Chapter Text
There is a microphone in Shane Hollander’s face.
The buzzing chatter of his excited teammates drowns out the question he is being asked. The slim reporter with spiky brown hair in front of him is staring expectantly.
“Sorry,” Shane says, half yelling to be heard over his teammates. “Would you repeat the question?”
The reporter smiles, leans in, and asks, “This is the first game The Centaurs have won in quite some time, and It’s the first game you have won in the NHL. You scored your first NHL goal tonight! Your fellow teammates assisted in and scored 3 other goals. Hockey players are notoriously superstitious. Would you say you did anything in particular for the routine for this game to change your luck and end your losing streak?”
Without meaning to Shane's eyes drift back to the corner of the locker room. Just like they did before the reporter started asking questions.
After avoiding looking all day, except for on the ice, Shane’s gaze is greedy and longing.
Standing on one of the benches, arms flailing around wildly, surrounded by their teammates, Rozanov is grinning broadly.
For a moment Shane is transfixed by the wet, sweatsoaked, blond curl plastered to Rozanov’s forehead, right above his left eye. Then Rozanov's eyes meet his.
They're green and blue and the pupils are dark and wide.
Shane's lips part. He can, for a split second, feel nothing but remembered caresses. Taste nothing but Rozanov. Hear nothing but Rozanov, precisely, perfectly, exactly, just like he was last night. A strong, longfingered, warm hand against his stomach.
And higher. And lower.
The look in his eyes. The way his knees had looked on the hotel room carpet as he had-
“Mr. Hollander?” the reporter repeats, clearly having tried to get his attention already, and Shane is swiftly pulled back to the present. He breaks eye contact with Rozanov.
His mind is a scattered mess, but he can vaguely recall what the reporter was asking him about. Shane turns to the microphone to answer the question.
Or rather, to do absolutely anything but that.
After the reporters are gone, Shane heads for the showers. He stops at his locker for his toiletries bag.
JJ, a defenceman who was a rookie the year before, appears next to Shane as he checks his toiletries bag to see that he has the correct soap for Tuesdays.
“Hollander!” JJ screams directly into his ear, and Shane hopes distantly that he won't have hearing damage.
“JJ!” Shane replies at a normal volume.
JJ starts cheerfully cussing in French, and congratulating Shane on his goal. Shane has all the right stuff in his bag so he quickly tells JJ, “I’ve got to shower…”, and retreats to the showers for some peace and (relative) quiet.
Rozanov is leaving the showers right when Shane is entering them, just as Shane knew he would.
Shane strips and very pointedly does not think about Rozanov in a towel. Or Rozanov wearing nothing. Or that Shane knew how long Rozanov would be in the showers for. Or anything about Rozanov. He’s about to be naked in the comunal showers for fucks sake; He can’t be thinking about Rozanov at all.
Half way through his shower routine, Shane’s captain enters the mostly empty room and turns on the shower that's two down to Shane’s left.
“Hollander,” Bood grunts in greeting.
“Captain,” Shane replies as he methodically combs his fingers though his conditioner lathered hair.
He’s so focused on not thinking about Rozanov that it takes him a minute to notice that Bood is staring at him thoughtfully.
“Saw that reporter talking to you.” Bood says conversantly. “Must have felt nice. Rookies don’t get that often.”
“Oh,” Shane stutters. “Yeah I guess.”
The remembered horror from the first question he was asked must be visible on his face, because Bood frowns.
“What did they ask you?” Bood questions. “If it was anything inappropriate you should tell me and I'll handle it.”
Shane bluescreens for a moment wondering how Bood knows that a reporter was asking Shane about the gay sex he had when the reporter diden’t even know that thats what was being asked about.
He starts to well and truly panic.
Then Bood, who is rinsing his hair out and not looking at Shane, and therefore can’t see his panic, continues, “I’ve been here a lot longer so I know a thing or two about the shit some people get up to, and I won't let it fly. Anything at all and you come to me, ok?”
Shane nods his understanding at Bood automatically.
Relief crashes over him like a wave.
He is not going to get kicked out of the team and the NHL. His career isn't over. Nobody knows.
If Rozanov can keep his mouth shut nobody ever will.
Shane will talk to Rozanov tonight at the hotel. He will explain it all away and they will pretend like it never happened.
They had been drunk. They had been moping. Shane wasn't gay. They could just forget about it. Everything would go back to normal. It would be like it never happened.
“So,” Bood asks, “what did that reporter ask?”
Shane shrugs with feigned nonchalants, like it was nothing, and turns off his shower. “They just asked something about ending our losing streak, superstition and routine, and did anything in particular in the routine effect the outcome of the game. Blah blah.”
Shane is putting so much effort into acting like nothing happened, that as he leaves he doesn’t notice the frightening gleam that enters Bood’s eyes at his words.
In the locker room after, Rozanov is trying to catch his eye.
Shane steadfastly ignores him, and makes a beeline for his stall. He will talk with Rozanov later. End this nonsense. But not in public. Not surrounded by his teammates. Their teammates.
He absolutely does not want to do any of what they did before again.
He cares about hockey way more than he cares about the strange urge to suck Rozanov off again. Hockey comes first. Hockey determines everything.
It does not matter at all that the first time his team has won since he joined was right after Ilya Rozanov sucked his dick. For sure.
“Nice goal Holzy!” Wyatt Hayes calls out as Shane walks by.
“Yes!” a booming voice calls out. “It was!”
Shane turns a bit red and turns to see why his captain is yelling out praise at him but is shocked into silence.
Bood is completely naked. Bood is completely naked and dripping wet.
Bood is entirely unapologetic about being completely naked and dripping wet.
He doesn’t even seem to have noticed.
Shane’s teammates are staring at Bood in complete disbelief. No, that's not right. The older players are shocked but they also look… excited?
What the hell is up with this team?
Evan Dykstra looks like a kid on christmas. Shane’s right winger has noticed Dykstra too. Troy Barrett turns to Rozanov, who is standing next to him, and mutters loud enough for half the room to hear: “What the everlasting fuck.”
Hayes turns to Dykstra looking equally excited. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” he asks.
“Fuck yeah!” Dykstra says. “Cap has a plan!”
“Yes,” Bood says. “I do.”
Then Bood climbs onto the nearest bench, as if more people need to see him in all his naked glory, and at a better angle to display absolutely everything, too.
“What is happening?” Rozanov asks in his thick sultry accent. Shane does not swoon.
Hayes grins. “Cap gets like this when he knows how we're going to win.”
“By ‘this’” Barrett says, “do you mean naked?”
Hayes doesn’t look phased. “When Cap knows how we're going to win. He tells us. Immediately. And Cap does a lot of good thinking in the shower.”
“I do.” Bood agrees. “And the last time I had a plan in the shower and came out here to share it we made it to the playoffs. You all should know by now that I'm a superstitious man.”
Across the room, Bood turns, and looks directly at Shane.
Icy dread creeps up Shane’s spine.
Oh no.
No. no. no. no. no.
“Yes.” Bood says with a terrifying smile, as if he can hear Shane’s thoughts. “We finally won today. So for every single game… you are going to do everything you did last night exactly the same. Every. Single. Thing.”
Bood wouldn't know, Shane frantically reasons.
But.
Hockey would.
That's how this works.
In Shane’s experience, and also in Bood’s. Bood has been doing this for a very long time. Bood is here to teach Shane how to win. Bood is here to tell them all what to do to get the stanley cup.
So if Bood says to do it all again, then Shane is going to have to do it again.
And what he did last night… was Ilya Rozanov.
Fuckkkkkk.