Chapter Text
"You look pretty," Rozanov tells him in their fake face-off for the cameras. Shane huffs—he might be back on action, officially, as of this coming training camp, but it's going to be a long time before he thinks he's pretty again.
Rozanov is probably fucking with him. Even if he was being sincere, that would still count as fucking with him. Rozanov knows they can't really be talking like this around each other.
"You're wearing makeup too," Shane tells him. The makeup artist had to put a lot less foundation under Rozanov's eyes. He still gets to have full nights of sleep.
They stumble through the rest of the photo-shoot, childishly giggly despite everything. It's the first time that Shane has seen Rozanov in a long while, and vice versa, although Rozanov might have seen pictures of Shane at least (Shane made sure to never see any pictures of Rozanov). Shane was interview relatively recently, a piece about his return to the NHL after he took his rookie year to make his mandatory prospect contribution. The mention of Sam is one paragraph short, and doesn't mention him by name, or gives any other information. Unless someone from Rozanov's team told him personally, he doesn't know that he child he helped make is a boy.
During a break from the cameras, Shane asks Rozanov when they told him they were doing this ad. Shane got the news a week ago. He didn't get to do any promotional material for his sponsors for a good time after the birth—nobody wants to see a hockey athlete that doesn't look like a hockey athlete—but he's getting back to it now that it's so close to the start of next season. Technically, it will still count as Shane's first—he'll be eligible for a Calder. Rozanov got one last season. At least there isn't going to be competition from him.
The ads they're shooting today is cheeky: RIVALS BACK IN ACTION, sponsored by CCM. The general public doesn't know that the reason Shane had to take a year-long break at all was because Rozanov put a baby in him. This is why the MHL is so interested in keeping each sire-dam match hush-hush—they're done in a strictly business interest, and don't follow any of the narratives the league teams build to sell tickets.
Rozanov tells him it was his idea to do a joint-ad, and Shane feels his stomach drop.
They're somewhere relatively private, at one of the corner of the rink, and being ignored by the camera crew as they fix their shots. Nobody's paying attention to them, but Shane feels like the Metros GM, or worse, Crowell himself, might fall from the ceiling at any moment.
"Rozanov," he warns him lowly, embarrassed that his voice shakes. He's glad when he's called again, and has an excuse to skate away from Rozanov. He knew it was a mistake to get anywhere close to him.
Mom came with Shane. She goes over some other sponsors with him on the stands, carefully ignoring who he's shooting this ad with. Shane hopes she thinks it's Sam who Shane's thinking about whenever he zones out, staring at the ice as the crew shoots Rozanov skate tight circles alone with a puck. Sam, who's a little bit bigger, slowly growing into himself, and has no idea about anything of the life that surrounds him.
Dad's with Sam. Sam is going to live with him and Mom when Shane moves to Montreal in the start of the season; it's not like Shane will stay in one place, or have any time for a six months old baby. It's going to be for the best.
The more distant Sam is from Shane means the more distant Sam's from Rozanov too, which is at least some comfort. Wearing hockey gear, Shane doesn't look that different from before his break. You'd need to see him naked to see the new stretch marks on his ass and belly. It's good for Rozanov not to think of him being pregnant, or what might have come out of it—he's stupid for seemingly wanting to see Shane at all. They can't smoke together in the cold and drink stupid vodka in a hotel anymore. All they can do now is be rivals.
The showers in the rink are divided by primary sex, not secondary dynamic, and Shane almost groans when he sees it. He and Rozanov finished shooting at the same time, and he knows that no matter how quickly or late he tries to shower, Rozanov's going to find him. He wishes that the thought didn't make his stupid cunt throb.
Shane takes one of the showers at the back, and keeps his eyes squarely on the wall tiles when he hears someone else join him. Rozanov picks a shower adjacent to his, of course. Shane's cheek colors underneath the warm spray of water. He tries to beat the urge to angle his body away or suck in his gut, not that there's a lot of it. If he was already annoying with his food, it only got worse after he needed to lose so much fat and gain so much muscle in half of a calendar year.
Rozanov's not half as discreet. He stares at Shane openly, even as he scrubs a lazy hand over his own body. Shane wants to tell him off, but he fears his voice might squeak.
Rozanov's eyes hold on the stretch marks on his abdomen, and Shane turns away.
"Fuck off," he says after all. Shane scrubs shampoo on his hair so he has an excuse to close his eyes and not look at Rozanov.
"It doesn't look bad," Rozanov tells him. Shane wants to throw a bar of soap at him.
"Stop fucking looking, Rozanov," he complains. When Shane rinses his hair and can open his eyes again, Rozanov is staring pointed at Shane's groin, where his neatly trimmed hair can't hide how his clit has fattened up at the attention. "Fuck off," he repeats uselessly. Shane only had sex once in his life, and he can't touch himself while sharing a room with a baby. It's not his fault.
He turns the shower knob so the water will go ice cold, although it shocks Shane at first contact. Maybe now his body will get the memo. It's better for Shane not to have any incentive to take too long in the shower either, not with Rozanov right behind him. Still looking at him, moving his hand in a repetitive motion and—holy shit!
Shane stares at Rozanov for a while when he finally notices he's jacking himself off. Initially, it really is only out of shock; Rozanov's impulsive, but maybe Shane has forgotten just how brazen he can be too. The guy is actually, certifiably, insane—there's still a camera crew out there on the ice, and people from CCM roaming the rink building. Rozanov's intentful look, staring only at Shane as he touches himself without shame, means something and Shane manages to get his throat in order enough to blurt out, "Not here." He wishes it didn't feel like running away when he leaves the showers altogether.
Shane dries and dresses himself all before Rozanov gets back to the locker room. It feels safer like this, covered in his same old boring clothes, and fumbling with his shoes.
"You now will pay attention to me?" Rozanov asks. He hasn't bothered putting on anything more than a towel.
Shane wants to tell him to stop acting like a child, but he shouldn't be reminded of children—of his—right now. "Rozanov," Shane chides again, and his heart is in his throat. "You know we can't." Not only whatever happened in the shower, but any real conversation at all. Rozanov was visited by Crowell too. He knows things ended when they left that infirmary room.
"Our teams are supposed to play a lot against each other. You ignore me then also?"
"You know that's different." It's their job, for one. Like how this shoot was part of the job too.
Rozanov's really good at always seeing smug and in control, but for a second his face clouds with something a lot more frustrated. "Nobody will tell me anything," he blurts out, and Shane knows he's not just being stubborn right now as he scowls. "'It's done, Ilya, it's done, Ilya'. You know how bad it is? Fuck! I don't want—I don't want anything much. I just want to know."
Shane looks up at him, lips pulling downwards.
"What do you wanna know?"
Rozanov's nose flares in a heavy huff. He doesn't seem to know if Shane is taking him seriously or not, but he goes on anyway. "Nobody tell me anything," he repeats. "Not if worked, or if baby born okay. Marlow, guy from my team, did one contribution for Carolina last year, said omega, what is name, aborted by accident—"
"Miscarried," Shane says. Rozanov nods, although it's hard to look satisfied when it's this they're talking about.
"Marlow said nobody told him, he just knew by gossip. What do I think?"
"I didn't miscarry," Shane tells him, although just the suggestion makes Shane a little nauseous and Rozanov has to know that wasn't the case by now—if not by that recent article, then when their teams informed him that his part of the contract was officially complete.
"Just know in February," Rozanov says. Sam's birth month. "But they don't say if boy or girl, or anything."
Shane kept ignoring hockey at the time, but he learned, later, that Rozanov was all over the place in February. He scored a lot in some games, and then not at all in others. Shane doesn't know if that has anything to do with Sam, but the idea makes him feel uncomfortable.
"He's a boy," Shane tells Rozanov quietly. He tells himself he'd know it anyway eventually, when Sam starts being part of a minor team. He doesn't say anything else.
Rozanov takes a deep breath. It's weird to see emotion so plainly on his face; weirder yet to see his eyes shine a bit.
"What name?"
"I can't say."
"What. Name."
"I can't say."
Rozanov curses something in Russian. Shane's mouth thins as he watches him react so openly in anger.
"You know it doesn't work like this," Shane tells him. He's, sincerely, not trying to be cruel—the opposite. It's best if Rozanov knows as little as he can.
"How is that fair? You get son and I—"
"I get a son?" Shane repeats, incredulous. Anger blooms in his gut quite quickly after that. "You fucking asshole—you know how hard I had it? I had to—you have no fucking idea!"
Rozanov looks corrected for a moment, but Shane can still see the stubbornness on his face.
"You would want more," Rozanov says. Shane doesn't tell him that, very nearly, he had wanted nothing at all.
Shane gets up. He knew it was a mistake to let each other get in close proximity again like this. Shane's angry and ashamed and embarrassed, and he hates that it only took seeing Rozanov again another time. He hates that, a few hours ago, they were laughing together on the ice.
"Hollander," Rozanov says, but Shane doesn't look behind. He hurries out of the locker room, holding on to his duffel bag with white fucking knuckles.
**
Sam is more pudgy by the month, these days, and pretty bright. He's a quiet baby—Mom said Shane was like that too—but very opinionated. He doesn't like getting up in the morning or being put down to naps throughout the day, but he likes watching the mobile Dad built him twirl, and listening to Mom go over different baby foods with him. Shane likes to think he likes to sit quietly on Shane's lap on the nursery's recliner too, like they do whenever Shane comes back from practice or the gym. That's the part Shane's going to miss the worst when he goes to Montreal.
When Shane gets back from the shoot in Toronto, he extends recliner time. Shane sits with Sam wrapped close, trying and failing not to think about Rozanov. Sam's enormous when Shane compares him to that little thing that had came out of himself, but his hand still feels pretty tiny as it grabs onto his shirt, pats at his cheek, while Sam babbles to himself. Sam's become handsy ever since he learned how to pinch his thumbs, and what he holds onto the most is Shane.
He can't think about Sam without feeling some kind of way, emotion rising to his throat. He can't think about Sam and Rozanov without that happening too. It feels both selfish to want Sam all to himself or that Rozanov got to see him too, if for different reasons. Montreal checks on Sam every couple of months—they're going to have him start on skates when he turns two—and Shane wants to hide him in a room every time they do, but he gets Rozanov, and how much he clearly wishes he could know Sam. He's just so—he's so intrinsically a part of Shane, no matter how he came to be, that Shane can't believe how it would be like to know he's out there, but not be able to meet him. Whenever he thinks that he almost didn't keep him, Shane's throat goes so tight he can barely breathe.
Shane tries to enjoy all the moments he can have with Sam before he starts on his move, even the bad ones. Sam screams really loudly whenever they start to give him a bath, enough to make Shane's ears sting; he wakes up every night at two AM, and requires Shane to be the one to put him down again, which he has no idea how it's supposed to work when he's not living in his parent's house. Shane's going to visit back as soon as training camp is done, before the season starts in full, and try to return on weekends the Metros don't have games, but he knows he'll have progressively less chances as the season carries on.
Shane spends the whole weekend leading up to camp in a tortured slump, which is something Rozanov didn't have to go through. Shane keeps asking himself, is Sam going to notice his absence? Is he going to miss him? Is he going to think Shane abandoned him, is he going to forget about him? Camp's not going to leave Shane any time to think, but while he's not there, this is all he can stress over. He already feels like a pretty lousy parent when he has to rely so much on his parents, not to mention how he held a grudge against Sam at all before he was born, and his Mom and Dad will practically be responsible for raising him when Shane is gone.
Mom promises she'll call every night with Sam, but that isn't feasible—who knows when Shane's going to be off the ice, and Sam has his night time routine, Mom can't ruin that, especially when Sam's not even going to know that Shane's on the other side of the phone. He feels so frustrated he almost wants for the weekend to be done already, so he can focus on hockey instead, but Shane regrets even the thought of it when Sunday comes and he has to get to the airport.
He holds Sam very tightly before he leaves, but Sam doesn't get it—he's sleepy like in every morning, and thinks this is just another day. Shane's leaving his son but he doesn't even know. Shane feels like shit.
So—Shane's not in a good mood when training camp starts. It's not the first impression he wanted to give his future teammates, or the team's coach and trainers. He's supposed to be impressing them now, after a year without playing, showing that he's ready to come back, that he's still got it. Shane's only harder on himself on the ice, and frustrated whenever he can't perform as well as he wants to. He's nauseous with shame once, as he overhears some of the guys talking about omegan over-emotionality.
Shane feels like he could cry when camp is over and he's told he's making it into the 2011-2012 roster, no matter how flaky he might've or have not seemed. The trainers must've seen something they liked, but Shane knows he has to impress them even more, make it worth their time that they've even offering him this chance. He missed the ice so much, and playing competitively, he'll win all this season's awards if he has to prove to the team they've made the right choice.
"Now," coach starts, after he meets Shane one-on-one, "I understand you have a little boy—"
"His grandparents have him," Shane says immediately, already anticipating where he's going. "I'm completely focused on the game, you don't have to worry about that."
By coach's slightly taken aback look, he wasn't expecting Shane to come so strongly like this, but it's worth it for Shane to be taken seriously. "If you're sure—"
"I'm sure." Shane has gone through every physical rehabilitation he could, he's on more suppressants than when he first presented, he's sure all the way. He's been waiting for the MHL since he was drafted. He was waiting for it since he was eight.
He makes do with seeing Sam in person every five days, and watching him go through milestones in pictures Mom takes with her phone. Shane's a hockey player first and foremost, it's what he's always tried to prove every time he stepped on the ice, with alphas trying to grab him by the scruff or smash him against the boards. He can do it. He already paid too much for him not to be able to do it.
**
Shane started caring for Sam, after being so apathetic through the pregnancy, almost immediately after he was born, if in stages, but he was all over the place in the weeks—months—after. He tries reminding himself of that that after particularly bad nights. Nothing's going to be as bad as that, when he seesawed between wanting Sam close and then as far as way from him as possible. In a way, missing him at all, now, is a good thing.
Shane doesn't do well with counseling. He doesn't get the point of telling things to anyone—he just feels worse after, ashamed of himself. Mom tried talking to him about baby blues after Sam was born, but he didn't want that either. She was smart enough not to mention anything to Montreal, who already seemed so ready to take care of Sam themselves. Shane's doing better now. It doesn't matter.
The GM personally congratulates Shane when the Metros roster is publicly announced. He had to already knew about that beforehand—he had to have a hand in the choice, even—but maybe he chose to wait for propriety sake. It won't win Shane any favors if his teammates think there's favoritism going on with him. Shane doesn't want to be a favorite at all. The last time Montreal payed so much attention to him, he was miserable for nine months.
"I've been told your parents are with little Sam?"
Shane gives a tight nod in answer. He'd challenge the GM to judge him on that, but it's pretty clear he thinks that is the good choice—hockey always comes first.
"Remind your mother to make him watch you first game. That'll make for wonderful photos, won't it?"
Shane shrugs offhandedly, just waiting for the conversation to be over. He fidgets with the insides of his pockets.
The GM's smiling at Shane, like he always seems to be, but it's just as empty as ever. That has always made Shane more on edge than happy, like how he used to be whenever he got praised by prior trainers or management. He especially hates when the GM—or anyone from front office—looks at him for a moment too long, like a farm owner looking at all their animals.
"And," he starts, as if just continuing something, "you know, Shane. If you ever think like it's got too hard, you can talk with us, right? You wouldn't be the first player that walked back on child rearing."
"It's fine," he reassures. It will be fine is too presumptuous to say, although Shane's not planning anything less. "I've got it."
**
Omegas only got to keep the babies after the MHL's expansion, and subsequent re-envisioning, during the eighties. Before, the teams retrieved them right out of the hospital nursery.
The GM's right—there must have been omegas that thought again on custody, since then. Shane can see all the reasons why: how busy and exhausted he already is, how he barely gets to be with Sam at all. And that's without mentioning how other players look at him as soon as the season actually starts, when it's publicly knowledge that he has a baby, a league baby, waiting at home. But Shane's not planning on being one of those omegas. He's going to be better. He's going to do it.
**
The first game the Metros play against the Raiders, coach puts Shane on face-off right away when Rozanov's sent to take it. "Lets give the crowd what they want," he jokes, and Shane tries not to grimace. Some guys slap his shoulder leeringly—their idea of camaraderie—and Shane tries to pretend there isn't any reason why he might not want to do it aside from a general distaste of Rozanov.
Shane was very careful in not looking directly his way during warmups, and he felt relieved that Rozanov seemed to be doing the same. They've been lucky to not have bumped into each other since shooting that ad, before the start of the season (or so Shane thought—who knows how Rozanov feels about it). Now, in the face-off circle, Rozanov's looking right into Shane's eyes, heavily too, and he finds that the months between then have done nothing in preparing him for this. Shane prefers to think Rozanov's doing his staring with more challenge than anything else, but he's wary even then, especially because there's already so much banked up in their first match-up.
"Shane Hollander," Rozanov enunciates slowly. To the official by their side, he probably sounds like this is the first time they've met since the draft. He's looking lazily at Shane, at the same time disinterestedly and heavy handed, and Shane refuses to look away from where the puck is going to come onto the ice. "Will you disappoint them?"
Like Shane has a choice.
He wins the face-off, makes a goal and, later in the night, after the game is done, walks out of the ice with a win at home. It feels good all the way down, to not have disappointed his team, to have proved his weight in the rivalry, to keep proving all of his detractors, on and off the ice, wrong. Shane feels better when he's winning, easier to tell himself everything, all he's done, all he keeps doing, is worth it.
It's harder when he's off a game that felt brutal in all his joints, that leaves his body bruised from hits referees pretend they don't see, or say he's making too big of a deal about. It's harder when he's hurting all over and alone, away from his family and without any other source of companionship.
Shane like the games the plays in Montreal the most; when they're done he can just drive straight to Ottawa, even if it's already past 12 in the morning. He's glad that he made the time—and effort—to get a driver's license amidst P.T. and body conditioning. After a game, Shane is wired enough that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep even if he wanted, and it's more peaceful inside his car than the club his teammates must be celebrating at. He gets familiar pretty quickly with the interprovincial roads.
The lights downstairs are always on when he parks in front of his parent's place. Shane has a key—actually, the same copy he's had since he was ten—but either Mom or Dad, or both, always wait up for him.
Mom's wrapped up in a cardigan on the couch when he comes inside, blinking sleep away. It was close to 4 AM on the dashboard clock.
"Hey, honey." Mom kisses Shane on the cheek after she's come close enough. "Good game. I wish you'd let us go."
Shane shrugs; that's already becoming an old argument.
Shane's always methodical after getting home, no matter how late. He needs to take his shoes off at the door and wash his hands, and then put his overnight bag away, all before he finally goes to see Sam. It's almost impossible to come home on the week at a time he's awake, although once or twice Shane's arrived when he had just woken up in the middle of the night. Mom and Dad leave him to it, especially because Shane's already flagging down by then. He just wants to see Sam once before he goes to bed himself.
Mom follows him to the doorway this time. Shane can feel her looking in as Shane finds his way just with the hall lights, stopping by Sam's crib so he can watch him sleep.
Shane likes to think he's gotten pretty quiet ever since Sam slept in a bassinet in his bedroom, but he's stretching himself awake tonight at Shane's visit.
"Hey, no. You don't gotta wake up." Shane's voice doesn't go up a notch, even as Sam's eyes blink open back at him; his sleepy face is pretty close to Mom's. "Go back to sleep."
"He was a bit rowdy tonight before bedtime," Mom says, absolving Shane. "His nap in the evening went a little longer than it should. It was probably that."
Shane hums noncommittally. If Sam's awake, he might as well pick him up, or so he gives himself the excuse, making sure he has a good hold before he's lifting Sam to his chest. "Don't give me that yawn," Shane says, as Sam does exactly that. "I was alright with watching you sleep."
Sam smells like milk—formula's—baby shampoo, the fabric softener Dad uses with every load of laundry, and a mix of the artificial perfumes Mom and Dad use. His hair is growing thicker as he ages, although it's still as spiky as when he was born; Shane likes to press his face against it, nose onto Sam's scalp while his mouth presses against his forehead. He gets hours instead of days with Sam. He could spend a whole one just like this.
Sam coos against him, a little unhappily, and Shane finally pulls away. Sam's tiny face is going crinkly, like it gets when he's working himself up, and Shane's got to put him to bed again; Sam gets cranky if he doesn't sleep.
Shane brushes a thumb over Sam's belly as he's lying down again, stretching his arms over his head. He'll fall asleep easily, at least if Shane is quick with it. A steady touch and Sam is yawning away, as if remembering that he was asleep just a minute ago and that it's just as easily to get back there again. Shane wipes his fuzzy hair back from his face.
Mom's still by the door when Shane pulls away, making his way back to the hallway. Her eyes always get a faraway look when she watches Shane with Sam, but these days, it at least doesn't look that sad.
Mom squeezes his shoulder, following Shane as he closes the door to the nursery. "Are you taking your naps? Your eyes look creasy."
"Mom," Shane complains halfheartedly. Like she can say anything.
"Sleep in a little tomorrow," she still insists. "Dad can take care of Sam's breakfast. He likes the excuse to get into the office later."
"Yeah, sure," Shane huffs. He left his bag on his bed, and there it is waiting for him as he makes his way to his bedroom. He likes putting everything away before he finally falls asleep, but maybe he'll leave it for tomorrow this time.
Mom stops him by the door to wish him a good night of sleep. She wipes Shane's messy hair back—air-dried after his post-game shower at the arena—not that differently from how he'd just done it with Sam. It makes Shane feel a little achy.
When he finally lays down, he sleeps right away, without even one dream.
**
Shane brings one item of Sam's clothing every time he comes back from his parents' place. He tries to have at least one bit of his scent for when his body misses him like a lung, and Shane has to keep whatever it is that he brings from Sam's room stuffed inside of a zip lock bag so it'll last the whole week. He holds on to it more strongly after the bad games.
For the first losing streak that Montreal has, Shane insists on spending more time on the ice—and his teammates must think he's a conceited asshole—but he refuses to let the team, him, lose three games on a row. They win that night and it doesn't matter that they lose the next, just as long as Shane can space the losses out. Losing has always felt bad, but it's another beast entirely when Shane can't help but think that the GM is going to talk with him again if it seems he's not consistently bringing his A game to the team, and that he'll make that suggestion to relieve Shane of Sam into an order. Maybe it's paranoia but Shane would rather not know.
He breaks another two-game losing streak on overtime in December, falling off his feet to make sure his shot is going into the net, and he actually lets his face lie against the ice for a moment as the horn blares across the arena, Montreal fans celebrating just as loudly as the other side groans. Shane's so relieved he feels like he'll choke.
It's going to get better as the team comes into itself. Shane knows.
The loneliness is going to get easier too as time goes along, or so Shane tells himself. He holds his own enough to be invited to the All-Stars, and he takes that weekend, no matter how much he'd rather be able to go home and be with Sam. A part of him is hoping that the change in air is going to break Montreal's slump entirely, and it actually might—dip and rises come and go in every sport, it's just that Shane's is banking in a lot more than other players have to.
Nashville is even farther to Ottawa than Montreal, and Shane sometimes feel like his body can track how far away it is from Sam. The zip-lock bag from this week has already ran out of scent and Shane has to go to Nashville with only a picture of Sam trying ice-cream for the first time. It's better that Dad was the one that was there with him, or so he tells himself—Dad can at least share scoops with Sam. Shane's diet doesn't allow it.
"Look alive." Shane looks up from his phone, hiding the screen against his chest. Scott Hunter's smiling when Shane looks at him, so he knows that, if he's chirping him, it's friendly. Hunter's got several orders of coffee with him, all for Team North America, and he has one for Shane too. Shane takes it, although he doesn't drink caffeine.
"Thank you."
Scott Hunter waves the thanks away, perfectly casual. Shane's still getting used to sharing the same rooms—the same ice—as guys that he used to watch play when he was in Juniors. Now he plays with them. Usually, against them.
Shane's in the same team as Hunter in this All-Stars. It's kind of embarrassing—he used to have a poster of Hunter, of when he was still a rookie himself, up on his bedroom wall (Shane hadn't really investigated why he wanted pictures of half-naked men staring back at him, and he's still not going to start).
Hunter's team in the All-Stars is still better than Rozanov's. But it means that Miitka, Montreal's goalie, the only other Metro that was invited, is in the other side, Team Europe. He's an omega too, and although Shane can't say he's close to him—he can't say he's close to anyone in his team yet—at least there's that kind of kinship. Team North America is full of alphas.
Scott Hunter is an alpha too, but he's polite enough to use scent blockers, which can't be said about the other guys in the sitting room. Shane brings his coffee close to his mouth, mostly so he can smell it instead of the bitter, posturing scents around the room.
"Excited for your first All-Stars?" Hunter asks. Shane nods. "Enjoy it. It's going to stop being so shiny when it's your ninth."
"Usually, guys are grateful that they get invited nine times, Hunter," one of their other teammates chirps across the room. Hunter takes the jeering with an amicable face.
"When you're older you start prizing your free weekends more, that's all."
"Speak for yourself," Jackson, a defenseman from Minnesota, says. "I'll take every chance I get to take a break from the missus and the kids."
"You're enjoying the break too?" Hunter asks Shane, although he'd been more than glad to watch the conversation from the wings. "You have a kid, right? Future prospect?"
Shane still isn't used enough to not let that make him a little embarrassed, when it gets mentioned; he probably never will. The other guys glance at him at the reminder, and he hates the attention, no matter how good-naturally Hunter had approached the question.
"Yes."
"Ah, I keep forgetting that," the teammate from before says. He looks a bit more closely at Shane and he fights the urge to squirm; the alpha's nose is flaring up, and Shane can't help but feel like he's watched prey. "You had one already, huh? I never remember that Omegas keep them."
Shane shrugs, pretending he's taking a sip of his coffee.
Some of the guys of Team North America have kids—some of the guys on Montreal have kids too—but it's not like Shane has Sam. They're married, with pretty, blonde omegas that almost always seem like half their size, and their wives are the ones that take care of the child-rearing. Shane depends on his parents, but he still seems to care about Sam more than those alphas do their own pups. An ashamed part of Shane worries that it's because he's an omega.
He'd rather not mention Sam, and how much he misses him, and have the other guys think the same thing. He doesn't deepen the topic with Hunter, and he lets it go, be it because he realizes Shane's uncomfortable or not. Shane likes it better when he and his teammates are on the ice; hockey's a much more safer middle-ground, even when Shane's getting body-checked onto the boards.
He and Rozanov orbit each other throughout the tournament, being each other's competition. Shane's less bitter about the times that Rozanov does better than him in a skill competition when he wins over him in the next, and he'll admit that there's something fun in this back and forth. Each team has their own benches, and they're never on the ice at the same time, but Shane knows Rozanov's watching him, and he's watching Rozanov too, even if he shouldn't.
Everyone is watching them; the commentators keep saying that this year's theme was divided the way it was just for them, another excuse to get them to face each other, which, to be fair, they are—and it's been Shane's whole fun. Shane doesn't know if he agrees with the commentator's reasoning, but Rozanov is the most interesting person in the whole tournament.
They do a shooting competition. Rozanov breaks Hunter's previous record, and then Shane break Rozanov's. He feels smug with it as he skates off the ice, even as he's aware of Rozanov's eyes glued to him.
There's another European guy closest to Shane when he gets to the North American bench, but Rozanov pushes his way through until he's sitting right by the partition that's keeping each team apart. Shane's very aware of what Rozanov's doing. He—stupidly—can't be entirely against it.
"Did you have fun." Rozanov is still confusing verb tenses in the interviews that Shane can't help but watch, and he already speaks in such a confusing monotone, Shane doesn't understand him for a moment, but Rozanov explains himself after just one second of Shane looking his way. "Last night. With your team. Get dinner, get drunk?"
The All-Stars is supposed to be the time to get friendly with people from other teams, or so Shane excuses himself to speak with Rozanov this once; he didn't really speak with other people, though. "I had dinner," he says. "But I didn't get drunk."
Shane barely speaks with anyone—anyone barely shows any interest, and if they do, it's not the good kind—but Rozanov's looking just at him instead of the competition currently going on the ice. Shane fights to keep breathing steadily, thinking of all the previous times—the infirmary, the shower—that Rozanov paid this much undivided attention on him.
"You?"
Rozanov nods. "No boring Canadians, no stupid Americans."
You play for an American team, Shane thinks, but doesn't say; he keeps smiling privately to himself anyway.
Shane makes a joke about the Finnish that'd have every Finn on his team ready to kill him, but it feels worth it when it has Rozanov smiling so satisfied at him. Shane feels a heat in his stomach, even before Rozanov gets up, under the guise of joining another skill competition.
"Think I'm going to bed early tonight," Rozanov tells him. Shane shouldn't; he knows he shouldn't. No matter how lonely he is.
He knows he's going before Rozanov even says his room's number.
**
They don't go all the way. It's still more attention than Shane has had in—jesus—two years, but he's not having actual sex with anyone when he's in hotel surrounded by guys from the MHL. Scott fucking Hunter is next door. It's still a little easier to forget about him when Rozanov is tracing lines on his bare back, afterwards.
"You are paler." Rozanov says it like he's talking about the weather. It would be a safe topic—not that there's anything safe about what they've done.
"This was a bad idea," Shane says, although he doesn't make any move to get up, or have Rozanov stop touching him. It feels even more dangerous that, really, there's nothing even anything sexual about the paths of his fingers, even if they're both naked, and Rozanov ate him out like twenty minutes ago. Shane gets touched so little—violence on the ice every other night and family touch from his pack once every week. He would do this even if there was no sex.
"Yes, probably," Rozanov agrees with him. He doesn't stop touching Shane though. Shane's just glad that he hasn't mentioned Sam this time. "But it is good, yes?"
Shane breathes deeply, back rising and falling underneath Rozanov's wide hand. He doesn't reply, but the answer is readily apparent.
Shane allows himself the afterglow just a bit longer before he gets up to take a shower. It's easy to pretend this is something that can get burried behind when he's washing Rozanov's touch off his skin, not that it worked after their first time. When he and Shane slept together—when they made Sam—Shane kept thinking about it every time his mind wandered off, about the way Rozanov had watched him, about the way he had touched him; he could think of nothing else, nevermind how dangerous it was, and how bitter it became when that urine test came back positive.
If Shane's not in the same room as Rozanov, it's also easier to convince himself that this—making out, blowjobs, touches in bed—can't happen again. Shane's got about three arguments done when he gets out of the shower, dressed in the same clothes he came into this room, but they're already falling apart when he sees Rozanov lounging in bed, just in another towel yet again.
He mentioned having sex for real another time, when they were in the same city again—in just a few weeks, way too fucking soon. Rozanov takes one look at Shane, trying to walk back from this plan, and he makes a grabby hand for Shane's phone, looking terribly unimpressed.
Shane feels a mixture of horror and humor as he watches Rozanov put his number in Shane's phone under a female name. "Are you supposed to be an omega too?" he asks, only half-joking.
"Whatever gets you hot." Click, click, and Rozanov's taken Shane's number to save on his own phone too. Shane's afraid to look. There's more demeaning names than Jane, at least.
He still isn't that sure about their plans, looking at the kissy emoji Rozanov has sent him, but for good matter, Rozanov grabs Shane's head and pulls him so he'll leave a real life one against his throat. Fuck—how else is Shane not supposed to make the same mistake again? "Don't think too hard," Rozanov tells him as he pulls away. He swipes a thumb through Shane's chin. "Poor head will explode."
It's an insult, but Shane's still feeling so melty he might as well sing the typical, "Fuck off," he throws Rozanov's way. Rozanov smiles, so he knows too.
**
Shane doesn't meet with Rozanov after two weeks. A snowstorm leaves all planes to and from Montreal grounded and the night's game gets canceled. Shane goes on to have dinner in a teammate's house instead, Hayden Pike, with his omega and their family.
He'd said yes to the invitation more out of obligation than anything. You're supposed to grow team bonds, it was part of being a team player. Hayden Pike had been the first teammate to invite Shane into his territory, months into the season, and that had to mean something as well. It's not like Shane had anywhere else to be, not with Rozanov still in Boston.
Hayden Pike is just a few years older than Shane, but he already has a mate and children, two little girls. Shane could get a whiff of Pike's family in his scent in the locker room—notes of mated omega and milk and sugar, from the children—but it's another thing entirely to walk into his house and witness his pack personally. He's the first teammate that Shane sees interact with his children.
Hayden's daughters are a little older than Sam, and Shane can recognize his chubby cheeks on them; it makes him feel terribly homesick. Hayden dotes on them a lot more than the other alphas in the team seem to do their own pups, when they—scarcely—mention their family packs. Hayden's an alpha, but there's something milder about him, from his scent to his general energy; he didn't posture in the locker room and even when he started cursing a team—usually Boston—he didn't smell half as acrimonious as the other alphas would. It's a bonus that he hasn't derisively called anyone a bitch in front of Shane either.
Hayden scents his wife's neck gland dutifully and sweetly when he walks inside of his home, and sits one of the pups on his lap during dinner to feed her, the other twin with her mother. Shane would sooner recognize Hayden as a beta. It's maybe because of that that they hit off surprisingly quickly during dinner. Shane knows he's not a typical omega—he and Hayden have that distinction in common.
It's weird for Shane to see Hayden and his mate, Jackie, with a baby. The twins remind Shane of Sam, but the similarities end there; Shane has a child too, but one that he can't keep in his own home, and he never had a partner by his side to help him with Sam, like Hayden and Jackie, just Mom and Dad. Sam's not going to know parents like Hayden's twins will, and that makes Shane feel weird, somewhere between jealous and guilty. But Hayden and Jackie are terribly friendly, and obliging of Shane's weird food (his whole weird everything, really). He could only check his phone at the start of dinner—waiting, stupidly, for something from Rozanov, even if they weren't meeting tonight—but by the end, he's genuinely paying attention to the couple as they go on about a weird neighbor, or tuition for kindergarten. Jackie's surprisingly funny; she's kind over Hayden's league, honestly.
One of the twins lets the safety blanket she'd been clinging to slip from where she's sitting on Hayden's thigh, and, more out of muscle memory than anything else, Shane reaches out to pick it from the floor. He clips it back safely onto the hem of her shirt, like he does with Sam all the time. Hayden and Jackie are watching Shane when he straightens up again.
"I forget you have one of yours too," Hayden says. Shane's not like him—he's not around Sam enough to also smell of milk and sugar. But that's not what seem to trip Hayden up at the reminder he has a baby. "You're pretty young."
Shane still haven't had his twenty-one birthday. He can't help but feel defensive though.
Hayden had his children young, but they're not prospects contributions; as he's told Shane, Hayden mated Jackie shortly into his rookie year, and mated players aren't required to grow the prospect pool. By Shane's math, Hayden had the twins when he was twenty-one (still older than Shane), and it was by his own volition. Hayden could have as many children as he wanted, only when he wanted, and he'd keep all of them.
Alphas didn't really consider the prospects they had a hand on making their children. They couldn't. Maybe some of that indifference bled out into their actual pups, the reason why everyone in the locker room seem so nonchalant about their families. But Hayden holds no indifference or lack of claim. He's better than the other fathers in the team. Shane, ashamedly, has to wonder if he's also better than him.
"How old are they?" Jackie asks Shane, still looking at the baby blanket he's clipped onto one the twins—Ruby?—and Shane's so used to Sam being a secret (albeit an open one), that he's initially caught off guard at the question.
"He'll be one in February," he finally says, when he recovers. Jackie's face goes thoughtful.
"You've gotta miss him during road trips a lot, eh?" Hayden looks no less friendly and casual as he asks it. Shane couldn't get himself to admit to that even to his parents—he misses Sam all the time—but the lack of judgment on Hayden's face feels like a balm onto itself. "You shoulda bring him around sometime. These are little monsters, but they're pretty good with playmates."
"Ah. No, uh, he's with my parents."
Hayden and Jackie's brows crinkle, twin-like, but they seem more bummed on Shane's behalf than anything else. "That sucks," Hayden says with feeling. Shane doesn't like being pitied by anyone, but it feels better than having to witness someone pass judgment about his parenting skills, or lack thereof. The lack of judgment seems miraculous, when that's all Shane worries about when the topic of Sam comes up. He'll take pity any day.
Expectations are different between omegas and alphas. Shane's teammates can care as little about their pups as they want; that's not expected of them. It's him that'd get judged by—seemingly—choosing hockey over Sam. Shane's in a losing game, because he'd be belittled as an omega if ever shows how much he misses Sam, or called a frigid bitch if he keeps that to himself. It's safer not to mention Sam at all, let his team forget all about him, like Shane tries to lead them to forget he's an omega too. He's either a failure or a walking piece of steak, and he just wants to be a hockey player—Shane's always just wanted to be a hockey player.
He gets a little closer to Hayden after the dinner. Not too close—he doesn't want the team to get the wrong idea—but he doesn't feel quite as isolated in the locker room anymore. It's good for hockey too, since they play in the same line. A week after the game against Boston that wasn't, Shane and Hayden get two points each, a goal and an assist of each other in the same game, and it's the first time Shane really lets himself hug a teammate in a celly. It feels really fucking nice.
"Do you want a drink, pet?"
Shane gets crowded into the club's bar they'd gone to post game, trying to keep a lid on how much he fucking hates that as he doesn't look the strange alpha on the eyes. He pays more attention to the ginger ale in his hands, keeping it close to his chest. The alpha's just about rutting his groin against Shane's ass.
Shane dresses a sexlessly as one can, in part because he doesn't know how not to, and in part because it's supposed to keep him from situations like this. No one was supposed to smell omega on him, but scent blockers are just that little bit more ineffective after a game, when Shane had sweated bullets for three hours straight. Some of the stink clings. The alpha behind Shane looks like he wants to lap at his neck to get a taste.
Shane worms himself out of between him and the bar, saying, "Excuse me," although what he really wants is to snarl his teeth. Nothing could have taken the shine off a win like this.
Shane isn't small nor dainty, he's as clearly a man as one could, but it seems like just a whiff of omega is enough to change the minds of guys who'd sooner call each other faggots if they looked at Shane too closely. It's a losing game, and Shane is never going to willingly play. He's hopeless to Rozanov, who's kept texting innuendos even after their plan to hook up didn't pan out, because of that. It's the only time that being desired feels safe.
Rozanov's not at this bar. He's not even in the same state, and who knows when they'll play against each other again, when there's going to be a new chance to meet one-on-one. Maybe that's a blessing in disguise, sugar hidden out Shane's view, but if Rozanov's a mistake, Shane really wants to do one again. He's too self-controlled everywhere else. Rozanov's like a a cheat day.
**
Sam's one year birthday comes in an off-day and Shane could've cried in relief. He charts a plane to Ottawa the night before—no midnight drive this time. It's right out of a game, one they've won, and Shane only sticks around long enough to give his usual non-answers to the press, about how he's feeling about the points he'd been racking up this season (it feels nice), if he's trying to break Rozanov's last year record for rookie goals (Shane doesn't think about Rozanov at all), if he feels undermined on the ice because of his omega (Shane doesn't feel any way about being an omega).
Shane feels a lot more testy than usual, impatient to get to Ottawa, but he controls himself like always, even as he sees in the back of a taxi that Rozanov has sent him blatant sex texts (which he ignores this time). Everything's going to be alright in a few hours.
Dad picks Shane from the airport. Sam's sleeping when he gets home, but Shane's content to just watch him in his crib for a moment, so much bigger than the little thing he'd held right after giving birth. Every month he's bigger. He's got an actual room now, that Shane's parents have finally finished furnishing, something they've done basically all alone, from the months Shane was busy doing physical therapy right after the birth and then training for the 2011-2012 season. Shane's too glad too see him after a full week to feel melancholic though, and he only pays attention to the rise and fall of his body as he sleeps.
Babies aren't really supposed to eat sugar, but Dad and Mom still order Sam a birthday cake the morning after. "Dad," Shane chides in the breakfast table, because it's always him that indulges in these ideas. Mom's the one that taught Shane about calorie tracking.
Sam's sitting on Shane's lap, slapping his little hands against the table as Dad sets the cake down on it. For once, he'd been excited to get up; he just needed to see Shane.
"You only turn one once," Dad defends himself. Mom's taking a series of photos: Sam sitting with Shane, Sam looking at the cake, where it's been set safely away from his curious hands, Dad picking up a single, blue and white birthday candle. Shane's still holding Sam as Dad lights it up. "Don't let him touch the flame, okay, bud? Hold those hands, come on."
Shane does it, if miffed. Sam's eyes go big when Dad lights the candle, and he predictably wants to swat at it, would have if Shane didn't pick his chubby hands into his own. "Come on, Sam, a big huff, oooooooooof!" Dad tries to encourage him to blow the candle, but you can't pantomime that complex a action to a baby. Shane blows the candle himself this once, although they all congratulate Sam as if he was the one that did it. "Congratulations, birthday boy!" Dad says. Mom takes several more pictures.
Shane will allow Sam to have cake, if only because he just looks so happy when he tastes it for the first time. "That's how sugar gets you," Shane tells him, only slightly joking. He doesn't plan of having any slice of his own, but allows Sam to feed the frosting he picks up with his hands into his mouth. It tastes sweet and birthday-ly, and Dad jokes, "See, even he wants you to eat more."
Mom and Dad have bought Sam new clothes and some toys, including a rattle that plays songs and—this one makes Shane feel some kind of way—a baby-sized hockey stick, now that Sam's learning to walk and hold things. He'll start having ice lessons sooner than not, and the prospect is a jumbled mess in Shane's chest. There's nothing he loves more than hockey, and he would love to share that with Sam, but hockey is not going to be a choice for him like it was for Shane.
He tries not to think about that, and just enjoy the two days he gets to spend with his family before flying straight to Nashville after, to meet his team in the start of a road trip. Shane gets another text from Rozanov in a morning practice there, days later, this time an unusual, sexless, 'Tell baby happy birthday.' It's off the actual date and Shane doesn't know if that's because this was the day Rozanov's team finally told him Shane had given birth, or because he waited to send the text.
Shane doesn't answer it. Rozanov is back to the usual dick pics a few days after.
**
Montreal doesn't make it into the postseason, but Shane did well enough before it to be nominated for the award for rookie of the year, and then win it in July. He feels proud of himself, of course he does, accepting the award and then getting to hold it over his head, like the trophy it is. He made it. It took an extra year for his rookie season, it took rebuilding his body from scratch, but he still did so well he's considered the best of the season.
Shane's mom and dad attend the awards; Sam doesn't. He stays in Ottawa with a nanny hired just for these stretch of days. Rozanov is awarded for most season-points in the same night; three above Shane. Rozanov keeps his distance during the event and the after-party, but Shane still knows he did the right choice to not bring Sam.
They're in public and Shane's the one that keeps saying they shouldn't see each other, but in the end, it's him that goes after Rozanov, later in the night. He's got hugged by his parents, mingled with other MHL players, had thrown back shots with veterans that finally looked at him with some regard, shook Crowell's and the Metros GM's hand, and not even that brought his mood down, but Shane wants to see Rozanov to cap everything off, stupid as that is. He knows he's not doing the responsible thing, even as he finds and goes to him on an empty balcony overlooking the city.
Shane's smiling. Rozanov's glum and barely making any effort to hide it and without long, Shane is feeling that enthusiasm dwindle inside of his chest, a dying flame that only leaves some embarrassed streak of cinder behind. What was Shane expecting? Rozanov's not his anything; there's no reason for him to, what, feel proud of him, happy for him. He's his rival, that likes competing with Shane and, occasionally, making him come, and that's it. Shane feels young and stupid. The trophy in his hand feels empty and yet heavy.
The drinks Shane's had curl in his stomach. It's not fun anymore when Rozanov tells him he's drunk with detachment, and bats away any attempt at conversation Shane makes. Rozanov wasn't even eligible for Rookie of the year this season—he already won his last year. What the fuck was his problem?
"Can't you even pretend," Shane finds himself saying, voice cracking embarrassingly in the middle. He shouldn't have had accepted those shots from Hunter. It's the first night Shane has drunk since, fuck, that time Rozanov bought him vodka in a hotel, and Shane doesn't have the stomach for this. He never did. Rozanov keeps looking at him with those apathetic eyes, and they make his stomach roll. "You're up here sulking because, what, you couldn't take another victory lap around me?"
Rozanov's jaw twitches. Fuck him, Shane thinks. "All you do is win!" Shane spits out. He won that first Prospect Cup, and he won first overall pick, and he won stupid Rookie of the year last season, while Shane was having to recover from the wreckage of his fucking baby. "I win one fucking thing and you can't even show your face!"
Rozanov grumbles something in Russian, and Shane doesn't need to know the language to guess that it isn't even close to an apology. He wants to throw Rozanov off the balcony for a second.
"What was that?"
"Not everything is about you, Hollander!" Rozanov blows up. Shane could laugh—nothing has ever been about him.
He's sick from the smell of Rozanov's stupid cigarette. Shane unlatches his free hand from the balcony, knuckles white around his award. He should've left it with his mom. What did he even expect?
"I go home in three days," Rozanov says.
Shane wishes he was home right now. He spent the whole season wishing that, and he'll only have two months of it—between grueling training—before he's gone again, another year he doesn't get to watch his son grow up, the last year before Sam's sent into a young prospect's meat grinder. "That's nice," Shane tells Rozanov, and he would've done better to have kept his mouth shut, never have come up here at all—Rozanov just scowls at him.
What did he even expect?
Shane steps away from the balcony. Las Vegas is glistening before them and Shane's eyes hurt. He doesn't know why he did this, why, even now, there's a part of him that wants to reach a hand out, wants to be touched by Rozanov one last time before he goes. He's as pathetic as he pretends he isn't, and Shane forces himself to keep his hands by his side, to not even look back at Rozanov as he makes to go away. "Whatever," he throws his way, and hates that his voice breaks here too.
If Rozanov looks back or not, Shane doesn't turn around to see. He shouldn't have tried at all.