Chapter Text
The elevator wall feels too cold against his forehead. His insides are freezing by the second, and his clothes stick to his person, helped by the thin sheen of glossy sweat covering his trembling body.
It almost feels as though Shane is an unwilling observer of his own body. Even when he twists his palms upwards, he doesn't recognise those hands.
And his clothes, they twist and glide on his skin like a thousand ants running amok. He can feel them on his quads, his calves, his front, even his back.
And all at once, it feels too much. It feels like Shane needs to strip naked and stand on a freezing rooftop until he can't even feel the way his toes ache with the sensation of socks on his feet.
And ‐
Rozanov hadn't even kissed him.
Which is an irrational thought. Shane knows this; he is nothing if not pragmatic. But something is very wrong with him, so he allows it to fester in his gut. His heart races in his chest, the knots in his stomach grow tighter and tighter every second, his mouth is too dry and there is a lump in his throat.
There is no other sanitised way to put it; he feels like shit.
But Rozanov had fucked him, made him cum so hard he had yelled in that hotel room. And Shane knows the score, that they're fuckbuddies, that this is some friends with benefits type of situation.
Rivals with benefits his brain supplies.
He thinks it's because Rozanov had been so gentle the first time. All - is this okay? This? Still?
That he hadn't expected the detached coldness.
But he should have known. That people are only ever kind when they want something, that when they have it, the kindness disappears. Maybe Rozanov had figured out that Shane would do anything for him.
It was his fault then. For allowing that to happen.
He just hadn't expected Ilya to be so cruel.
Hadn't expected Rozanov to take his body and then discard him, used and forever changed.
But now in this hot and cold at once elevator it made all the sense in the world. That all the boring, beige words tumbling out of him wasn't what Rozanov wanted. Wasn't want anyone would ever want. The personality he paraded around wasn't a personality at all; it was just hockey stats disguised as something interesting. The boys in the locker room call the statheads nerds - his brain supplies. That would have never been enough for Rozanov to ask him to stay.
He took what he wanted from Shane's body and sent him on his merry way. How can Shane be upset about that? He had spent years studying the way normal people worked and failed to mimic them, let alone understand them.
"Hollander?" He lifts his head from the elevator wall.
Almost immediately regrets it when it feels as though he's free falling off a cliff's edge. He thinks maybe the sensation of cool metal against his forehead had grounded him a bit. Like how he would hold onto a candy wrapper in childhood, too unsure to discard it. Only to send his body into overdrive when throwing it in the trashcan hours later.
"Shane?" Not Rozanov his brain tells him. Not Rozanov with this much concern in his voice.
"Hollander!" the voice is sharper now, too deep, almost like a growl.
It makes Shane flinch right back into the elevator wall, banging his head with a light thud that reverberates in his head.
There's muffled curses from behind him.
"Hunter?"
What the fuck.
He hadn't even heard the elevator door open, hadn't heard the light thud of Scott Hunter's dress shoes.
"Did Rozanov do this to you?" there's an ire in his voice that Shane has never heard used to defend him.
What does Scott Hunter know about him and Ilya Rozanov?
Did he make it too obvious? Did his eyes sparkle too bright when he glared at Rozanov's snarky smirk? Was there too much affection to the lilt of his voice when he talked about how "he's an asshole?" Could Scott Hunter see it in his eyes that he would ruin himself for Ilya Rozanov? Or—
1221
He hears it in Rozanov's Russian accent, so sure and comfortable with what it all means. And—
Ilya fucking Rozanov.
Immediately he needs to set the record straight, but his throat is closing up.
It's me.
It's my fault.
I need too much. Want.
And—
I promise I'm not a faggot.
"It's okay" Scott Hunter's voice goes softer again.
How can he know that? Nothing will ever be okay. Not if Scott Hunter knows.
Because that is how it goes. Scott Hunter tells his locker room - because that's where it always begins. And then it (always) finds a way to messily spill onto the ice until everyone in the league knows. Shane has been in enough highschool and OHL locker rooms to know that when your teammates can't share showers with you because they don't want to be contaminated, you have to leave. And it kills him on the inside that in the end he'll never be safe on the ice again.
"Just..." Scott Hunter pauses and sighs, exhales a deep breath.
"What do you need" Ilya.
Shane still has his back to Scott Hunter. Doesn't think he can face it all. Thinks that if he stayed like this forever, nothing would ever change and he could grow wrinkly and grey with all the good parts of hockey.
"Shane, if this is what I think it is-" he pauses again.
Shane perks up.
Scott Hunter apparently knows what's wrong with him.
"You probably need Rozanov"
What the fuck Scott Hunter.
"Leave me alone" it comes out too harsh, too jagged, too much like he's back in highschool and everything makes him sick to his stomach.
"Rozanov isn't cruel" and Scott Hunter says it with great difficulty, the words come out all gnashed and gnarly.
Shane thinks he knows this.
Thinks that Ilya Rozanov wouldn't do this all intentionally but Shane always thinks that people are kind. Are better than the stories he sees on the news or the way they act in sweaty locker rooms. Shane doesn't think he knows much about the world and the people in it at all.
"Tell me his room number" Shane shakes his head.
"Hollander - Shane - you need him to get you out of this" with this Scott Hunter puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. Any other day Shane would shrug the hand off his shoulder but today it grounds him. Makes him feel like his feet are on the ground and he isn't floating away to some dark corner of his mind.
And -
Does Rozanov know that he is like this? Did he do it as some sort of punishment? Is this a secret that sits between him and Scott Hunter? Is that how Scott Hunter knows what this is? Do they —
"Do you guys make fun of me" his voice cracks embarrassingly but his chest feels icy cold. It hits him too suddenly that he doesn't know what is wrong with him, all he knows is that his thoughts are no longer his. Shane Hollander of a few hours ago would not think these things nor voice these things. But apparently Scott Hunter knows. Apparently Ilya Rozanov knows enough to fix it.
"No" Scott Hunter says it with the gravitas of a much older man. Like there is no chance that him and Ilya Rozanov have ever even met eyes. And yeah Shane thinks deliriously as his head feels like it's about to split open. There is no world in which Ilya Rozanov talks to Scott Hunter.
"Can I have Rozanov's room number?" he sounds tired, too old. And for a few seconds Shane feels bad.
"712" Shane forgets everything he has learnt. About the news stories and locker room rules and how to protect yourself from guys like this.
He feels it in his chest when Scott Hunter pulls him away from the elevator wall and drags him to what feels like his execution.