Chapter Text
The Boston Raiders disappear from the afterparty one at a time. Rozanov never made it in the first place.
Shane’s not worried, per se. It’s just that this whole scrimmage is a thrown-together charity event for terrorist victims, and it’s a bad fucking look for one of the teams to be living it up at a club down the street or whatever the hell they’re doing. Shane’s eyes track the exec who organized all of this—apparently, his daughter had tickets for the concert, but she was late. Vancouver traffic. She was in line to get in when it happened.
Marleau ducks first, his phone lighting up in his hand.
Johansson next, then all the Russian players evaporate as one.
So Shane puts down his ginger ale in a whiskey glass, and he follows Feller. Discreetly. There’s people all around the first floor of the hotel, dressed in their heels and their cufflinks and pretending to give a shit. He weaves in a different pattern to Feller, and the guy doesn’t even look over his shoulder. His suit pants bulge where he’s got his fist tucked into his pocket. Shane expects him to veer out onto the street, but Feller heads to the elevators.
Maybe they’re just being… boring. As Rozanov would put it.
Shane slides into the elevator, tapping at his phone. He checks a text from his mom (great job, sweetie!) and he automatically goes to check Lily’s text chain. Nothing since the pre-game jab he’d fired off after feeling a little frisky. Rozanov never answered. Not even to ignore him and give a room number.
The light for floor nine is already lit. Shane hits floor eight. He saw that in one of Rose’s movies.
Feller eyes him, finally, but Shane keeps his head down until his floor arrives. He doesn’t acknowledge the Boston Raider as he steps out, walks long enough to hear the elevator shut, and then doubles back to the stairwell. Are they all doing shots in someone’s room? He takes the stairs quickly, and the doors in the stairwells are thick. They’re fire doors, rated to hold back an inferno for an hour. He doesn’t smell anything until after he pushes his way into the ninth floor hallway.
Ilya, is his first thought.
Like getting crowded against a door, the memories advance on him—Rozanov’s cock down his throat, that heady, Alpha musk enveloping him. Something spicy like ginger was spicy, and the bright, fresh scent of a thousand pine trees swaying on a cold wind. Shane asked once what he smelled like to Ilya, and Ilya made a face, muttered something in Russian, then got that stupid, goading grin and said one word—
Soft.
Shane follows the scent like a sailor to their siren, and there’s a door left ajar, just a sliver. Someone was in a rush. They must have left it.
“Just hold him—Fuck!”
“Pain in my—”
There’s a snarl, a few words in Russian, and Shane puts his fingertips against the door. It’s solid. It’s a good hotel. The fire rating is probably thirty or forty minutes. He pushes it open easily.
“Roz, will you calm the fuck down?” Marleau shouts.
And Ilya can’t answer.
They have duct tape over his mouth.
Shane’s world narrows into pinpricks against his skin, a fist tightening in his gut, as he watches three of Ilya’s teammates hold his writhing body to the carpet. Like some fucked up exorcism, they’ve got him pinned at the legs and either shoulder, and Marleau is kneeling with one knee on his chest. Still, Ilya manages to make them work for it, his face bright red and sweat-sheened, and fuck there’s wet tracks down the side of his face.
“What the fuck?” Shane says out loud, and all eyes turn to him. Even Ilya stops his thrashing, panting hard and blinking at the door.
“You fucker,” Feller swears, and then there’s hands bunching Shane’s jacket, trying to maneuver him back out the door.
Shane’s been practicing his stances since he was eight. Feller is a weak fucking wimp who doesn’t even get Shane’s eyes off of Ilya’s face.
His face that contorts, wordless growls ripping from his chest, and he almost lifts Varkov before a wet pop echoes through the room. Ilya’s body shifts away from his arm. He doesn’t stop struggling even as his snarls turn to whines.
“Get off of him,” Shane bellows, bowling over Feller with one staunch push.
“You need to get the fuck out, Hollander,” Marleau shouts back, whipping a glare over his shoulder, teeth bared and stained red from his cracked nose that hadn’t been there after the game. Shane takes a step forward, and Ilya’s fingers claw at Marleau’s suit, his other hand lying lifeless on the ground.
“What are you doing to him?”
Some crazy hazing?
“None of your business. Get out.”
“He’s going to tear his fucking arm off!” Dislocated shoulder—three days rest, minimum. Marleau could crack his clavicle, that’s a fucking season down the drain.
Feller is back on him again, looping an arm underneath his jaw, but Shane gets out of it easily. He clears another meter. He could lunge and tackle Marleau, but it could hurt Ilya.
“He’s in rut, you stupid bastard,” Marleau snarls. “Jesus, can’t you smell it?”
That.
“Shouldn’t be possible,” Shane mumbles. This time when Feller grabs his biceps, he lets him take them both a step back. Ilya’s head bangs on the floor, and he’s shouting behind the tape. Something that sounds scarily close to Shane’s name.
“Yeah, well, it’s not, okay? It’s a false fucking rut. Some omega bitch pounced on him at the party, and he was late taking his meds because of the game, so if I hear anything about this in the press—”
“He can’t go into rut here,” Shane says, interrupting whatever meaningless threat Marleau tries to spew.
The thing is, he does smell it. He’s just. Good at ignoring that kind of thing. Always has been. It’s the reason that being in the MLH as an omega hasn’t been a problem, even if there were more alphas on the ice than statistically in the population. An alpha was about one in fifty. The Metros only had one, and Hayden was the most un-alpha guy Shane had ever met. A good teammate for the most un-omega guy there’s ever been. Omegas were about one in sixty.
Omega males were rare, though.
But he doesn’t have much of a scent outside of his planned summer heats, and he doesn’t react to alpha pheromones coating the rink, and he’s winning the goals race, so he figures it’s not really something anyone needs to know.
Anyone who’s not actively fucking him, that is.
“Yeah, no fucking shit,” Feller growls in Shane’s ear. “We’re taking him somewhere else.”
“Where?” Shane snaps. His own shoulder aches; Varkov is still holding down Ilya’s shoulder and his ribs.
“Somewhere we won’t be recognized,” Marleau says. Because it’s not a false rut. It’s a real one, and that means Ilya’s body has rejected the suppressants, and that means he’ll be declared unfit to play.
A danger on the ice.
Shane’s world spins like a zoetrope, shadows on the walls telling him a cruel story of a life where he doesn’t get to see Ilya every season. Where they have no excuse to be in the same town, the same hotel, the same bed.
“No. There’s nowhere—”
“We’ll fucking camp,” Marleau says. “But we have to get out of here. He’s stinking up the whole floor.”
Two percent of unassisted omegas died during heats. The most prevalent cause of death—exposure. Like how freezing to death meant taking off all your clothes in the delirium.
Alphas died of dehydration. Five percent.
“How are you going to get out of here? Hog tie him and carry him out? That’s not suspicious.”
Marleau glowers at him, and for the first time, Shane notices the scent of two alphas. It’s sort of like baking cookies but walking past the trash and getting a whiff that tells you it needs to go out.
“We’ll take him out the back way—”
“There’s a hundred people down there, and none of you have cars. Are you going to walk him out of the city?”
Dubek straightens up, his hands softening against Ilya’s thighs. In a very familiar accent, he says, “We take your car.”
Ilya is breathing out these tortured groans. Hopefully his hotel neighbors are all at the party.
Shane nods.
“And I have a spare condo here,” Shane lies. “I’ve been meaning to rent it out, so it’s empty. We take him there. I know who to contact to get him professional help.”
“No. No way we fucking hand him over to you,” Marleau sneers.
“Your absence is very noticeable,” Shane reminds them, eyes skipping to each of them. “What will you say when someone asks why half the team disappeared?”
“Chicken pox,” Marleau deadpans. Underneath him, Ilya curls his head forward, jerking like he’s trying to bash himself against Marleau’s knee but his chin gets in the way.
“I have a car. I have a place to go. I can get him a doctor.”
“He doesn’t need a doctor. He needs a hole,” Marleau says, mouth twisting up at his own crudeness. “And at this point, I think he’ll settle for anything.”
The fishhook of Shane’s desire tugs on his insides, and Shane takes an oddly calming breath of Ilya’s scent.
“Why do you offer these things?” Dubek asks.
It’s a fair question.
A very fair one.
Shane rocks back on his heels as he rifles through his rolodex of acceptable responses. Most of the cards are blank. He certainly can’t say because I’m going to let him breed me as soon as nobody is around.
Because we’ve been fucking for years.
Because he’s mine.
Instead, his mouth says, “He could fucking die. Are you kidding me?”
It’s almost like they’re all reminded in that moment that Shane is a human being and not a caricature of their downfall, bred in a lab to keep them from dominating the conference. Or maybe they remember that he’s Canadian. Marleau glances at Feller, at Dubek.
“Everyone, back to the party. Spread the rumor; he bumped his head during the game. He’s getting checked out,” Marleau says, and then his gaze lands on Shane like they’re duelers about to fire. “I’m going with you.”
Shane almost bears his teeth. The strength of his reaction is what surprises him out of doing it; he’s never growled at anyone or postured or used his scent. He’s a beta in all respects except his hormonal cycle, and even then he’s a chill one.
But the idea of Cliff Marleau tagging along while Ilya is throwing off enough pheromones to attract an omega from Ottawa—
“No,” Shane says tightly. “You’ve already riled him up. I’m gunna have a tough time as it is. I don’t need him territorial.”
“Fuck off, beta,” Marleau sneers. “Me being here is the only reason he hasn’t torn through the party to find someone to fuck.”
“So you’re just going to fight him his whole rut?” Shane’s knuckles feel like they need to be popped. Maybe against Marleau’s face.
“If I have to.”
“That’s not—”
“Hollander,” Marleau says. “He hasn’t had a rut since he presented.”
Shane’s panic grasps at him, gravity shifting as he finds something bigger, something more important than the Earth. So big it’s going to crush him. He drifts into its maw anyways.
“Alright.” He’ll deal with Marleau later. They don’t have time for this. “How do we get him outside?”
Ilya has gone eerily silent, nostrils flaring with each panted breath, tears dripping off the sides of his face. Shane tries to do that thing they do on the ice—a look, a gesture, a puck passed between them like they’re opposite limbs on the same body. He’s not sure any of his plan gets through, but Ilya is looking at him.
“We fix his arm,” Dubek says, and Ilya’s attention snaps down. He squirms, but he’s got that furrow between his brows, the fire from before slowly suffocating.
“No, he’ll be easier to control like this,” Marleau says, and Shane starts salivating with how much he wants to rip out Marleau’s throat. He shifts his jaw, and it cracks.
“Captain needs his arms, yes?” At least someone else is thinking about Ilya’s future. There’s a face off there, but Marleau blinks. Maybe it’s selfishness. Maybe it’s compassion. Whichever way, he nods, and his hand goes to Ilya’s throat.
Shane’s not aware of his body as it moves. He plants his foot against Marleau’s shoulder, and he shoves.
He’s heard of rut-out. Alphas who take their meds back to back for years and then go off them or they fail, and they go feral. The fights, the fucking. Sometimes they can’t even remember it. He’s never heard of the same for omegas. Territorialness for sure—a few bitch fights between omegas on occasion, but he’s never heard of the unfiltered rage, the possessiveness that springs out of his fingertips like claws.
How dare Marleau put his hands on Ilya like that?
Marleau snarls, deep and primal, and Shane can feel the submission slipping its blade beneath his armor. Marleau’s scent strikes out like hurling a javelin, a physical blow against Shane’s skin, threatening to puncture his arteries. Shane lets himself bleed for it, and he bares his teeth, crouching low next to Ilya.
“Hollander—” Dubek reaches out a hand towards Shane’s hunched body, and it's all Ilya needs.
In the same motion, he kicks Dubek, and he curls to punch Varkov square in the face. Neither are down and out so easily, but Shane rocks his weight into Dubek, tipping him off of Ilya’s legs, and Ilya rolls, tangling with Varkov with a muffled yelp before launching himself out of the fray. Marleau’s attention shifts, getting his feet underneath him, and he lunges for where Ilya scrambles into the corner. He gets about halfway there before Shane body checks him into the mini-bar. Little glass bottles go flying, and the familiar scent of vodka cuts through the bloodthirsty haze.
“Стой!” Dubek barks, and Marleau aborts his counter-attack. He grinds his teeth and lets Shane pin him to the cabinet.
Shane’s eyes go back to Ilya because they’re all stuck in his orbit now. Bile bubbles in Shane’s throat.
He’s whimpering.
Barely audible above the drumbeat of Shane’s pulse, but Ilya’s throat bobs in time with a gruff, pained noise. His shoes push against the carpet as he crowds himself into the corner, turning his nose into the wallpaper. His good hand touches his limp shoulder and then jumps away.
“кто тебе нужен?”
Shane wishes he’d studied Russian instead of French. Ilya breathes hard, and his gaze shifts to Dubek, then back to Shane. He blinks sweat out of his eyes.
“Hollander, you go,” Dubek says, nodding, and Shane drops Marleau like he’s about to get a penalty.
“Keep your hands up,” Marleau says, and it almost sounds like advice. Whatever it is, Shane has a better idea.
He circles to put himself at the center of their offense. If Ilya is a shaped charge, Shane is taking the full blast, and if Ilya is a wounded animal, Shane will be the one to snap him up first.
“Somebody give me a cigarette,” Shane says, and it takes one click of a lighter before someone is pressing it between his fingers. Ilya’s brow crumples, and he tries to growl behind the tape. His spine curves, curling more in on himself.
Shane stoops to pick up one of the misplaced vodkas from the floor. As he inches forward, he slips it into his pocket. Ilya tucks his knees to his chest, but he doesn’t growl again. A good sign. Shane grimaces, crossing into Ilya’s reach, as he lifts the cigarette to his lips.
Ilya Rozanov is the only person he would ever smoke for.
He takes a drag, and his lungs heave immediately. He keeps it in long enough to pucker his lips a blow in fitful bursts, right at Ilya’s face. He takes a step. He does it again. Slowly, the air clears of Marleau’s stench, of even the muted scent of Ilya’s beta teammates. Until it’s just Ilya and the smoke.
“Hey,” Shane says. He gets on his knees, careful not to touch Ilya yet. He has to trust that Ilya’s not too far gone to jump him right here, in front of his team. He blows another puff of smoke, saying in between coughs, “You’re hurt, Rozanov.”
Ilya watches him, one fist curled in his lap. Shane glances down; he doesn’t know why he needs to. He can smell the miserable arousal coming off Ilya like water from a tap. He’s hard in his suit pants. Of course he is. It doesn’t make the sight any less electrifying. Connecting wires, closing circuits, and Shane’s body lights up. It’s almost a shame his scent blocking lotion works so well.
“I’m going to take this off,” Shane says. He reaches up, flashing his palm to Ilya’s suspicious glance, and then he picks at the edge of the duct tape. Ilya’s face is burning against his fingertips, damp with sweat and tears—all they’re missing is blood, maybe Marleau could lend some. It makes it easy, though, to carefully peel off the tape.
“Как ты?” Varkov pipes up.
“Ты понимаешь?” Dubek says.
Ilya doesn’t answer. His eyes, blown completely black, track each minutia of Shane’s movement as Shane lifts the cigarette to Ilya’s mouth.
Like spoon feeding someone back to health, Shane holds the cigarette there. Ilya takes a drag, almost automatically, and then the hunger shifts in his eyes. Shane, to the cigarette, back to Shane. He pulls hard, and the cherry threatens Shane’s knuckles. He shifts his fingers closer to Ilya’s lips. He can smoke it straight to the filter if he wants.
“Ты хочеш, чтобы он тебе помог?” It’s Dubek again. This time, Ilya’s chin twitches to the side.
“Только он,” Ilya rasps. It’s the first thing he’s said since Shane got here.
“We have to fix your arm,” Shane says, and Ilya shifts to angle his hurt side away from the room. Shane repeats, “We have to fix it.”
Shane puts the cigarette out against the wall.
Telegraphing each movement, he guides Ilya to his feet. He’s a rusted marionette under Shane’s hands; Shane has never seen him move so gracelessly, like his joints are full of sap. He brushes along Ilya’s scent glands, holding the side of his neck as they get fully upright.
“Dubek,” Shane says, barely turning to hitch his chin. “You know how?”
“Enough,” Dubek answers.
Shane knows when he tries to approach because Ilya tenses again, stepping into Shane. He slings his good arm around Shane’s waist, and Shane can’t help but curl his arm around Ilya’s neck, rubbing his cheek against Ilya’s jaw.
“He’s going to help,” Shane whispers into Ilya’s curls, and he gestures behind himself for Dubek to keep coming.
The hotel room isn’t that big, all things considering, but it may as well be Lake fucking Superior for how long it takes Dubek to reach them. He’s smart; he’s careful not to approach right behind Shane. Ilya starts to growl, but he presses his face into Shane’s shoulder instead of snapping at Dubek.
“He’s going to touch your arm,” Shane says.
“Я буду прикасаться к твоей руке,” Dubek repeats, and Ilya’s fingers dig into Shane’s back.
It’s agonizing. This close, Shane can smell the pain like it’s his own. Ilya has such good control over his scent. Even when it leaks out, it never betrays him, but now it’s a shifting kaleidoscope of fear, pain, anger, pain, lust, pain, and Shane can parse the distinct notes because he’s smelled all of those before. All he can do is hold Ilya as Dubek lifts his arm perpendicular to his body. Dubek pulls slowly, and Ilya yells into Shane’s suit, the hot agony of his breath piercing three layers straight to Shane’s skin. He’s shaking all over, and Shane can’t do anything, so he lifts his wrist to his mouth and sucks on the small gland there. It tastes like the lotion he just put on before the party, but he wonders—if he’s able to get enough off—
A sickening pop like breaking down a chicken carcass to boil echoes through the room, and all at once, Ilya’s strings are cut. He slumps into Shane, both arms coming around him now.
“See, if you treat him like a person,” Shane grumbles, letting the admonishment linger. He can’t be sure what the Boston Raiders think of him now. Secret omega or secret lover of Ilya’s? Surely not the latter. He can survive the former. Surely, they won’t tell, not with their Captain’s career on the line. Not with their only shot to stay relevant trembling in his arms.
“He asked us to help him,” Marleau says, and then he sighs. “I’ll get his stuff. Guys, time to run the mill.”
“See you later, Marleau. Take care of Captain,” Varkov says. Feller lingers the longest, and Shane’s lip twitches, baring his canine.
Ilya burrows into his neck, mussing his collar to get at the scent gland there. Shane knows what he’s searching for—Soft. Shane tries to swipe his cuffs against his neck, to rub off the scent blockers, and Ilya gets the hint, tonguing over the innocuous bit of skin.
It’s been. Too long. Since he’s had Ilya’s tongue on him.
“Stop,” he murmurs, rapping Ilya’s chest with his knuckles.
Ilya hums, and then his lips part, teeth scraping Shane’s neck, and Shane’s knees almost buckle.
“Cut it out!” He snaps, wrenching himself away.
They have an audience. They’re at a hotel. It’s not safe—
“Worst part about ruts,” Marleau calls, and he’s got Ilya’s duffel over his shoulder. “They can turn you into a real fag if you’re not careful.”
Shane wishes he didn’t flinch. The barb is carefully filed down and observed as it lands.
He spins around, not totally making it out of Ilya’s arms. Just to prove Marleau’s point, Ilya’s arms drop to cage in Shane’s hips, and he presses the bulge of his cock against Shane’s ass.
“He’s not—” Shane doesn’t know what he’s saying, struggling to break Ilya’s grip. “It’s just the hormones.”
“I know.”
Marleau’s scent suddenly lashes out, the last of the smoke no longer strong enough to keep him at bay. Ilya snarls wordlessly, maybe a curse in Russian, but he drops his hold long enough for Shane to step away. Caught between posturing at Marleau and reeling Shane back in, Ilya hesitates.
Shane grabs the vodka from his pocket and twists the cap off with his teeth. Ilya’s nostrils flare at the new, sharp scent, and Shane dabs some onto his fingers.
“We really need to go,” Marleau says, and Ilya’s hand cinches in the hem of Shane’s jacket.
“This might help with the smell.”
It’s another thing Shane has seen in one of Rose’s movies.
Not this part—he reaches up to offer his wrist to Ilya, and Ilya noses down the tendons, licking the spit off of where Shane was sucking before, and Shane ignores the way it stirs low in his belly.
This part—he rubs the vodka into Ilya’s neck gland, and Ilya jerks back with a hiss, bumping his sore shoulder against the wall and yelping about it. His teeth are clenched, drawing in huge breaths.
Unlike the movie, he doesn’t deck Shane.
Progress.
“Just a little bit,” Shane murmurs because he can’t help the urge to soothe that wild thing occupying Ilya’s space. He remembers the sensitivity of his heats. As soon as he’s done with his suppressants, he can’t even wear a collar. He needs scoop necks and basketball shorts, or it drives him insane.
He pats the vodka into the glands at Ilya’s neck, and the ones on his wrist. He’s not dumping the bottle over Ilya’s lap, so that’s the best he can do. Marleau gives a sniff from his watchman’s distance.
“We might be able to fool some betas,” Marleau says hesitantly. “They could think he’s drunk and scent throwing.”
“Impolite but recoverable,” Shane agrees.
Ilya’s head wags back and forth like he’s trying to rub the vodka onto his shoulder.
“Let’s go—” Marleau takes a single step, and Ilya snarls, scent going primal and dangerous.
“Let’s go,” Shane says, and he takes Ilya’s arm. Rubs their wrists together.
Ilya leans into him, making Shane walk crooked down the hallway, but there’s blessedly no one there. They figure out a leapfrogging method that keeps Marleau away but lets him scout ahead or fall behind when necessary. It’s the hallway to the stairwell to a little used back portion of the lobby, and the lobby has someone in it. A woman in sequins, glued to her phone. She doesn’t look up as Shane hustles past to the parking lot.
Christ, the cool air is fantastic.
Ilya must feel it too. He takes gulping lungfuls of dry Montreal air, his fingers flexing against Shane’s side with each inhale.
“Я не помню,” he says, glassy eyes darting between Shane and Marleau, steps behind. “Shane.”
“Ilya,” Shane warns.
He doesn’t say anything else. Nothing incrimitating as they load him into the passenger side. He doesn’t like it when Marleau climbs in the back, but neither does Shane, so he can’t blame him.
“How long is it to your place?” Marleau asks. He doesn’t put on his seatbelt, and it’s by far not the most irritating thing he’s done tonight, and if Ilya wasn’t literally boiling alive in his own hormones, Shane would slam the breaks and give Marleau a dressing down worthy of Yuna Hollander.
“Half an hour,” Shane grits. “Think you can keep your scent under control until then?”
Until I figure out how to get rid of you? Shane adds to himself. He really might just kill Marleau. Ilya might even thank him; Marleau has no finesse with a puck and his entire left side is weak.
“If he gets antsy, I’m taking his attention off the fucking driver,” Marleau says.
“Whatever.”
“Мудила,” Ilya mutters disdainfully, and Shane’s pretty sure he’s heard that one on the ice before. Whatever it is, he agrees.
Shane has never been in a more tense car ride, not even after in highschool when lied to his parents, went to a party, then called them to come pick him up because people were drinking.
He has been on a slightly more horny car ride—one time, one lurch in their routine, when he took Ilya to the airport. The asshole had the indecency to come all over Shane’s glove compartment. Actually, it’s not really helping things to think about that right now. He’s not advertising to the whole world or anything. The scent blockers take care of that, but Ilya is watching him like he’s the bomb, counting down to explode, instead of the other way around. Ilya notices.
He always does.
He reaches over, fingertips skimming down Shane’s thigh. Shane snatches his hand, and Ilya yanks Shane’s wrist to his face.
“I told you,” Marleau huffs. “This is the worst part.”
“Have you ever..?” Shane glances in the rearview, at the way Marleau’s jaw ticks.
“I go into the mountains when I’m single. I take some LSD and chase birds for a few days,” Marleau admits. It sounds a little too manly to be true.
“We were all surprised when he was top pick his first year,” Shane says. Ilya Rozanov could tear up the ice all he wanted, but he couldn’t slam his designation up against the boards.
“Things are shifting in the East,” Marleau says. “I do well, and someone got the bright idea to be the only team in the league with two alphas.”
“You work well together.”
“Roz isn’t a mess like half the alphas on the ice,” Marleau sneers. “He’s a good kid. He doesn’t deserve this.”
Ilya starts to suck on Shane’s wrist again.
“I know some people. There are services,” Shane lies, and he thinks it’s pretty bad, but Marleau really is concerned.
“He doesn’t want a service. He told me it wouldn’t work, and I believe him. He gave me his sunset stick.”
“He what?” Shane nearly crashes the damn car with how fast he whips around.
“Watch it!”
A horn blares as Shane rights the car. He’s nowhere near the craziest driver in Montreal, even with his longterm whatever-they-are giving off the headiest, most intoxicating scent, mouthing at his wrist—
“He told me where it was in his bag,” Marleau says. There’s a flash of yellow plastic in the rearview. It looks so similar to his dad’s Epi-Pen.
“Does he know the side effects? He could be cut off from his designation for good.” Not to mention the muscle wasting, the nerve pain, the psychosis. It wouldn’t just be the end of his career.
“He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”
No.
“He wouldn’t,” Shane says quietly.
“But I don’t want to use it, obviously.” Marleau sniffs, rubbing the contraption absently against his chest.
“You won’t have to. I’ll—We’ll take care of it,” Shane says.
Marleau lets the silence sit for a few more minutes. Shane doesn’t listen to music in the car, but it’s better than the current soundtrack of Ilya’s lips smacking against his scent gland, his occasional small groans. Shane flips on the radio. It’s the university’s classical music station. The Firebird is on.
Well, somehow this is worse.
“You actually do want to help him, don’t you?” Marleau asks after a torturous few minutes of violin yearning.
“Yep.”
Marleau shifts in the backseat, and Ilya’s eyes slit open to track the movement. Marleau says, “He seems to like you. Your scent, at least. I can’t smell it from here.”
Shane avoids a pothole.
“We’re not actually assholes to each other, despite the media circus.”
“Yeah.”
Something is building. Looming. Like a storm gathering at the edges of the horizon, Shane’s feeling the pressure shift in his bones. He doesn’t like having Marleau behind him. Ilya’s teeth start to brush Shane’s tendons.
“So you could help him, couldn’t you?” Marleau asks, and the bottom drops out.
Shane just made his little emotional dingy seaworthy again.
“What the fuck?” Shane sputters. Ilya’s grip digs into his arm like he can taste the panic straight off of Shane’s masked scent instead of the offended machismo that makes a poor wrapping job for his words.
“It doesn’t seem like you mind,” Marleau says, damning him.
Shane swallows back the denial. He’s never been good at taking pills. Some deep voice in a Russian accent mutters, but taking cock—
Could it really be this easy?
“I’m not gunna tell anyone, of course. Roz is my boy. If you think you can go queer for a few days… He didn’t want the rest of us close up like this,” Marleau says.
Shane is hard in his dress slacks. How could he not be? Ilya is making out with his scent gland, smelling like sin incarnate.
“I’m just helping out a fellow hockey player,” Shane says carefully.
“Of course.”
“Who could lose everything if anyone found out his suppressants stopped working.”
Marleau rubs his fingers over his lips. The leverage is killing him, and Shane isn’t enjoying having something in common with Cliff Marleau. How did Ilya put it when he talked about his fling from Russia?
Same secret.
It’s not the same secret they have between them here, but it’ll have to be close enough.
“I’ll throw the next game,” Marleau offers when Shane doesn’t find his agreement fast enough. Shane almost laughs, but it’s nowhere near funny.
“What?”
“You definitely won’t tell anyone,” Marleau says, his arms hugging his chest. “So if you—no doctors, no escorts. If you help him out, I’ll make sure the Metros win against us next time.”
“We can stomp you just fine on our own.”
“Then what the fuck do you want, Hollander?”
Ilya snarls out something close to Marleau’s name, and he would have lunged if the seatbelt hadn’t stopped him.
“I don’t need any of that,” Shane says, tugging at Ilya’s grip to gesture blandly and to reclaim his attention.
“Money?”
“Will you shut up? Christ.” They're almost to the condo. “I’ll do it cause I know he’s a good guy.”
The best, really.
“Okay,” Marleau breathes, and he puts his face in his hands like he’s just sentenced his friend to a few days in Gay Jail, ooh so terrible.
Shane finds himself a little irritated that Marleau thinks plowing Shane’s ass for a few days is such a despair-worthy event. His ass is great, and Ilya loves it.
Ilya tries to get a hand on his thigh again. Shane parries him relentlessly until a flicker of Marleau’s scent creeps over the seat. He hates to admit Marleau is right, but the trick works. Ilya is back to hackles-raised, fists curled, seethingly keeping vigil over Marleau. Shane rolls the windows down to get some air flow and to maybe calm the heat slowly cracking open his skin like drying clay.
Shane parks illegally. It’s fine.
“I’ll catch a cab,” Marleau says. He lingers as Shane helps Ilya out of the car, eyes going back and forth like Justice’s scales. Shane clears his throat.
“If any of this shows up on TMZ…”
Marleau’s lower lip shrugs into his top one, and he says, “Same to you. And here.”
Marleau holds out the small plastic injector. It’s not that much bigger than his index finger.
“I can handle—”
“Just take it,” Marleau says, making the wise decision to toss it instead of approaching. Shane catches it on reflex, and it’s Brutus’ dagger in his palm. He waits until Marleau turns to head for the street, and then he drops it, lets it slither off into some dirty crevice.
Shane takes Ilya inside.
The door doesn’t even fully click shut before he’s pinned against the stairwell wall, handrail digging into his hipbones.
Ilya breathes heavy in his ear, and slowly, deliberately, Ilya says, “Get. Him. Back.”
“Ilya.”
“Safe,” Ilya grits out.
“Yes, Ilya. It’s safe here. We just go upstairs, to the condo. You like my condo,” Shane says even though he knows what Ilya is struggling to say.
“Нет.”
Shane pretends not to know what that means, not if it keeps Ilya’s nose under his ear, Ilya’s cock grinding against his ass. As soon as they’re alone, it’s like the gauze gets taken off the wound, and Shane is finally aware of the raw, aching need thick in the air, running through his own veins.
“Let’s go,” Shane whispers, and Ilya keeps repeating it—
“Нет нет нет нет.”
“Yes, let’s go.” Shane tips his weight backwards, making an unprepared Ilya stumble. Shane shakes out of his grip, darting up the first two stairs.
Ilya’s eyes go sharp.
Predatory.
Shane’s soles scrape against the concrete as he turns and runs.