Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sometimes Dana wished she had chosen a different career path. Right now, sitting in front of a paused TV at midnight with her phone chiming incessantly, was one of those times.

Hollander and Rozanov's relationship that Dana had tried very hard to secretly conceal as best she could had suddenly become public, all because Hayden Pike hadn't checked the background of the stupid Fanmail video he'd posted where the two centres were kissing, in such clear view that if Dana hadn't spent four years managing Pike and his social media, she would've assumed it was deliberate.
She knew Hayden would never do something like that on purpose, for God's sake, this was the man who had once accidentally posted his full home adress on Instagram. But that had been easy to fix. Unlike the absolute clusterfuck exploding across Twitter, the cleanup of which Dana would presumably be saddled with, considering she was Montreal's, and specifically Hollander and Pike's, social media manager.

Why, oh why had she sat back and watched her boss approve Hayden's Fanmail contract without pushback?

Dana had sworn up and down from the start that letting them post videos without any oversight was a bad idea, but had anybody listened to her? Of course not, and now they were all going to suffer for it.

Dana put her face in her hands and let out a single, agonised, wail.

Okay. Time to lock in.

She got up from her spot on the couch, retrieving her laptop from where she had thrown in it anguish and then retreating to the IKEA desk in her room.

She sat down heavily in her deskchair, doing the deep breathing exercises that her housemate had recommended her.

Inhaling deeply through her nose, Dana opened her laptop again. She reloaded Twitter and winced.

Dana's phone hadn't stopped dinging.

Every sports news account she followed was posting about the story, there were plenty of messages from friends that knew she worked for Montreal and were freaking out and begging for insider gossip, which of course Dana was not going to be giving them, there were a few from her friends on the SM team over at San Jose offering their condolences at the shitshow that was about to happen, and of course, there was the godforsaken Montreal PR Team Groupchat, which had plenty of messages too.

That damn groupchat. Domineered by Debrah despite the fact that she was in fact, not their boss, the Montreal PR Team Groupchat was filled with passive aggressive comments, and despite being unofficial, presence was mandatory, and if you left, you would be re-added and the subject of a rather hostile message reminding everyone of how necessary their presence in the groupchat was.

There was a knock at Dana's door.

"I saw the news," said one of her housemates, sticking his head into her room with a sympathetic smile. "Is that why you're huffing and puffing like a geriatric on a stairmaster?"

"Fuck off." Dana groaned. It would be a restless night's sleep, that's for sure.

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The next morning was not a warm one. It took all of Dana's remaining willpower to drag herself out of her nice warm bed at 7 o'clock to go deal with her job of managing the internet habits of grown adults. She stumbled into her clothes- a simple brown skirt, white collared shirt, thick black tights, and navy jumper. Because Dana was feeling a little bit daring, she chose to wear her rainbow socks underneath her heeled boots, and her double venus necklace underneath her jumper. Sure, it was hidden, but it was there.

She brushed her teeth, washed her face, dabbed a little makeup on to cover the deep bags under her eyes, and pushed her thick black hair up into a ponytail. Dana checked her phone- still buzzing with notifications, and shoved it deep into the pocket of the black coat she put on next. She was going to have to get breakfast on the way to work, Dana realised with a sigh.

As Dana packed her laptop bag for the day, she spotted something that flooded her mind with a sudden memory.

Her old notebook, lying on the floor underneath her desk, where she'd dropped it four months ago.

The notebook that held, on one of its last pages, a drafted statement that Dana had made for Shane Hollander in the event of him coming out.
She'd been feeling oddly creative after discovering their relationship via Instagram DM in January, and had written several statements for him to announce his relationship with Rozanov, to get ahead of the curve in case they'd wanted to come out on their own terms, or another version in the event of them being outed. Dana had been planning on talking to Shane, casually slipping into the conversation that she was aware of his forbidden secret romance, and had even come up with a strategy for a softlaunch. However, it had been incredibly difficult to get Hollander alone, and ergo, she had kind of forgotten about it a little bit.

Dana eyed the notebook. She left it where it sat on the floor- she had a suspiscion that Montreal was going to want to deny the relationship, and they almost certainly wouldn't like the honest approach she'd used in the statements.

Continuing with her journey to work, she grabbed her keys from the little dish in the hallway and shouted an "À tantôt!" to the other housemates currently awake. Stepping outside, Dana winced at the bite in the morning air. Why had she chosen Montreal over the offer from San Jose?

Dana got into her car, a little blue Kia that she loved dearly, despite its many flaws. Her phone automatically connected and starting playing her playlist as she pulled away from the curb and down the road to the Voyageurs' practice facility in Brossard. She thought about Shane while she was driving, and she really did feel sorry for him. She had been around hockey, and this team in particular, for long enough to know that this was going to go down like a gallon of cold puke, ie not well. Poor Hollander. Rozanov would probably be in safer hands back in Ottawa, as Troy Barrett had come out to a standing ovation at a sold out stadium, but, Dana supposed, it would be different when it wasn't some PR guy you were fucking, but instead the captain of a rival team that you'd been playing against for over a decade.

Pulling over at a gas station, Dana quickly ran inside and grabbed a slice of 99 cent pizza and a soda (Her cholesterol could wait till this situation had died down) and bolted it down while she drove the last couple kilometers to work.

After getting through security, Dana walked through the maze of corridors until she reached her office. She braced herself, pushed open the door, and was relieved to discover that it was just her and Brad there so far.

"Hey there Dana," He said, fiddling with one of the desk-mounted phones. "Could you get on the phones? Normally I'd get one of the more junior staff members to handle that but-" he gestured around them, "Nobody's here yet, and they've been ringing and ringing non-stop."

"Okay," Dana said, sitting down at her desk and placing her bag down on the floor at her feet. "What's our statement? No comment 'til the GM gives us the go-ahead?"

Brad shot her a thumbs up as the phones began to ring again. Dana picked up the black landline in front of her and pressed the reciever to her ear, scripted greeting at the ready;

"Hello, this is Dana from the Montreal Voyageurs Public Relations Department, how can we assist you today?"

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The morning passed by in a slightly nerve-wracking daze. The rest of the PR team showed up and they were all on the phones for a good hour, until they had all come to an agreement to just take the phones off their hooks, rather than deal with the constant, incessant ringing.

There was an odd energy- they couldn't do anything until they received instructions from higher up, so all they could do was sit around and do their normal work, but every player and company inbox had been flooded with comments and messages and mentions and notifications about the kiss.

Debrah, Rob, David, Lara, Sam, and a few others were sitting around gossiping about Hollander and Rozanov in a way that made Dana's skin crawl, which is why she was sitting as far away as she could on the other side of the room, actually doing her job, with Brad, Jenny, and Greg, analysing every comment and like on social media to try and gauge public opinion on Shane and Ilya (Or, Hollanov, as people on Tumblr liked to call them).

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be," said Greg, crisis management, pushing his glasses up his nose. "League-wide, a lot of fans are really happy for them."
"Yeah, but we're supposed to be focusing on Montreal's fans here." replied Jenny, who was inputting data into a complicated-looking calculator. "The posts of fans of non-involved teams are showing as 65% being positive, Ottawa's fans are at about 70% so far, but Montreal's are hovering about 45-50%."

"But are they upset that he's gay or upset that he's involved with Rozanov?" asked Brad, scrawling notes on a notepad with a chewed-up biro.

"I'd say about a quarter are mad he's gay, a quarter are that it's Roz, and half are pissed because of both." Jenny answered, writing down the results of her calculations.

"It's half and half on TikTok, but I think a decent chunk of the anti crowd could be convinced round." Dana said, looking up from scrolling through #hollanov on TikTok. "I think if we take the comedic route we could really get the upper hand on this and we could bring in some new fans too, like people that haven't felt seen in hockey before."

"We're probably going to end up denying it." Brad quickly glanced at Dana. "They didn't say much in their call last night, but I certainly got the impression that they weren't thrilled."

"But that's bullshit, they're clearly together!" Dana exclaimed, shutting her laptop.

"I know it's bullshit, but this will have huge consequences for the whole league- Crowell's benched them both indefinitely for Christ's sake! If we go into the playoffs without Hollander, we're screwed!" said Greg. Sometimes it felt like these Montreal supporters were on a one track mind- a constant rhythm of get the cup, get the cup, get the cup.

"It's nice to see you've got such confidence in your team." Dana teased with a smirk, knowing full well that he was right and Montreal would never get a cup without Shane

"I wouldn't be smirking Dana, you do realise that that also means Rozanov is benched too? Your team is in the exact same position!"

"Shit, I forgot he played for us again. Wait, how did you know I'm a Cens fan?" asked Dana at the same time as Brad and Jenny cried, "You're a Cens fan!?"

"Oh, would you look at that!" Dana said, checking the time on her phone, Google Calendar invite winking up at her. "It's time for the meeting- Greg, Brad, let's go."

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There was tension you could cut with a knife as Greg, Dana, and Brad sat down in the hard chairs of meeting room 6B. The heated hadn't been switched on and Dana had to force herself to stop bouncing her leg.

The General Manager loomed over them all at the head of the long table, flanked on one side by his secretary and two owners on the other. Head coach Theriault sat next to them, anger radiating off him in waves. The three PR employees sat tentatively down in the hard chairs on the other side. The vice president sat across from them, strong black coffee in hand that made Dana's nose wrinkle. A few others also sat down at the desk, but Dana wasn't entirely sure who they were.

The GM cleared his throat. Everyone at the table turned and looked at him.

"So." He started, with a thick Quebecois accent, clasping his hands in front of him. "I'm sure you all know why we're here today."

There were vague murmurs of assent down the desk. Dana nodded.

"First of all, Theriault, what did Hollander say?" asked the GM, turning to the coach.

"I asked Hollander if it was a joke, he said that him and… Rozanov," here, he said Rozanov like it was a particularly rude word, "Were in love." his lip curled on the last word, as if the very concept was vaguely amusing. Dana was filled with a sudden protective feeling over Shane and Ilya- they hadn't done anything wrong, and here were the higher-ups, who were supposed to be looking out for them, treating their relationship like it was a dirty word.

"We were hoping he'd deny it," said the GM. "If he cooperates it makes it easier to clean up." He sighed, heavily. "Did you ask how long?"

"Years," was the coach's answer, shaking his head disapprovingly. Dana's heart pounded painfully in her chest.

"He's been sent home and benched for the indefinite future, and he's been instructed not to post anything or say anything to anyone," the GM spoke again, this time addressing the PR team. "PR team- what's public opinion saying, how hard is this going to be to cover up? We'll need this sorted out in time for playoffs, we need him playing and not a distraction if we're going to win another cup."

Brad looked at Greg, and Dana, who raised her eyebrows.

"Well, we think it's going to be pretty hard to deny- they're really, uh, going for it. I suppose we could go for the prank angle, say that it was some late April fools stunt they were pulling on Pike or something." Brad said, somewhat hesitantly. "Public opinion on non involved teams and Ottawa is actually reasonably positive, and Montreal's fans are fifty-fifty."

The GM nodded pensively. "I like that angle. When I speak with Commissioner Crowell after this meeting, I'll give him the idea. His people are writing their statements as we speak."

Dana clenched and unclenched her fists and tried to focus on her deep breathing. In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out. They weren't discussing what Shane and Ilya wanted to do, they weren't even considering involving the two people this concerned in the fucking meeting.

The VP spoke. "We knew about the rumours that Hollander was, you know, but we let it be because we didn't want another Scott Hunter on our hands. We need to prioritise our brand right now."

Dana couldn't hold it in. "W-we should consider the, uh, possibility, if they want to come out? Or at least, not lie about it?" Every person on the table turned and looked at her. Dana squirmed a little in her seat with all the attention.

"Who is this girl and why is she here?" The GM muttered to his secretary. Dana felt her eye twitch.

"Dana Gagnon, she's the social media manager, specifically Hollander, Pike, and Boiziau's SM advisor." Said the secretary, peering through her stack of papers.
"Ah. And she didn't stop this incident from occurring?"

This time, Brad spoke. "No, we don't manage FanMail because it's an external contract they've got with Pike, we don't have access to it."

"I see. So, Miss Gagnon, what makes you think they'd want to go public with their… situation? Did you have prior knowledge of this problem?"

Problem. Dana's brow furrowed as she contemplated her response. Prior Knowledge. She figured honesty was the best choice.

"Yes, I became aware of their relationship after accidentally seeing some messages while updating Hollander's Instagram." Dana thought back to that day, that cold January morning, reading and re-reading those messages, what was nearly Ilya's last words.

Once again, every head at the table swiveled in her direction, suprise visible on many faces.

"And you didn't disclose it?" Asked the VP.

"I didn't see it to be my business to disclose- if Hollander wanted to come out on his terms, we would of course inform you, but it didn't work out that way." Dana said, trying incredibly hard to keep her composure. "And if he did, you know, want to, that would be between him and his agent first."

There was another uncomfortable pause. Fuck this. Fuck this team and fuck every single person in this room. Dana's hands shook. What was she doing there? What was she actually doing? She hated her job.

"Well, actually," Started the GM, icily cold. "Our focus is on protecting the franchise, not our players, so you should've disclosed their problem to us. And we have not contacted Hollander's agent yet, this isn't about him, this is about making sure our brand stays reputable." He paused momentarily, glancing at the people around the table. Dana felt sick. Her job was to protect the players, she didn't give two shits about Montreal.

Wait. Shane's agent- Farah Jalali. Someone needed to talk to her, to tell her what they were deliberately not informing her of. A little inappropriately timed glimmer of excitement at the thought of talking to Farah again sparkled deep underneath the brewing uneasiness in Dana's chest.

She stood abruptly, chair squeaking.

"I'm terribly sorry, I don't feel very well, I need some air." She said, hoping they wouldn't see through her excuse to step outside and call Farah, she needed to find Shane and tell him that she knew, that he has a friend on the inside.

Brad shot Dana a concerned look. "That's a good idea, maybe take five, I'll see you back in the office."

She shot him a quick smile and pivoted quickly on her heel and marched out of the office.

Once she was out of the office, she glanced around the empty hallway and fished her phone out of her pocket, opening it and swiping through to contacts in record speed. She scrolled through to the 'work' section, and clicked the round call button next to Farah's name. Okay, wow, she was really doing this.

Farah picked up on the third ring.

"Hello?" Her voice came through tinny on Dana's phone speaker. "Sorry, we're no-"

"Farah, it's me, Dana, Shane Hollander's social media manager." She spoke quickly, "I was just, uh, it, and- oh god, it's so fucked up, like, they're-"

"Dana," Farah said, "What are you saying?"

"We just had an emergency meeting, about, uh, Hollander and Rozanov, and I thought I should tell you, seeing as you're their agent, about what they were saying in the meeting." Dana paused for breath. "It was kind of fucked up, I'm really not happy with the management."

"Oh wow, thank you so much for reaching out. Wait, are you at the practice facility?"

"Yes."

"Shane just messaged me saying he was about to leave. I'll text him telling him to stay, can you find him so we can continue this conversation together?"

"Sure, okay. I'll call you back in a minute."

"Thanks again Dana, talk to you soon."

Dana smiled a little to herself, and after considering it for a minute, pulled her necklace out so it lay over her jumper. Hockey players were usually rather unobservant, but maybe it could signal to Shane that she was on his side, that she was in his corner.

────────

Shane Hollander was decidedly not crying as he banged his fist on the vending machine flap. He had had a shitty morning, a shitty meeting with his coach, and now all he wanted was a Snickers and to go home and call Ilya.

But the universe clearly had other plans, because the vending machine wasn't working and he had just received a message from Farah telling him to stay where he was.

Shane heard a distant thumping noise echoing down the hallway, and turned to see Dana, his social media manager, jogging towards him rather uncoordinatedly.

She came skidding to a stop next to him, panting a little bit.

"Hello." Dana said, fanning herself. She gestured to the vending machine. "You struggling with the machine? You have to beat the side to get it to drop-" she whacked the side of it, hard, and the Snickers bar tumbled out of the flap and onto the tile floor of the practice facility.

"Thanks," Shane said, bending down to pick it up. Dana had been perfectly friendly and polite all the times they'd spoken, and hadn't pushed him to post like their previous SM had. He liked her, he supposed. "Farah told me you wanted to talk to us..?"

"Not here." She said, looking around the hallway.

"My car has tinted windows, we can sit in there, if that's okay?" Shane asked, pocketing the Snickers bar. He was too tired and too hungry to give a fuck about his damn performance diet- it clearly hadn't helped, his team still hated him, and his relationship had still been outed. Why deny himself the simple joys if they weren't going to help him with the things that really matter in life?

"Okay, sure, lead the way."

Shane turned and walked towards the back exit where his car was parked. He kind of couldn't be bothered with small talk, but he figured she'd understand. Hockey players typically weren't the most chatty, and it was her job to manage their online habits all day. He didn't know how she did it without going mad, he remembered the incident a few years ago with the coke plate on a player's Instagram story. He wondered what she had to say to him that she wasn't supposed to say. Maybe they were going to get kicked out of the club. Maybe Ilya was going to get deported. Maybe he was-

"Shane?" Dana's voice cut through the air. He was standing outside the building, by his car. When had that happened? "Are you okay? You're kind of not breathing?"

"Hmwha?" Was all Shane managed. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little stressed, I'll be fine in a minute."

He unlocked the car and got in on the driver's side, chucking his gear bag into the back seat. Dana got in on the passenger side and pulled her phone out of the pocket of her coat. As Shane was turning on the heating, Farah's voice on speaker filled the car.

"Hey Shane, Dana."

"Hi Farah," said Dana. Shane waved, but realised halfway through the movement that Farah was not physically there and turned it into running his hand through his hair.

"Okay Dana, run us through what happened in the meeting. You're not violating an NDA, are you?"

"No, you're both covered as part of the organisation, and they didn't explicitly say I wasn't to tell you, but it was implied. And implications don't tend to hold up well in investigations." Said Dana, playing with her necklace. She took a deep breath. "And there's also something you guys should know first."

"Oh?" Said Shane, a little nervous.

"I knew about you guys. Before the video came out, I mean. In January I was doing my weekly checks of you guys' Instagrams and I saw a bunch of messages from Ilya, um, that he'd sent on the plane."

Shane squeezed his eyes shut and wished, not for the first time that week, for the sweet release of death.

"I haven't told anyone at all, not even my coworkers or anything."

Shane opened his eyes again. Still in Montreal. He supposed that compared to a high-definition video of him making out with Ilya (that showed him touching Shane's ass, which he'd realised with horror after his 73rd rewatch), this was less shocking in nature. In his panic, Shane had forgotten that his account was managed by his organisation, and as Ilya's accounts weren't managed at all over in Ottawa, he wouldn't have known. But still, those messages were private, and not intended for people to see. He blinked a couple times, and realised that a silence had stretched over a few seconds.

"Thanks for not saying anything." Shane said, and he meant it.

Dana gave him a small smile, and kept talking. "So basically the organisation wants to protect itself, they're mostly worried about their own brand. They literally said the words 'Our focus is on protecting the franchise, not our players', which is kind of fucked up. And they've been talking to Crowell, who's drafting statements as we speak. Their angle's going to be that you two were trying to pull an April Fool's prank on Pike."

Shane swore under his breath. He'd given that club everything, eleven years of his life, three cups, years and years of captaincy and for what? For them to kick him to the curb as soon as they found out who he really was?

"They're bringing Crowell into this?" Farah said, typing noises audible from her end. "And not to worry you Shane, but I don't think anyone's going to believe that that kiss was a prank."

"You're right, but I think people will believe what they want to believe, and some people will want to believe that everything is completely fine and normal not gay in the slightest. Are they going to punish us?" asked Shane, not exactly looking forwards to the answer.

"You're benched for the time being, but they want you back as soon as you're approved again for playoffs. They've got no hope without you, and they know it."

"That's good," Farah chimed in, "We'd have to get the players association involved if they were going to punish you, and the lawsuit would be long and drawn out and painful."

"They want to keep it under wraps, I think." Dana said, fiddling with the hem of her skirt. "They said that they, uh, don't want another Scott Hunter."

They all sat in silence. Shane was angry. He was really fucking pissed off in fact.

"I'm not cooperating with that bullshit statement, it's not true and I'm not- I can't- No, I won't do that. I choose him." Shane said, then whispered softly, under his breath. "I choose him."

Shane wasn't going to let anything get between him and Ilya. He didn't want to lie anymore. He was done hiding.

"That's good, I've already got a couple statements drafted." Dana said, at the same time as Farah said, "I'll get started on statements now."

There was another pause.

"Well," Farah said. "You are his social media advisor."

"But you're his agent."

"And you've got more experience writing for him."

"But you-"

Shane cut in. "Guys. Why don't you just meet up and write it together? Farah, you're in Montreal this week and Dana, I presume you're living around here, right?"

Dana turned a very interesting shade of pink. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd be down with that." She winced. "That'd be good."

"Sure," Farah said. "Dana, I'll message you a place. Is tonight good?"

"Y-yes, tonight's great, thanks."

Shane sat back and leaned his head on the car seat headrest.

"Hey Dana," Said Shane. She turned to look at him. "Why did you chose to help us?"

Dana seemed to ponder this for a minute. She fiddled with her necklace some more.

"Maybe I've got more in common with you than you think." She said, carefully.

More in co- Oh.

"Oh." Shane said, dumbly.

"And I support Ottawa, not Montreal. Maybe I'm just trying to sabotage you." Dana joked, smiling.

"You support Ottawa!?" Shrieked Farah's voice from Dana's phone.

Dana nodded, sinking back into her seat with a smirk.

Shane rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "I guess I can't exactly argue with that, seeing as I'm literally engaged to the captain of our rival team."

"YOU'RE ENGAGED?!" Yelped Farah and Dana.

Shane closed his eyes and grinned. "Yeah, we are."