Chapter Text
Four steps left, four steps right. Four steps left, four steps right. Four steps left, four steps right.
Ilya’s eyes follow Shane. His perfectly consistent rhythm is oddly comforting, even if the excess energy is born out of the same panic that is making every nerve in Ilya’s body coil like a tightening noose. Looking at the beautiful man he is in love with helps too. In almost any other situation, it would be enough to soothe Ilya. Now, he needs a cigarette.
At the sound of the lighter, Shane freezes and glares at him.
“What?” Ilya opens his arms, defiant.
Shane narrows his eyes and resumes his pacing.
“You need to calm down,” Ilya says. “You will wear out your fancy sneakers.”
“Is this a joke to you?!” Shane snaps, turning so sharply that his Rebooks squeak against the warehouse’s cement. “It’s not fucking funny. These guys could fucking ruin everything.”
Ilya clenches his jaw. Shane is scared and he hates that there’s nothing he can do to fix it. Ever since the video had landed in both their inboxes, neither of them had had a good night’s sleep.
It was… bizarre, looking at themselves, so young, so scared, so hungry. When Ilya looks back at himself during that first awards night in Vegas, he remembers the anger and frustration, the jealousy at Shane’s success and his parents’ support, he remembers that kiss as a gamble to regain control by taking what he wants. But what he sees in the video is a kid, scared and in love, who just wants to kiss the boy he likes and forget about the summer waiting for him in Russia. A boy who had been just as desperate and just as scared as Ilya, kissing him back with abandon before fear caught up to them again.
They’ve come so far since then. It wasn’t easy. It took years of pretending not to care, of kissing other people, of lying to themselves and each other. It took a lot of pain, of loss, of painfully building a bridge to communicate with each other and a dinosaur-sponsored miracle for them to find their way. It took a wonderful and exhausting year of long distance calls and stolen weekends, of planning and scheming and building an entire cover-up foundation from the ground up, all for a chance to be together.
They are so close. Ilya just moved to Ottawa two months ago. And now?
Now, they are both scared again. Just like they had been back in that rooftop. This time they are right to be afraid. Standing here, alone, about to meet someone trying to fucking blackmail them is dangerous. And there’s nothing they can do about it. Shane is trembling, like he expects to get fucking jumped and hate-crimmed any second. Ilya hates it. He wants to fix it. He needs to.
“Shane,” he says softly, stepping closer and reaching out to hold his boyfriend by the shoulders. Shane makes a face at the smoke of the cigarette he is still holding in his right hand, but doesn’t pull away. “It will be okay, yes? If this was dangerous homophobes, they would have published the video already, tried to fuck up our careers. That is all they would care about. This isn’t that. These people… they want money, probably. We have it. We will pay and it will go away.”
“So what? We pay them off now and then… what? Ilya, they will hold this over our heads the rest of our careers! What if- what if they don’t want money? What if they want us to- to trade insider info or to throw games for them?!”
Ilya represses the urge to laugh at Shane being more scared about being forced to play dirty hockey than being scammed out of millions of dollars. He knows him well enough to know it’s no laughing matter. Shane would sooner die. And that scares Ilya.
“Then maybe we say no,” he decides. “Fuck them. We decide how far we are willing to go for this and if… if it’s too bad, we walk away. We let them show the world if they want, so they can’t control us.”
Shane’s eyes open wide, his face growing paler. He steps back, away from Ilya. Fear has been replaced by anger.
“Are you fucking- you can’t be serious!” He snaps, pulling at his hair. “Ilya! You literally just got your work visa! What if- what if the League tries to push us out? What if the Centaurs rescind their contract?”
“They won’t,” Ilya says automatically. “They need the star power.”
“Fine, then what if you have an injury and you can’t play anymore?! What if you lose your fucking visa and you get sent back to Russia?” Shane’s voice trembles. “I can’t fucking- I’m not letting them send you back there if the entire world fucking knows. They would- You would be- I can’t. I can’t.”
Oh.
It’s been over a year of dating, of knowing he is loved by Shane Hollander, but it still catches him by surprise.
Ilya drops the cigarette and puts it out with his foot.
“Okay,” he steps forward again, rubbing Shane’s shoulders. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“We’ll do what they want,” Shane says, glaring at a distant point somewhere past Ilya’s chest. His face is set in full Metros captain mode. “We’ll just do it and figure it out. Together. It’ll be fine.” Shane looks up and meets Ilya’s eyes, firm. “It’ll be fine,” he repeats, like he is reassuring Ilya.
“It will be,” Ilya says softly.
He will make fucking sure of it.
About twenty minutes later, the hangar doors open and four people walk in, lined up side by side. They are right on time (Shane insisted on being early, as if one could make a good impression on blackmailers). The daylight behind them makes it hard to make out their faces at first, but Ilya analyses their silhouettes carefully. Three men, one woman.
One of the men can definitely fight, not only is he built like an enforcer but he moves like… like Ilya’s father would when he was younger. Military, maybe? The other two look different, brainy types. Even if one of them is strong, he is clearly a gym rat type, not an athlete and definitely not a fighter. The woman is maybe the hardest to read. She is tiny, but she moves like she knows she’s dangerous. All four of them have an unnerving quality to them, confident and efficient.
If Ilya wasn’t a taken man, he’d be quite turned on by all of them right now. He might even be a little, but he’s only horny of the body… not of the heart. That one belongs to the man at his side, Shane —who has gone still to an almost molecular level.
“Mister Hollander, Mister Rozanov,” the man wearing a suit steps forward, smiling affably, as if this was just a regular business meeting. “I hope we didn’t have you waiting long.”
He offers a hand for Ilya to shake. Ilya stares at it with abject distaste. Undeterred, the man offers the hand to Shane who, polite as ever, moves to shake it until Ilya nudges him. Shane drops his hand, clearing his throat. The man in the suit, without missing a beat, claps his hands together and barrels on:
“Alright! Straight to business then. I’m sorry that we had to ask you to come here under this… unfortunate circumstances.”
“You mean threatening us,” Shane deadpans.
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it that. Let’s just say, we have found a way we can all help each other,” the man’s good nature is aggressively relentless. And fake. Ilya can tell immediately it’s a front. But a front for what?
“Okay, we help you get more rich. Whatever,” Ilya drawls, trying to sound bored and irritated rather than scared. “Just name your number and be done with it.”
“Oh, there is no number,” the man shrugs. “We don’t need money from you. We want your… help with something.”
Next to Ilya, Shane tenses and shoots him a look. There’s so much fear there, it pisses Ilya off. How fucking dare these people put Shane Hollander in this position? Don’t they know what it will do to him?
They must know, because the man laughs and reaches out a hand like he means to pat Shane’s arm as he says, “Relax, Mister Hollander.”
Ilya moves before he can even think about it, intercepting the man’s hand at the wrist before it can touch Shane. Next to him, the enforcer takes half a step forward, his body telegraphing a quiet warning. Everyone holds their breath, except for the gym rat, a tall handsome black man who rolls his eyes and says:
“For god’s sake, Nate, just tell them before this turns into a brawl. This warehouse ain’t big enough for all this macho testosterone bullshit.”
“I wanted to see the hockey guys fight,” the tiny blonde woman hisses in a badly concealed whisper. “It’s the second best part about it. Next to the foot knives.”
“Skates, Parker, they are called skates,” the enforcer groans, like they’ve had this conversation a thousand times.
Shane’s fear has morphed into clear confusion. He looks to Ilya, as he often does, for answers. Ilya has none this time.
“Let go, Rozanov,” the enforcer says then, voice firm but… not entirely aggressive. Like he’s a referee on the ice rather than a player. “Please.”
“Ilya,” Shane whispers.
He lets go. The man, Nate, fixes his suit’s sleeve casually.
“Thank you. Sorry about that. Right, straight to business, then. Mister Rozanov, Mister Hollander, you are going to help us get into next week’s Laskin Charity Gala.”
Ilya blinks. They were invited to the Gala a month ago, as founders of the newly launched Irina Foundation. Shane and Yuna had agreed that going was a great opportunity to chat up potential investors and to establish themselves as part of the Canadian philanthropic community. More importantly for their plan, though, it would be one of the first events they attended together… as business partners. Ilya is mostly excited about that part, or was at least. Now they need to sneak people into the event?!
“And then,” Nate adds, “you are going to help us steal something.”
Shane’s eyes open wide and big, shock breaking through the layers of fear as he snaps: “Are you fucking kidding me?!”