Chapter Text
It started with a great idea.
As great an idea as has ever sprung up among three Major League Hockey rookies after midnight the night before a rivalry game, over a fifth of vodka they'd purchased (with equal parts cash and charm) from the pretty hotel bartender.
Okay, so it was kind of a terrible idea.
It was an idea, is the point.
Later, when the three are nursing sore backsides and suffering relentless locker-room chirps from the older players, every one of them will deny being the instigator.
Mikey insists that it was Jack’s idea.
Jack claims Corey was the first to float it.
And Corey would swear on a stack of bibles that Mike was the brains behind the operation.
But regardless, this collective display of genius required just a few illicit activities:
- Sneaking out of the hotel after curfew, late enough that they could reasonably assume that their destination would be deserted.
- Breaking into the rival team’s locker room (this, Jack had insisted, could easily be accomplished using some combination of pocket tools and cartoon logic).
- Using an obscene quantity of athletic tape to bind equipment, uniforms, shoes, sticks, pucks, and anything in sight into an adhesive nightmare.
They set out on this ill-fated journey with the best of intentions. They even decided to walk the mile and a half to the facility, because they’d heard stories of exactly how their captain, Ilya Rozanov, dealt with players who drove under the influence, and they wanted no part of that, thank you very much.
And it was mostly for him that they were doing this. Their captain famously and vocally despised the Montreal Metros, the team their Raiders would face tomorrow night. More than that, Ilya hated the Metros’ captain, Shane Hollander. So it was him they had their sights set on, the League darling whose reputation for near-perfection on the ice and mild-mannered (“boring,” according to Ilya) nice-guy personality made him an easy target.
Ilya would be so proud.
He’d have to pretend that he didn’t approve, Mike told the others wisely, but that was just optics. He would be proud of his boys for their initiative.
So, as it turned out, the Metros practice facility wasn’t as deserted as they might have hoped. And Jack’s lock-picking skills? Left something to be desired.
This is how the three Raiders rookies found themselves bickering animatedly (drunkenly) under an orange-hued streetlamp in the not-quite-empty parking lot at one in the morning.
Mike had broken Jack’s pocket multi-tool during the unsuccessful B&E attempt, and Jack was disproportionately pissed about it.
Corey was starting to feel the effects of too much vodka and too much excitement on an empty stomach and wanted to get an Uber to take them the mile and a half back to the hotel.
And Mike? Well, he was just disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to present their captain with the ultimate show of loyalty.
But then Jack made a very interesting observation.
“Hey, isn’t that Hollander’s car over there?”
The others glanced at the one car that was parked back here, close to the door. Shiny, black, practical-looking. Like it would be good in the snow.
The rookies looked at each other, a brilliant, terrible idea forming slowly between them, overshadowing the broken pocket tool and the unsettled stomach.
They would argue later, too, over which one of them was the first to head toward the car, and who actually made the initial move as they began wrapping every square inch of Montreal Metros Captain Shane Hollander’s beloved vehicle in athletic tape.
It was almost half done when they ran out of tape. Turns out that what is viewed as an “obscene” amount by three tipsy 19-year-olds isn’t enough to fully encase an entire mid-size SUV. But they covered a fair amount of real estate, including most of the front end and a continuous, multi-layered loop that journeyed from the driver’s side-view mirror around the back and up the other side to wrap the whole windshield in wide swaths of tape. All told, the end result looked like a vehicle halfheartedly cosplaying as a mummy.
The rookies were satisfied enough that they stood back to admire their work for a bit, Corey whipping out his phone to take photos.
“Oh my god, guys, this is so much better than the equipment thing! This shit’s gonna be such a pain in the ass to get off,” Jack said.
“It might even take some paint off,” Corey added.
“Yeah, at the very least it’ll be sticky for a long time,” Jack said. “That asshole deserves it.”
Mike was standing back from his friends a bit, chewing thoughtfully at his bottom lip. There were several thoughts going through his mind, all with an ominous undertone that had his senses on full alert:
- Why was Hollander’s car here at this hour? And if his car was here, did that mean he was here?
- Would sticky tape residue be classified as a nuisance, or were they venturing into property-damage territory here?
- While it was common knowledge that Ilya hated Hollander, would his satisfaction over the rookies’ prank outweigh the rules they’d broken to get it done?
They should leave, Mike decided as he watched Corey lie down on the pavement to capture a dramatic ground-level angle of the half-mummified vehicle.
He opened his mouth to make that announcement, but was interrupted by a shout of “HEY!” coming from the direction of the practice rink’s back door.
And yes, as luck would have it, the shouter was none other than Shane. Fucking. Hollander.
Jack reacted first, and he turned to run. Unfortunately for him, he failed to dodge Corey, whose entire six-foot-three-inch frame was still sprawled belly-down on the ground at Jack’s feet. Jack went down hard on top of him, and there was a brief, Three Stooges-grade scuffle as the rookies shoved at one another in a panicky attempt to disentangle themselves.
Mike would have loved a moment to appreciate the objective hilarity, but he was too busy being frozen to the spot as Shane stormed toward them with fire in his eyes.
“Stay right where you are, assholes! Nobody move!” Shane commanded, and while it wasn’t their captain’s voice, it was a Captain’s Voice, one that radiated authority and rank and a built-in expectation of obedience, and all three of the Raiders rookies found themselves responding to it instinctively.
And then things got exponentially worse.
Because the shadowy figure that had been casually sauntering out of the facility behind Shane suddenly appeared in a pool of light next to him, and Mike’s ass tried to crawl up into his body.
“Hello, boys,” said Ilya Rozanov. “You will have to forgive me; I did not know how badly you all needed a spanking.”
“My fucking car!” Shane railed, picking at the corner of a piece of tape plastered to his passenger door and pulling it back to check the damage. Mike felt his stomach drop when he heard the harsh peeling sound that made it clear the tape was doing a damn good job. Shane’s fiery glare passed over the rookies, first Mike, then the tangled bodies of Corey and Jack on the ground, all of them frozen in abject terror. “What the hell did you do, you little shits?” Then he spun to fix his glare on Ilya, whose expression was terrifyingly unreadable. “Rozanov, these are yours?”
“Mm, is a good question. They look like mine. But I know my boys would not be stupid enough to do something like this.”
Corey had managed to extricate himself from the graceless pile of pavement-rookie and chose this moment to stand up and take a stab at defusing the situation.
“Captain Ilya, this wasn’t what we were trying to do at all.”
Ilya’s eyebrow shot up as he fixed the rookie with a look that would have made Mike wet his pants on the spot. “Go on,” he said in a deadly tone that Corey was too nervous or tipsy or stupid to clock.
“We were going to break in and tape up all their shit in the locker room. You know, just to mess with them and get in their heads before the game tomorrow. But then Jack's stupid pocket screwdriver didn’t work—”
“Miller broke it, that’s why!”
“Jesus, dude, I told you I’ll buy you another one, the thing was a piece of shit and it was already bent when you handed it to me,” Mike snapped.
Jack took up the narrative thread: “The point is, we couldn’t get in...but then we saw the car and someone said it was Hollander’s—”
“You! You said it was Hollander’s, you asshole!” Corey yelled.
“And then we ... we ran out of ... tape.” Jack let his sentence trail off into oblivion as it somehow, miraculously, seemed to dawn on him that nothing they had just said helped their case. At all.
Therefore, in a burst of optimism, Corey decided to add a point in their favor:
“We walked here from the hotel. We know how you feel about drinking and driving,” he said proudly.
Ilya folded his arms across his chest and Jesus Christ, Mike didn’t remember his biceps being quite that thick and well-defined, like he’d been carved from fucking marble or something. “You were drinking,” the captain said flatly, no question in the question. Mike wanted to punch Corey.
Another harsh shhhhhick hit the air as Shane removed another strip of tape from his car. Everyone flinched.
“Hollander, stop,” Ilya said. “They did this, they will undo this.”
Shane squinted at Ilya in annoyance. “I don’t want them to rip it all off and take half the paint with it.”
“Oh, no, they will be very careful, I promise,” Ilya assured, eyes moving from one rookie to the next. “But first, we go inside. You have team paddle, I assume?”
“Sure do,” Shane said.
“Then lead the way. Follow Hollander, boys.”
With Shane in front and Ilya bringing up the rear, prepared to quickly dispatch any rookie who decided to go rogue, the little group marched single-file toward their doom.
Mike was unlucky enough to be the last rookie in the lineup, so he was walking right in front of Ilya. He couldn’t have explained for the life of him why he felt the sudden need to plead his own case, but he did. So he slowed down enough to fall in step with his captain, side by side. Ilya cut his eyes over but otherwise didn’t respond. Mike took that as his cue to speak.
“Listen, Ilya, I know we kinda fucked up this prank. But we wanted to do something to show you we understand how important it is that we win this game. We did it for you.”
Ilya cut his eyes over to the kid who was staring at him with open, childish earnestness. “For me.”
Mike nodded hopefully.
“You broke the rules, broke the law, probably caused damage to the property of another team’s captain, and you think this is how you show me you are team player? I have not taught you yet. Tonight you will start to learn, all three of you, exactly what I expect from my players, and what happens when you do not deliver.”
“But you weren’t serious about ... you know?” Mike couldn’t bring him to say the word Ilya had used.
He felt a momentary surge of relief when his captain threw his head back and laughed, but in the next breath, he fixed Mike with a glare so stern it curdled his stomach and said, “About what, spanking you? Completely serious.”
“That’s like ... barbaric. That’s just old locker room legends from my grandpa’s hockey days. It’s not something that people actually do.”
Instead of answering, Ilya glanced toward the others. Hollander was busy unlocking the facility door as the two remaining Raiders rookies fidgeted nervously behind him. “Hey, Hollander!” Ilya called. “I have one who needs demonstration. You take those two and get started, yes? I will be there in a minute.”
Mike’s stomach dropped like he was on a roller coaster. “I-I don’t need a demonstration!” he protested, backing away from his captain, who suddenly looked really, really intimidating despite the slight smirk on his lips.
“I would not run if I were you, Michael. This never ends well for anyone’s ass.”
Mike gulped. “I get it, Ilya! I mean, point taken, I was just saying...”
“You were just telling me something you falsely believe I cannot do. I am going to show you that I can, and I will, and then Hollander will, and then you will understand.”
“Oh my god.”
“Bend over.”
“What??”
“What, you don’t speak English now? I said bend over.” When Mike only continued staring at him, slack-jawed, Ilya reached out and tugged him forward by the wrist before tucking him firmly underneath his left arm. With his right hand, he laid down a blazing series of five heavy smacks, all on the same cheek, before standing Mike up again. “Did you feel that, Michael?”
At Mike’s stunned nod, Ilya continued, “Was just a mild sample. Inside, we will do real thing. Real paddle, bare bottom, much harder than what I just gave you. Hard enough that you will remember it and you will learn from it, and then maybe if you are smarter than your friends in there, you will not need another for quite a while. What do you say?”
“Um. I. Shit, Ilya.”
“Ah-ah. When I am about to turn your bottom red you will call me Sir or Captain. Is this clear?”
Mike blinked back tears that had filled his eyes when the sting first settled into his ass cheek. “Yes. Yes sir. It’s clear.”
“Come then. Let’s join your friends and make sure Shane Hollander isn’t killing them.”
Mike’s legs were shaking as he followed Captain Spanks-a-Lot down the darkened hall to the Metros locker room. He winced against the harsh fluorescent light panels from above, which hummed ominously.
Sitting on the bench that ran the length of the room between two rows of lockers were Corey and Jack, both looking red-faced and pissed off. They were pointedly not looking at the rival captain who was standing over them, clearly in the middle of telling them off, gesturing with the horrifying object in his hand.
It was a long, thick wooden paddle with holes drilled into it. It radiated pure evil and promised pronounced posterior pain. Mike couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
“Did they give you any trouble?” Ilya asked Hollander, looking threateningly at the two on the bench.
Shane raised an eyebrow. “You mean aside from fucking up my car? They had a few choice words for me, but I think we got that sorted out, didn’t we boys?”
Corey and Jack mumbled unintelligibly.
“Speak up when a captain speaks to you,” Ilya scolded.
The “Yes, sir” was astonishingly well synchronized for two still-drunk overgrown children who were barely managing to contain their anxiety over the current predicament.
Mike muttered something under his breath. He didn’t mean to, honestly. Sometimes, his mouth worked on a completely separate system than his brain, forming words that, if his brain failed to be quick enough to intervene, emerged under the worst possible conditions. Like this one.
He could feel four sets of eyes on him now, two wide with disbelief, one annoyed and a little intrigued. The fourth, just deadly.
“Michael,” Ilya said slowly. “Repeat what you just said.”
Mike briefly weighed his chances of making a run for it. He would never make it, but it gave him a moment to escape this moment. “I’d rather not,” he said as politely as he could.
Ilya’s hand flashed out and popped the back of his head. “Was not a request. What. Did. You. Say?”
Mike shifted on his feet, panic welling in his chest. “I said he’s not our captain.”
“Ah, that’s what I thought you said. And you are right, this is true.” Ilya’s tone was neutral enough to give Mike a spark of hope. But then he continued. “But I am your captain, and I have no tolerance for disrespect. So I take your comment as offer to go first.”
“How do you want to handle this, Roz?” Hollander asked, tossing the paddle to Ilya, who caught it deftly in one hand with barely a glance.
“I think you get honors,” Ilya said, bouncing the Metros paddle in his hand to test its weight and feel before slicing a little practice swing through the air that made all three rookies wince. “Is only fair, since it was your car they fucked with.”
“Sounds fair,” Shane agreed.
Mike wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. His left ass cheek still prickled unpleasantly from the mild preview he'd received outside, and that had only been Ilya’s hand over Mike’s athletic shorts, with boxers underneath. If his stomach hadn’t been knotted so hard from nerves, he was pretty sure he could puke right now. Would they still paddle him if he did? Glancing up at the stern eyes and set jaws of the two hockey legends standing over them, Mike knew for a fact that they would.
“The floor is yours then, Hollander,” Ilya said, gesturing dramatically with a bow and a flourish. “I defer to you.”
Hollander raised an eyebrow at their captain, and Mike saw a small smile tugging at his lips as he looked back at Ilya. Mike noticed that their own captain was wearing his trademark smirk, his blue-green eyes glinting in a way that was unfamiliar. Great, they’re enjoying this, Mike thought. We’re about to get our asses beaten by two fucking sadists.
Hollander used the paddle to point at Corey and Jack. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you three are first-timers. Pretty sure we wouldn’t be here if Ilya—Rozanov—had dealt with you guys before, am I right?”
There was a general murmur of assent.
“Okay, well then I’m going to have a little mercy on you, not because you deserve it, but because I want you to remember that I could have made this worse for you and I chose not to. So you two will stand in the corner, nose to the wall, while I handle the other. Then you’ll swap out until everyone has had their turn.”
“Sorry, sir, but what’s the mercy part?” Jack asked, and it was clear he wasn’t being sassy, just honestly confused.
Hollander and Rozanov exchanged an amused glance.
“You would rather have an audience, then?” Ilya answered for Shane.
Jack shook his head hard.
“Yes. So this is mercy. Now do what you were told.”
Jack and Corey stood up and scrambled over to follow their instruction. There was a momentary scuffle as they got into place, followed by a short stretch of loaded silence before Shane’s carefully controlled voice said, “Separate corners, guys.” If Mike didn’t know better, he would think the Metros captain was fighting laughter.
“Okay, now you. What’s your name?”
Mike looked pleadingly to Ilya, who simply nodded toward Shane in a silent command.
“Mike. Mike Miller.” He wished his voice hadn’t cracked.
“Hi Mike. I’m Shane Hollander. That’s my car out there, and you guys did a number on it. I don’t appreciate that. It’s not just bad sportsmanship. It can actually get your whole team in trouble, did you know that?”
Mike shook his head, but at Ilya’s pointed throat clearing, he added, “No, I didn’t know that.”
“I could press charges for vandalism,” Shane added. “I’m not going to, because I have a certain level of ... respect ... for your captain here. And I know he runs a tight ship and I know nothing like this will ever happen again, right?”
“Right, no, never again, sir.”
“Okay, but unfortunately, we do still have to even the score here. So what’s going to happen is this. You’re going to drop your pants, underwear too, and brace your hands on this bench. I’m going to give each of you several—”
“Ten,” Ilya said firmly.
“Ten swats with the paddle,” Hollander agreed. “Then you can swap with one of your buddies in the corner. Do you understand?”
Mike was horrified to feel tears welling in his eyes. “I ... I don’t ...” He fixed his helpless gaze on Ilya. “I don’t want to. I don’t think I can...”
His captain approached him and he flinched, expecting a swat. Instead, Ilya put a hand around the back of Mike’s neck and pulled him close, resting their foreheads together. He spoke quietly but firmly, words meant for only Mike to hear. “Listen to me, Rookie. You fucked up,” he said. “I know this is scary and I know that you’re sorry. I would even believe that you probably got dragged into this mess by one of the other dum-dums over there. Because you are good kid, Michael. But you have earned this punishment and it is going to happen. This is not a question. So you can cooperate with Hollander and let him give you what you’ve earned, or this can become much worse for you. Is your choice.”
He squeezed Mike’s neck encouragingly, and Mike nodded before being released. Taking a deep, shaky breath, he walked the few paces over to where Hollander was waiting at the bench, Satan’s own paddle in hand. He reached for the elastic waistband of his shorts with trembling fingers, shooting a questioning look toward Hollander, who gave him a small, sympathetic smile and nod.
Fuck my life, Mike thought bitterly. This was going to suck, but it's not like he was unaccustomed to physical pain. Surely he could take ten hits with a stupid piece of wood. On his bare ass. Delivered by a professional athlete. Mike cast one more pleading glance toward his captain (Ilya’s only response was a raised eyebrow) before giving in, pulling his shorts and boxer briefs down past his buttocks and leaning over to rest his palms on the cold wood of the bench. And then as if things couldn’t get more humiliating, Hollander began to arrange him. Tapping at his feet to get Mike to widen his stance, pressing down on his back to force him lower and make his butt stick out more as a safer target. And finally, pulling his shorts further down to expose an expanse of thighs beneath his bare ass.
“Okay, Mike, let’s do this,” Hollander said as if the man were laboring under some kind of delusion that this is a thing they were doing together. Mike squeezed his eyes shut tightly as the paddle tapped at his right cheek as if marking its target before rearing back in a rush of displaced air. A second later, it struck the fleshiest part of his butt with a breathtaking crack.
“Oh! Shit! Ow!” Without meaning to, Mike moved to stand up. Because no, please and thank you, he would not be doing that nine more times.
“Be still,” Ilya’s voice commanded from somewhere above him, at the same time as Hollander’s restraining palm pressed him back down into position.
The next swat caught him off guard and stole his words, so only a choked sob came out of his mouth.
In the tense silence before the third, Mike heard some sort of commotion from the corners (two of them, now) where his fellow rookies were corralled. Ilya’s voice cracked like a whip: “If I have to come over there, you will get preview before Hollander deals with you. Settle.”
As if recalibrating after the brief distraction, the paddle tapped against Mike’s butt again, and his whimper was abruptly cut off when the blow landed. By the fifth strike, he was crying openly and beyond shame, fingers pressed painfully into the bench. His legs trembled hard with the effort to stay in place.
Six! There was a raging inferno where his ass used to be.
Seven! He would never sit down again.
Eight! He hated alcohol, and pranks, and athletic tape, and stupid ideas.
Nine! He hated Corey and Jack.
Ten! He hated Shane Hollander.
And, right now, his ass blazing and his dignity in tatters on the floor, he hated himself most of all.
“You’re done, buddy,” Hollander said quietly, after a long streatch of seconds had passed and Mike didn't move. “Ilya?”
“Come here, Michael, stand up.” His captain’s voice wasn’t soft, exactly, but his hands were gentle as he guided Mike upright and efficiently helped him fix his clothing. Then he tugged Mike against his solid chest and wrapped two strong arms around him, one hand tangling in the hair at the back of Mike’s head as the rookie burrowed his face into his captain’s collarbone. “Is okay, you are all right. Just breathe now, malysh.”
“I’m sorry, Cap,” Mike managed after a minute spent getting himself under some semblance of control. “Hollander. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Shane said. “Just let this be your last prank, okay?”
“Oh it will be,” Ilya answered confidently on Mike’s behalf. Suddenly all business again, he turned Mike by the shoulders and directed him toward the corner. “Now, go take Jackson’s place. Jackson, come. Is your turn.”
“Aw, Cap.”
“Don’t aw Cap me. Michael took his licks like a man. You are going to whine like toddler before paddling even starts?”
“Like a man? Look at him, he's a mess!” Jack muttered bitterly as he switched places with his teammate.
Mike turned around and opened his mouth to protest, but Ilya shot him a look that had him quickly seeking the safety of Jack’s corner. Then there was the unmistakable sound of an open hand striking a clothed butt sharply five times, followed by a wounded “Ouch, why?”
“When Hollander finishes with you, then you tell me what you think of how others held up through their punishment. Until then, you keep your mouth shut. Pants down and over bench, now.”
As it happened, Jack and Corey both took their punishments with the same level of stoicism as Mike had done. Which is to say, none at all.
By the end of it all they were sore, sorry, and ready to go back to the hotel and fall into bed (on their stomachs). When Corey voiced this desire, Ilya shook his head. “We’re not finished here, boys,” he said, to their utter horror. “First you will go outside and remove every piece of tape from Hollander’s car. You will do this carefully and completely. I want to see no trace left behind, are we clear?” When the rookies only grumbled a response, Ilya’s voice hardened. “I said ARE WE CLEAR.”
“Yes, Cap!” they chorused.
“Good. Because if it is not done to my standards—not Hollander’s, because his standards of perfection are tragically low, I’m afraid—then we will begin round two of spankings and you will regret not being more thorough.”
“Sounds fair to me, except for the part about my standards.” There was a glint of amusement in Hollander’s eyes that Mike registered but didn’t understand. And then Hollander held the paddle out to Ilya, who shook his head and flapped a dismissive hand at it.
“Please. I do not have need for weak Metros paddle to administer discipline. My hand is more than enough.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh yes, very much so,” Ilya insisted, then hit Hollander with his infamous smirk. “What? You want demonstration?”
The rookies were still too preoccupied with their aching backsides and the task ahead of them to notice that Hollander’s cheeks flushed bright pink at that. “All right!” he said, clapping his hands and speaking with the exaggerated enthusiasm of someone suddenly desperate for a subject change. “Let’s get on with this, I’d like to get home and rest up so I can enjoy beating your asses in a totally different way tomorrow.”
Ilya’s smirk morphed into a genuine smile. “Okay, Hollander. We will see who is in for spanking on the ice.”
As Shane’s mouth fell open and his blush deepened to scarlet, Ilya triumphantly turned to herd his little band of sore-assed troublemakers back out to the parking lot, where they would spend the next two hours undoing every bit of evidence of their crime.
Later, after Mike the rookie isn’t a rookie anymore and life has thrown him a curveball or two, Shane will walk into the home he shares with the love of his life and come face to face with that kid again, a little worse for wear and a lot trying to pretend he doesn’t remember the circumstances of their first meeting—and desperate to believe that Shane doesn’t, either. So Shane sticks his hand out to shake and says, “Hi, I’m Shane Hollander,” and the kid instantly relaxes as he chirps a little, just enough to earn a light scolding from Ilya, and Shane can’t help but smile.