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Summary: 3 hockey players in an elevator. Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov and Scott Hunter. And Scott Hunter is so done.
XXX
The elevator came to a stop with a rough jolt, stuck between the twelfth and thirteenth floors. The lights flickered. Darkness for five seconds. Light for five seconds. One…two… three… four… five. Dark, light, dark, light, flicker, flicker. Shane Hollander gripped the handrail, staring at the elevator doors as though they would open if he simply remained polite and patient. In contrast, Ilya Rozanov slammed the palm of his hand against the door and gave a few kicks, swearing at it in both English and Russian.
“Well,” Ilya huffed as he glared up at the ceiling panel. “This is intimate.”
Shane shot him an annoyed look just before the lights flickered off. When they blinked back on again, Ilya was sporting a lazy half-smile, a smirk almost. The one he presented whenever cameras, fans and reporters were around. But there were no cameras, microphones or interviews. But there was Scott Hunter, the Admirals Captain standing by the control panel, using the emergency-call button to speak to the operator.
“About twenty minutes for the maintenance team,” Scott informed the other two.
“Twenty?” Shane repeated, the lights going out again. This time, they did not flicker back on. The emergency lighting kicked in instead, casting the three hockey players in an eerie green glow. “They said twenty?”
“Could be worse, yes?” Ilya said. “Could be twenty minutes with someone unpleasant.”
“You are unpleasant,” Shane responded automatically.
“Is lie,” Ilya smirked. “You are obsessed with me, Hollander. My biggest fan, I think.”
“You fucking wish,” Shane told him.
“You always know exactly where I am,” Ilya pointed out with a devilish grin. “Every city, every game, every hotel. You look forward to next Boston V Montreal game? We will crush you, make you all cry, sorry,” he pouted mockingly. “I will be sure to mention you when I win the cup again.”
“Keep dreaming, Rozanov,” Shane responded.
“Not dream. Inevitability. So easy to win when the so-called competition skates so slow and has weak backhand.” Ilya jibed.
“Fuck off,” Shane grumbled.
“Your mother is big hockey fan, yes? You should let her play in your place, give me a real challenge,” Ilya teased.
“Shut up you asshole,” Shane rolled his eyes.
“Oh, Hollander, talk dirty to me,” Ilya replied mockingly.
“Think I preferred when you could barely speak English,” Shane said, beginning to pace in the confines of the elevator.
“You are panicking,” Ilya realised, his taunting tone disappearing. He made as though to move towards the Metros Captain but then stopped himself when he saw Scott Hunter watching him.
“Fuck off, no, I’m not,” Shane snapped irritably.
“Is ok, I won’t tell everybody Hollander cried like a baby because he was stuck in elevator,” Ilya returned to teasing.
“I’m not crying and I’m not panicking, just… fucking shut up, Rozanov, quit being such an asshole,” Shane complained.
“Well—” Ilya made to make a retort.
“Enough,” Scott interrupted impatiently. “I can’t be stuck in here with you two idiots for the next fifteen minutes listening to you talk shit because you’re both too scared to admit how you really feel.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Ilya’s playful smirk evaporated in an instant, an unnerving stoic expression replacing it. Shane stopped pacing, his body going rigid, and it looked like he may have stopped breathing too.
“Whoa, fucking breathe, Hollander,” Scott told him.
“I… I… we don’t… I don’t… we’re not… nothing’s…” Shane stammered before gripping tight to the handrail, his knuckles turning white as he took deep breaths.
“No idea what you’re talking about, Hunter,” Ilya said with a false air of nonchalance. It may have been believable if not for the glimmer of fear in Ilya’s eyes and the way Shane was close to hyperventilating.
“1221,” Scott recited, arms folded across his chest. “Take it easy, Hollander,” he advised.
“What are you implying?” Ilya demanded to know. “You trying to threaten him? Threaten me?”
“No threats,” Scott said calmly, not missing the fact Rozanov put the idea of Hollander being threatened before himself. “First All-Star weekend you boys attended. I had the room next door to you. The hotel walls were thin,” he cringed slightly at the unwanted memories.
“How thin?” Ilya asked, expression fixed into a glare, fear still in his eyes.
“Thin enough that I know Hollander has a dildo,” Scott stated and Shane flushed. “Though I never did get to hear what colour,” he muttered dryly.
“Oh my god, I’m gonna die,” Shane’s face burned bright red, and he sagged down onto the floor, his hands shaking.
“Hollander, relax,” Scott told him. “No threats, remember. If I was ever gonna go to the press or whatever about this I’d have done it years ago.”
“Why haven’t you?” Shane asked weakly.
“Because I’m not a fucking asshole,” Scott responded. “And it’s nobody’s business if you two are in love.”
“In what?” Shane blanched, the second word coming out hysterical and echoing around the metal walls of the elevator they were trapped in. “He doesn’t… I mean I don’t… We’re not…” Shane tried to say.
“Absolutely not,” Ilya agreed quickly. “Ridiculous. Hollander is so boring. He just has good mouth.”
Shane closed his eyes, blushing in utter mortification at the words the Russian had just said. Scott also found himself wincing at the crude comment.
“You might be able to fool the hockey world into believing you hate each other, and you might be trying to convince yourselves that you do, but you’re not fooling me,” Scott told them. “I’ve seen too much. Heard too much,” he shuddered.
“We are not in love,” Ilya insisted. “Why would I settle for Hollander when I always have so many beautiful women throwing themselves at me?”
“Shut up, Rozanov,” Shane glowered distastefully at the thought of Ilya with women.
“Jealous?” Ilya smirked and Scott might have punched him on Shane’s behalf out of pure irritation if it weren’t for the fact he was so sure the arch-rivals secretly loved each other.
“Fuck off,” Shane looked away, still sat on the elevator floor, knees drawn up to his chest, arms locked around his legs. “You’re arrogant, and obnoxious, and I don’t give a shit who you fuck or date. You’re just an asshole. He’s not… we’re not… I don’t…” Shane looked quite agitated, glaring at the walls of the elevator.
“We are nothing,” Ilya claimed, his tone empty, Shane flinching at the words and Scott kind of wanting to bash their heads together. “Just rivals on the ice.”
“Right,” Scott rolled his eyes. “And how many sporting rivals secretly hook up to suck each other’s dicks and fuck one another senseless in hotel rooms?”
“Probably more than you would think,” Ilya shrugged. “But rivalry is all this is. Just… hate-sex and being… curious,” the word rolled off his tongue in a particular way Scott could only interpret as affectionate. Something shifted in Shane’s expression hearing the word, it was subtle but definitely there, indicating to Scott that the word held some kind of secret meaning for them. “No love involved,” Ilya continued. “I have never once looked at Hollander and thought—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Shane grabbed the handrail and hauled himself back to his feet.
“Is no sentence to finish,” Ilya said quickly.
“Right,” Shane agreed. “Nothing. We’re not… He isn’t… I don’t even like his face.”
Scott closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe he should just bash his own head against the wall, knock himself out for a little bit so he wouldn’t have to listen to these two stubborn idiots.
“Fuck, stop talking, both of you. Every word somehow makes it worse,” Scott complained.
Neither of the two younger players spoke. Shane stared at the floor, his leg twitching nervously. Ilya stared at Shane, his face impassive. For a short while, Scott watched Ilya stare at Shane before the Admiral’s Captain released a long sigh.
“New rule,” Scott declared, “you only answer yes or no.”
Ilya folded his arms, eyebrow lifting slightly, daring Scott to ask away. Shane looked like he wanted the floor beneath him to open up and swallow him whole.
“If Rozanov called you at three in the morning, would you answer?” Scott pointed at Shane.
“He never calls me. We just send texts about where we’re gonna meet,” Shane replied.
“That wasn’t a yes or no, Hollander,” Scott said. “If Rozanov called you, any time, day or night, are you taking that call? Yes or no?”
“…Yes,” Shane admitted, not looking at Ilya.
“And if it was summer, and you were back in Russia,” Scott looked to Ilya. “If you found out Hollander was injured, in hospital, would you be on the first flight to Canada?”
Ilya’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“And do you truly hate Hollander?” Scott asked.
Ilya swallowed thickly, giving a subtle shake of his head. “No,” he murmured.
“What about you?” Scott looked to Shane. “Do you really hate Rozanov?”
“No,” Shane’s eyes looked very wet, the unshed tears seeming to sparkle under the green glow of the emergency lighting overhead. Across from him, Ilya’s expression had relaxed into something decidedly more unguarded. Scott suspected almost no one ever saw Ilya Rozanov like that. Hell, maybe even he wasn’t seeing it. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light.
“Now look at each other, direct eye-contact,” Scott ordered.
“This is stupid,” Shane muttered.
“Eye-contact,” Scott repeated, using his Captain voice.
With a sigh, Shane raised his head to look at Ilya, the Boston Captain already looking back at him.
“Do you want Rozanov in your life?” Scott asked Shane.
“Yes,” Shane whispered.
“And you?” Scott turned to Ilya.
Ilya held Shane’s gaze, his usual cockiness and bravado gone.
“Yes,” Ilya said quietly. “Always.”
“And if Rozanov walked out of your life tomorrow, really walked out,” Scott emphasised, “no texts, no hook-ups, no games, nothing… Would any part of you be glad he was gone?”
“No… No, fuck… it would wreck me,” Shane confessed.
“You still gonna try and pretend you don’t fucking love each other?” Scott asked.
“He doesn’t,” Shane objected.
“He does,” Ilya responded, eyes locked on Shane who was now looking anywhere but at him. “Hey… hey, hey, hey,” Ilya approached the Canadian player, one hand on his waist, the other cupping his chin. “Look at me, Hollander… Is scary, yes?” Ilya’s thumb swept back and forth along Shane’s jaw, the gesture small and careful but so sincere. Quite the contradiction to the loud and brash antics he was known for. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he said.
Scott didn’t speak a damn syllable of Russian, but there was no doubt in his mind as to what Ilya Rozanov had just confessed.
“And what does that mean?” Shane sighed. “That I’m boring? Have a weak backhand? Making fun of me by calling me pretty again?”
However apparently there was extreme doubt on Shane Hollander’s behalf as to what the Raiders Captain was telling him.
“Am never making fun when calling you pretty,” Ilya said. “Pretty girls are everywhere. But none of them ever make me feel the way you do. Ya tebya lyublyu,” he repeated.
“Fuck sake, say it in English, Roz,” Scott groaned, one hand covering his face, trying to block their vulnerably intimate moment out.
“I love you,” Ilya said, his voice cracking. The words sounded more vulnerable in a language that was not his own. “I think I have for a long time,” Ilya admitted, his voice rougher now. “Maybe since first hotel when you folded your clothes. Maybe before. I do not know.”
Scott tipped his head back to rest against the elevator wall, fixing his gaze to the ceiling and that horrific green lighting. He silently willed for Shane to say something. To say anything. His own heart was thudding wildly in his chest, stomach knotting with nerves. He could only imaging how Ilya was faring, waiting on tenterhooks for Shane’s response.
“You don’t mean that,” Shane finally mumbled and Scott’s guts clenched with discomfort. He dared not look at Ilya, unable to face the prospect of heartbreak on the younger man’s face. “You can’t mean that,” Shane’s words were barely audible, but they seemed to echo in the tiny space of the elevator all the same.
“Can… do,” Ilya claimed, his voice faltering in the aftermath of telling Shane he loved him and not hearing those words back. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he said it again in Russian.
“Don’t fucking mess with me, Rozanov,” Shane warned. “Just don’t.”
Scott got serious chills from Shane’s tone. He determinedly kept his gaze fixed to the ceiling, cursing himself for opening his mouth and encouraging them to confront their feelings for one another as though he wasn’t trapped in the elevator too and thereby forced to endure every agonising moment of the conversation.
“Is not mess,” Ilya didn’t look away. “Is not game, is not joke. Just truth. I love you, Shane.”
Silence stretched in the elevator and Scott worried that Shane was never going to respond and that he would have to spend his night consoling a heartbroken Ilya Rozanov.
“Is ok to not love me back,” Ilya said with forced calm. “Why would you?” the question was probably intended to come out light-hearted and self-deprecating but the resignation and hopelessness of it ached in Scott’s very bones. Now he found himself wanting to grab a hold of Shane and shake him violently until he told his hockey rival that he loved him too.
“I’m scared,” Shane admitted, his voice shaking. “I’m so fucking scared all the time. Of someone finding out. Losing everything. Of wanting this too much. I never… I never stop thinking about you. Fuck,” he swore letting out a ragged breath. “Ilya, I love you so fucking much.”
“Fuck, Hollander,” Ilya lost it, tears travelling down his face as he hugged Shane tightly, kissing him deeply.
Scott breathed out a small sigh of relief, taking a quick look at them clinched in a loving embrace before averting his gaze to the elevator buttons.
“I always kept telling myself it didn’t mean anything,” Shane said. “That it was just the thrill of doing something so wild… that it was the rivalry, or obsession, just innocent curiosity… anything that meant I didn’t have to admit it out loud. But I love you. You’re it for me. Always have been.”
There was no snarky retort from Ilya. He closed his eyes as Shane wiped the tears away, their foreheads resting together.
“I love you,” Ilya repeated, pressing their lips together, moaning lewdly as he slipped in his tongue, hands roaming, groping at Shane’s pecs and travelling down to squeeze his ass and cup the bulge between his legs.
From his little corner of the elevator, Scott pointedly cleared his throat, reminding the other two hockey stars that he was still there.
“I’m really going to need you to keep this romantic revelation family friendly,” Scott said. “Speaking as the one and extremely unwilling audience member.”
“Sorry,” Shane squeaked out, freckles hiding in the blush of his cheeks as he sprang away from Ilya.
“You are just jealous because no one confessed love to you in elevator,” Ilya taunted.
“I’m jealous of people who took the fucking stairs,” Scott replied.
The regular lighting came back on and there was some clanging of metal before the doors slowly creaked open. Scott jumped out immediately, vowing to never step into an elevator with Shane Hollander or Ilya Rozanov ever again, and definitely not at the same time.
THE END