Work Text:
WINTER 2016
He must have been to Rozanov’s penthouse in Boston twenty times in the last few years. Thirty? It didn’t matter. He was always nervous when he entered the elevator, like something was going to jump out at him. When the doors closed and he heard a tiny, scratchy peeping noise that startled him into almost dropping his phone, he felt his anxiety was justified.
“Jesus,” he said, his voice shaky. Sitting beside him in the elevator, its tail curled around itself in a way that somehow looked very proper and formal, was a black kitten with a white chin and chest. Well, he thought it was supposed to be white, but the kitten was dirty. And no wonder; Boston in February was covered in a layer of muddy slush.
The kitten peeped at him again as the elevator went up.
“Uh, hello. Nice cat,” he said. The kitten did not seem impressed. It gave him a very Rozanov-like look, like he was a real idiot.
When they reached the top floor, the kitten followed him out of the elevator and sat beside him when he hit the buzzer on Rozanov’s door. Rozanov opened it right away and he gratefully went inside, scrunching up his half-thawed nose. Shane tolerated the cold pretty well, but he never liked it, so he appreciated the fact that Rozanov kept his place cozy. It was weird because he knew Rozanov was hardly ever cold (“Russians do not even notice,” he said dismissively after he had asked Shane why he was keeping his socks on during sex and Shane admitted his feet were usually cold), but Rozanov also spent money on a lot of unnecessary things.
He looked so good. Shane squirmed a little bit and tried to hide it by taking off his coat. All week long he had looked forward to this—Rozanov’s warm fingers, gentle inside him while he begged to be fucked. It was a hard thing to admit to himself, but he liked that part almost as much as the actual fucking. Rozanov teased him for it sometimes, and he kind of liked that too. It was humiliating, but Rozanov wasn’t too mean about it, and Shane knew he was into it too because whenever he begged for anything Rozanov gave it to him right away, watching his face to see if it felt good.
“Did you adopt a cat?” Shane asked, before he could get really distracted.
“No.” Rozanov gave him the idiot look, although it was combined with the "are you insane?" look. “I gave you a concussion this afternoon?”
“There’s a kitten outside.” Shane nudged his shoes off. “It followed me into the elevator.”
Rozanov’s eyebrows flew up, and he dashed to the door. The kitten was still there, and Rozanov scooped it up with one hand, cradling it to his chest. The kitten looked as alarmed as Shane felt.
“So you did get a cat,” he said.
“No, Hollander. This is not mine,” Rozanov said, waving the kitten at him. “You were going to leave it there?”
“I thought it was yours and you were doing that on—on purpose,” Shane said. “Cats go outside.”
Rozanov pushed past him, moving toward the kitchen. Shane followed and saw that he was pulling a little towel out of a drawer, then wrapping the kitten in it. “I would not leave a cat outside in the winter,” he said.
They both stared at it, and it stared back, slightly wall-eyed.
“What are you going to do with it?” Shane asked. “If it’s not yours, then it must have been abandoned.”
“Bednyy malysh,” Rozanov murmured, rubbing the top of its small head. “Your papa did not want you.”
“Do cats even know their fathers? I think probably the mother didn’t want it,” Shane said, mesmerized by the slow movement of Rozanov’s finger against the black fur.
“No,” Rozanov admonished him gently, still focused on the cat. “Mama would not have left you. She probably died, huh?”
“Anyway, are you going to keep it?” Shane asked. “We could…call the shelter?”
Rozanov straightened. “No,” he said, firm. “No shelter. I will make one of the neighbors take him.”
“Right now?” Shane asked, looking around a little wildly.
“Hollander,” Rozanov said, looking at him again like he was insane. It was kind of nice. “It is late. I will go to every neighbor tomorrow and one will take him. Tonight—he gets food and a warm bed.”
Shane could feel his desperately anticipated evening plans circling the drain. “I, uh. I’ll get going then.”
“What?” Rozanov said. “No. I am still going to fuck you until you are crying. Don’t be so…”
He turned and waved his hand in the air impatiently, like he knew Shane would fill in the blank. Shane glared at his back and followed him to the bathroom after a moment of disgruntled internal debate.
Rozanov was in the process of filling the sink with water when Shane came in. The kitten had been released from the towel and was crawling up Rozanov’s t-shirt to perch on his shoulder. Rozanov reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, passing it to Shane.
“Order cat things,” he said, swiping the phone open with one hand and clicking on the Doordash app.
“I don’t know what to order,” Shane protested, but took the phone. “I never had any pets.”
“You get…kitten food,” Rozanov said, looking at the kitten on his shoulder. “He is young. Check how old. Google it.”
Shane opened Safari and then stared at it blankly. The thumbnails that had popped up were all hockey-related. One of them had his name in the headline and he clicked it, curious. It was old—just a blurb from ESPN about Montreal’s Stanley Cup win the year before. Probably using it for motivation, Shane thought with a small smile, and typed hesitantly into the search bar: what age is kitten.
“Okay,” he said. The sink was full and Rozanov turned off the water, standing with his hands on his hips. With the kitten on his shoulder he looked vaguely piratical. “His eyes are open and he didn’t stumble around when he was walking. He looks like the one in this picture.”
He held the phone out so Rozanov could see the photo of a six-week-old kitten. Rozanov nodded. “Yes, still a baby, but not relying on mother’s milk anymore. Get kitten food. And…a box. Litter. Toys.”
“A litter box?” Shane asked, searching for kitten food. “Are you going to change it?”
“Yes, of course,” Rozanov said. “Okay, malysh. You will not like this, but has to happen.”
He plucked the kitten from his shoulder and dipped it gently into the water in the sink, tail first. The kitten screeched when its bottom hit the water, and began to frantically pedal its tiny paws. The water was already turning a pale brown. Shane grimaced.
“Ouch,” Rozanov said, and then, with feeling, “Small claws, but very painful.”
“Are you okay?” Shane asked, putting down the phone mid-order to check Rozanov’s hands.
“Stop, is fine. He is just scared,” Rozanov said.
“Cats can give you diseases, though,” Shane said. “You can get cat scratch fever.”
Rozanov leveled him with a disbelieving glare. “There is not a real thing called that.”
“There is,” Shane said, adding Neosporin to the order. “Do you have band-aids?”
Rozanov nodded, bent over, intent on his task. He had the kitten by the scruff and it had gone limp, enough to wash it without further injury, though it still howled pitifully as Rozanov scooped water over it. “Google how to give him a bath.”
Shane finished the Doordash order, trying not to give into the urge to snoop into what else Rozanov might have ordered before, and looked up kitten baths. “Do you have any Dawn soap?” he asked after a moment. Rozanov gave him the idiot look again. “Never mind,” he said, and wandered into the kitchen to search for dish detergent.
Twenty minutes later the two of them were sitting on the floor of Rozanov’s bathroom while Rozanov rubbed a towel gently over the scraggly, furious kitten.
“How do you know it’s a boy?” Shane asked.
“Oh, he is obviously a baby boy,” Rozanov said, grinning. “I will name him Hollander. See? Little baby, like his namesake.”
The kitten screeched. Shane empathized. He sort of wanted to screech too.
“No, he is more grown-up than you,” Rozanov said, lifting the bundle of damp towel and fur to look in the kitten’s eyes. “Big Hollander. That is his name.”
Shane shook his head, leaning back against the bathroom door, though he knew he didn’t look as disapproving as he wanted to. “Dick,” he said. “Actually, I thought he looked like…”
“What?”
“He looks like the cat from Pinocchio,” Shane said. He was embarrassed, but he wasn’t sure why. “Figaro.”
“The cartoon puppet?” Rozanov asked. “You liked this movie?”
He shook his head, laughing a little. “I hated it. It was really scary. My parents had to shut it off because I was so freaked out.”
“And when was this, last month?” Rozanov asked. He deposited the kitten on the bathroom rug. It shook itself hard, almost tipping over, and then began to lick its paws almost angrily.
“I think I was five. There’s this one part,” he said, and bit his lip. He really didn’t want Rozanov to know what scared him, even if it was just his childhood fears. But Rozanov was looking up at him from under his lashes, waiting patiently, and Shane decided he didn’t care. “If you haven’t seen it, you won’t really get it, but these kids get punished for indulging in, like, drinking and smoking and gambling. I don’t know why it scared me, but I was terrified.”
“Of course you were,” Rozanov said. “You are afraid to have even a hamburger. This makes sense.”
“Shut up,” Shane said, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “Did you have pets?”
“No,” Rozanov said. “I was not allowed. But there was a dog near my home. I called him Zaichonok. Uh, little rabbit. Bunny rabbit. Played with him whenever I could.”
“He was a stray?” Shane asked. Rozanov’s head cocked in that movement that Shane had come to understand as I don’t know what that word means, and clarified. “He didn’t belong to anyone?”
“No, but we—me and some other children—we took care of him. We built him a little house in the winter, and brought him food. My brother would find the house every winter and destroy it, try to shoot the dog, but we were smarter and would move the house, move the dog.”
Shane tried to hide his shock, but he knew he hadn’t succeeded very well. “What happened to him?”
Rozanov shrugged. “One day he was gone. It was not from my brother. He would have bragged about it. But many other bad things could have happened. I took care of him from eight to twelve, a long time for a dog with no home.”
“That’s terrible.” Shane wanted to reach out to Rozanov and pat him on the knee, but they were far enough away from each other that he would have needed to move, and it would look weird. The kitten, finished grooming itself for the moment, bounded past Shane’s knee and bounced off his foot, righted itself, and bristled.
“It was sad,” Rozanov said. “But it was a—a busy year. I forgot until now.”
The kitten, its wet fur standing up, hopped around Shane and batted at his foot.
“He looks like you when you are angry.” Rozanov stood, and reached out to Shane to help him to his feet, then picked up the kitten. “Figaro. Calm down. This is not life or death.”
Figaro curled himself around Rozanov’s hand and bit it, ears back. Shane really, really didn’t want to think it was cute, but he couldn’t help it: Rozanov in his now-damp t-shirt and black track pants, barefoot, telling the little black and white kitten very seriously that there was no reason for biting, he had done nothing to deserve it. They had been in the same space together for almost an hour and Shane had neither wanted to kill him nor fuck him. There was no precedent for that; after eight years, he sometimes didn’t want to kill him, but he always wanted to fuck him.
He stared at the transparent t-shirt, through which he could see Rozanov’s abs. Okay, he did want to fuck him. He didn’t think he could do that in front of the kitten though.
“He is probably chewing on me because he’s hungry,” Rozanov said. “Doordash is almost here. I will get him his dinner, and then I’ll fuck you. Is this okay?”
“This is okay,” Shane said. Rozanov left the bathroom first, and Shane looked at himself in the mirror, annoyed that his freckles stood out so much on his flushed face.
*
They brought the food and litter into the bathroom, and the kitten ate until his tubby little body couldn’t handle any more, his whiskers and chin covered in wet food.
“This kitten is maybe not related to you after all,” Rozanov said. “He is very messy.”
Figaro began to groom himself again, fastidiously, and Shane couldn’t help laughing when Rozanov said, “Prove me wrong immediately? He is your son.”
Shane had ordered a little packet of fuzzy balls for the kitten to play with, kitten food and litter and a litter box—which was huge; Rozanov asked him if it was made for a tiger—and a bed with a blanket.
“He will only be here one night,” Rozanov said.
“He should be comfortable, though,” Shane said, shrugging uncomfortably under Rozanov’s gaze. There was something weirdly soft in the way he was staring at Shane. It was a look he wasn’t as familiar with as the idiot look or the insane look, but he did recognize it as a precursor to being teased. Right as Rozanov opened his mouth to say something, however, the kitten waddled over to him and climbed up the side of Shane’s thigh, making his way to the space between his legs. He circled a couple of times, then began to dig his claws rhythmically into Shane’s pants and closed his eyes. The bathroom was very quiet suddenly, so Shane could hear and feel the low rumbling.
“He is purring,” Rozanov said, hushed. “I would purr too if I were in your lap.”
“Oh my god,” Shane said, rolling his eyes.
But he reached out to touch the kitten anyway, and when Figaro nudged his little head into Shane’s palm and rested it there, apparently asleep in an instant, Shane thought—well, maybe he liked cats. He had never even really known one before. One of his friends in junior high school had had a few cats around the house, and they approached to sniff him out but ran off after a while when he didn’t pay any attention to them. He remembered the friend saying something about Shane not petting them, but Shane just wasn’t a petting kind of person. Other kids, he remembered, wanted puppies or kittens, but his attention had never wavered from hockey long enough to care. He guessed that was probably kind of unusual.
“Do you want a pet?” Shane asked. The bathroom was even warmer than the rest of the penthouse, and he wanted to shrug out of his shirt, but was afraid to move the cat.
“One day I will have a dog,” Rozanov said. “Maybe a cat too, but definitely a dog. I will have to have someone else to help me care for it though, while I’m gone winning games.”
“Someday I might, uh. I might get a cat,” Shane said. “Maybe. This one is nice. I didn’t know kittens were so nice.”
“You would probably end up with an asshole cat,” Rozanov said. “You like assholes.”
“No, I don’t. They just show up in my life and I have to deal with them,” Shane said, but they were smiling at each other anyway. The moment stretched out, silent but for the purring kitten.
Then Rozanov stood and said, “Come on. The kitten can sleep. I have plans for you.”
Shane awkwardly picked the kitten up and set him in the bed, tucked away in a corner beside the vanity. He was deeply asleep, not even purring anymore, and Rozanov put the blanket gently over him and shut the bathroom door behind them.
“I think it is time for you to be the one being petted,” Rozanov said, pulling Shane in to kiss him even as his hands hooked into Shane’s shirt to pull it off.
“Please don’t compare me to a kitten,” Shane said, shimmying out of his pants and underwear.
“But you are just like one on the ice,” Rozanov said. He was still dressed, and Shane reached for him greedily, but Rozanov just caught his hands and held them. “Angry little kitten, doesn't know how to play yet.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Shane said, and tried to tug them both toward the bed.
Rozanov slid his fingers around Shane’s wrists and backed him into the bed, laying him out with his hands above his head. He held them there with his left hand and reached into his pocket, pulling out a condom and a couple of packets of lube.
“Really,” Shane said.
“I thought I would fuck you in the living room,” Rozanov said. “The last time I did that, you came all over yourself without anyone touching you, and we beat New York the next day. Good luck charm.”
Shane pushed up against the restraint, but Rozanov held him fast. “Fuck off. You barely beat them.”
“But we did beat them, and you didn't,” Rozanov said. He tore the lube open with his teeth and wet his fingers, drizzling the remainder all over Shane’s balls, because even as Shane tried to break free he had spread his legs and shifted his hips so he could draw his knees up closer to his head. Rozanov slipped his fingers down, getting them even wetter so he could slowly, firmly knead Shane’s balls. Shane arched his back, kicking Rozanov in the side.
“Come on,” he said. It was whiny, embarrassing, but he was almost at the point where he didn’t care. If Rozanov did this much longer he’d probably come, and while Rozanov fucking loved making him come without even touching his cock, he at least wanted a dick in him while that happened.
“Ssh, Hollander. I’m petting,” Rozanov said. He did give in after a few minutes and rubbed around Shane’s entrance, but didn’t go any further.
“Fucking hurry up,” Shane said, finally past caring. He was still agonizingly frustrated but starting to get fuzzy around the edges. He had used to kind of hate that feeling—not while they were fucking, certainly, but afterward when he was suddenly cold with a wash of humiliation—but lately he’d found himself daydreaming about it. It was so warm and liquid, he always felt like he was melting into the bed. “Put your fucking fingers in me.”
Rozanov smacked his ass, not gently at all, and Shane cried out breathlessly when the impact rocked through him. But before he could be embarrassed by it, Rozanov had slid two fingers into him and was rubbing against his prostate, and Shane—well, Shane was begging. He pushed down with all the core strength he had to try to get more, but Rozanov had him really pinned and he had gone from kicking Rozanov to trying to draw him in while the fingers inside him spread warm, heavy pleasure.
“Don’t move your hands, and I will give it to you,” Rozanov said after a while. Shane didn’t really know how long, but his eyelashes were wet and he felt his breath hitching in his chest. It couldn’t have been hours, but he felt like he’d been on the verge of coming for that long and he needed it so bad, he needed it.
“Please. Please fuck me,” he said, his voice thick, and Rozanov let go of his wrists and cupped Shane’s face.
“Milyy moy,” Rozanov said, kissing the tip of his nose and then his mouth. “I said I will give it to you. You do what I say, okay?”
Rozanov wouldn’t go fast; he slid into him with a steady, grinding pressure against his prostate that had him writhing, frantic. His head was tipped back and he couldn’t help whatever noises he was making, little cut-off whimpers he knew he’d be mortified about later but in the moment he loved it—he loved that Rozanov could do this to him. Nobody had ever done this to him.
“I need it,” he pleaded, chest heaving. Tears slipped out before he had even realized he was about to cry.
“Hey.” Rozanov rubbed his cheek against Shane’s. “Need to take a break?”
He shook his head, lips trembling. He was too far gone to even beg. It was a state he’d only reached a few times before, and never this deep. The previous times he’d gotten a little scared and the feeling retreated, but he was far from scared now. It was like he had sunk into warm water, or maybe something thicker than that. Warm honey, maybe. Every part of him was slow and heavy and warm and every slow thrust of Rozanov’s hips drove him closer, closer—but not close enough. He could only blink up at him drowsily, hoping Rozanov would know what he really needed. He always did.
Rozanov straightened up and pushed two fingers into Shane’s mouth, and Shane sobbed in relief. Thank god, Rozanov always knew. He gripped the back of Shane’s thigh with his free hand and began to pound into him, and Shane lost it immediately. No warning from his body—he came so hard he thought maybe he was screaming around Rozanov’s fingers, but there was no tension in him at all. He took it, helpless and drenched in pleasure in the way he wanted so badly all the time. Only Rozanov could give it to him like this, he thought hazily. Rozanov, gasping his name, finally started to come and lowered his head to rest on Shane’s shoulder, his hips moving out of rhythm and snapping into him until he slowed and gradually stopped.
Shane was still sucking on his fingers, not wanting to pull away just yet, when he remembered he could move his hands, tugging Rozanov closer so he was fully collapsed on top of him. He ran his fingers through Rozanov’s hair while he caught his breath. He was shaking, he thought, but after a moment he realized it wasn’t him. It was Rozanov, shivering against him.
He tugged Rozanov’s wrist until his fingers were out of his mouth and set his hand down, rubbing Rozanov’s broad shoulders. He’d gotten naked at some point while Shane was whining and begging.
“Are you cold?” he asked. His voice was hoarse.
“No,” Rozanov mumbled, heaving himself up. He looked sleepy and fucked out, almost as much as Shane. Part of Shane—a very small part, easily ignored—wanted to pull him back down, get under the bedcovers, wrap himself up in Rozanov’s big body. But that wasn’t what either of them really wanted, and he needed to get back to his hotel room for a few hours of sleep before they left for the airport.
Figaro was still asleep when he went into the bathroom to clean up, and he touched the top of the kitten’s head, soft so he wouldn’t wake up, before he went into the bedroom to get his clothes.
“I have a house,” Rozanov said from the bed. He was on his back, still naked, arm over his eyes. “Did you know?”
“Yeah, I think it was in that stupid documentary about you,” Shane said, pulling on his pants. “In Boston?”
“Just outside,” Rozanov said. “The penthouse is more—don’t know the word. Easier. It’s easier to fuck you here. But sometime I want to fuck you there. You will like it. Very quiet, very boring. Away from the city.”
“Sometime, maybe,” Shane said. “Convenient. I think that’s the word you were looking for.”
“Yeah.” Rozanov sat up. “Convenient. That’s you.”
He was grinning, and Shane’s stomach twisted a little, pleasurably. “I have to go,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Tell Figaro I said goodbye.”
“He will be glad he has all my attention now,” Rozanov said. “Good night, Hollander.”
*
The next day Shane’s phone buzzed three times in rapid succession: two pictures and a message. One picture showed Figaro in a little carrier, and the other in someone’s arms. The arms were small and chubby. Shane assumed Rozanov had convinced a family in the building to take the cat.
He has a home now, the message said. I told them his name was Figaro, but they keep calling him Shane Hollander. Big resemblance, I told you.
Shane sent him a middle finger, but saved the pictures anyway since Rozanov wasn’t in them.
Two weeks after that, he got a text while he was alone in the gym.
I watched your Pinocchio. Very scary, Rozanov wrote. I will not let anyone make you a donkey.
Shane wrote, You’d be the first one turned into a jackass, and went back to the rowing machine, smiling.