Chapter Text
Ilya Rozanov – the rookie second line center for the NHL’s Boston Raiders and this year’s first draft pick – was used to winning.
But in the first game against the Montreal Metros, the third game of the season, Ilya is decidedly not winning, and he’s not happy about it.
He had heard talk about the Metro’s goalie all last year. The man had been the number one draft pick the year before – a rarity for a goalie – and had nearly gotten the Metros to the last round of playoff just from his performance alone. If the Metros had better forwards, they might’ve won it.
Beyond that, though, Ilya hadn’t paid much attention to the man. Some goalies are better than others, sure, but Ilya has never had too much trouble getting around them before. Part of being a good forward is knowing how to get past a goalie’s defenses, and Ilya is one of the best. The Metros’ goalie might be better than most, but Ilya hadn’t been worried about dealing with him.
He’s worried now.
No, not worried. Seething.
They’re three minutes away from the end of second period, the Raiders with over 40 shots on goal, and the Metros’ goalie – Hollander is his name – has not let one of them cross the goal line. Not even the ones where the puck ricocheted off the players, the ones that are famously near-impossible to track and predict, came even close. Every single time, Hollander reached out his glove at a blinding speed and scooped it out of the air or off the ice and took it out of play before a stick could touch it. Even the shots that threatened to hit the posts or cross bar often found Hollander’s glove before they could connect. Ilya himself had made nearly twenty shots on goal, all perfectly executed shots aimed at the exact holes in Hollander’s defense, only for each one of them to be stopped with ease, as if Hollander knew they was coming before Ilya even brought up his stick.
Ilya is…frustrated by this. And so are the rest of the Raiders.
Flying down the ice, Ilya takes the puck around the back of the net and backhands it towards the farthest corner of the top shelf of the Metros net. It’s a nearly impossible shot, especially at this speed, but Ilya’s executed it perfectly. Surely not even Hollander could-
Hollander’s glove whips through the air at a blinding speed and snags the puck out of the air, and Ilya snarls, hissed Russian profanity spitting between his clenched teeth.
The score is only 1-0 in favor of the Metros. But that single goal might as well be worth 10 with how impossible it feels to match. All they need is one goal. One.
But it seems like Hollander isn’t going to let them have it.
Ilya glides to the bench for the next line to take the ice, still fuming around his mouth guard.
“Hell of a shot, Roz,” Marlow says next to him on the bench.
“Didn’t matter,” Ilya grunts, spraying water into his mouth.
“Yeah. Hollander is on something else tonight.”
They watch as their third line makes another shot on goal, only for Hollander to deny them once more.
“They don’t even need a good D-line,” Ilya yells over the roar of the crowd. “Hollander’s doing all the work for them! Lenivyye mudaki!”
“Lucky bastards,” the defensemen on Ilya’s left mutters. Ilya scowls in response.
In the last few seconds of the period, a Metros forward hits a clumsy slapshot towards the Raider’s net. Vetrov, their goalie, is not nearly as impassable as Hollander, and Ilya can’t help but groan as the score becomes 2-0 for the Metros. The screams of the Canadian crowd and the blaring horn are only salt in the wound.
The horn blares again to signal the end of the period, and the Raiders file off the ice towards the locker room, shoulders low and bristling with frustration. Waiting for the rest of his team, Ilya looks back towards the ice and spots Hollander skating towards his own bench.
In a moment that Ilya will remember for the rest of his life, Ilya watches Hollander raise his gloved hand and pull up his goalie mask to sit on top of his head, exposing his face for the first time, glistening with a faint sheen of sweat, and something within Ilya enters freefall as he's flashbanged by flushed, rosy cheeks speckled with freckles, visible even from a dozen feet away. Dark, intense eyes glance his direction as Hollander sprays water into his open mouth, the water dripping from his full lips and off his defined jaw.
Ilya almost trips over his skates on the way to the locker room.
It ends up being a shutout game. A goddamn shutout. Hollander’s outstanding performance had thrown the entire Raider’s team 'off their groove', as their coach called it, all of them playing fast and sloppy in their desperation to score. They made Hollander's job all too easy because of it.
Ilya didn’t play any better than the rest of his team – through perhaps for a different reason. He felt buzzy for the rest of the game, distracted by the memory of full lips, smoldering dark eyes, and freckles. Even though they were hidden behind Hollander’s mask during the game, Ilya knew they were there, and that was enough for him to fumble crucial connections and shots on goal.
His roommate, Marlow, finds him face down on his hotel mattress, wallowing in his confused, lustful misery.
“We’ll get them next game, Roz,” Marlow promises.
Roz just groans into the pillow. “I need to go out. Get laid.”
Marlow laughs. “The cure to all ails, huh?”
“Alcohol helps also,” Ilya says, voice muffled.
An hour later, Ilya and Marlow walk into a Montreal club with thumping music that Ilya could hear from blocks away. There’s plenty of pretty men and women scattered on the dimly lit dance floor, but Ilya can’t help but notice the man awkwardly standing in a quieter corner, a can held loosely in one hand.
It’s not until one of the roaming lights passes over the man that Ilya understands why he noticed him at all.
“It’s Hollander!” Ilya half yells into Marlow’s ear, gesturing with his chin to the corner.
“What?” Marlow laughs in stunned disbelief. “Unbelievable. The one time Hollander decides to go out and it’s this club?”
“He doesn’t go out?” Ilya asks.
“Apparently he’s a hermit or some shit.” Marlow shrugs. “Let’s get out of here.”
“No.” Ilya looks over at Hollander again. He looks smaller than he did on the ice – like a normal man instead of some hulking beast they couldn’t get past. “I want to talk to him.”
Marlow groans. “Do not pick a fight with him, Roz. Are you fucking insane?”
“I’m not picking fight,” Ilya says defensively. “I just want to talk. Honest.”
Marlow just looks at him, eyes narrowed.
“I can be nice!” Ilya says, outraged. “I am nice to you, yes?”
Marlow rolls his eyes. “Fine. But if I see even one argument I’m pulling you out of there. Don't think I won't.”
Ilya waves a hand dismissively and starts weaving through the crowd. Hollander hasn’t noticed him yet, staring out into the crowd with a strangely attractive look of disgust on his face, clutching the can he’s holding like it's a lifeline.
“You are very annoying,” Ilya says, directly into Hollander's ear from his spot behind the man.
Hollander jumps, whirling around to face him. His eyes are just as arresting in the dark of the club as they are on the ice. “Excuse me?”
“You are very annoying,” Ilya repeats, smirking. He takes a deliberate sip of his drink, letting the pause linger. “To play against, I mean.”
“Oh.” Hollander runs a hand through his dark hair, the strands like ink against his paler fingers. Those damn hands are the reason Ilya's here in the first place - in more than one way. “Thank you?”
This close, Ilya can’t help but notice that they’re the same height, and that the lights above them twinkle like diamonds in Hollander's onyx eyes in a way that Ilya can't help but be mesmerized by. And not even the darkness can hide the freckles that rest delicately across Hollander's perfectly straight nose.
Ilya quickly takes another sip of his drink, feeling strangely parched.
“Rozanov, right?” Hollander asks, saying the syllables very carefully in a way that Ilya can’t help but find endearing. “Nice to meet you. Officially, I mean.”
Hollander holds out his hand, and Ilya can’t help but smile slightly as he shakes it. Hollander's hand are undeniably masculine, the bones of his fingers strong and delicate at the same time as he gives Ilya's hand an almost gentle squeeze. It's the handshake of man who has already proven himself and knows it - no vicious, ego-boosting strength needed. Ilya can't help but find that attractive, too.
“I’m Shane Hollander,” Hollander unnecessarily says after an awkward pause once their hands drop, and Ilya huffs a laugh.
“Yes, I know who you are,” Ilya says, humor thick in his voice. Every single NHL player knows who Hollander is, for good reason. In this environment, though, Hollander looks strangely approachable, almost shy in the crowded room of extroverts. Hollander’s eyes look glassy as he stares at Ilya, lips slightly parted, and Ilya almost feels drunk himself, just on the weight of Hollander's attention alone.
“What are you drinking?” He nods at the can in Hollander’s hand.
Hollander blinks slowly and then looks down at his hands, the movement almost reluctant. He holds up the drink close to his face and squints at it, as if he’s forgotten what it is. “Ginger ale.”
Ilya pauses. “Like…the soda?”
“Yeah.”
“Are they selling hard soda now?”
“Hard…soda?”
“Soda with alcohol,” Ilya clarifies. “You seem like you’ve had more than just regular ginger ale.”
“Oh.” Hollander’s cheeks go a bit pink, and Ilya quietly loses his mind. “No, I had a couple of shots earlier.”
“Celebrating your win?” Ilya asks, voice a bit cool.
“First shut out of my professional career,” Hollander explains as if he’s reciting something, carefully enunciating every syllable in the way that drunk people often do when they’re pretending they aren’t drunk. Ilya grins, endeared.
“I would say congratulations,” Ilya says, recovering his composure and raising an eyebrow. “But my pride says no. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Hollander says earnestly, before a wicked look appears in his eyes. “We still won anyway.”
Ilya guffaws.
“Hey, hands off my goalie!” a man’s voice yells from behind them, and Ilya turns to see a Metro forward saunter towards them, two beers in his hands. Ilya recognizes his face – Pike, he thinks his name is.
“Hands are off,” Ilya drawls, and watches Hollander’s cheeks flush pink again. Interesting. “See you around, Hollander. You won’t be so lucky next time.”
“Luck!” Pike crows, but Ilya walks away before he hears anything else.
As Ilya searches the bar for his next hook-up, he can feel Hollander’s gaze burning into his back, and only a flinty sense of self-control keeps him from looking around to meet it.
-
The next game is against the New York Admirals, and their goalie is nothing compared to Hollander. Ilya scored two goals in the first period alone. It made the win almost…disappointing. Like he hadn’t earned it. Boring.
Ilya looks up the schedule on his phone to check for their next game with Montreal, feeling a little insane as he does so. But he has something to prove after that shutout game.
Ilya pulls out his phone and hops on YouTube, pulling up a compilation of Hollander’s best performances and watching very, very closely.
He’s not letting Hollander get another shutout against him again. The next win is his.
-
Shane Hollander, like any other goalie, has his routines. His superstitions that he abides by under threat of death. His tape must be wrapped perfectly equidistant on his stick, he puts his gear on from left to right, from the bottom up, saving his goalie mask for last and tapping it three times quickly before he steps onto the ice. He preps his goalie crease in groups of threes, sets up the goalie net himself (and ensures no one else touches it) and gives a pep talk to the posts and crossbar as if they’re his teammates.
Goalies are infamous for their eccentricities like this, and Shane is just one in many who is strange in this way. Shane, who has always felt a bit stranger than most, even as a little kid, absolutely thrives as a goalie – it lets him embrace his quirks in a way that he couldn’t before. But people in the NHL expect goalies to be strange, so no one looks at Shane weirdly when goes through his little routines. The aggressive acceptance of his habits still feels novel after being bullied for them as a child, so Shane never takes for granted the freedom his goalie pads gives him. It's well worth getting hit with dozens of pucks on a nearly daily basis.
And sure, some of Shane’s habits are just ‘goalie’ weirdness, habits he uses to get his head right before a game - talking to the posts or dressing last to mentally cement the team's reliance on him. But some of it is just Shane being himself, being picky about textures or remaining in control of the things he relies on.
Shane likes that no one can tell the difference between the two. It's like vunerablity without being fully honest, in a way.
Shane had started out his hockey career as a center forward, and had gotten damn good at it. But when he was fifteen, their goalie had gotten injured at the Junior World Championships, and Shane had offered himself as a sub for their backup goalie because of a few lessons he’d taken in the past to learn the position. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but he eventually found playtime on the ice as a goalie, and his first successful block on goal had brought a rush like nothing he’s even felt before, something that was much more satisfying than fighting for the puck on offense.
He officially abandoned his coveted first line center forward position to learn how to be a goalie at age sixteen, and he had never looked back. Despite being in a team sport, Shane has always preferred relying on himself to get things done. This made it a struggle not to be selfish with the puck as a center forward – especially when he was by far the most talented forward on the team – but this instinct to be independent flourishes when Shane is in the goalie position. Sure, he has his defensemen to help him out, but the only one really stopping the other team from scoring is Shane, and he takes pride in meeting that challenge head on. He’s always been competitive, and this position feels like the purest form of it. It’s Shane versus the forwards. Shane versus the puck.
He’s proud to say that he wins that challenge more often than not, and that winning streak got him drafted first to the Montreal Metros, something that hasn’t happened for goalie in over four decades. But good goalies are worth their weight in gold, and Montreal was quick to snap him up and make Shane their starter. That first season had Shane bringing the Metros – who were on a ten-year losing streak – all the way to the Stanley cup playoffs, only losing in the second to last round. He’d been named Rookie of the Year and given the Vezina Trophy for his outstanding work as a goalie, and Shane had nearly cried at the awards ceremony.
Now, in his second season, all the talk seems to focus on the Raider’s newest rookie, a center forward from Russia with a fast mouth and even faster skates. Shane doesn’t know much about him – he watched the draft like everyone else, but he only really remembered the man’s strong cupid bow and beaming grin at the camera as he held up the Raider’s jersey - but he knows that he's a forward to watch out for. He's skilled enough that Shane already knows that he's going to watch Rozanov's first couple games to get a sense of his style, so that Shane isn't blindsided in the first Montreal v. Boston game.
Montreal wins the first games of the season, but then it's gameday against Boston, and Shane watches Ilya Rozanov step onto the ice in person. He looks much different than he did on draft day: his grin is gone, replaced by an uncanny Slavic stare that seems to bore right through Shane, his eyebrows and defined lips drawn down in focus. The game is a whirlwind, and Shane watches Rozanov move on the ice with a brutal efficiency, outpacing the forwards on both teams with ease and racing towards Shane in breakaway after breakaway.
Each breakaway feels a little bit like staring down the barrel of a gun – or perhaps a runaway train - and Rozanov's breakaways are no different. The Russian barrels towards him at a higher speed than most, but Shane watched his tapes, so he's ready for it, twitching across the crease to follow Rozanov's movement. Most people would jump away from the danger, but Shane leans into it, his eyes tracking every minute muscle movement of the opponent in front of him for a clue as to where the puck will go.
He’s had people ask him about this moment before: ‘how do you know where they’ll shoot the puck?’ and Shane has never really been able to give a concrete answer. His body just knows. Sometimes it’s the direction of the feet, sometimes it’s the way their eyes flick in a certain direction. Other times it’s the way they hold the stick, or the way they focus too much in one direction to try and fake him out. And sometimes it’s just luck.
But Shane doesn’t like relying on luck. He likes relying on his skill, his hands, his stick.
Rozanov races towards him, leaving both teams behind him, and Shane stares him down, body wide but loose, ready to react at a moment’s notice. Rozanov surprises him, going for a fakeout and then hooking around the back of the net. Shane slides on his knees, pads flat to the ground to prevent the easy goal, and registers the beginning of the backhand shot, the puck a blur of black in the air.
Shane’s body reacts before he can tell it to move, and the puck hits the glove, and the crowd erupts in cheers. He faintly hears Rozanov say something low and angry in Russian, but when Shane looks at him, he sees an unfamiliar look of heat in his eyes and the clench of his strong jaw.
Shane has had forwards get angry at him before: some of them have even attempted to start fights with him after Shane has blocked one too many shots. But the look Rozanov gives him now does not hold that weight of anger. There’s frustration his face, sure, but Shane almost reads the look as admiring before Rozanov skates back to his own bench.
Shane’s face burns hot, and he hands the puck to the ref before grabbing his water bottle from on top the net and squirting it into his mouth.
Once the period ends, Shane skates off the ice, tugging the goalie mask off his face and perching it on his head, and catches a glimpse of Rozanov. The man is just standing there, watching him with that unnerving stare, and Shane can’t help but notice the flush of his lips, the curve of his cupid's bow, and the prominent beauty mark on his cheek, his shoulder’s broad in a way that cannot be wholly attributed to their hockey gear.
Shane rips his gaze away from Rozanov, his heart pounding like a wild thing beneath his uniform. He gulps at his water bottle.
After they win the game, the team goes out partying to celebrate Shane's first shutout, forcing Shane to tag along. Shane has always been introverted, so he was glad that the goalie’s position excludes him from being captain, which would force him to join these outing more often than he already does.
It’s at their second club that Shane runs into Rozanov.
Shane fumbles through the conversation – and he’s not sure if the alcohol he’s had was an advantage or disadvantage in that regard – distracted by the teasing smirk, his deep, accented voice, and the almost hungry look in his dark eyes, so much more potent up close and personal without the cage of the goalie mask to get in the way.
Shane makes some lackluster joke, and Rozanov laughs loudly enough to draw the attention of a few of his teammates, who had been ordering more drinks at the bar.
After Rozanov leaves, Hayden turns to him. “What did he want?”
Shane doesn’t look away from Rozanov’s broad back as it slips through the drunken crowd. “Hm? Nothing. Just making small talk.”
“Sure,” Hayden snorts. “Small talk. That’s definitely what that dude is known for.”
Shane frowns at him. “Seemed nice enough to me.”
Hayden just gives him a squinty look, not exactly sober himself, and changes the subject.
Shane barely listens to Hayden’s words as he watches Rozanov chat up a muscular, dark-haired woman, stomach tensing as he watches them leave together a few hours later.
Shane leaves the club a few minutes after that, calling a cab to take him back to his house. He drunkenly stews in the confusing memories of Rozanov’s booming laugh and wide smile as he thoroughly showers the club-smell off of him, brushes his teeth, and falls into an exhausted slumber on his bed.
A few weeks later, the Metros face off against the Raiders once more, and Shane immediately knows that Rozanov is gunning for him. He’s clearly still wounded from the shutout of last game, and Shane feels like he’s carrying the team by himself as they spend most of the time on ice in the Metros defensive zone, blocking shot after shot on goal.
“I got you now, Hollander,” Rozanov mutters as Shane blocks another one of his shots on goal. His accent is as distracting on the ice as it was in the club.
“Oh, yeah?” Shane says. He’s never been good at chirping.
“Yes,” Rozanov says simply. “Watch.”
On the next breakaway, Rozanov rushes down the ice, shoving his leg forward as if to bounce the puck of his skate. Shane flinches to the right, ready for the bounce into the slapshot, only to watch the puck glide between Rozanov’s legs for him to shoot into the left-side top shelf, the Boston horn blaring with the score on goal.
The Raiders dogpile on Rozanov, and Shane shakes his head, a strange mix of disappointment and admiration swirling in his chest.
From across the ice, Rozanov winks at him.
Shane can’t help but smile behind the goalie mask, seeing the challenge for what it is.
Alright then, Shane thinks, spraying water into his mouth. Game on.