Work Text:
Shane had been debating with Drea whether to go and say hi to the hot, Russian player or not for at least five minutes, her natural waryness of new people clashing with his love for hockey and his respect for Rozanov’s skill. In the end, hockey won. As always.
Drea had spotted Ilya Rozanov walking away towards a back exit- and good thing too, since Shane was too caught up in conversation to notice. He had picked his daemon up, not wanting to make her run after him and, penguin in hand, he had made his way to the back, hoping that Rozanov hadn’t left yet.
As luck would have it, he was still there, hunched over what Shane identified as a cigarette from the clicking of his lighter. A raccoon was curled around his legs, eyes fixed on Shane and Drea. Like it was keeping watch.
Shane watched helplessly as the daemon tapped her paw on Rozanov’s foot prompting him to turn around, hands still busy with the cigarette. He looked at Shane expectantly.
“Ilya Rozanov? Shane Hollander, I- I wanted to introduce myself.” Shane’s standard polite greeting had always been a handshake, but with Drea in his arms he had to awkwardly shuffle his daemon around to free up a hand and offer it to Rozanov, who shook it with an undercurrent of amusement, matched by Drea’s playful snicker. Traitorous daemon.
Rozanov didn’t say anything though, and simply went back to trying to light his cigarette, even with the obvious ‘no smoking’ sign about a meter away from him. “Oh I’m- I’m not sure you’re supposed to smoke here.”
As if to spite him, the cigarette finally caught, and Rozanov gave him an unimpressed stare as he took a drag from it. He held Shane’s gaze for uncomfortably long, even though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, building some strange tension until Shane had to look away. He was half certain Rozanov was just going to tell him to fuck off. Instead his eyes caught his raccoon daemon clambering up his back in record time and snatching the cigarette right from Rozanov’s mouth, muttering something in Russian all the while.
Rozanov said something back, but by the time he had started moving to get his cigarette back, his daemon had already run away with it, leaving Rozanov to roll his eyes in exasperation.
It was strange to see such an open display of dissent between a person and their daemon, yet Shane couldn’t help but find the whole exchange horribly endearing. It made Rozanov feel a lot more human and a lot less like a name on a jersey and an opponent to defeat. Shane decided that he was ok with that.
An awkward silence stretched between them, made worse by the lack of distraction provided by the cigarette. Even Drea must have decided it was too much for her, because she insistently wriggled in Shane’s grasp until he gently put her back on the ground and released her. She immediately waddled towards Rozanov’s daemon, a few meters away, leaving the two of them practically alone.
Reverting back to his planned lines, at a loss of what else to say, Shane added: “You’re an awesome player to watch.” A wave of agreement and fondness drifted into Shane from his bond with Drea.
“Yes,” was Rozanov’s eloquent reply, to which Shane couldn’t help but laugh at. Alright then, Mr I’m-all-Russian-and-mysterious. Shane was ready to take this as his cue to leave, which Drea should have sensed rather clearly, but his daemon didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving. Rozanov’s raccoon was curled around her, teasing Drea with her tail in a way that should’ve been silly, but that ended up sending a full-body shiver through Shane instead.
Rozanov must have noticed, because he gave Shane an infuriating smirk and, when Shane didn’t stop staring, a wink, so quick that Shane could have imagined it.
A wave of- embarrassment? mortification? punched into Shane so intensely that it rattled Drea too, disentangling herself from the raccoon’s embrace and huddling as quickly as possible back to Shane. He could have gone towards her, spared her the rush, but that would imply getting closer to Rozanov. Shane remained rooted to the spot, agonizing seconds ticking by as he gulped, finally squatting down to pick Drea back up into his arms.
He forced himself to let out a strangled, “Goodbye, then,” because he was a nice and polite person, thank you very much, and hurried back to the main event.
//
The problem with having a daemon, Shane often found, was that no matter how put-together you looked to others, no matter how iron-clad your control over your own mind was, there would always be someone privy to the most hidden depths of your self and your desires; not only that, but that someone’s life goal was to point them all out with brutal accuracy, and seeing as Andrea was literally part of Shane, they shared a similar streak of stubbornness. Drea was nothing if not relentless, but Shane’s own obstinacy had developed over a lifetime of squabbles with himself. He had tempered it to the point where the only people who could hope to crack it were his mom, Drea, and (as his daemon had forced him to admit) one Ilya Rozanov.
After that disastrous first meeting, Shane had steeled himself against Drea’s teasing, pleading, her best-argued points and her puppy eyes. And he had almost been successful in banishing Rozanov from his mind. He would have been successful, had it not been for that late night gym session.
Drea had decided to stay in their room- the bond would tug a little, but it wouldn’t be anything they couldn’t handle. Hockey players were trained from early on to be able to stretch their bond across the whole ice rink, as most daemons would either be a hindrance or a danger during a game. Besides, it was good to have time apart sometimes; at least that was something the two of them always agreed on.
Everything was going well: Shane was exercising but not pushing himself too far, just at the edge of the sweet burn of exhaustion, sweating off any excess energy, the repetitive movement of his legs grounding him into his body. Then, Rozanov decided to appear, to intrude in Shane’s carefully crafted alone time. Without his own daemon.
While that wouldn’t be anything strange in the context of a game, being completely alone was not something that happened often. Bonds were typically too short for that, and it implied a level of intimacy far beyond most relationships out there. You left a part of your soul to the side, yes, but it also meant that no one, not even your daemon, would ever bear witness to whatever would happen.
Drea would get the gist of it through their bond of course, but in that moment, it felt like the two of them were the only people left in the world, and whatever happened in that gym would remain between them and god. Like a liminal space where time didn’t pass and anything was possible.
If Drea had been there, he probably wouldn’t have been childish enough to compete with Rozanov over something as silly as who was faster on the gym bikes. But she wasn’t. And Rozanov, for whatever reason, knew exactly how to get under his skin. It was a bit unnerving, the feeling of being played like an instrument by those big, strong hands, the prominent bone of his thumb and the delicious definition of his knuckles…
By the time their little competition was over, there were hardly any appropriate thoughts left in Shane’s mind. It was only with a herculean effort that he prevented the worst of his mental images to drift towards Drea, because he was not meant to have these fantasies in the first place. And then Rozanov offered him water, and brushed their hands together, and Shane knew with mind-numbing clarity that no amount of self-control could stop the electrifying zing of that contact to reverberate through his bond, resonating in Drea’s core.
Rozanov smiled- or, not really. He didn’t even need to smile. The smugness was rolling off him in waves and Shane couldn’t even blame him for it.
Before Shane could think of something smart to say to cut through the tension building rapidly between them, or perhaps simply bolt out of the gym, something made him jump out of his skin. The strange thing was that Rozanov was similarly startled, even though there had been no loud noises or anything of the sort. It took a moment for Shane’s brain to register the fact that it had come from his bond with Drea, a mix of unintelligible but intense emotions that he couldn’t possibly hope to decipher. All he knew was that they were strong, and they felt nice. As for why Rozanov was in the same state…Shane did not want to think about that.
They couldn’t help but share a look, and for the first time Shane witnessed Rozanov’s perpetual smugness break. His features were as neutral as possible, but it was clear that he was just as startled as Shane. It was kind of nice, to not feel like the butt of a joke for once, to feel like they were in this together somehow, instead of opposite sides.
“Uhm, I think we should…” Shane hinted, keeping his eyes downcast as he rose on his feet. He was just about able to make out Rozanov’s mumble of assent, his feet already carrying him back to his room as quickly as he could without running, something between dread and excitement building rapidly in his chest and brimming at his fingertips.
They walked together for a bit, Rozanov behind him, before splitting to find their respective rooms. Shane tried not to think too hard about Rozanov in his room, sprawled on his bed, wearing way too little…
//
When Ilya opened the door to his room, he found it empty. Nadia was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t there. Adrenaline shot through his veins, as he frantically threw pillows on the floor, ducked to check under the bed, looked into the bathroom, anywhere. She wasn’t there. Someone must have taken her as a way to get back at him, or as punishment, to show him what he deserved.
With a trembling breath and trembling hands, he brought his mother’s cross to his lips, giving it a shaky kiss. He gulped, and the air around him loosened a little.
He hadn’t felt anything negative from Nadia, after all. Hadn’t felt anything pointing towards the fact that someone else could have touched her. His bond wasn’t tugging either, meaning that she couldn’t be far.
Ilya clutched the cross hard enough to cut into his skin, the little jabs of pain bringing him back into himself. A deep breath. Another. Get yourself together. Don’t cry. You’re fine.
And not a moment too soon, because the next thing he knew was a shy but decisive knock on his door. When he didn’t deign that with a reply, he heard a muffled voice saying, “Uhm, it’s Shane. Shane Hollander? Your uhm, your daemon is in my room. I asked her to come back to you but…” a frustrated sigh interrupted his musings. “I mean, I don’t even know if she understands me.” Silence. Somewhere in Ilya’s brain, it registered that he was probably supposed to say something back, but his lips would not move. “Look, could you just- I don’t know, come and get her?” Another pause. “Wait, are you even there?”
That finally spurred Ilya back to life. He squared his shoulders, put on his best Russian face, and opened the door. Shane Hollander always sounded so small and shy and polite, the perfect little Canadian, but now that they were standing right in front of each other, Ilya could clearly see that they were almost the same height. Looking at each other right in the eyes. Hollander was predictably the first one to look away, but he was still so close, Ilya could have counted each of his freckles if he’d wanted to.
“Sorry about Nadia. I can come get her.”
Hollander wordlessly nodded and led the way to his room. Now that the panic of Nadia being taken away had subsided, there was plenty of space left to freak out over what the fuck his daemon had been thinking. Nadia had always been the more restrained out of the two of them, keeping him out of trouble even with that mischievous grin on her face. This…this was uncharted territory. He thanked whoever was up there for making Shane so polite, because it meant that he would have enough tact not to ever bring this up again. Probably.
He watched as Hollander carefully opened the door to his room. After a moment of consideration, Ilya followed him inside, where Nadia and Hollander’s daemon - Drea, was it? - were giggling to themselves in a corner.
The moment was nothing short of surreal, a liminal fever dream that had no place in Ilya’s life. If Ilya was smart and perceptive, then Nadia was doubly so. Protecting him had always come easy for her, always one step ahead of him. All the things Ilya couldn’t or wouldn’t think about fell into Nadia’s hands, keeping them safe for him until he was ready to talk them through with her. Ilya had always considered her the wiser part of their duo, which was why, no matter how hard he thought about it, he could not find a good reason to explain what she’d done. Airing out his desires like that before he’d even had time to understand them himself. To some random stranger, no less.
This at least explained why they had both been summoned by their bond- whatever Nadia and Drea had been doing, it had clearly been strong enough to ripple all the way to Ilya and Shane. It was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.
Ilya cleared his throat, which had suddenly gone dry, and called out for his daemon, asking her to come back in clipped Russian. She whispered some parting promise to Drea, then finally climbed back on Ilya’s shoulder. For a moment, no one said anything, then Ilya pulled himself together and walked back to his room with as much confidence as he could muster. Once he was back in the safety of four, private walls, he let Nadia climb from his shoulder onto the bed, and fixed her with a demanding glare. The two of them had always been a team, and he was not in the mood for an argument. An explanation might be nice though.
“I’m not sorry for what I did,” she said, defiant. “He’s cute and we both know you want him. I was not going to let this opportunity pass.”
Ilya clutched his mother’s cross. “I get that, Nadezhda, but you’ve never done this just for a cute lay. Have you seen him? He probably doesn’t even know what sex is.”
Nadia shrugged. “He’s different.”
Ilya shot her an unimpressed stare. Nadia remained firm. “When has trusting me ever brought anything bad? I spoke with his daemon. I know what I’m talking about.”
The fight was rapidly draining from Ilya, too tired to counter back. He wanted to be on Nadia’s side, not against her. Because that would mean he had no one. And that would be bad.
While he couldn’t quite believe her words, he did trust her. Even if she was totally being delusional.
If only he had known, cuddled up as he was with Nadia between his arms, that denying yourself never brings anything good in the long run.
//
Shane had, in all his eighteen years of life, never fought so hard with his own daemon.
The two of them looked out for each other. They did not flirt with other people’s daemons behind the other’s back. They did not talk about the other’s personal business with someone else, and they definitely did not open their freaking bond to some random daemon without asking first.
According to Andrea it hadn’t even happened on purpose, which sounded like bullshit to Shane. Since when could people not decide what to do with their own bond? Since when did he have so little control over himself?
He had grilled his poor daemon, over and over, demanding a word-for-word account on what had transpired between her and Rozanov’s daemon, Nadia.
The name left a foul taste in his mouth. He wasn’t supposed to know it, and it felt wrong to have that information stored in his brain. Too close, too fast, too much. Too intimate He was absolutely pissed at Drea. Left her waddling on the floor more often than not, or gave her the silent treatment when she found herself in his arms.
Both his parents tried to ask what was going on. When that failed, the resident peacemaker, David’s daemon, tried to approach Drea first, then Shane.
Tonia was a beaver, as quaint and peaceful as her human. The two of them had always made a great team, and whatever David couldn’t smooth over, Tonia took care of.
Wisely, this time Drea had chosen to remain silent when Tonia approached her. If she had started talking behind Shane’s back again, the two of them might have taken more than just a few days to recover their relationship.
As it stood, Shane was currently moping in his room, with Drea doing who knew what and god knew where, when Tonia gently pushed the door open and settled next to him on the bed.
“Shane,” she asked gently. “What’s going on between you and Drea? And since when is she afraid of you getting mad at her?”
Shane only pouted more. “She did something that she wasn’t supposed to do. And I don’t want to talk to her right now.”
Tonia settled her brown head on Shane’s thigh. Even through the fabric of his trousers, the contact thrummed with energy.
“What do you mean by ‘wasn’t supposed to’?”
Shane sighed in frustration, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, but we usually always agree on everything, I didn’t even know she could want something so different from me.”
Tonia hummed thoughtfully. She stayed in silence for a moment, likely gathering the right words to say. “Sometimes you will disagree with your daemon. It’s part of life. You might not believe it now, but David and I also had our fair share of arguments. Usually it was because one of us was not ready to face something the other had already dealt with, but in the end we always found ourselves back on the same page. Drea is still part of you Shane, and if she did something, you can’t blame it completely on her.”
This was exactly why Shane had avoided Drea, his parents and their daemons like the plague. Because he already knew what they would say, and he did not want to hear it. But he also knew that a longstanding argument with his own soul would probably not bode very well in terms of focusing on things that actually mattered, like hockey. Or brand deals, according to his mom.
Shane carefully stroked Tonia’s coarse fur. It tingled pleasantly in his fingertips, and tethered him to the moment and the truth he was trying to escape from. He had learned, with no small amounts of surprise, that not all parents were so open with their children, letting them touch their daemons whenever they wanted. Obviously it was weird if you didn’t know the person well, but Shane had always thought that there would hardly be anyone who could know you better than your own parents. Apparently he had been wrong.
“So…what am I even supposed to do now?”
“Talk to Drea, for starters. Listen to what she has to say. I’m sure the two of you will figure it out,” she said with too much fondness in her voice. Shane sighed again. Boston and Montreal played regularly against each other, true, but if he played his cards well he would never have to talk to Rozanov again. This reassured him immensely, and with a firm resolution in mind, he felt like he could confront his daemon again without feeling like his self-control was completely crumbling apart.
“Thank you, Tonia. That actually helped a lot.”
The beaver quietly chuckled to herself. “Nonsense. I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’ll go get Drea, yeah?”
Shane still ended up blaming his daemon- if not for what happened at the showers, than for what followed. It didn’t really mean much, of course, since Andrea was a part of himself, but it helped. It made it bearable. Without a distinct part of himself to compartmentalize all of this in, he was sure the shame and guilt would have gotten to him long before any lustful thought could have taken root in his mind.
//
The problem with Hollander was that he was a blessing and a curse at the same time. A blessing in the form of those pretty freckles, sinful moans and earnest expression, but a curse in how tantalizingly impossible he was to obtain, and how ridiculously good he was at demolishing Ilya’s walls.
Every time Ilya acted like he wasn’t about to cry or like he didn’t want to tell something, Hollander noticed. He never pushed, he was too polite for that, but he noticed. It was infuriating.
But the worst part was Nadia, his beautiful, fierce Nadezhda, who had apparently decided that spilling all of his secrets to random Canadian penguins would be a smart move.
In front of anyone else the two of them still formed an impenetrable formation of carefully crafted cocky nonchalance (or deferent shame, in Georgi’s case), perfectly in sync, not an ounce of vulnerability on display.
But there, on that balcony, too far gone in his head to pay attention, Ilya had snapped at Hollander. And as he watched him walk away, and tried to convince himself with every step that he would be just fine without telling anyone about his family, Nadia flitted through his legs and all but tackled Hollander’s poor daemon.
Ilya clenched his fists. He was all too aware that if she’d had a bit less decorum, she would have directly tackled Hollander himself. It wasn’t quite as scandalous as a human touching someone else’s daemon, but for someone in their situation…
At once Hollander was back at his side, but keeping a considerable distance. Ilya took a defiant drag of his cigarette, aiming the smoke vaguely towards Hollander’s face. He wrinkled his nose, but didn’t comment on it.
“I’m sorry,” he offered. Ilya didn’t deign that with a reply. He sighed deeply, defeated, and slid down, sitting with his back on the balcony’s railing.
Hollander quietly sat next to him, a few feet of distance between them. Neither of them said anything, they didn’t even look at each other. It was still the first time in seven years where Ilya did not feel like he was on his own. And for some, inexplicable reason, there was no voice telling him he didn’t deserve the company, the attention, the care. For a few minutes, he was completely at peace. And that scared the shit out of him.