Chapter Text
16:24, Sochi | 24 minutes since the leak
“Relax, man, the door isn’t built for this shit!” Carter calls out.
His warning doesn’t stop whomever is on the other side of the door from pounding so hard against the thin wood that Carter is genuinely surprised he still has a door to open by the time he has successfully untangled himself from the blankets and stumbled across the room. The persistent asshole still hasn't stopped.
To be fair—although Carter isn't feeling particularly fair right now—he has ignored them for a good five minutes in the vain hope that they would give up and leave. Carter isn't in the mood to get dragged to whatever competition is happening right now, nor does he feel like socializing. If he did, he would have joined Scott in exploring. He'll still do that, of course. Later.
Once he doesn't feel like a combination of jet lag and the very last remains of the cold he has successfully headed off before it could escalate are holding him hostage.
One nap. That is all Carter wanted. Just enough to catch up on some sleep and give his body a well-deserved break before the tournament gets intense.
Bad enough that half the games are scheduled in the middle of the night—to better align with American prime time, apparently, because for some reason this is the one matter where Russia is open for compromise and to the surprise of no one it is about money—he really can't afford to be anything but his best. Returning to the regular season within days of playing at the Olympics would have been brutal without the free and mandatory sleep deprivation upgrade. That Scott seems to have adjusted to the time difference in the time it took them to collect their luggage and find their assigned room does not help. At all.
Carter really misses Gloria.
Just a little.
In a totally noncommittal way.
One of his favorite parts of traveling with her is that Gloria handles jet lag worse than he does. Which is not a plus, exactly, but it's not not a plus either. She also makes for a great cuddle partner. Much better than Scott who tends to freeze up or excuse himself right when Carter has finally gotten comfortable. And that's only when Scott doesn't just drop some semi-helpful one liner and makes himself scarce.
Like today, when he warned Carter that sleeping in the afternoon is just going to fuck him over even more in the long run.
Thanks, buddy. I never would have guessed.
Scott must have read that thought right off his face because he'd laughed once and said "Just saying it one more time so that I can tell you 'I told you so' tomorrow. Sweet dreams!", then sent a little two-finger wave over his shoulder as he stepped out of the room.
Carter loves the asshole he proudly calls his captain. He really does. That won't stop him from hiding Scott's good luck socks at the next available opportunity that doesn't run at risk of costing them an important game. He's emotionally flexible like that.
His vengeful thoughts don't appear to impress the person who is still hammering against the door like they are trying to force themselves through it. Or are contemplating to break it down.
"Someone better be dying," Carter snaps as he pulls it open.
He half-expects to find Scott on the other side, ready to drag his ass to a competition he just has to see, now that he is already up, but no.
It’s not Scott.
It’s Hollander.
Shane Hollander.
Carter blinks. Then blinks again, because maybe if he closes and reopens his eyes often enough Shane fucking Hollander will have the courtesy to dissipate into thin air.
He does not.
So much for the guy’s legendary manners.
“Hollander? What’s going on?” Carter asks after an awkwardly long moment during which he waits for Hollander to explain why he has been trying to break down his door and Hollander… doesn’t.
He looks more like a man who is about to commit murder and get away with it than a man who is going to explain himself, actually.
Uh oh.
"Hollander?" Carter repeats, since waiting clearly isn't getting them anywhere.
Hollander still doesn’t say a word. Instead he shoulders his way past Carter—who could have stopped him, probably, if he wasn’t so baffled at having to stop Shane motherfucking Hollander from invading his room with the air of a guy who has a bone to pick and has deemed violence the only option worth considering.
What the hell?!
Carter is no idiot. He has always known that the guy's whole reputation as a polite Canadian with zero emotions and less personality is more image bullshit than reality. But there are reasons why that image is so pervasive. Why it follows Hollander like an obsessive fan far outside of any hockey arena. And that is because he makes it fit. Wears the rough shape of it, so that even when it doesn't fit him perfectly people are too focused on the familiar to notice the places where the mask falls short. Carter has played years worth of matches against Hollander and this is the first time the guy doesn’t act like the public persona he cultivates.
He's breaking character.
The realization has no right to hit as hard as it does.
Hollander finishes surveying the room—not that there is much to look at—and turns back around. That is when Carter realizes that he is still standing half in front of his open door.
Gaping.
Hollander stares at him. Presses his lips together in a thin line that pulls off an air of disappointed parent with devastating success.
Carter closes his mouth. Then, on second thought, also the door.
He might regret that second one, but this doesn't look like a conversation he wants to have out in the open.
"What-?"
“Where's Scott?”
Are Scott and Hollander on first name basis?
For some bizarre reason that is the first thought that pops into his head. He knows they are friendly-ish but no more than that. They never really spend time together off the ice, not even at All Stars.
Carter shakes himself.
Focus. That's not important right now.
“I don’t know.” Carter sees no reason to lie. Scott hasn't shared his plans. “I was taking a nap.”
Hollander, who has been frowning down at Scott’s empty bed as though the cheap cotton bedding personally offends him, shoots him a judgemental look. “Now? Doesn’t that mess with your sleep schedule?”
Okay. So everyone is a hater.
Cool.
Carter opens his mouth—he has genuinely has no clue what he is going to say since he, for some inexplicable reason, didn’t anticipate having to justify himself to the captain of a rival team for his single forty-minute nap—but Hollander shakes his head before he can figure out how to make words work. Beyond a reflexive fuck you that feels entirely appropriate and not at all helpful.
“No.” Hollander waves him off like he has already heard everything Carter struggles to voice.
Or like he simply doesn't care.
“Doesn’t matter. Did you mean it?”
The way Hollander looks at him makes it clear that he expects a response. Although 'looks' seems like too neutral a description for how focused his stare is. He doesn't even blink.
This does not help Carter make sense of the situation.
“What?”
What are you talking about? is what Carter means to say. What are you doing here? What do you want from me? What did I miss?
Really, all of the above would be good to know.
Somewhere in between getting up from his bed and pulling the door open, the earth seems to have shifted under Carter’s feet. Has deposited him somewhere he does almost but not quite recognize, with no indication of how he got here.
Because Shane Hollander is standing in the middle of his room, judging his life choices and asking questions that make no sense—and look, the guy appears nice enough from a healthy distance but right now he is dissecting Carter with his eyes, his mouth the type of grim slash that Carter associates with punishing drills and painful shutouts—and none of that makes any sense. Or tells Carter why Hollander watches him like Carter is an enemy he hasn't yet decided how to outmaneuver.
Hollander takes a step forward. Then another one.
And another one.
He is holding himself with a tension that shapes his entire body into something hard and unmovable. Without fully grasping why, Carter takes a step back.
“Did. You. Mean. It?” Hollander stresses each word like he is making any sense at all.
Is he being threatened? Because Carter sort of feels like he is being threatened. Except the thought of Shane Hollander forcing his way into Carter’s room to threaten him without provocation is so ridiculous that Carter almost laughs, no matter how inappropriate the reaction would be right now.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, man.”
Even before Hollander’s expression darkens, Carter knows that that was the wrong answer. Too bad that it is the only one he's got because there is something in the way Hollander curls his fists before he deliberately relaxes them that feels like Carter has thrown out a chirp that has unknowingly hit a bleeding wound.
And look: Hollander is intense. Anyone who has ever had the displeasure of opposing the guy on the ice knows that. Hell, even his own teammates know better than to fuck around where their captain might catch them at it. Especially his own teammates, actually.
Carter has heard rumors that Hollander routinely makes rookies cry if they make the mistake of showing up hungover for practice.
Whether that is true or not, Carter can definitely see it happen because Hollander is soft-spoken in that carefully distant way right up until you mess with his chances to win a game. Then all bets are off.
That said, Hollander is many things. 'Legitimately insane' about hockey is at the top of that list. But he is not the kind of person who takes an issue off the ice. The guy has won trophies for his exemplary sportsmanship, for fuck’s sake.
So Carter is mostly confident that he is misreading the situation. And the only reason it is ‘mostly’ is because his brain struggles to come up with a more sensible explanation.
Especially when Hollander glares at him like he does now, with those flat eyes that Carter has heard described as ‘hockey robot’ plenty of times because that is easier to chirp about than a more honest ‘soulless laser beams cutting through flesh and bones and sucking the will to continue to exist right out of you with the calm disinterest of a distracted hiker who crushes an ant hill without even noticing’.
Okay, maybe Carter needs to cut back on the romance novels. Gloria insists that reading is sexy and educating yourself via well-written erotica is even sexier but clearly he is losing his grasp on reality.
Scott can never know two-thirds of the thoughts that have been running through his head since Hollander has tried to break down his door like that is something Shane Hollander simply does. Regularly.
Carter’s back hits the wall.
Seems like he has run out of room. Carter blinks. He is standing in his own room, with his back against the wall. Hollander is standing right in front of him.
Carter fails to process this.
“You called them brave,” Hollander finally says into the loaded silence.
Loaded with what? Yeah, Carter would like to know that as well.
“Who?” he asks stupidly.
He feels stupid. Especially when Hollander glowers at him like Carter is being difficult on purpose.
“The figure skaters.”
Finally, some context. Carter grasps the lifeline gratefully and holds on with all his might, relieved to be able to focus on something other than the man almost vibrating right out of his skin in front of him. It's hard to say if Hollander is shaking from fear, anger or is just that tense. Maybe all three.
“I- Well. Yeah. They are.”
What has that got to do with anything? How does one comment about the absolute bullshit that is Russia criminalizing queer people and the international community letting them get away with it because that is more convenient or a necessary evil or whatever other bullshit excuse they tell themselves has lead to Hollander literally running down his door? Is this some weird delayed homophobic awakening?
Shit, is Hollander homophobic? Is—
“You need to help me,” Hollander demands in a tone that doesn't allow for hesitation, never mind disagreement. It is an order, plain and simple. Issued in that specific tone of voice that hockey players around the world know means you shut up and do what your captain tells you to do.
Hollander lifts one hand and Carter, for the first time, notices the phone he is clutching in his hand. The screen is unlocked.
Carter doesn’t so much decide to look at the picture as Hollander shoves it right in his face. The photo doesn't leave much to the imagination.
“Fuck.”
Fuck.
It’s Rozanov. Ilya Rozanov. Despite the shitty quality his face is clearly recognizable. So is the fact that the person he is making out with is male. Which is new information, for one thing, but more than that it is—
Rozanov. Who is Russian.
Rozanov. Who is here.
Double fuck.
“What-?”
Carter breaks off. He doesn’t know how to finish that question. What is there to say? What is he supposed to do here?
Rozanov has been outed. Hollander is here. Glaring at Carter like this whole situation is his fault.
He tries to process this.
Hollander, who probably isn't homophobic and definitely is determined to keep this entire encounter as surreal as possible, doesn’t let him.
“Don't.” His clipped voice cuts through the chaos inside Carter’s head—there is a lot of circular thoughts and incomprehensible screeching going on, interspersed with the occasional heartfelt curse. It doesn't leave room for negotiations. “We don’t have time for questions right now. TMZ leaked these pictures almost half an hour ago. It’s a matter of minutes before the Russian authorities will learn of them if they haven't already.”
Hollander speaks in a matter-of-fact tone. As though he is reciting off-site rules back to a stubborn ref and not describing an actual nightmare come to life.
Carter doesn’t know Rozanov all that well. What he does know is that the guy is an asshole of the highest order and a great hockey player. And that he doesn’t deserve the shit he is about to be buried in, no matter how often he has pissed Carter off in the past.
“Save your questions for later,” Hollander demands. “I have a plan.”
Once again, the words are an order. Are facts. They leave no room for doubts or uncertainty.
That helps more than expected.
I was wrong before, Carter realizes with sudden clarity. He thought Hollander was pissed. But no. That is not what this is. This isn’t the face of Hollander when he scores a truly shitty goal against you just to drive a point home.
This is the expression he wears when he is leaning forward on the bench, gaze on the ice, dissecting a play the other team hasn’t even decided they are going to make yet.
This is Hollander locked the fuck in.
Not furious.
Lethal.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Carter looks back down at the screen.
Swallows hard.
He’s been following the public discussion around the questionable safety of queer athletes at the Olympics. But most of those articles were focused on foreign athletes. People under the protection of other countries—and thus at least not really Russia’s problem or responsibility. Not to mention a diplomatic nightmare waiting to happen. There is protection in that, flimsy though it may be at times.
Rozanov is none of those things. He is the face of Russia’s future. A brilliant success story. Their national team's captain.
One of their own.
He’ll be lucky to survive this.
Carter meets Hollander’s eyes. Sees the same awareness, that terrible certainty, reflected back at him.
Those aren’t blank eyes like he first thought, Carter notes nonsensically, though he lacks the words to describe the weight of the emotion held inside them.
That might be a sign that he needs to read more novels after all. Those characters always come up with interesting ways to describe people's feelings. That is a thought to follow up on later though. Right now there are more important things to do.
“Alright,” Carter says because, really, what else is there to say except: “What do you need?”