble, too,' parked itself unsaid on the tip of Shane's tongue. The words burned like acid. He swallowed them down with a sip of his ginger ale, letting them fall into silence unheard.
'No one needs your bratty little comments, Shane.'
"You have something to say," said Rozanov. He studied Shane with something nearly a frown tucked into the corner of his mouth.
"Me? Not at all." Shane deflected with another swallow of his drink and kept his gaze on Rozanov's, even as the discomfort of the eye contact twisted and went sour beneath his skin. He allowed himself the momentary break of looking down at his drink for the time he allotted, the time he’d been told was acceptable - one-two-three-four - and looked back up, meeting Rozanov’s gaze again.
'Christ, can't you just act normal?'
Rozanov's brow knit, and Shane fought down the urge to tense, drop his gaze to Rozanov's hands to track their motion. "I make stupid statement - not totally stupid, I am good at people - and I see your eyes flash like you have good chirp, and then-" he flicked his fingers, "-poof, you tuck your chin and go quiet."
Quiet was better. Sometimes. Other times he was too quiet, too drawn inward, and he hadn't liked that either, but when Shane tried to pretend extroversion he performed badly, and-
"I save my chirps for the ice," said Shane. He glanced aside at where Bood and some of the rookies had commandeered a pinball machine and appeared to have somehow broken it by trying to lift and tilt the entire machine. "The team looks to be committing some property damage, Captain."
"Bah, if that's all they break, it's not even a party!" Rozanov took a long swallow of his vodka and dismissed the rookies with only a glance. "In Russia, it is not a party until someone's been tossed into snow."
Shane's throat clicked. 'What, your natural habitat?'
"There, you do it again." Rozanov tilted his head, furrow reappearing in his brow. "What, Hollander, are you scared to have opinions? Endanger your status as hockey's golden boy?"
Shane snorted and ran his fingers back through his hair, thumb snagging on the raised line of scar tissue just behind his temple, carefully hidden by his haircut. Rozanov tracked the movement, body angled closer towards Shane's, and followed Shane’s hand as it joined the other around his glass. "Opinions can be a dangerous thing to have in public, Rozanov."
By the end, they'd been dangerous to hold even in private.
"Okay," Rozanov said, nodding amiably, finally taking his attention off Shane for a second at a cheer from another group of rookies who'd just gotten their meals. "No opinions, no drinking, not even any food-"
"I have a macrobiotic meal plan-"
The words came too fast. He could picture them even now: endless racks of preportioned salmon, rice, broccoli, carefully weighed and measured, control writ large in every bite. He could control his body. Could cut down the remaining areas of fat he'd liked to grab between thumb and forefinger-
"Yes, yes," said Rozanov, waving off Shane's protests, "Fancy macrobiotic meals to power Canada's greatest hockey robot."
Shane's stomach curdled. He breathed in slow through his nose, fixed his gaze on the ice cube melting slow into the green-gold bubbles of the ginger ale.
Too perfect. Too technical. Too clean.
'Sometimes you're not even good at acting human.'
His hands tightened around the glass until they ached, the cold of the condensation shocking a system knocked out of equilibrium, swinging him back towards something approaching steadiness.
"If it gets us the Cup, it doesn't matter," he said, voice near a snap. Fuck - too open in his hurt, too obvious in his weakness. He avoided Rozanov's gaze when the other man's focus flicked back to him, heavy with surprise and curiosity, busied himself with tossing back the rest of his ginger ale and thumping the empty glass onto the bartop. "I'm going to Uber home. See you tomorrow at the rink."
His phone weighed heavy in his hand as he fished it from his pocket. The secure GPS- and RFID-blocking casing and the talismanic ritual of unlocking it in its multiple phases settled the irritation clawing at the back of his neck.
"So many passwords!" Rozanov leaned closer, and the cedar-and-smoke of his cologne filled Shane's senses. "Should we worry?"
"No." Even his home screen was bare: the standard suite of baked-in apps plus the privacy ones he'd installed. Made it easy to find Uber and input the address, the app not even trying to request his GPS location through the many layers of privacy lockdowns. "I'm just private."
"I can see that," Rozanov said, and when Shane looked up, he fought with everything in him not to startle back from Rozanov's presence: dominant, looming, too close-
Rozanov paused. His gaze flickered, expression smoothing out into neutrality. Seemed to clock him - humiliation writhed in Shane's stomach - and leaned back, lifting his glass to his mouth as if he'd intended it all along.
Damn it. Shane was over this, or supposed to be; he wasn't supposed to still be flinching, broadcasting his weakness for everyone to pick apart like eagles quarreling over dead fish on the shore.
"See you tomorrow, Hollander." Rozanov couldn't intend it, but even so his voice tugged at the long-dead part of Shane he'd buried inside himself, persuasive even without knowing he was. How easy it would be to just not think, let someone else take care of him, his submissive side drawing him deeper into the riptide until he saw the danger, too late.
His head throbbed, but he managed a smile and a cordial, "See you."
Shane slipped around the edges of the room, exchanging polite nods with those who caught his eye but moving towards the exit. It was a skill he'd had to hone back in Montreal when he'd been wanted home earlier than he'd planned or than was polite: how to offer excuses and slip away, hurrying back to the condo that had become a prison of his own making.
The elevator doors hissed shut, and Shane finally let himself relax. His shoulders slumped as he leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. Just a tension headache, not the seeping fog of PCS overwhelming him, and easy enough to treat.
Manageable, controllable, like everything in his life.
The elevator came to a stop, and Shane stepped out, already imagining the silence and darkness of his penthouse. The safety in solitude found there, the knowledge that everything in it was his and his alone.
A good night's sleep, and camp in the morning.
Camp, and Rozanov.