Chapter Text
Shane Hollander was running full-tilt on the treadmill in the gym at his cottage at nearly midnight when he received the shirtless picture of Ilya Rozanov. He almost fell off the treadmill.
Shane was not normally running full-tilt on a treadmill at nearly midnight. He had a strict routine, optimized for performance, and even in the off-season it called for getting a full night's sleep that was scheduled to start well before midnight on all but the most exceptional of occasions. But tonight, he hadn't been able to sleep no matter how many meditative tactics he'd tried to employ. He was out of sorts, frustrated, keyed up.
Maybe a little lonely. Maybe a little... horny.
The shirtless picture of Ilya Rozanov was not helping.
He managed to find his balance enough to jump to the sides of the treadmill, slapping distractedly at the stop button as he stared at the photo that had appeared from out of nowhere on his phone. For several long moments, punctuated only by the sound of his own ragged breathing echoing in the silence of his home gym, he could not take his eyes from the image, could not even prod his overtired brain into examining the question of why this photo had suddenly materialized on his phone, like the answer to a never-openly-expressed wish.
The primary thought in his mind at the moment was, Fuck, why does he have to be so hot?
It was not, in all honesty, his first encounter with a shirtless picture of Ilya Rozanov. It was just that generally, the sight of a shirtless Ilya Rozanov was relegated to those moments of weakness when Shane gave in to the impulse to browse through Rozanov's Instagram, where the Russian narcissist was prone to posting thirst trap gym selfies on a regular basis. Not that Shane looked on a regular basis. He didn't even follow Rozanov on Instagram, or participate in social media very often in general. It was just, sometimes, hard to resist a brief perusal.
It wasn't a new problem. It had persisted since that cursed CCM commercial shoot years ago, back before their rookie season, where Rozanov had chirped him about being pretty and Shane had gotten a look at him in the showers after. It had only been a brief glance -- all Shane had allowed himself before he'd fled the shower and then the locker room in a near panic -- but the memory lingered stubbornly.
His eyes roamed over the photo, tracing Rozanov's enormous, rounded pecs, his insanely defined abs, the sharp V of muscles pointing like an arrow straight down to...
Fuck.
The feeling of his own hand creeping into the waistband of his gym shorts kicked him out of the daze he'd been in.
What the fuck was he doing? What the fuck was this photo? Who had even sent him this... and why?
His brain sharpening suddenly with anxious concern, he clicked backward out of the photo, which he'd unwittingly tapped to enlarge, and checked the text chain it had appeared in. The name at the top read: 😡Rozanov
What the hell? Rozanov had sent this?
He'd only just saved Rozanov's contact into his phone a few days ago, because of some dumb league charity project they were being forced to collaborate on. He and Rozanov were not in the habit of texting each other, and definitely not sending each other sexy selfies. Was this... did Rozanov somehow know something? Had he heard something?
Shane stepped off the treadmill and sat down heavily on the nearby weight bench, trying to calm his heartbeat that was suddenly racing for reasons not involving the shirtless picture of Ilya Rozanov. Or, not entirely involving that.
But there was no way. He and Adam had been so careful. Careful enough that Adam had dumped him over it, he thought with a slightly bitter twist of his lips. His overcautious paranoia had driven his... boyfriend? sort of? ex-boyfriend now, anyway, whatever -- to distraction, and then right out the door, even though Shane had tried explaining, so many times, how impossible it was for him to... be out or whatever.
His mind clicked back over the stages of their brief, three-month relationship, or fling, or secret string of hook-ups, whatever you could call it. They'd met at a sponsorship photoshoot where Adam had been hired as a stylist. He'd been flirtatiously open in his admiration while dressing Shane in a series of outfits for the shoot, skirting just along the line of professionalism, but Shane didn't think anyone else had really picked up on it. He knew he'd barely picked up on it until the end, when Adam had pressed his business card into Shane's hand with a low murmur about how he'd love to see more of Shane sometime. His personal phone number had been scrawled on the back with a winky-face smiley and the words CALL ME underlined twice. But Shane was sure that no one had observed that interaction.
Nor did anyone know that Shane, after sweating and stewing for a full two weeks of fearful but powerful pent-up sexual frustration, had texted Adam's personal line asking about a possible in-home consultation about his wardrobe. Adam had made it easy after that, arriving at his home and seducing Shane without pretense from almost the moment he'd walked in the door, which Shane had easily, gratefully gone along with. It had been an... eventful few months after that, with Adam coming over nearly every time Shane had a free evening not on the road and swiftly, almost gleefully introducing Shane to everything he'd ever wondered about in the realm of, well... sex. Sex with a man. Gay sex.
Even now, thinking the words made Shane's stomach tighten with a heave of anxiety, but he forced himself to breathe through it. It was okay. He was gay, and that was okay. He couldn't say it, but he could think it, in the privacy of his own brain. He could accept it about himself even if he never told another person. Well, besides Adam, who was gone, who was done with being understanding about Shane's circumstances, but who would still never tell. Shane knew that with a calming certainty. He trusted Adam, even now, which was the main reason he regretted their... thing ending. He didn't miss Adam, exactly -- they hadn't really clicked that well, hadn't had much of anything in common, had never had much to say to each other -- but he did miss reliable sex with someone who would keep his secrets, and Adam had very much been that.
So he was fine, it was fine, there was no way anyone knew. Certainly not Rozanov, of all people, who might have been the object of Shane's occasionally horny Instagram perusals but was otherwise a distant (but annoyingly constant) presence in his life, coming into full focus only when they faced each other on the ice or when they neared or surpassed each other in a season's scoring race. They didn't know each other, their social circles didn't overlap, they didn't even live in the same country. There was no way Rozanov had heard anything.
Just to be sure, Shane did a quick Google search on his own name. He wasn't brave enough to search "Shane Hollander gay" because he didn't even want to give Google the idea, but he figured if any rumors were out there widely enough to reach Rozanov, they would come up at the top of the search just on his name alone.
But there was nothing. Hockey stats, sports news articles, sponsorship photos. Nothing out of the ordinary. So this was... nothing. Probably just Rozanov being a dick, trying to get under his skin. Which... had worked. But there was no way Shane would ever let on about that.
But he couldn't just leave it unaddressed. That would look like... acquiescing, or something. Like he'd just accepted the photo. Like maybe he'd liked it.
So he opened the text chain again.
Shane: What the fuck is this, Rozanov?
The reply came almost immediately, like Rozanov had been waiting.
😡Rozanov: picture for you 😅 👅💦
you like? 😉
Shane's heart started thudding again. Why the fuck would he say that?
He remembered the jolt he'd felt when he'd first seen the picture, how he'd nearly tumbled off the treadmill. Oh god, he hadn't accidentally clicked a heart react on the photo, had he?
Hands shaking a bit, he scrolled back up to look at the picture, only getting briefly distracted by the sight of those pecs again. But no, there was no heart or any other reaction. Thank fuck.
Shane: Why the hell would like I like this?
That was the real question, right? Why would Rozanov even think --
😡Rozanov: is sexy 💪 🥵
who would not like?
Okay, that was fine. That sounded like Rozanov's usual brand of self-obsessed vanity. Probably safe. Still, best to put a stop to this kind of thing entirely.
Shane: Don't send me inappropriate shit. I will block you.
😡Rozanov: 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
oh my god Hollander, you are no fun
so boring. so serious.
can picture your angry kitten face right now 😂
What the fuck? He didn't look like a kitten. Shane glanced up at the mirror on his gym wall, frowning, only to note... a certain resemblance, maybe, to the cat picture Rozanov had sent. He frowned harder and typed again.
Shane: Please go bother someone else.
😡Rozanov: so polite. "please"
I like it when you say please, Hollander 😉
God, he was fucking unbelievable. Shane shifted on the bench, firmly ignoring the twitch of interest his dick had decided to register at Rozanov's words.
Shane: Blocking you now.
But he hesitated a moment, something making his fingers reluctant to move.
😡Rozanov: relax Hollander 🙄🙄🙄🙄
is for charity project
you need picture of me for reference, yes?
make me look good
will be on display, many people will see it
must be sexy picture
Shane groaned, letting his head drop as the pieces clicked into place. Right, the stupid charity thing.
It was honestly the most ridiculous league initiative he'd been roped into yet, and he'd been involved in a lot of them thanks to his reputation as a good sport and his tendency to be agreeable. He'd said yes to this one without really registering the particulars, and now he didn't see a way to get out of it.
The league was doing a fundraiser for arts programs for kids -- a thematic mismatch if he'd ever seen one -- and someone in the league offices had come up with the bright idea to have players pair up and paint each other. Kind of like those videos you'd see sometimes of a couple painting each other on a date night, usually with hilariously disastrous results. In this case, there was no date involved -- players were being matched up for painting across teams, cities, and countries, so they were supposed to paint their assigned partners from photos, or even from memory. It didn't matter. The paintings were supposed to be comically bad, everyone rightly assuming that most hockey players were not going to be artistically gifted. They were going to auction off all the bad paintings at a big gala in the fall.
And, of course, the league being the way it always was, they'd jumped at the chance to pair Shane with his biggest rival.
Why Rozanov had agreed was a mystery. He wasn't nearly as prone to being guilted into stupid shit like this as Shane was, from what Shane could tell from Rozanov's pointed absence at most of the functions and events Shane had endured.
Shane: I'm not painting you sexy.
😡Rozanov: you will
I am so sexy you will not be able to help it
Shane: 🙄 Then I guess you have nothing to worry about
😡Rozanov: I notice you did not deny it, Hollander...
Well, there was no good answer for that. If he denied it now, he'd look flustered and defensive. If he didn't deny it...
Fuck this. Shane went to take a shower so he could finally get some sleep. He left his phone face-down in the other room, and he did his best to get through the shower without thinking about those texts.
The picture. The part about saying "please." The needling way Rozanov prodded at him.
He was not very successful at not thinking about it. But at least, after breathlessly watching his own spend swirling down the shower drain, he was finally able to sleep.
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Over the next few days, Rozanov continued to torment Shane by sending pictures of himself at irregular intervals.
Many of them, predictably, were of the sexy variety. Rozanov at the gym, sweaty and muscles pumped, in a tight tank top. Rozanov at some nightclub, curls artfully arranged, shirt mostly unbuttoned. Rozanov in a pool, wet hair slicked back, water droplets glistening on bare skin.
Some were different. There was one of Rozanov at a park, fully clothed and laughing, pointing to a signpost that read, once Shane carefully used a translation tool to convert the Russian to English, "Pickup Area." Another of him making a silly face, with a cigarette poking out from pursed lips. (He was still shirtless in that one, though.) There was one where he was crouched down to pet a dog, with a huge, delighted smile on his face.
Shane maybe looked at that one a little too long.
For a while it seemed the best strategy would be not responding at all. Rozanov hadn't included any messages with the photos, so there was nothing Shane really needed to reply to, and he felt that surely, if he just ignored the photos, Rozanov would soon get tired of whatever bit he was doing and stop.
But when the seventh photo came in -- Rozanov in a tuxedo, on a rooftop, city lights glittering below -- Shane lost his patience with it. He was on a short break during a photoshoot where he'd already spent more than an hour being posed and prodded at, and he still had at least another hour to go. He was overstimulated and irritable already, and further stressed by trying to hide his bad mood from the shoot crew and remain in his pleasant and professional mask. He was also worried that, because he couldn't have his phone on him while shooting, someone would see it and notice random sexy pictures of Rozanov popping up.
Plus, he was just done with this. This was too much Rozanov. He felt a little crazy with it.
He needed to stop thinking about him for a good, long stretch, get him out of his mind entirely. It was summer, the off-season, for fuck's sake. He wasn't mentally prepared to deal with his needling rival popping up in his life all the time. And he was jerking off so much he was worried he was developing a problem. So he finally wrote back.
Shane: That's enough pictures.
That felt right. Firm, but not rude. Not that he cared about being rude to Rozanov, really, but he just didn't see a reason to be rude to anyone if he could help it.
Rozanov wrote back immediately. He must be on his phone all the time.
😡Rozanov: I want you to have choices
is important project, Hollander
Shane: That's plenty of choices. You can stop.
😡Rozanov: hmmm maybe
but now I need photos of you
to make my painting
Shane rolled his eyes. The shoot director was waving him over. He didn't have time for this, and he needed it to stop.
Shane: Just use my hockey card or something.
😡Rozanov: uuuugggghhh
Hollander, no
you will not taint me with your boring by association
ruin my painting
Shane huffed an impatient breath, giving the director a "one minute" signal as he hastily typed back.
Shane: Fine, just browse the internet. Plenty of choices.
😡Rozanov: ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️
no one wants painting of Rolex ad, Hollander
plus I may get sued for copyrights
send pictures
Shane: I'm not sending you pictures. You'll just have to figure it out.
😡Rozanov: oh, so Shane Hollander does not care about charity?
no concern for little children who need paint sets and easels?
I did not know you were biggest asshole in league
The director was looking more put out by the minute, but something in Shane resisted just setting his phone down and leaving Rozanov on read. If he didn't settle this now, he knew Rozanov would not let up, and the whole thing would keep taking up space in his brain. He needed to end it, and if sending Rozanov a couple of photos would shut him up, better to just do it now and get it over with.
Except... he didn't have time to go through his camera roll and select which photos to send, and some stupid pride or vanity inside him didn't want to send unflattering shots. Not that he cared, but just... all of Rozanov's pictures had been so obviously curated to be attractive. He didn't want to send something where he looked like a doofus -- and then have Rozanov gleefully immortalize it in a painting that would be auctioned to the public -- but he didn't have time to carefully comb through and consider what to send.
Then he remembered -- the Adam folder.
Adam had always wanted to take photos of him, but Shane had been hesitant to let him, feeling it might be incriminating somehow. They'd settled on a sort of compromise -- Adam could take pictures, but only with Shane's phone, to be kept tucked away in a folder there so he knew they wouldn't ever show up on Adam's screen where someone might see them and get the wrong idea. Or, well, the right idea.
Anyway, Shane didn't remember exactly what was in the folder -- he hadn't felt up to looking at it since the break-up a few months ago. But he knew they were all good shots of him. Adam was an exacting photographer, fussy about angles, retaking shots until they met his satisfaction, and he'd picked out the clothes Shane was wearing for almost all of them, so any of those should work.
He hastily clicked open the folder, his eyes barely glancing through the dozen or so shots there, vaguely registering a picture with a sunset background from his condo balcony, something of him laughing, a picture of him working at his laptop with his glasses on...
The director called him again, and he shook his head, the photos blurring. Whatever. It would have to do.
He clicked "select all," then the messages icon, then Rozanov's name. Hit send.
Shane: Jesus, here. Now stop bothering me.
He locked his phone, turned it face-down on a small table nearby, and hoped that was the last he'd hear from Rozanov.
But a couple of hours later, when he was finally done with the shoot and able to look at his phone again, there was another message. A vaguely ominous one.
😡Rozanov: Hollander... I do not think is what you want