Chapter Text
It felt like every nerve in his body had streamed down into his hand when Rozanov touched him. It wasn't really much of anything, just the smallest scrape of skin on skin, he'd shared more touches with his colleagues. Even his mother.
His stomach jumped unnaturally.
There were now bills in his hand. Not dollar bills, but the hundreds. A few hundreds sat calmly in his palm.
"Rozanov!" Shane exclaimed, "what the hell?!"
Rozanov looked blank at him, "what? This is emergency vet fee, I looked it up."
"But," Shane began, moving the notes around to see how many there really were, "that's like... for everything. The nurses, the room, the medicine, only a little bit of that goes to the vet."
The other man just shrugged, "I don't see any nurses. We are in my room."
"I can't take it, Rozanov."
"You are doing your job, you get paid."
"Rozanov."
"You call me Ilya, I will take money back, oke?"
"Ilya," Shane said as earnestly as he could, even though his student loans were flashing before his eyes as he held his hand out, "please take your money back."
The other man gave a wide grin as he took exactly one bill.
"I have taken money," he simply stated when Shane just stared with his hand still outstretched.
"No, no, oh my god." Shane stuttered, "Ilya, I can't be in debt to you."
Shane was only a little transfixed by the man's blonde eyelashes as he blinked slowly, "this is payment, for today."
There was well over a thousand dollars casually sitting in Shane's palm and Ilya Rozanov was acting like this was the appropriate payment for a short, useless visit. It felt strange to have a client pay directly, the cash as well and the fact he was casually standing next to the man's oatmeal brown sofa made the whole thing feel extremely illicit.
"This is way too much, Ilya." Shane thought of where he was standing and a horrific thought ambled through his mind. "Are you expecting... an added extra?" That would make sense as to why he didn't want to meet up in a cafe or by a park or any other well lit location this time of night.
"What?" Ilya looked absolutely baffled, "what added extra?"
Shane was brought back down to the crushing reality of who he was saying this too. He felt his muscles contract, ready for him to sprint out the door. He did in fact just imply that Ilya Rozanov was about to pay him for sex work.
"Oh," Ilya murmured after a moment, "you mean..." he cocked his head to one side, "sex, da?"
"I'm like literally so sorry." Ilya voicing it was even worse, "literally, literally like so sorry." He sounded like a Californian valley girl, it felt like his mouth was moving on its own accord, like it was being held up with string and pulled side to side by some malicious force.
Ilya's smile was dangerously sly, Shane suddenly remembered that although Ilya might have a gay teammate, hockey players weren’t exactly known for their progressive natures. Neither were Russians.
“That much would not even pay for you to take your shirt off,” the man murmured, “you should have higher rates than that.”
Shane’s cheeks flared up in what must have been a spectacular shade of red, because Ilya chuckled in a gravelly tone that wasn’t helping the situation. Anya dug her nose into the back of his thigh, he could feel the cold dampness through his joggers, it almost felt like she was trying to push him towards her owner.
“Hmm, you sit, I will get you a drink, and we will discuss money, yes?” The question, because it was a question, was accompanied with Ilya leaving the room to presumably (hopefully) go to the kitchen. Either that or Ottawa’s star player was a machete wielding maniac who used his adorable spaniel to lure in unsuspecting veterinarians to turn them into dog food.
He couldn’t decide whether to follow Ilya’s instructions and sit, or just continue to linger awkwardly by the couch. What he should do is dump the money on a fancy looking wooden coffee table and run out of there, but he had the odd feeling that Ilya would simply find him at the clinic to give him the money. Anya was literally booked in next week for kennel cough. In the end her curling up near the arm of the sofa was what convinced him to take a seat. It was definitely a nice sofa, he practically fell into it and felt the foam moving to almost engulf him. It gave him an odd flashback of learning about phagocytosis in high school.
“What do you want?” He heard the other man yell from the kitchen. He sounded distant in the wide, empty expanse of his mansion.
“Err,” Shane vocalized before realising he probably sounded a little ridiculous, and very stupid. “Just some water, please?”
“I have tea,” Ilya yelled back, “or… ah!”
Shane heard a faint clattering from the kitchen, Anya perked up her ears and for a minute they both got ready to bound after the Russian but then they heard another question, “you like ginger ale, yes? You want a ginger ale.”
“Just water is fine,” Shane replied, smoothing down Anya’s ears, “I really don’t need anything, I’m just heading out now.”
There was a worrying amount of silence, Shane started to rack his mind for the basic first aid he knew. His hand ran over Anya’s spine where it curved, he found himself counting the vertebrae in her spine. Cervical, thoracic, lumbar…
He was still descending her body when Ilya appeared holding a beer and Canada Dry ginger ale. The ale was passed to Shane and the man seemed to stall for a moment, looking at Anya through blonde eyelashes like she was about to tell him what to do before settling down onto the sofa next to Shane.
He found himself swaying sideways like a seesaw, his thighs almost brushing against Ilya’s. He toyed with the tab of his ale anxiously while Ilya took a long sip of his beer. It was something American, it was strong enough that even the smell felt like it was brutalising Shane’s nostrils.
“I kept it sealed,” Ilya mentioned when he saw where Shane was thumbing the ale, “so you know I haven’t put anything in it.”
The consideration stuck with Shane for a moment. He’d never really been overly concerned with being roofied, he barely went out anyway and apart from that he was a man, and not a very small one. He had a few testing strips anyway, stored away in his wallet along with some in-date condoms that he kept not for him, but in case a friend needed them. He was always vigilant with the girls in clubs and bars, people always had the impression that he had somehow managed to pull any of them and was now playing the role of overprotective boyfriend, he’d just seen too many horror stories and wasn’t prepared to risk anything.
It was nice that Ilya considered the rational fear, even if it hadn’t even crossed his mind. The other man was big enough that he could probably overpower him anyway if he did want to try anything, but from the return of the leg jiggling Shane assumed this wasn’t a concern. Apparently serial killers were often seen to be calm and relaxed before killing, which Ilya definitely wasn’t.
“You will take money then, yes?”
“Jesus, Ilya. No, I owe you now for the drink anyway.” His pride was slowly slipping away every second his eyes fell upon the clump of cash perched on the coffee table.
“Okay, you are a science man, yes?” Shane nodded hesitantly. “That much, two thousand dollars, it is…” He pulled out his phone and started typing, “less than one percent of my wage. Less than half of one percent of my wage.”
“Okay, good for you?”
“So, take the money.”
“Ilya,” he turned himself towards the man and forced eye contact, “what I did to Anya is barely worth thirty dollars, let alone two thousand.”
“You drove yourself here,” Ilya took a sip of his beer with a slight hum, “gas is not cheap.”
“Oh my god, Ilya.”
The man gave him a steady look, “you are actually upset by this?”
“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Shane muttered. He didn’t care about Ilya’s money, he just didn’t want to feel like he was doing something wrong, that he was being unfair. Even if the money definitely wouldn’t hurt.
“You could always give me a, hm, little extra?”
Shane stared at the man, absolutely flabbergasted he had the gall to bring that up again. He made a move to leave, barely getting his weight lifted off the couch before Ilya was pressing a soft hand to his arm.
“I call you.” Ilya blurted out. “You take money but I call you, if Anya needs anything or I am worried. It is ‘added extra’.” The man was staring into his eyes, eyebrows drawn tight and with his mouth slightly open.
Ilya Rozanov calling him seemed a little insane, but there was a reason he was sitting on the man’s couch, stroking his dog and drinking his ale. The suggestion that the calls could become a regular thing is what threw Shane off.
“I might not always pick up.”
“Yes, you are busy man.”
“I might not always be able to help.”
“Would still be good to get your opinions.”
“I’m not really the best for this, you’ll be wanting a more experienced vet or someone with extra qualifica-”
“Shane,” Ilya interrupted, saying the man’s name for the first time in a while, “Shane, I want you.”
There was a second of awkward silence where Shane’s knuckles whitened where he was clutching the ginger ale.
“You are,” Ilya sputtered, “so good with Anya, and look. She trusts you.” It was true, the spaniel was propped up against Shane’s side looking like she was dozing off. Definitely no salt poisoning then, something in Shane preened that he was correct.
“Okay… I’ll consider it.”
Ilya beamed like he’d just agreed to something actually worth Ilya’s time, something hockey or party related. But Shane found himself smiling back, allowing himself to lighten on the couch and move ever so slightly closer to Ilya, absorbing himself into the man’s orbit.
🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾
Shane ended up driving home at midnight. He doesn’t even realise the time, not until Ilya’s phone chimes and the man swears something in Russian when he checks.
“Blyat.” He mutters, turning away from Shane to pick up the phone from the coffee table, “it’s twelve.”
“Oh shit,” Shane gasped out, "sorry, I really gotta be off.” He got up off the couch, his legs groaning, to make his way towards the door.
“Wait,” Ilya exclaimed, palming the money into his hands as he too got up off the couch a lot more elegantly than Shane, “let me walk you out, yes?”
He followed Ilya out of the living room and down the unnecessarily long corridor. It felt a little like he was a European princess, about to be wooed and wed off to a handsome suitor in this modern castle.
“You know, is late.” Ilya mentioned casually, folding his hands into his jean pockets and rocking back on his heels, “you could stay night. I have many spare rooms.”
“No, no!” Shane said, perhaps a little too quickly. Ilya almost looked offended for a moment, so Shane placed a comforting hand on the man's upper arm and patted him, once, twice. Like an incomplete bro hug. Ilya went straight. “No, it’s all right really. You have a game tomorrow, and I need to get home anyway to feed my mantis.”
“You will not tell anyone, about me being sad on call about Anya, yes?” Ilya’s voice had a strange husky quality, it rose and fell like waves of anxiety. He was wringing his hands together and staring at Shane’s shitty nikes.
“No,” Shane murmured, “of course I won’t.” That would probably destroy Ilya’s bad boy reputation, wouldn’t it. There was something exciting about knowing a famous person, talking to them just like another person in oblivion and hearing their voice go all mushy over a well-loved pet.
“Thank you Shane.” The man smiled oddly at him, “you are a good man.”
Shane fell asleep that night to the odd prickling sensation of the man’s muscular arm tensing under his touch playing in his mind like a mantra.