Chapter Text
Apparently, they didn't wear scent blockers in Russia. Scent patches were mandatory for anyone participating in World Junior's, but a lot of the Russian guys Shane saw in the hotel or around the rink had them loosely attached to their necks or not quite centered over their scent gland. Typical adolescent alpha bullshit, letting little wafts of their scent leak all over the place in sulky resistance. Shane had been on his way to his parents' car when the wind shifted, and he smelled that Rozanov, leaning against the wall and not-at-all-surreptitiously fishing a carton of cigarettes out of his pocket, must have been one of them.
A lot of omegas got very into scents just, like, generally. They'd go to those little kiosks at the mall with the vials of essential oils and test strips and spend hours smelling, layering scents, talking about top notes. For adults, it was often about figuring out the exact scent profile of their mate. For people Shane's age, it was more about becoming well-versed in the language of scents, as if it were still Victorian times, and that made you an eligible claiming prospect or something. Omegas in Shane's class, during the brief period they tried sending him to high school, would say things like, 'I know my mate will smell like bergamot and amber.' It was mostly the popular girls, the ones who knew they'd be omegas since they were kids and were excited about it.
Still, even some of the guys in Shane's recently-presented male omega support group eventually started talking like that. The support group leader was always complimentary about it, saying it meant they were adjusting well to the transition. Shane attended the group for two years before his parents let him stop. The headcount constantly shifted, but at its most crowded, only eight guys were enrolled. It was the only local support group his parents had found, despite Ottawa having a population of over a million people. They were lucky to have it as a resource, and Shane never spoke unless directly called upon.
Shane had absolutely no idea how to describe what Rozanov smelled like when the wind changed. Other than the cigarette, he couldn't begin to break it down into individual notes, but it was familiar in the way things were in dreams. The details of the scent mattered much less to him than his response to it: Shane felt sucker-punched, his knees going a little shaky, his mouth filling with saliva, his hands sweating. He froze in place, helplessly, as he watched Rozanov take a cautious sniff of the air before slowly turning his head to meet Shane's eyes.
This was a social scenario Shane had never anticipated. Most of him wants to bolt, but that would be such a pussy move. There was no time to panic. Shane forced his legs to work, clearing his throat, and walking over with one arm already outstretched for a handshake. "Ilya Rozanov?" Polite. Professional. Any person of any gender would greet someone like that.
He remembered the hours and hours of Rozanov's game tape he had watched on the family computer in the downstairs den - had he known? Had some part of him known? His biology had been betraying him for years; this shouldn't have surprised him, but the disappointment coated his throat. Shane had really been looking forward to playing against this guy. Just one more thing that got snarled up in his designation that should have just been about hockey.
Rozanov looked at his extended hand suspiciously for a beat before he shook it as lightly as possible. Whatever he felt when their hands touched, he kept to himself, face smoothed into blankness. Shane felt an inkling of relief. They were on the same page, maybe. Ignore this. Or maybe Rozanov didn't feel anything at all, which Shane was just not going to have an opinion about right now. Shane had his scent blockers on, he reminded himself. He had been taking suppressants since the morning after he presented. Ilya Rozanov was probably indifferent because he couldn't smell Shane, and that was good. That was exactly what Shane wanted.
"Shane Hollander," Shane said, words too big in his mouth. "You're an awesome player to watch."
"I know who you are," Rozanov said. His voice was deep, and Shane had to frantically swallow a mouthful of spit before the words registered. He felt a brief jolt of shame. Rozanov had finally lit the cigarette and, thank god, the scent was pungent enough to drown out whatever Rozanov was giving off, slightly. Shane could feel sort of like a reasonable person again. Of course Rozanov knew who he was. Shane just hoped his hockey was part of the equation.
"Yeah, well…" Shane said. Sometimes it was a good strategy to get out ahead of it, name being an omega first to put an alpha at ease, but Shane found himself unable to make the right joke at the moment. He leaned against the wall while Rozanov smoked, like it was a casual, normal thing that he came over here, that he had been staring at Rozanov in the first place. He endured his skin thrumming at their proximity for a couple of seconds before pushing himself off and holding out his hand again. Again? Fuck. He was being a freak. "Good luck in the tournament."
Rozanov held his hand a little longer this time, smiling at him, intrigued. Rozanov's hand was huge and callused. Shane honestly wanted to die.
Shane was not an idiot, but no one was an idiot about this kind of thing. No one was actually as dumb as the romantic leads in the Hallmark movies who said things like, "Oh, his smell drives me out of my mind, but it makes me feel like I'm home! What does it mean?" Everyone knew what it meant. His teammates would put those movie posters on the door to his changing room, and Shane would have to roll his eyes and be jovially annoyed, because it was good-natured fun. No one actually thought he was like that. He'd make a big production of crumpling them up and throwing them away. It made the other guys laugh with him, not at him, which was always crucial.
"We won't go easy on you," Rozanov called as Shane started to walk away.
"Great. Then we won't go easy on you," Shane scoffed back. His face felt weird.
Rozanov just shook his head, dismissive. This was more familiar to Shane; the language of challenge. He was going to fucking crush this guy.
Russia beat Canada. It sucked, but it would have sucked worse if Rozanov had gone easy on him. Shane was checked into the boards as much as anybody. It was a strange game. The loss was devastating, but playing against Rozanov was as exhilarating as he had hoped, in a way maybe hockey hadn't been for a while. Rozanov could keep up with him and seemed to see the game the way he did. He was seldom where Shane would expect him to be, but he was often where Shane himself would have been if the positions were reversed. Like they spoke a private language, maybe, but that felt uncomfortably close to a dangerous thought.
Shane used prescription-grade scent blockers on the ice because he sweats a lot, but maybe they failed. Because Rozanov held onto him a little too long in the handshake line and met his gaze again as he said, "See you at the draft." It was taunting, a promise, and Shane's stomach dropped because Rozanov absolutely knew.
****
Later, when Shane was in his mid-twenties, the internet started to pride itself on becoming more enlightened about omegas and the omega experience. It was mostly influencers posting pictures of themselves on the beach or in their kitchens with long, rambling texts about their stories, as far as Shane could understand. He supposed it was a good thing, though, the movement. What struck him the most was the discussions about presenting, how the downsides were increasingly acknowledged.
Reading the thinkpieces, Shane felt a mixture of recognition and resentment, both of which he tamped down tightly. The discourse made him feel a little queasy, dismissive, or angry; he was never sure which. But it was good that people were discussing the negative aspects of presenting. The reality of it had always felt like a dirty secret. Most older stories about presenting as an omega treated it as a beautiful coming-of-age ritual, but presenting fucking hurt, and kids should know that. People should know that.
Shane had been thirteen when he presented, and any signs that it was coming were only visible in hindsight. He remembered it with the immediacy of shock - waking up with sheets soaked in slick and blood, the burn and the nausea as his insides rearranged themselves. Organs growing, others shifting to make space. Shane could feel it. He couldn't name it just then, but he could feel it happening, and fear sank claws into the back of his neck. He screamed, alerting his parents, who arrived just in time to watch him puke all over himself.
Shane remembered his mother in the doorframe, her eyes wide and stunned. "Oh, honey," she whispered as his dad looked over her shoulder, visibly horrified as all Shane's dreams crashed and burned around them. As his body became a stranger, a home for something else.
Then, the moment Shane always returned to, the one that arguably shaped his philosophy for the rest of his life. The reason that, as pushy and overbearing Yuna Hollander could be sometimes in her alpha assumption of authority, Shane would never want to rebel against her or break her heart.
Yuna squared her shoulders and marched across the room. She sat on the bed, the disgusting bed - they'd throw the whole thing out the next day because even the mattress was too far gone - and wrapped her arm around his shoulders as Shane sobbed. She tilted his chin up so their eyes met.
"This changes nothing," Yuna told him. Her tone brooked no argument. "Do you hear me, Shane? This doesn't change a thing." She squeezed his arm tight. "You're still going to get everything you want."
And Shane, a child still - he could understand that a decade and a half later - had believed her.
***
The recruiters had been sniffing around Shane for a few years before he presented, then left in a hurry, then warily circled again as he dominated in Juniors. Yuna quit her job to essentially start a one-woman, one-client, omega rehabilitation PR firm. She had to convince the MLH, and the public by extension, that an omega could blend into the league, that he wouldn't be a distraction or a liability, that his value as a player would more than compensate for the carnival sideshow aspect of him being there in the first place.
Shane, for his part, just had to be the best hockey player of his generation and never say or do anything offensive. He was already confident in his own greatness, and he was never someone who spoke his mind much anyway, so it was clear Yuna had the harder job.
His parents liquidated their retirement savings for a second time. The first was to have him in the first place (it reassured Shane a little that his otherwise extremely conventional middle-class parents were an alpha woman and a beta man, unorthodox before he even showed up. Shane was the result of extensive fertility treatments and, eventually, surrogacy. Wanted, always so wanted.) Now they spent their money on private coaches, physios, boutique endocrinologists, media trainers who grilled Shane for what felt like hundreds of hours of fake interviews - 'Do you feel safe on the ice, Shane? Is it hard to control your attraction to the alphas on your team? Do they take care of you? How many years of hockey do you need to get this out of your system before you settle down?'
"I'm trying to get you to snap," Kelsey, the media trainer, would say sometimes after a particularly vicious question, when Shane would give her a look. She was an omega too, with a delicate gold claiming collar. It was one of the more liberal ones that looked almost like a necklace. Shane thought maybe she understood, even though he also sort of hated her. "Anything I'm saying to you here, people are saying something ten times worse around the dinner table. You need to be ready."
She was good at her job, which meant she was expensive. Shane kept a little notebook of all the things he would buy for his parents when he made it to the MLH: a new house, new cars, jewelry for his mom, who loved to glitter as much as any alpha but pretended she was more practical than that.
He was too busy to think about whatever happened with Rozanov at World Junior's. The nothing that happened. The gap of space around a something, which Shane would not allow to be anything.
Instead, he trained and studied tape and had chaperoned sit-down meetings with managers and assistant commissioners, who were all very impressed with him but couldn't help but have their doubts. Not about Shane! Of course not! No, Shane was a good kid who kept his head down; they could see that. But the alphas in the league, you understand. They're elite athletes, macho, aggressive, dripping with pheromones. Shane might not be safe in a locker room. In a hotel. On the ice.
In Juniors, Shane didn't use the locker rooms. Some of the peewee teams had designated omega changing rooms, divided by primary genders, for the co-ed girls or for the occasional guy who just presented and needed a couple of months to accept it before quitting hockey. By Juniors, though, those spaces were the exclusive domain of the female omega figure skaters who shared the rink, and Shane showered after the rest of his team left and changed in the men's bathroom. Sometimes they'd put an orange cone in front of the bathroom door to let people know it was occupied. Equipment managers would seek him out to tell him they installed heavy-duty locks.
Honestly, Shane didn't have a lot of problems with his teammates as a general rule, even as he moved up the ranks and the mix of alphas and betas on the team shifted to almost exclusively alphas. Partially, his talent was undeniable, and they recognized he was useful, even if some of them resented that. But also that talent made him uniquely unappealing, a little sexless. Being good at sports was not an attractive omegan trait; alphas didn't like it when you were better than them at anything they considered important. So they didn't want to hit on him in earnest, and he was too big to menace sexually, and no alpha wanted to be seen openly bullying an omega in any other way. Add his ethnicity and his quiet focus - Shane kept to himself - and he was treated more like a mascot than anything. A team oddity that added to their sense of identity and gave them an edge.
Opposing team alphas could be assholes, sure. They'd trail stink everywhere to see if he'd swoon and show his belly, and say some heinous shit on the ice. Sometimes he was targeted during play, the game becoming more about dominating him than winning. But that was amateur hour. Shane had been tuning out stuff like that before he even presented, when he was just teased for his eyes. Anyone who wanted to make him submit on the ice was more than welcome to try. Those were the easiest games to win, usually.
He could do this. He told that to anyone who asked. He knew he could do this. All he needed was a shot.
So it kind of almost surprised him to see Rozanov at the draft because Shane had so firmly put him out of his mind. Like okay, whatever, Shane still watched his game tape because no one out there was doing it like Rozanov. And there were dreams sometimes. He'd wake up soaked, have to do laundry in the middle of the night like a slut, but that was healthy, to still have some hormonal fluctuations despite the level of suppressants he was on. But other than that, it was easy to push the existential threat Rozanov represented out of his mind. Shane didn't have the luxury of dwelling on it.
Rozanov was drafted first, of course. He was that kind of player, that kind of alpha. Superiority came to him easily, Shane would bet. None of Shane's fears ended up being an issue anyway, because Rozanov's scent patch was firmly applied this time, and Shane couldn't smell him at all.
Asked and answered right there, probably. Amazing. What a huge relief. Rozanov looked at the kind of omega Shane was and said 'no thanks', which was exactly what Shane would have wanted. Or maybe - more likely - Rozanov was just minding his manners because the draft was important and some media manager had whipped him into shape, and Shane didn't factor into it at all.
Shane went twenty-third but still got the lion's share of the press' attention for being drafted at all. Rozanov probably resented that too, since alphas love to peacock.
It was a good day. It was such a good day. He was so close now he could taste it. Shane's parents flanked him on both sides, wearing matching restrained smiles, careful not to look too openly relieved. Shane made it to the show, to an original six team, his mom's favorite team. Montreal was comfortable keeping him as a center, the Metros owner told him. Being first line wasn't out of the question one day.
If Shane thought too hard about what his life would have been like if he presented as an alpha, he'd punch his new boss in the face. Shane would have been a first-pick contender; he was sure of it. He and Rozanov would have been neck and neck, the way they had been on the ice. Shane was every bit as good as anyone here - better! He knew he was better. It was easier not to think about it, so Shane didn't, as a general rule.
It was hard to come down from the rush of the best day of his life, which was why he couldn't sleep that night. When he tried to close his eyes, he remembered how he caught Rozanov looking at him a few times, flat and assessing, and it was a shot of adrenaline each time.
It fucking sucked that Rozanov came to the gym too. Shane felt the frustration well in his throat, taking comfort in the knowledge that he had slapped another scent blocker on automatically before he left his room. Omegas had lost rape cases when the alpha had proven the omega left a strong pheromone trail, arguing that the omega had been tempting them into a private room to be seduced, as opposed to the alpha being a fucking stalker rapist. He could defend himself against nearly anyone, but then there would be backlash against an omega attacking an alpha. Shane always made sure he smelled like nothing.
Rozanov probably wasn't a stalker rapist - he had a fresh patch on too - but he was an entire bag of dicks, apparently, choosing the bike right next to Shane's and challenging him to a race. Shane lost, and he didn't like that he had fun despite losing.
"What a fucking day," Rozanov said, later on the floor. They were both sweating hard, and some faint traces of Rozanov's scent were leaking through the chemical tang of his patch. Shane made sure he stayed perfectly still. "Happy with all the cameras, Mr. Celebrity?"
Shane said, "They were taking your picture too."
Rozanov smirked. "Not like you. No history books for me."
"Guinness Book of World Records instead," Shane agreed. "Biggest Shit-Talker Ever Selected For the MLH Draft."
Rozanov, still panting a little, didn't deny it. He was so hot. Just objectively hot. It didn't mean anything if you acknowledged an alpha, an alpha man, was hot if they were as obviously hot as Rozanov was, especially drenched in sweat and sprawled on the floor, legs splayed. Shane could see the outline of his dick through his shorts and felt his eyes pulled back to it again and again like a magnet. Thank god for his patch; Shane didn't have to worry about slicking up.
Rozanov shrugged, drinking his water. "Montreal is nice, yes?" The way he said it made Shane realize his English likely wasn't very good, which made him soften a little bit.
"Yeah, it's awesome," Shane said. He was going to be a professional hockey player in one of the best cities in the world. It was a reality now, one that hummed through him. Nothing would get in the way of that.
"Boston is nice, too?" Rozanov asked.
"Yeah, people seem to like it," said Shane, who had never been.
"You get claimed, yes?" Rozanov asked, gesturing to Shane's, like, whole deal. "Make it easier to play hockey."
Shane wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but it seemed like a genuine question. Rozanov wore a fairly polite, expectant expression. "It's illegal to claim an omega in Canada until they're twenty-one."
Rozanov made a face that was difficult to interpret, although it was clearly meant to communicate some kind of shared annoyance. He drank again, and Shane had a wild thought of drinking out of the same bottle, tasting Rozanov's spit, getting more of that scent, which was startling and gross. Rozanov wouldn't offer. Sharing fluids with an omega was intimate, signaled intention of a claim. Shane swallowed, the air thick in his throat.
"Is bullshit, anyway," Rozanov said. Whether he meant Canada's age of majority laws, or Shane being in the MLH, or the reality of secondary gender, Shane had no way of knowing. Rozanov grinned and winked, though, at whatever Shane's face did then.
***
Shane understood Rozanov's logic. He was not remotely the first person to float the idea. Being claimed, mated, would take Shane off the board as a sexual prospect, theoretically making it easier for him to move independently. Maybe it worked like that in Russia, but in North America, the second Shane mated, the expectation would be set, and the questions would start. Wasn't it selfish, focusing on his career when he should be at home making a perfect nest for his hypothetical future babies? Why would he risk hurting his face when his alpha wanted to see him looking pretty? Public opinion would be established, and the alphas in charge would follow the flow of money, the irrevocable tide of history, and Shane's contract wouldn't be renewed out of respect for his alpha's wishes. Over concern for Shane's safety and health.
As a teenager, Shane had lost toenails and fingernails, needed stitches, knocked out teeth, cracked ribs. He got a concussion when he was fifteen and, outside of the obvious physical drawbacks, he loved it. He fucking loved it. He came back as soon as he was cleared and played like a man possessed. Look at what I can do. Look at what I can endure. You don't know a fucking thing about me.
As it was, there weren't easy solutions to the unclaimed omega problem. No one would risk the liability of billeting him - anyone who offered would seem like a pervert. In the end, his parents sold their house and moved to Montreal. Shane spent his signing bonus to help with the down payment on a place a little outside the city for them, despite their ardent protests, and rented an apartment in the city proper for himself. He needed space, he told them, and they respected that. His mom, as an alpha, had to cosign, but that was just a formality. Shane had a place that was his. Only his.
Shane went back and forth on hiring a designer. He had several intense conversations with his parents about it, weighing the control of doing it himself versus how omega-y it would look, picking out wallpaper. In the end, he went with a designer to more effectively manage his time. Shane kept the lights dim and reviewed game tape while he ate his nutritionist-provided meals, and it was heaven.
Sure, he did some weird stuff when left to his own devices, but who didn't? That's what your own house was for. And it wasn't even that weird, really. Just research.
According to the internet, Russian male omegas were treated similarly to how they were treated in Canada. Globally, they were significantly rarer than female omegas, making them both more repellent and more alluring. They were understood to be very sexually voracious. In Russia, claimed omegas of any stripe couldn't work outside the house without the written permission of their alphas, which was definitely barbaric, unlike in Canada, where even unclaimed omegas were always legally able to seek employment and had been allowed to have a bank account under their own name since 1986. Arranged claiming was still a thing over there, too, although technically you still needed the omega's consent. It was a status symbol, Shane read, to have a male omega in Russia, considered both traditional and fashionable the way caviar and furs were perennially in style. So Rozanov didn't find him culturally gross or anything, probably.
Apparently, the old folktale about the male omega who turned into a crane to save his husband was Slavic in origin. Shane always hated that story, how the crane died at the end.
Shane was six feet tall, two hundred pounds of hard-fought muscle, and had trouble making direct eye contact. He was no one's version of an ideal omega. That was a good thing. It had always been a good thing. Shane didn't want a mate. He wasn't a trailblazer - and all the omega activists were women anyway, mostly artists. Shane had been forced to read Emily Dickinson by every single tutor he ever had. In darker moments, he suspected it was less due to her being an omega icon and more a warning about what happened when you didn't get claimed. You were stuck in a house alone forever, doomed to write poetry. Shane didn't care about any of that. He just wanted to play hockey.
So getting hung up on some knothead who telegraphed disinterest at every turn would have been stupid. Shane didn't even know the guy. He was better than his instincts, which apparently got one whiff of pheremones in a parking lot eight months ago and wanted them to sit like a splinter in his side for the rest of his life. But Shane was good at pain. He was good at ignoring.
Shane also masturbated a lot now that he had his own place. That was healthy too. His suppressants meant he didn't produce a lot of slick, and he felt a perverse satisfaction when he added lube to his grocery order, under a fake name. He ordered a knotting dildo online under a fake name, too, and kept both it and the lube in a locked drawer.
He and Rozanov didn't really talk during their second round of World Junior's. They were both patched the whole time, and Shane's team won. All of that was, of course, excellent and thrilling. Shane was riding high, hopeful and not just determined for the first time in his life as he geared up for the Metros training camp. He told himself nightly in the mirror that it wasn't a trap. He wasn't being sent there to flame out as a warning to others. He was wanted and welcome.
Training camp, his rookie class, potential hazing, were all looming large in his mind leading up to the CCM commercial shoot, which was probably why the news of the updated concept blindsided him so much. When Shane learned Rozanov would be there, he fucking slicked up a little in the kitchen on the phone with his mom.
Yuna was ecstatic, actually, about the commercial being a joint venture, despite not being a fan of Rozanov since he beat Shane at World Junior's and then got drafted as the keystone of Boston's rebuild. "It means they think you're on the same level, Shane!" she said, while Shane wedged the phone under his chin and grabbed at his paper towels. He'd had the patch on for over eight hours; it was losing effectiveness. "Which you are, and now it gets acknowledged right off the bat. And they promised they would still honor the original contract."
They had been careful in reviewing the commercial proposal, nixing any suggested shots of Shane's neck or scent glands or, god forbid, on all fours. He and his mom had a firm brand strategy in place since before he could get a driver's license: they weren't ignoring his designation, because that would signal he was ashamed of it, but they weren't going to sexualize it either. Shane was an omega, yes, but primarily a competitor. Yuna was right; this was a good opportunity. Shane couldn't pull out of the commercial now, especially when the excuse he could give was the one thing in the world guaranteed to make Yuna panic. He told her it was fine. He'd make it fine.
He took a double dose of his suppressants the night before, which was supposed to be bad for your heart, but Shane was an elite athlete, and he was only doing it this once, so he was sure it was probably fine too.
Suppressed to the gils, the shoot was surprisingly fun. Hanging out with Rozanov was apparently kind of fun, he was learning, dismayed as he was at the pattern. They didn't talk a ton, although Rozanov's English seemed improved, but the same things would make them laugh. During one of Shane's closeups, the director said in an encouraging sing-song, "Great job, Shane, good face, very nice, very breedable," and before Shane thought about it, he looked for Rozanov on the bench, who snorted audibly when Shane rolled his eyes, and then they grinned at each other for a bright, hot blink.
They called Rozanov by his last name. They called Shane by his first. He was used to it.
They laughed too much during the face-off close-up and were sent away in politely irritated tones to sit on the bleachers while the crew set up the next shot.
"He is hitting on you," Rozanov said after a minute of smalltalk, gesturing with his chin to the director.
Shane felt his shoulders creep in and down, and looked at his skates. Rozanov hadn't said it in any particular way, just like he was delivering information. Shane had been told in the past that he was bad at picking up on it when he was hit on. He always thought it was because people generally made a pass at him for the novelty of it, making it easy to tune out. He wasn't sure if Rozanov was right or just being kind of an asshole. Both, possibly.
"Yeah, well," Shane said.
Rozanov looked at him thoughtfully. Shane felt like a butterfly pinned to a wall. "He knows he will get nowhere," Rozanov said, meaning the director. "There's a better alpha in the room."
Shane looks up at him, his stomach twisting. Rozanov met his gaze head-on, not aggressively, but it was clear he knew he was being provocative. It was a disgusting thing to say, but the thing was, it was true. Rozanov was the kind of specimen right-wing pundits referred to when they talked about innate alpha supremacy. Rozanov was a walking propaganda poster. He drew attention, pulled focus. The background blurred in comparison. People oriented towards him when he entered a space, listened seriously to whatever he had to say - he hadn't properly entered his rookie class yet, and the press was already talking about when he would get the C. He was huge and handsome and effortlessly masculine, with shoulders the breadth of a mountain. Rozanov demanded respect without having to prove anything. He just assumed he would get whatever he wanted because everyone else was inferior; everyone else would trip all over themselves to give it to him. He probably never worked for anything in his fucking life.
Shane hated him for a minute. Maybe he hated Rozanov from the minute they met.
Shane, in his head, could articulate maybe one tenth of the rage that spurred inside him. Shane, in reality, had no chance of success. He just stayed quiet until Rozanov was called away for some action footage. It was only after Rozanov left that Shane remembered to worry about anyone overhearing them, but when he checked, no one was around.
They did rock-paper-scissors to pick who got to use the showers first, which sort of backfired when they kept challenging each other to rematches, usually with slightly different rules. One of the APs made them guess closest to the number she was thinking of instead, so they could all go home. Shane lost, which irritated him on principle, but at least didn't leave an opening for anyone to make a joke about omegas having good intuition.
Shane waited his turn for the showers, worrying that Rozanov would stay in the locker room afterwards and they would see each other naked. He couldn't get the idea out of his mind. Shane showered perfunctorily, keeping an ear out, but it was hard to hear anything over the rush of the water. He needed to refocus. This had been a successful day. Rozanov had said something possibly suggestive, but it wouldn't be surprising if he turned out to be just another knothead. Confirmation of that was a relief, really. Shane was relieved, just keyed up because it had been a strange day, and he was worried about Rozanov meeting him in the locker room.
His patch was waterproof, made for athletes. He'd had it on for over eight hours. Shane traced the edge of it with his fingertips, pulled gently to feel the resistance of the glue.
Shane got out quickly, movements jerky. He was tying the shitty little gym towel around his waist as he walked into the locker room, eyes scanning, and stopped dead in his tracks.
The room was empty. But on the bench, hastily folded, was a black t-shirt. Rozanov's shirt. The smell of it hit Shane like a truck, a mechanical force like that; he had to brace his hand on the wall. Rozanov must have worn it under his compression gear during the shoot. Saturated it. Shane's suppressants didn't stand a chance in hell.
Shane instinctively took a deep breath to steady himself, which just gave him another hit of Rozanov's scent. It was impossibly good; he was dizzy, almost woozy, with arousal. He put his hands on his thighs, bending over, trying to make his thoughts make sense. Shane had to get a grip. Okay, okay. Rozanov had made a move. That was important to know. He had to think this through. He was harder than he maybe had ever been before in his life.
He crossed the room and picked up the shirt before he could understand he was doing it. His body decided for him. Shane buried his face in Ilya Rozanov's disgusting, sweaty shirt and moaned. He got it in his mouth and sucked, the taste overwhelmingly heady. He could float away on that scent. He could drown in it.
Shane felt something slightly viscous drip down his leg, and it took him a moment to realize it was slick, his slick, running down the back of his fucking thigh. Humiliated, Shane threw the shirt on the floor and staggered back. What the fuck was he doing? This was so dangerous. He was behaving like an animal.
Shane went back to the showers, turning the knob as cold as it could go. He braced himself against the wall in front of him with both hands, waiting until his erection went down, until his skin felt clean and his blood cooled.
He was undeniably flustered as he dressed, barely toweling off first. Shane had to get out of here. He opened the door to the hall with a hard swing, not bothering to look where he was going, and saw Ilya Rozanov leaning against the wall in the hallway, waiting for him.
He took in Shane's appearance with evident delight. "Oh, you really liked it."
Shane realized he was holding Rozanov's t-shirt. Of course he was. Shane had grabbed it on the way out. Now, Shane balled it up and threw it at him. "Fuck you."
Rozanov caught it, but to Shane's surprise, didn't sniff it, just tucked it under his arm. He matched Shane's stride as Shane stalked down the hall. "But you did like it, yes?"
"Don't be so full of yourself," Shane said.
"Hard not to be when I make such a pretty boy look like this," Rozanov said, gesturing. It occurred to Shane that Rozanov was flirting. Shane might never have been flirted with before, at least not in this way. Rozanov was wearing a tank top, and his shoulders made Shane feel insane.
"What do I look like?" Shane asked.
Rozanov grinned a little. He had such a big mouth, the bow in his upper lip so pronounced. It made him look like a lion. "You look like you want to do more than smell my shirt."
Shane felt himself color. He didn't say anything.
"It's true, then?" Rozanov's voice was almost conversational, except Shane felt it in his sacrum. "You want the real thing?"
Shane paused. Rozanov paused too. Shane turned on his heel to face him. He tried to stay angry, and he was, distantly, but Shane was also abruptly aware that he could actually get something that he wanted here. It was a breathtaking realization.
Shane tried to sound equally dispassionate. "I don't do that kind of stuff." A lot of omegas didn't until they mated. It was considered pretty lame, but not out of the ordinary.
Rozanov assessed him. "I think you're lying."
Shane hadn't, but not out of any hardline stance. He had just never thought about it. His head felt overstuffed with it now. He could do this. Why shouldn't he do this? Didn't Shane deserve to feel a little bit normal for once in his life, even if it was through the act of making a stupid, selfish decision? Everyone else got to do that.
"Maybe I'll think about it," Shane said.
Rozanov's face got heavy in a fascinating way. "What is your room number?"
****
He was so stupid. This was so stupid. Shane had to stop this immediately.
People could find out. The press would destroy him before his career even began. Also, Shane was so fertile. Not, like, actually, thank god. His suppressants took care of that, and he had the shot four times a year, too, for breakthrough issues. But nineteen was statistically in the most fertile age range for omegas (seventeen to twenty-four), and the only guaranteed birth control was abstinence, so what the fuck was he doing?
Shane would simply tell Rozanov that he had changed his mind. Rozanov was an asshole, but he wasn't a brute. He'd take rejection on the chin and leave. The worst he would do was call Shane a bitch on the way out. Shane changed into his suit initially to signal how much they aren't having sex tonight, but when he tied the tie, he thought of Rozanov's fingers on his neck instead, over his scent gland, and slicked up, soaking his underwear, and he had to change. He settled on sweatpants instead, dark ones. He couldn't focus on the baseball game he tried to watch; he couldn't focus on anything.
Shane only got a little wet when Rozanov knocked on the door, arousal crowded in too much by nerves. Initially, it was a relief, but the moment Rozanov was inside, whatever scent Shane gave off was still enough to make Rozanov slowly crowd him against the door, moaning, "Fuck, Hollander."
"I'm not…" Shane trailed off, unsure of how he meant to finish that sentence. He could feel the heat radiating off Rozanov's body as they stood close enough to touch. Rozanov overwhelmed Shane's field of vision; Shane couldn't see anything beyond him. Shane wasn't entirely sure what he was or wasn't right now.
Rozanov, telegraphing the move, takes Shane's chin between his thumb and his fingers. "I know." He kissed Shane carefully, tongue licking in. Shane's body bloomed into it, unfurling.
He looked down to stare at Rozanov's chest, running his fingers down it until he hits Rozanov's tank top. Rozanov took off his jacket and then his tank top, Shane helping, both of them breathing hard. Rozanov's naked chest was a revelation. Shane was already so hard, so fucking wet. Some distant part of his brain was telling him he should be embarrassed.
Rozanov's thumb nudged the corner of his mouth, then slipped its way inside. It felt natural to suck, really fucking good to suck on it, and Shane abruptly wanted to do it to Rozanov's dick. Suddenly, he was ferociously desperate to put Rozanov's hard dick in his mouth. This might be his only chance to be with an alpha. He wanted as much as he could take.
"Fuck, Hollander," Rozanov said again when Shane dropped to his knees, but he sounded approving. He put a hand on Shane's neck, cupping loosely. It wasn't near his scent gland, still covered by a patch, but Shane simultaneously felt a strong twist of arousal in his gut and blinding terror.
He smacked Rozanov's hand away, too hard. It wasn't cute or coquetish. "Not there."
The allure of a blowjob must have been pretty strong, since Rozanov didn't protest. He braced his hands against the wall. He was wearing a patch too - Shane hadn't actually noticed until now - but his scent was still impossible to miss, impossible to form a coherent thought around.
This wasn't Shane's fault, really.
Rozanov's cock was astonishing, of course. Thick and long and hard, flushed a gorgeous red. Shane had no way of getting it all into his mouth, so he put the head between his lips and sucked, moaning a little at the taste, fuck. People said your mate tasted better than anything, smelled better than anyone. Their mouth, their cock - you'd do anything for it. You'd do whatever they wanted.
The weight of it felt good on Shane's tongue, and he liked how he has to curve his mouth around its girth. Shane closed his eyes, figuring out a rhythm with the jittery thrusts of Rozanov's hips before Rozanov pulls him back up, kissing him, pawing at his chest. Shane was a little mortified. "Was that bad?"
"No, opposite, too much, too good," Rozanov said, maybe a little sheepish. "Felt knot coming."
"Really?" Shane asked. Shane would have taken it as a mark of his prowess, except that seemed highly unlikely. It was intriguing, though, if Rozanov were excited about this too. "Do you always knot with omegas?"
"Not always," Rozanov said. He brushed Shane's cheek with his knuckles. He was touching Shane everywhere, little touches. "Knot is moody. Needs the right conditions."
He said it like Shane was part of the right conditions. Shit, Shane could see a knot tonight. He had never seen one before, outside of porn. He could touch one. His knees wanted to buckle, but then reality set in. "I can't get pregnant."
"Okay," Rozanov said. He pronounced it okee. "You are asking me or telling me?"
"Fuck you," said Shane. Then, "Telling you. I can't - nothing back there."
It was a gamble. Various teammates had explained this to him over the years: an omega could be too slutty, which was bad, or they could be too stuck-up, which was bad, or they could be so stuck-up that it sort of looped around to seeming extremely slutty, which was worst of all. Shane was setting a lot of terms, which was allowed hypothetically, but none of his teammates would have considered it an indicator of a good time ahead.
Rozanov did, in fact, look mildly disappointed, but he was still crowded in close, rubbing Shane's bicep. Shane had one hand on Rozanov's waist, fingers curled in. Rozanov asked, "Is this your first time?"
There had been betas in high school, at team parties. Female betas. Shane's life plan was to marry a female beta when he retired - mildly untraditional but not scandalous. Just enough of a fuck you that everyone would know, but no one could call him on it. He figured he should practice with betas when he was younger, but then got too distracted with hockey to date seriously. "Yeah," said Shane, since they both knew what Rozanov meant. "Have you been with a male omega before?"
"Yes," Rozanov said, surprising him.
"Really?"
Rozanov seemed a little sheepish again. Maybe he had a fetish. "Really. My coach's son, back in Russia." He leaned in conspiratorily. "It was a secret."
"Why?"
Rozanov shrugged. "Complicated situation. We were young, he was arranged to be claimed." He kissed the corner of Shane's jaw. "Point is, I'm good at secrets."
Rozanov was so set on soothing him that it made Shane concerned he was coming across as too skittish. "You know a lot of big English words all of a sudden."
Rozanov grinned, rubbing Shane's shoulders, and Shane worried for a second that overdoing his suppressants had actually given him arrhythmia or something the way his heart skittered in his chest. "Not the only big thing I can show you."
Shane rolled his eyes but started walking Rozanov backwards to the bed. Rozanov went easily, eyes heavy-lidded. He looked kind of dopey, kind of drugged, but started undressing in a hurry once he landed on the mattress. He gestured to Shane. "Come on, you too."
That was a reasonable request from one person hooking up with another person. Shane was proud of his body, having spent his life sculpting it into a shape most people had told him was impossible for it to achieve. Omegas weren't usually mesomorphs. Shane was uncomfortably aware of all the wet places where his pants were clinging to his ass. He hunched over. "I'm not presenting for you, dude."
Rozanov made a dismissive noise. "Not anything weird. I just want to see you."
Finding no way around it, Shane undressed. He folded his shirt, but his sweatpants and underwear were a sodden mess, and he put them in the little ad hoc laundry hamper he had made of a trash bag in the closet. He could feel the slick between his thighs as he walked, but maybe it wouldn't be very visible in the low light. Shane stood in front of the bed, wishing he had pockets for his hands. "So. Yeah."
Rozanov was breathing hard and slow, eyes a little foggy as he looked Shane over. He spoke with an edge of alpha authority, though. "Come here."
Shane tripped a step closer to the bed before remembering himself. "Hang on," he said, and went to the bathroom and grabbed a stack of towels.
Rozanov made a rude noise when Shane came back and started layering them on the bed. "Shit. What do you think we're doing, Hollander?"
Shane felt himself flush. "You're not the one who has to sleep here tonight."
A complicated expression briefly crossed Rozanov's face. He watched Shane arrange the towels, then moved over, making space. Shane lay down next to him, their shoulders touching. Shane scanned the ceiling. Rozanov was too beautiful to look at directly right now. His eyes darted to Rozanov's cock, though, before he could help himself.
Rozanov laughed and leaned over to rub his hand over Shane's chest, catching his nipples. Shane made a little helpless noise. "Okay, so no fucking. What do you want to do?"
"I don't know," Shane lied. He wanted to suck Rozanov's dick some more. He wanted to see Rozanov's knot, clasp his hands around his knot, milk it, maybe see how far Shane could get it into his mouth, although they said not to do that; you could asphyxiate. The enormity of possibilities in front of Shane was paralyzing, so thankfully Rozanov rolled over, kissing down Shane's chest, moving a hand towards Shane's hips.
Shane felt a bolt of panic, enough to unfreeze, and leaned over Rozanov, pushing him back against the bed so he could move down to settle between Rozanov's legs. Rozanov grunted with approval, so Shane sucked his magnificent dick back in his mouth. It made him leak slick down his ass crack, between his legs, but he almost didn't care, between the heat and the weight of the cock in his mouth, the hands in his hair, Rozanov's small groans of encouragement. Shane moved his head up and down experimentally until he found a rhythm that seemed sustainable, feeling the familiar satisfaction of acquiring a new skill.
It was so hot. It was so good. It was the hottest thing Shane had ever been a part of, and he whined when Rozanov yanked him off, fighting him to get back down there, until he saw that Rozanov was coming in thick ropey pulls, the base of his cock swelling. It was huge, the knot. Shane couldn't imagine it inside him, but Rozanov must have put it inside people before.
Shane pulled out of Rozanov's grip, bending back down to put his mouth on the side of the knot and suck. Rozanov said something jagged and loud that Shane had played against enough Eastern Europeans to recognize as a swear. He grabbed Shane's hand and wrapped it around the part of the knot Shane's mouth wasn't touching, pushing down to show the right pressure, his cock spurting out the last little streams of come.
Shane was so turned on, he didn't know how to survive it. He could hear himself whimpering and rubbed his own dick against the towel. It was scratchy, but even that felt good somehow as Rozanov held him in place as he suckled on his knot. He said, guttural and from the chest, full alpha, "Good, like that, good, Hollander." Shane came so hard that starbursts crackled across his vision.
Shane, light-headed, buried his face in Rozanov's thigh, breathing him in. It still made Shane feel like he was floating off in space, like he was wrapped up in something heavy and warm, like he wanted to get fucked for days. They said when you met your mate - your actual mate, not whatever gross old alpha they auctioned you off to back in the day - you knew. You just knew. You felt it.
Above him somewhere, Shane heard Rozanov chuckle as fingers carded through his hair. He said something in Russian, voice soft.
"What's that mean?" Shane slurred, muffled by Rozanov's skin.
"No direct translation," Rozanov said. "Something we call omegas sometimes. Sort of like, hmm, knot-hungry?"
Reverie broken, Shane's head shot up. "Shut the fuck up."
Rozanov, clearly still dazed, looked confused at Shane's genuine outrage. "What?"
"Don't talk to me like that," Shane said. "Get the fuck out of here if you're going to say shit like that to me."
Rozanov sat up on his elbows, frowning at him. "What, that you like my knot? Of course you like a fucking knot, you're omega. It's instinct."
Shane set his jaw, trying not to blink the moisture out of his eyes.
Rozanov hauled him up after a beat so they were face to face, Shane's thigh on Rozanov's hipbone. "Is little sweet name," Rozanov explained, running his thumb over Shane's jaw. "You think I'd be asshole, insult the omega who just sucked my dick?"
"I know you're an asshole," Shane said, but they both recognized he was calming down. Rozanov risked kissing him again, tongue back in Shane's mouth. Shane wondered if Rozanov could taste that Shane was growing more receptive, if he could taste whatever it was that made Shane identifiably himself.
Shane was fully hard again halfway through the kiss. Omegas came early and often, as they said. Rovanov rolled him over on his back, situating him on top of his pile of towels. He patted Shane's cheek in a kind of companionable way, then settled between his legs, mirroring Shane's pose earlier in the evening. "See, I'll make it up to you."
Shane was tense. "Remember, you can't…"
Rozanov, mouth hovering over Shane's dick, pulled a face. "Do you know how babies are made?"
"Shut up," Shane said. He was proven right, in a way, when Rozanov ignored his dick wholesale, dipping between Shane's thighs to lick at the slick there. Shane made an undignified noise, but so did Rozanov, a guttural grunt when he first got a taste. Avoiding Shane's ass, he otherwise licked him clean while Shane whimpered and writhed and clutched the sheets before giving in and begging Rozanov to suck his dick.
Rozanov kissed the inside of Shane's left thigh before complying. He swallowed Shane down easily and enthusiastically, reaching up to fondle Shane's chest, gripping and squeezing, and Shane's brain erupted into fire.
"Holy shit, Rozanov, I'm close, you gotta…" he gasped out an embarrassingly short amount of time later, but Rozanov hung firm even when Shane came, swallowing easily, like he did it all the time.
Shane's vision stayed blurred for a while. He wasn't sure he could feel his legs. Rozanov slapped his chest lightly, then settled beside him again. He grabbed Shane by the jaw for another kiss. It was demanding, Rozanov forcing his mouth open like he had found a way to wedge himself inside Shane after all.
The world gradually crept back into focus, and the weight of what Shane had just done crashed in around him with a sick, cold certainty. "Shit. Wow," he said, rubbing his face.
"Yes," said Rozanov, agreeing. Like they were in this together, like Shane hadn't just handed him the power to destroy Shane's entire fucking life.
Shane sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The towel was soaked, maybe even the one underneath it was soaked through, but Shane forced himself to sit in it. He looked over his shoulder at Rozanov. "You can't tell anyone."
Rozanov's mouth went pinched, maybe a little surprised. "No shit. What?"
"You can't," Shane said, wrestling down the panic to try to sound firm or dangerous. It was pathetic. He had no leverage here. It would be a huge boost to Rozanov's reputation if he talked about this. He had bragging rights that he was the first to bed the MLH freakshow. It was probably why he did it. "I'm serious. I'll fucking kill you." He tried to think of a better threat. "I'll sue you for defamation."
Rozanov's face went blank. "You are upset?"
"I'll say you forced me," Shane said. Rozanov's shoulders seized slightly, and Shane, empowered by the obvious hit, went harder. "I'll say you made me, that I didn't want it. They could arrest you."
Rozanov was quiet for a long beat while Shane's heart thudded wildly in his chest. "You slicked through three fucking towels," Rozanov said. "No one will think I made you do anything."
The shame hit Shane low in the gut. He stared at his lap. His dumb, idiot dick was finally soft.
He heard Rozanov rustle behind him. "Hollander, look, I'm not going to tell anyone."
Shane looked at him. Rozanov seemed annoyed, if anything, as he continued. "Was just fun. Nothing serious. Alphas and omegas fuck all the time. Nothing to talk about. I forgot already."
"Okay," Shane said. "Just promise."
Rozanov had that flat look again. His hair was a little matted up in the back, his necklace askew, the crucifix nestled in the side of his collarbone. "I promise I won't tell. Okay?"
Shane nodded, jerkily. Forgetting was also his best option. His body felt cold and empty, tacky and uncomfortable. He wanted Rozanov gone so he could shower; he wanted to scour away the part of himself that wanted to make mistakes.
Rozanov let out an irritated sigh and grabbed for the bottom towel under Shane, making him sit forward. He started wiping himself off and said something clipped in Russian. "I need a cigarette."
"Smoking is bad for you," Shane said.
"Wow, amazing news," Rozanov said, scrubbing the towel through his pubes. Shane had sort of forgotten how much Rozanov had come. A lot of it had already dried, and he had to scratch off the flakes. Rozanov got up, and Shane sat further back on the bed, against the pillows, arms folded. This was a good last view of him for Rozanov to have, strong and uninviting.
Rozanov got dressed more slowly than Shane himself would have in his situation. He paused at the door, posture stiff. "Good night."
Shane nodded. "Good night."
The shoot had booked them a Ramada, and there was no chance Shane had access to a laundry room or laundry service this late at night. Shane should probably throw the towels in the garbage bag he was using as a hamper, maybe see if he could find an incinerator, but he was tired, suddenly. He could smell Rozanov on the blanket, on the pillows, and before he could stop himself, he rolled over and buried his face where Rozanov must have lain his head, where he must have transferred some sweat. It smelled a little earthy, he thought. Pleasant, like hard work.
Shane passed out like that and stayed asleep past his alarm the next morning. His mom had to come bang on the door.