Chapter Text
February 2017
Ilya checked into the LA hotel under the reservation he’d made last week. His second LA hotel, to clarify—he had his room at the team’s hotel, shared with Connors, but this was a separate hotel, midway between where he was staying with his team, the night before they would play LA, and the hotel where Shane was staying with his team after playing Anaheim, only an hour away. They were going to be truly spoiled this month, since the Raiders were traveling to Montreal for a match up in a couple of weeks, but Ilya wasn’t complaining, not in the slightest.
He checked his phone again; Shane’s “OMW” was now twenty-two minutes in the past. He checked the room next, and yes, condoms, lube, and post-sex water were all within easy reach. Ilya took off his socks, one less thing he’d have to do later, even though Shane’s obsessive ways had apparently gotten to him a little because he was questioning the cleanliness of the carpet he was now walking around barefoot on.
But then there was a knock at the room’s door, and he forgot all about his concerns, opening the door to find Shane standing there with a shy smile on his face. Ilya grabbed the sides of his (new, presumably stylist-chosen) leather jacket and pulled him into the room with a slight spin to the right so that he could press him against the wall and go in for a kiss as he kicked the door closed behind them.
And now he had three whole hours before they had to return to their teams to get his Shane fix.
* * *
Ten Days Later
Coach Desjardins had pulled Shane into a post-practice meeting, one of those pointless sit-downs that mostly consisted of Coach’s rambling complaints about one player’s performance or another, or league regulations, or the owners’ idiosyncrasies. It sucked up Shane’s energy without adding anything useful, usually: any player deficiencies he noticed were almost always either imaginary, something that Shane and the assistant coaches were already working with the player to address, or something that was simply beyond the player’s skill level. And there was nothing Shane could do about the higher ups and their apparently unjust treatment of Coach Desjardins.
And meanwhile, Shane was getting increasingly uncomfortable sitting in his sweaty, post-practice clothes, and also getting increasingly irritated because he’d rather be home prepping his house for Ilya’s next visit, happening four days from then on Tuesday night after their game. Shane wanted everything to be perfect. He wanted to stop for groceries to make sure he had Cokes that he could chill down between now and then, and at home he wanted to go through the linen closet to decide which set of sheets he was going to make the bed with Tuesday morning so he could set them aside to make sure they’d be clean.
Coach’s phone pinged four times in rapid succession. Grumbling, he yanked it out of his pants pocket and pressed a button on the side aggressively. “It’s after five, so I shouldn’t have to look at this bullshit,” he said before pocketing the phone again.
Shane thought longingly about his own phone, sitting in his cubby; he’d have to look over his grocery list before leaving so he could think about it on the drive and decide if there was anything to add.
Desjardins finally seemed to realize that, since it was after five, the only thing keeping him there was his inability to shut up; he wrapped up whatever it was he’d been complaining about and stood. “You’ll work with Wilson on his backhand at Monday’s practice?”
Shane’s said, “Yes, Coach,” to placate him. And then he was free to finally shower off.
It was a little creepy to be in the practice facility once it had mostly cleared out—he’d heard a machine buffing the hallway floors out in the lobby area but hadn’t seen a single person between Desjardins’s office and the locker room. He rushed through his shower, both because of the horror-movie feel of the place and because he had things to do.
It was almost a relief to hear masculine laughter out near the sinks as he was finishing up. It was a little odd that someone had come back after leaving for the day, but it wasn’t that unusual for a player to have forgotten something and come back.
He turned around to see Comeau, Drapeau, and Stedlund crowded around the entrance to the showers, their laughter winding down as their expressions shifted in a way that Shane really didn’t like to see from his least favorite teammates. He also didn’t love standing there naked while the three of them were fully dressed, so he reached behind him to shut off the water and then took a step toward his towel, hanging on a hook a few feet to his right.
Shane froze, though, when Drapeau crooned, “Oh, look, there’s the faggot!”
“Fuck you,” he responded automatically through his alarm. Because it wasn’t like that was the first time someone had called him that, but this seemed a little more intentional than just normal hockey chirping. Had something happened? “What the fuck is your problem?”
As they stalked forward, he grabbed the towel, wanting some kind of barrier protecting him.
Comeau said, “We saw your little video. Whole world’s seen that little video. You like taking it up the ass from Rozanov?”
“I bet he does,” Stedlund said with a snicker.
Shane had frozen at the word video. What video? “What the fuck are you guys talking about?” Holy shit, this could be bad. He needed to see it, needed to do damage control. Needed to call Ilya, probably.
He’d almost forgotten the men with him until Stedlund said, “Hey, do you think Hollander sucks Coach’s dick? They have all those one-on-ones, late at night…”
“Gross,” Shane responded automatically, with a sneer. It was occurring to him now that maybe he should actually be afraid of his teammates. They really looked like they were out for blood, and he’d almost take a punch at this point if it would get them out of here so that he could get to his phone. He didn’t think it would stop at one punch, though. “Look, there’s obviously some mistake. It’s a fake, or it’s just someone who looks like me. I wouldn’t make a porno, or whatever this is.”
“I don’t think so,” Drapeau said. “I think this makes a lot of sense. I always knew there was something off about you, Hollander.”
They were closer, now, and he could smell the beer they’d had between the end of practice and now. Alcohol would make them sloppier, but it would make them more likely to get violent, too, and less likely to feel any punches Shane might land.
And then Comeau said, “Well, if Hollander just needs to get fucked, someone from Montreal should do it, not that asshole Rozanov.” He clapped Drapeau on the back. “A hole is a hole, right, boys?”
Shane went cold, and time slowed down like it sometimes did in the middle of a play. Just like he’d never been afraid of his teammates, as a man he’d never been afraid of being raped, until right then. But he wouldn’t let that happen. Stedlund was the smallest of the three of them, and seemed the drunkest. Shane would punch him, and hopefully that would be enough of a distraction for him to get around them. He’d run, see if he could find anyone else in the building—the guys might hesitate to do anything too terrible in front of a witness. Worst case, he ends up streaking down LeDuc and provides the public with a second embarrassing video.
He put his plan into motion, punching Stedlund in the nose. When he reeled back, clutching his now-bleeding face, Shane darted around him and toward the doorway out of the showers.
He might have made it, but wet feet on the wet, tiled floor didn’t give him the traction he needed to outrun his teammates. One of them knocked him face-first into the tiled wall, then yanked his head back by the hair and slammed his forehead into the wall again.
Shane was dazed by the blow but still tried to fight back. He knew he landed a few punches. He scratched Drapeau’s face, a vague memory of a video of a young woman’s anti-rape tactics suggesting doing that to get the attacker’s DNA.
But then he slipped on the damned wet floor again, perhaps helped along by one of the guys, and once he was down on the floor they started kicking.
Comeau stomped on his left arm, and Shane screamed at the sharp pain. Shane tried to protect his head, aware that a kick to the head would be bad. A kick to the head could kill him. He could die, right here in the Bell Centre’s showers. But it was hard to concentrate over the pain and his fear, and then one of them landed a kick that definitely broke at least one rib, and his right arm came down automatically to press against it. There was a kick to his temple, and then everything went black.
* * *
The Raiders beat Houston in a Friday afternoon home game, 4-1, with one goal and two assists from Ilya. It hadn’t been much of a challenge. He had mostly been looking at this game as something to get out of the way before their trip to Montreal on Monday. He wished he could fly in a day earlier, or even tonight, but his team would find that suspicious. Shane preferred to hook up post-game, anyway, but Ilya was greedy and wanted more time with him, always.
Once they were off the ice, he showered quickly and changed back into his suit for the post-game press conference. It was all pretty standard, a few questions about today’s game but more about the upcoming game with their big rival. Ilya did his normal chirping, knowing that Shane would record the game since the Metros had practice that afternoon, so he’d see Ilya’s comments and be annoyed by them later.
He was in the middle of answering a question about the Raiders’ playoff chances—strong, of course—when a reporter in the front row looked down at his phone, gasped, and started waving his hand frantically.
Ashley called on him when Ilya was done, of course. “Marcus Wolfe, Boston Observer. Do you have a response to TMZ’s newest article, which states that you and Shane Hollander are romantically involved with video evidence to back up their claim?”
“What?” Ilya said stupidly.
All around the room, reporters were checking their phones and either gasping or leaning toward their neighbor for a whispered exchange of gossip. “No, uh…”
He looked to Ashley, the team’s PR manager, who was staring down at her own phone in shock. She looked up, then, fortunately, and sprang into action. “Alright, this press conference is over. Thank you for attending.” She swept in and pulled Ilya up and then out of the room by one arm, both of them ignoring the shouted questions from the reporters.
Once they made it to the hallway, Ilya asked, “Can I see?” He wanted, no, needed to know exactly what this article was based on. They’d been so good, so careful, so what video could the press possibly have?
“We’re too close.” Ashley shook her head and marched him down the hall, away from the reporters and toward their locker room.
It sounded like pandemonium inside, so his teammates must’ve seen the article, too. All noise cut off, though, the moment he stepped into the room. He should take the time to gauge his teammates’ reactions, but he just couldn’t. Instead, he held out a hand to Ashley: “Let me see.”
She handed her phone over, open to the offending article. The English words blurred, so he skimmed over them for now; what he really wanted to see was this video they claimed to have, anyway.
No video yet, but there were pictures. It started with a few that seemed innocent enough: a picture of them facing off at some unknown game, then that helmet kiss at the All-Stars Game, which had been a little indiscreet but was hardly scandalous.
But then, separate pictures of the two of them, taken from above, in an elevator. It looked vaguely familiar, but Ilya couldn’t place it.
And below that, the video. It was short, only a few seconds long. There was no sound, and the footage was taken from a high angle: security cameras, he guessed. Shane walked down a hallway that Ilya thought was that hotel in LA, and sure enough, he knocked, and then Ilya pulled him in by his jacket. The door closed before their lips touched, but the way he was moving in for a kiss was clear. The smiles on their faces were also clear. Fuck.
He squeezed the phone; he really, really wanted to throw it across the room, but it wasn’t his to break. Instead, he let Ashley take it back from him. She patted him on the shoulder, and Ilya almost let himself break at the show of sympathy, but no, he didn’t have time for that. “OK,” he muttered. First thing, he needed to talk to Shane.
Ilya stalked over to his cubby, vaguely aware of the wide-eyed stares of his teammates, but that couldn’t be his priority. He grabbed his phone and called Shane; it rang four times, then went to voicemail. “Shane, call me back when you get this. The minute you get this.”
Voicemail sent, he sent a few texts with the same basic message, trying not to sound too alarmed just in case Shane hadn’t seen it yet. It was 5:22—only 5:22, really?—so he might be driving home, stuck in rush hour traffic, and of course the law-abiding Shane wouldn’t text and drive, or check his voicemail, either.
The phone buzzed with an incoming call, but it was an unknown number so he declined it. Probably a reporter. Fuck, they were so totally screwed.
“So, Roz…”
Ilya realized he was just staring down at his phone, unmoving. He looked up and scanned the locker room: he saw concern, curiosity, and a lot of confusion. But no anger, no disgust, no hatred, at least not yet. Better than he could have hoped for, really. He asked St-Simon, who’d been the one to approach him, “Do you think anyone would believe there is an explanation for that video other than sex?”
“Well…” Winces and head shakes from the team, so no. OK.
He called Shane again, just to have something to do, but hung up when his voicemail greeting started playing. Called again, hung up again.
Ivanov, the team’s rookie, asked, “Is it like psychological game? Getting in his head?”
That startled a bark of a laugh out of him. “Ivo, I love this team, but I wouldn’t make that kind of sacrifice, just to win a game.” He called one more time and got voicemail yet again. “I need to go,” he decided, bouncing up from the bench to grab his keys. Keys, wallet, and phone, that was all he needed.
Ashley said, “Uh, Coach, team management, they’re going to want to talk to you. We need to issue a statement.”
He knew that, but… “They can call me. I need to go.” He’d need to talk to his agent and manager, too. A lawyer, maybe. He just couldn’t face any of that now. He needed to make sure Shane was OK, first.
Ilya called Shane a few more times on the way out, ignoring the staff’s stares as he passed them in the halls. Once he was in his car, he put the phone in its cradle so that he would see if Shane called him back. He started to drive toward home, but instead he found himself getting off on Route 1A and then following the signs to Logan Airport.
What was he doing?
But his bags for Monday’s trip were already in his trunk, which meant he had his passport and Canada visitor’s visa. And Shane still hadn’t called back.
His cars were too nice to leave in an airport lot so he used a car service for personal travel, and the team typically left their cars at the practice facility and took the team bus to the airport. He couldn’t find it in himself to care if someone stole the Ferrari, though. He parked near the United terminal and then took his bag inside. He’d wistfully noticed the nonstop flights to Montreal when he’d been flying to Moscow and wishing for a happier place to visit. He hoped there was a flight out tonight with an empty seat.
Ilya called Shane again and again while he walked, hoping that Shane would be annoyed enough to pick up. Every incoming call made his pulse leap, but they were mostly unknown numbers, one call from his coach, and a few from past hookups; he declined them all.
He stood in the terminal, not yet in line, staring up at the departures sign. And there it was, a 6:40 flight that would begin boarding soon. If they had any tickets available, he could just make it.
Ilya called Shane one last time, hoping against hope. It rang once, twice, three times.
And then a female voice answered, “Uh, hello? Shane Hollander’s phone?”