Chapter Text
Who the fuck drinks a ginger ale at a party?
Ilya couldn’t wrap his head around that detail for the life of him, insignificant as it may be given the circumstance. His chest, bare through the deep v of the barely buttoned Hawaiian shirt, was wet and sticky and frigid at this point. His mouth hung open slightly as he stared down at himself, holding his now dripping hands slightly in front of his waist. Cold, sticky, and now his buzz had been snatched away by this stupid fucking spill. Without moving his head, he glared up through the furrowed contour of his brows at the fucking idiot who had done this. Big brown eyes stared back at him, the flashing lights of the cheap Amazon strobe light reflecting a kaleidoscope of pinks and blues against the dark irises. His face, dusted with light freckles Ilya could only make out when the brightest pink hue crossed him, looked almost apologetic for a moment. Almost. Then, the tiniest look of recognition, which morphed into a satisfied smirk. “Shane Hollander,” Ilya rumbled, shaking his hands out so that the remaining wetness flicked on Shane, smirking as he pulled back, a little disgusted.
“Ronzanov.” Shane’s tongue slipped out to wet his lips. His eyes flicked down to Ilya’s wet chest, watching as the lights caused random patterns of sparkles, before pulling himself back to eye contact. “Oops,” he said flatly. “Didn’t see you there.”
Ilya quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe if you learned how to pull head out of ass you could see better.” His accent was thicker thanks to the beers he’d been putting back since the early afternoon and the annoyance this spill had forced. He’d been in America less than a year, just enough for a semester and a half, and he didn’t feel like making the effort to be understood, especially right then. Probably because he was covered in…what was this?
“Shut the fuck up,” Shane grumbled, but Ilya was too busy raising his thumb to his lips to care. He sucked at his thumb gently, curious what he was covered in. The taste was sweet, but not like the shit flavored-vodka the stupid Americans liked to force on everyone. No, sweet with citrus and undercut with a spice. Ilya hummed around his thumb, staring at Shane with a gotcha glare.
Shane’s eyes widened, likely terrified, Ilya thought, that he knew the unofficial prince of Phi Gamma Delta was drinking ginger ale at a fucking party. What a loser, he thought, laughing quietly as he pulled his thumb out with a pop. “Hollander, you are so boring.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hollander insisted again, voice whining with undignified annoyance and his ridiculous Canadian accent.
“Or what? You’ll throw drink at me again? I am so scared of ginger ale drinking Fiji.” Ilya rolled his eyes before fixing Shane with a bored pout.
“Maybe.” Hollander had the audacity to smirk, like they were friends, like they were able to joke, like they hadn’t been pitted against each other since rush.
It made sense, of course.
Both Rozanov and Hollander had been top recruits for Boston University's hockey team. The two had seen each other at the Junior Olympics. Russia won out, Canada secured a bronze win, and the scouts had taken note. On a gold winning team full of strong, impressive young Russian players, Rozanov had risen above. He played like a mountain lion. He was aggressive, wickedly fast, and could hunt down anyone on the ice before they could see him coming, hurling weirdly specific insults as he checked them into the glass, bruising their shoulders and their ego in one fell swoop. On top of that, he was the team’s top scorer too, getting himself 5 goals throughout the tournament.
The only player better was Shane Hollander.
Hollander had the type of read on the ice that felt magic. No matter where you were, what move you tried, he was three steps ahead. His accuracy on the goal was unreal, Hollander being responsible for all of the team’s goals the entire tournament. It seemed so natural for him, the type of player that was born for greatness, perfection coming easy to him, reliability and stardom coexisting in him in such a rare way.
So BU channelled the type of greed Moses warned against and got them both. Scholarships, a paycheck, and a promise of greatness had the two foreigners States bound.
What BU didn’t account for was personalities. Their stars could read each other’s minds on the ice, but it was rumored that they were constantly on edge with each other any other time. Rozanov’s needling jabs didn’t mesh with Hollander’s allusive anti-social nature.
If only there was a way to categorize people based on their personalities in college.
Knowing the boys would both be stars, their skills and dual handsomeness attracted women’s eyes whenever they walked the quad, every frat played their full hand to coax the boys to them.
Ilya preened under the attention. Shane wanted to vomit.
Weeks of cookouts and strange, booze filled hazing rituals had landed Hollander as a brother of Phi Gamma Delta and Rozanov a well-loved member of Pi Kappa Alpha. Both frats convinced that they had won the better player, and ready to make the boys compete to prove it. The rest was history. Any intramural games, because hockey practice wasn’t enough clearly, the pair worked hard to outdo the other. Football, soccer, you name it, they were playing like their lives depended on it. Academically, Rozanov carried his 3.8 with pride, knowing damn well he had Hollander’s 3.6 beat thanks to the team requiring the players to share their grades every three weeks for “accountability to your fellow terriers”.
Both boys thought it was a stupid mascot. At least that they could agree on.
“Maybe,” Ilya parroted mockingly.
“We have practice tomorrow,’ Shane said, as though it was some sort of explanation.
‘We have practice every day.”
“Yeah but it's a morning practice.”
Ilya pulled a face that screamed so?, to which Shane rolled his eyes and continued, “So I don’t want to be hungover at practice.”
“Oh my god, Hollander, have you ever been hungover in your life?”
No, Shane thought. But fuck if he’d give Rozanov the satisfaction of being right. He didn’t want to risk it anyway. He not only led the team in goals so far, but the entire NCAA. Nothing was going to jeopardize that, especially not a Pike party he’d barely wanted to go to anyway.
“When you throw up on the ice, that’s on you.”
“I will not throw up, Russians do not do this after drinking.”
“Right, forgot. You guys are professionals,” Shane chirped. Ilya grinned.
“Yes.”
Shane shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. “You’re such an asshole.”
“You are the one who spilled drink on me at my own party. You are asshole here, I think.”
For what it’s worth, Shane did feel a little bad about that.
He had just been trying to get out to the backyard of the house to get some air, pushing and shoving through the crowds of boys and girls touching and kissing and drinking in every open space there was in the living room. Shane’s chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself as different bodies pressed against him, each touch stealing oxygen from him. He had to close his eyes every once in a while to focus on making his lungs inflate, vital proof he wasn’t really suffocating alone in a crowd.
Rose had disappeared three minutes into being here, after promising she absolutely wouldn’t ever leave him, but he didn’t blame her. If Shane was popular for his hockey skills, Rose Landry was a celebrity. Not only did she lead student government, star in every theater production BU had, and was just a ray of sunshine in general, the girl had also been in multiple A-list movies at this point. Everyone loved Rose, Shane included, so he knew she’d be stolen no matter what she said.
Before Shane could respond with any sort of poorly disguised apology, Rozanov was speaking again, slurred accent harder to understand than usual through the thrumming baseline of the unintelligible song playing and the layers of beer coating his breath. “Means you need real drink now, since yours is on my body.” Ilya ran a finger haphazardly down his chest, between his pecks where the gold cross he always had on hung from a chain. Shane’s eyes followed, then jumped back to Ilya’s face. A muscle in Ilya’s jaw twitched.
“Come,” Ilya demanded, nodding towards the makeshift bar set up in the kitchen. Shane’s legs followed before his brain registered they were.
Ilya was going to just get Hollander a beer, really, he was actually going to be decent. But then someone grabbed his arm and screamed “Celebrity shot!” in his face, pulling him towards the beer pong table.
And who was he to refuse?
Without hesitation Ilya followed the girl, a brunette woman with soft skin who he didn’t know but would certainly like to. His arm that wasn’t in her grasp reached for Hollander’s wrist easily. Rozanov didn’t have the psychic hockey vision Hollander did, but he had situational awareness like no other.
Rozanov always knew where Hollander was.
Shane made a noise of protest, but didn’t fight it. They walked up to the table with a chorus of hoots and hollers to greet them. Ilya surveyed the game set before him. Three cups on his side, well, the brunette’s side, and five on the other. Out of his periphery, Hollander leaned in, analyzing the situation, eyes darting around. Ilya could see the strategy playing out with each twinge of muscle in his face, a tell he’d learned from watching Shane run drills with the type of understanding Ilya had to work , admittedly, very hard at.
Hollander did it for fucking beer pong like a hobby. He was so fucking annoying.
Ilya squeezed at Shane’s wrist before he dropped it, breaking Shane’s concentration and causing wide eyes to fall on him, a pink tinge on his freckled face no matter what color the lights were.
Interesting.
Wordlessly, Ilya winked back at Shane and turned to the table, grabbing the ball and tossing it easily into one of the cups. Brunette girl, he should really ask her name, cheered giddily, hugging him at an awkward side angle that Ilya tried to accommodate. The man she was playing against spoke up.
Him Ilya knew.
‘Hayden!” Hollander’s voice was excited over the music and the crowd, and Ilya could tell without looking that he was waving to Hayden Fucking Pike like a loser. God, he was so boring and lame.
Pike’s eyes went from looking past Ilya to directly staring at him, a smirk crossing his face. Ilya raised an eyebrow. “Hollander! Celebrity shot!”
Of course.
“Bullshit!” Brunette said, releasing Ilya and glaring at Pike.
“You literally just did the same shit, Jacki!”
Hayden motioned frantically for Shane to come over, stumbling as the speedy motion seemed to disrupt his balance. He erupted into a fit of giggles before starting the “Hollander!” chant that caught on like a disease.
Shane shrugged, doing his best to play at nonchalant. He adjusted the faded red BU hat, turning it so the bill faced the back. Someone whistled. Shane shook his head, laughing under his breath. He hustled over to Hayden’s side of the table. He squared up his hips, grabbing the ball out of the cup it sat in, spinning it lightly between his fingers as he silently measured just what angle he would be most successful with. His head tilted slightly as he thought, sizing up the remaining three cups. One sat at what would have been the far left point of the pyramid of cups. Another just right of what would be the middle, and another next to that. Best to aim there then, better chances of making it if he judges something wrong and goes too far one way or the other.
His eyes fell to the harder shot anyway. There was hand on his shoulder. He didn't have to look to know who it was, the presence of the man both looming and suffocatingly close. His beer stained breath was soft as he spoke directly in Shane’s ear. “Shane Hollander,” the Russian accent dripped, thick like honey. It’s all he could hear, the deafening music of the party no longer making his head throb.
“Will you disappoint them?”
Shane smirked, raising the ball in his hand.
“Nope.”
The orange ping pong ball caused a tiny splash in the far left cup. Hayden went crazy behind him like he’d won, even though, as Shane wanted to point out, two cups remained. Jacki looked distraught, but something else was on her face as she looked across the table. Shane couldn't really tell what that is. Especially not with Ilya Rozanov still in his space, huffing out a laugh.
The hand on his shoulder squeezed, like it had on his wrist, then slid down his back, lingering where Shane’s shorts sat on his waistline. Shane didn't turn his head, but side-eyed Ilya as best he could without drawing attention.
Ilya leaned in again, lips brushing Shane’s ear as he spoke.
“Pike house. Dorm 1221. Don’t be boring.”
He was lost to the crowd before the blush could finish crawling up Shane’s neck.