Chapter Text
Shane Hollander learns very early that Ottawa is a city that watches you.
It watches you in grocery stores, in coffee lines, through the tinted windows of black SUVs idling outside the rink. It watches you with polite distance and national restraint, with a kind of quiet hunger that feels worse than open gawking.
He likes it anyway. The Centaurs are good to him. The fans are loud but loyal. The city hums instead of roars.
It’s supposed to be safe.
The press conference is routine. Post-practice, not even after a game, just a midweek availability, cameras half-asleep, reporters flipping pages and checking their phones. Shane’s helmet hair hasn’t settled yet. He’s still got the faint red line across his throat from his collar.
Someone asks about line combinations. Someone asks about the power play.
Then too casually, too smoothly someone asks,
“There’ve been rumors circulating online about you and teammate Ilya Rosanov. Care to comment?”
The room sharpens.
Shane feels it before he hears it. The shift in air, the subtle lean forward of bodies, the way boredom snaps into interest. He blinks once.
“I don’t comment on rumors,” he says automatically.
The reporter smiles. “Normally, sure. But there are photos. From ByWard Market. From last season. You two weren’t exactly subtle.”
A low murmur ripples through the room.
Shane’s heart begins to pound, loud enough that he’s sure it’s bleeding into the microphones. He knows the photos. He remembers that night. The cold air, streetlamps glowing amber, Ilya laughing into his shoulder as they stumbled out of a bar because Shane couldn’t stop smiling like an idiot.
Ilya had asked him the next day, careful, deliberate: Are you okay if people see?
And Shane had said yes, because he wanted to believe that being seen didn’t mean being destroyed.
“Are you in a relationship with Rosanov?” the reporter presses.
Shane could lie. The words are right there, ready, easy. No.
He’s said it before. He knows how.
But there’s something about the question, about the confidence, the assumption. There’s a sense that the decision has already been made for him and it steals the lie right out of his mouth.
“Yes,” Shane says.
It lands like a dropped plate.
“Yes,” he repeats, because now that it’s out, he refuses to soften it. “We’re together.”
The room explodes.
Questions pile on each other, shouted over one another.
Someone says brave.
Someone says about time.
Someone laughs.
Someone mutters a slur.
Security steps in, hands firm on shoulders, voices raised. Shane’s ears ring. He doesn’t remember standing up. He doesn’t remember walking away. He only remembers the way his hands shake once he’s alone in the hallway, knuckles white around his phone.
He doesn’t text Ilya.
He can’t.
___________________________
Ilya hears about it from Troy, of all people.
They’re cooling down after practice, sweat-soaked and sore, when Barrett skates over with his phone held out like it might bite.
“Hey,” he says, hesitant. “Uh. You okay?”
Ilya frowns. “Why?”
Troy turns the screen.
It’s already everywhere.
Shane’s face, pale under the lights. The clip is short, grainy, but the words are unmistakable.
Yes. We’re together.
Ilya’s breath leaves him all at once.
“What the fuck,” he whispers.
He watches it again. And again. Each replay tightens something ugly and furious in his chest, not at Shane, never at Shane, but at the way he looks cornered. Stripped. Like someone has reached inside him and dragged the truth out by force.
“Where is he?” Ilya asks.
“No idea,” Troy says. “He left early. Coach said he needed space.”
Ilya barely remembers unlacing his skates. He grabs his jacket and keys, already moving.
Shane doesn’t take space. Shane takes distance.
And that scares him.
___________________________
Shane walks.
He doesn’t know where he’s going. He just knows he can’t be in their apartment, can’t sit still while his phone buzzes nonstop in his pocket like a trapped insect.
He keeps his head down, hands shoved into his coat, shoulders tight. Ottawa at night is colder than he remembers, the wind cutting sharp between buildings.
He cuts through a side street to avoid a group outside a bar.
That’s when he hears it.
“Yo.”
He keeps walking.
“Hey! Centaur!”
A laugh. Footsteps.
Shane’s pulse spikes. He turns, slow, measured.
Three guys. Mid-twenties, maybe. One in a Centaurs hoodie, another in an Admirals cap. Drunk or riding that hollow bravado people get when they think they’re in control.
“That you?” one of them says. “The Russian’s Bitch?”
Shane’s jaw tightens. “Not interested.”
“Aw, c’mon,” another says, stepping closer. “We just wanna talk.”
“Yeah,” the first adds, grin sharp. “You look pretty Hollander, does Rosanov have that on lock, or do you spread your legs for the whole team?”
Shane’s hands curl into fists inside his pockets.
“Back off,” he says.
They don’t.
The shove comes fast, hard enough to knock him sideways. Shane stumbles, boots skidding on icy pavement, but he doesn’t fall. Adrenaline floods his veins, hot and electric.
“Don’t touch me,” he snaps.
The guy in the hoodie laughs. “Or what?”
Shane answers with his fist.
It surprises all of them, including him.
His punch lands solid, knuckles cracking against cheekbone. The guy yelps, staggering back. For half a second, there’s silence.
Then it erupts.
Someone swings from Shane’s blind side. He ducks, barely, and drives his shoulder forward, slamming into ribs. He feels something give. A sharp oofof breath.
Another fist catches him across the mouth. Pain flashes white. Blood fills his mouth, metallic and thick.
Shane snarls and swings again, wild but powerful, years of pent-up anger behind it. He connects with a jaw. Feels teeth click.
They swarm him.
A hand fists in his jacket, yanking him forward. A knee slams into his stomach. Air whooshes out of him. He elbows backward, hears a grunt, but a boot catches his knee and he goes down hard, the world tilting violently.
Someone kicks him in the ribs.
“Fucking faggot,” someone says.
Shane covers his head, then lashes out blindly, heel catching someone’s shin. There’s a curse, a stumble. He scrambles, trying to get up, but another kick lands against his back, driving him face-first into the pavement.
His vision blurs. Sounds smear together.
A door opens somewhere nearby. A voice shouts. Lights flick on.
“Shit! Go go go!”
Footsteps retreat, fast and sloppy.
Shane lies there, gasping, chest burning, every breath a sharp protest. His face throbs. His ribs scream. He rolls onto his side, curling in on himself, hands shaking violently.
He doesn’t cry.
He just stares at the ground and lets the cold seep into his bones.
___________________________
Ilya finds him because he remembers.
Because he remembers Shane once mentioning this street, offhand, months ago.
Feels quiet here, he’d said. Like no one cares who you are.
Ilya nearly misses him.
A shape by a brick wall. A dark smear on the pavement.
“Shane,” he calls, heart slamming into his throat.
He runs.
“Oh my god,” Ilya breathes, dropping to his knees. “Shane. Shane, hey moya solnishko look at me.”
Shane blinks slowly, unfocused. His face is swollen, lip split, one eye already darkening.
“They left,” Shane murmurs, like it matters.
Ilya’s hands hover, then settle, one at Shane’s shoulder, the other cradling the back of his head, gentle but grounding.
“Who did this?” Ilya asks, voice low and shaking with barely contained rage.
Shane exhales, something bitter and humorless. “Fans.”
Ilya swears in Russian, sharp and vicious. He presses his forehead briefly to Shane’s temple, breathing him in, steadying himself.
“I’ve got you,” he says. “I’ve got you. Can you stand?”
Shane nods, barely.
Ilya helps him up, Shane’s weight sagging heavily against him. Shane doesn’t argue. He lets Ilya hold him, lets himself be guided, step by careful step.
“Did I fuck everything up?” Shane whispers, halfway to the car.
Ilya stops. Turns him gently.
“No,” he says, fierce and unwavering. He cups Shane’s face in his hands as delicately as he can. “You told the truth. The world is the one that broke.”
Shane closes his eyes, forehead resting against Ilya’s chest.
Ilya wraps his arms around him, solid and unyielding.
And for the first time since the cameras turned on him, Shane feels like he can breathe.