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Scott had been trying, and succeeding, at avoiding Rozanov all week. The kid was a newly turned nineteen-year-old, and whoever decided to give the walking Russian ego Captaincy of the Eastern European team was number one on Scott’s fucking list. He was a damn good hockey player, but an insufferable little shit, and he knew it.
Scott could have sworn he saw the kid's eyes sparkle with unhinged delight as he stuck his hand out, stopping the elevator doors from letting Scott make his escape.
“Sorry for your loss.”
He said it with such a straight face that Scott’s brain froze for a moment.
“My loss?”
The kid shrugged. “Tomorrow, when I beat your record.”
Scott rolled his eyes. The nerve of this asshole. “I’m not sure you’re going to be the one to break it, kid. My money goes on your better half; Hollzy has been on fire this season.”
Rozanov’s face changed slightly at the mention of his rival, and Scott took a moment to feel proud that he could get under his skin, before remembering he was a grown-ass man who should decidedly not feel proud at this.
Like it never happened, the Russian’s face returned to it’s slavic state of stoicism. He really hated Hollander that much? He supposed if his career was tied so intricately with another player, he would be pissed about it too.
Before he could think of anything else to say, the floor of the elevator lurched beneath them, both men grabbing for the safety bar as the machine around them screamed in protest, the walls vibrating so hard that he could feel it in his skull.
It seemed to come to a stop, and Scott caught eyes with the kid a few feet from him, neither willing to breathe and break the spell of stillness. It didn’t matter in the end, as a horrifying snap filled the empty space, their cart falling like a puppet relieved of its strings.
In what couldn’t have been more than three seconds of free-falling before impact, Scott was ashamed that he was only thinking one thing: no way was he going to die next to Ilya fucking Rozanov.
…
He wasn’t sure if he lost consciousness; hell, he wasn’t even sure if he hit his head. He just knew that they were falling, and then they weren’t. The room had crumpled against itself; the gaudy metal trim that lined the ceiling (and had to be solely decorative because no way in hell was that load-bearing) had separated from the seams, one half dangling like a dead limb, the other completely severed.
Fuck, where was the kid?
Scott pulled himself up off the floor to assess the damage; nothing felt broken. Maybe some bruised ribs. For sure he had fucked up his hand by trying to hold onto the bar as they went down.
He scanned the cramped room for Rozanov, a spike of anxiety shooting through him as he spotted the younger man sprawled on the floor, the stupid fucking decorative trim pinning him to the ground.
“Rozanov?”
Scott stepped over a fallen section of the cart’s roof to make his way closer to the kid, praying he would hear his goddamn annoying chirp in response. The silence he was met with was so much worse.
Most of his body was still obstructed by the metal, but Scott could still make out in horrifying clarity the picture of terror written across the Russian’s face. Fuck. He really did look just like a kid, and at 19…he still was a goddamn kid.
“Rozanov? Rozzy? Are you okay?”
His breathing was panicked and laboured, but Scott was relieved when he finally spoke. What did they say about keeping a person alert and talking; that was a thing, right?
“Yes, Hunter. I am so okay, is why I am lying on floor.” A string of what he could only assume to be Russian profanities followed out of his mouth as he tried to shift underneath the beam.
“Here, let me help. We don’t want to make it worse.” Scott reached for a handle on the heavy steel, careful to take stock of where Rozanov’s body was underneath it.
“Worse like being crushed to death in tiny box with America’s oldest hockey player?”
It was obvious that he was terrified, but if chirping him gave him a little control back, Scott would take it.
“Hey, fuck you. You’re not going to die, okay? We just have to get you out from under here.”
“Hmm, yes, why did I not think of this?”
Scott ignored him and braced his foot against the wall in an attempt to gain some leverage; if he could just find enough give, Ilya could slip out. Damn, when had he become Ilya and not Rozanov? Maybe when he got close enough to see the pain written on the kid's face, close enough to see the unshed tears in his eyes.
“I thought you were meant to be athlete? You cannot move metal bar?” Ilya strained to finish his broken sentence; the words stuck in the back of his throat, along with his heartbeat.
“You don't seem to be doing any better either, kid. Now just…hold on.”
Scott tried again to lift the offending piece of metal, but the pressure from the angle was holding tight. Until they got a team in here with equipment that could lift more than an arguably very strong man could…he was going to stay trapped where he was.
Shit.
What was more concerning was the rapidly declining state of Ilya. His face was simultaneously paler than he’d ever seen it, and redder than a fucking Centaurs jersey. Sweat-soaked curls plastered to his forehead, and any resemblance to the cocky, full-of-life menace was long gone. It looked like he was having trouble breathing.
Fuck. Where was help? He had hit the emergency button as soon as they ‘landed’, and was pretty positive that in a hotel of this status, a crash like this would be noticed fairly quickly. There had to be alarms and warnings, or a bored security guard watching their misery.
“Still breathing okay?”
There was too long a pause before responding. A minuscule shake of the head, yes, a whispered: “Fine.”
It told Scott that he was not, in fact, breathing okay. Jesus Christ, what was he supposed to do except stand there lamely and pray that he wasn’t witnessing the pride of the MLH die in front of him?
Before he could fall completely into his anxiety spiral, a crushing noise came from behind him, and he heard the beautiful sound of voices. Thank God.
“Hey, just hold on for a little while more, kid. Help is here.” Scott resisted the urge to reassuringly rub his thumb against the other man, because what the fuck.
Maybe it was some sort of ‘trauma bond’ shit that his therapist would talk about; God, she was going to have a field day with today’s events.
A group of firefighters had broken through the mangled door, and Scott breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing paramedics standing at the ready. Everything moved fast then, the coordinated push and pull of extraction, executed by a team who had practice in making sense out of the chaos.
Scott was removed first, to make room for the rest to get in with equipment to free Ilya. A part of him that he couldn’t quite name wanted to put his feet down and refuse to leave before making sure the kid was alright, but he knew that getting out of the way would help him in the long run.
Soon Ilya was being lifted out on a backboard, already flirting with one of the paramedics, like he didn’t just almost give up the ghost in front of him. God, this kid.
He was an insufferable little shit, but now Scott couldn’t deny that he had an oddly shaped protectiveness for the kid. He would just never ride in another elevator with him.