And That's Where I Learned to Dance

The door thuds open and Shane’s whole body shivers and he doesn’t have to turn around to know - but he does turn around, to see Rozanov, still in all his pads and his jersey, standing in the snow watching him.

Rozanov, the first round draft pick. Rozanov, the alpha. Rozanov, who’s going to get everything Shane ever wanted.

“What do you want?” Shane snaps, too tired to be polite.

Rozanov lets the door swing shut behind him, takes a step closer. His nose twitches - fuck - which means Shane smells like something and he’s got two hours of medal ceremonies and press to get through and if Montreal aren’t already telling people, any alpha in the building will be leaking the news by sunset.

‘It’s not that we don’t like diversity,’ the Montreal Manager had said after the team doctor broke the news from Shane’s last physical. ‘It’s a safety issue, we can’t have a player on the team that we know biologically isn’t able to handle it.’

Rozanov takes a step closer. Shane wants to hit him, wants to touch him, wants to run a thousand miles in the other direction, wants Rozanov to pull him in close and…

God, it’s hot out here too. It’s too hot, he’s sweating under his collar and he can’t - he can’t -

“Hollander.”

A hand on the back of his neck, like a bucket of cool water running down his spine, he wants to lean into it, lets out a noise that can only be called a whimper fuck fuck fuck Rozanov is pressing his forehead against Shane’s and his breath is on Shane’s lips and Shane can breath again and he might cry, might just collapse onto the ground right here because isn’t that just the fucking cherry on top of this whole shitty fucking year.

“Hollander?” Rozanov sounds confused. Like he can’t figure out what’s happening even though it seems pretty fucking obvious from Shane’s side of the fence. ‘Have you been near any compatible alphas in the last six months?’ the doctors had kept saying and Shane kept saying no, no, because there hadn’t been any women and that one night in L.A. when the buzzing had first started under his skin at the touch of a hand and then he spent all night tossing and turning, lying in bed sweating thinking about his eyes and his thighs and his-

It didn’t count. It wasn’t allowed to count.

“Hollander, you are - I do not know word. Is smell, is…?”

And Shane hasn’t said it out loud, not in six months of testing and results and watching his future slip through his fingers like melting snow. But Rozanov’s hand is still on his neck and Shane’s entire bodyweight is leaning against him now but Rozanov’s holding him up like it’s nothing.

Like it’s everything.