Archive of Our Own

i. 2009

He tries to take a deep breath in the parking lot, but it gets caught halfway in his chest. He huffs it out instead. It doesn’t matter that the breathing exercises aren’t working; he’s fine. Next to him, his mom’s chatter is a low hum. She’s talking about sponsorship deals and capitalizing on his first day and how maybe he should take some locker room video to share with Reebok, she’s sure they’ll appreciate that. As if Shane has ever willingly taken video of anything other than a hockey puck in his life. 

The Voyageurs have the makings of a good team. With Shane on the roster, he thinks they could be a great one. It’s not arrogance, it’s just how it is – he knows he’s good at hockey. He knows what he adds, and he knows how to fill the gaps. He’s been studying. 

His mom’s hands are suddenly pulling on the t-shirt around his shoulders. “You’ll have a good day today, I know it,” she says. Shane bears the fussing with good grace. Maybe some guys would be embarrassed by having their mom drop them off at their first day of NHL practice – maybe Shane even had that thought, before he buried it deep – but it’s Yuna. She’s the biggest Voyageurs fan in the world, and Shane isn’t going to take this moment away from her. 

After three more tugs on his t-shirt, though, he pushes her hand away. “It’s fine, Mom. I have to go now, okay?”

Her hands flutter in the air for a second, before one gently lands on his temple. She pushes a hair away from his face. “Okay,” she says, and Shane thinks he catches a glimpse of sadness before she pulls away and settles one hand on the wheel, one hand on the gearshift. “Good luck, you’ll do great. Don’t forget to call –”

“Farah when the paperwork is done, I know.” Shane unbuckles his seatbelt and pushes the door open, the rush of cold air almost like a siren song. The rink is there, just over there. The other players. His team.

“And come meet me after practice, we can work out the details of your apartment.”

“Okay.” The breath still won’t reach the bottom of his ribcage, but the cold air is helping.

“And if you –”

“Mom.”

Yuna sighs. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel while Shane grabs his bag from the back, checks the seat to make sure nothing fell out. He can feel the words still waiting.

“Shane,” she says finally, his name almost an exhale. He turns back with his legs swung out of the door, brain already across the parking lot. Yuna’s mouth is tipped in a small, satisfied smile when she adds, “Show them who you are.”

Shane smiles and half throws himself out of the car, ignoring the pit in his stomach and the fact that his breath won’t fill his lungs. It echoes with every step he takes on the asphalt. Who you  are, who you are, who you are. As if it’s easy.

–--

Coach Theriault’s office looks just like it did when Shane came to submit all his initial paperwork after the draft. The chairs are slate grey with clean lines; the desk has an iPad propped in the corner and a notepad perfectly centered. There are old trophies on the walls. Montreal hasn’t won a cup in 16 years, but Theriault was here for the last one. A black and white photo shows Theriault kneeling in the front line of a team wearing Canada colors. They lost to the Czech Republic that year, Shane remembers, in a shootout upset that knocked them from medal contention.

When Theriault comes in, he does it in the no nonsense way his office would suggest. He settles himself behind his desk as if he’s ready to stand up again at any moment, as if this meeting is a formality he doesn’t want to take the time for. He pins Shane with a gaze that Shane feels in his chest.

“Hollander.” Shane isn’t sure if he’s supposed to respond. The silence goes on for a moment – maybe a moment too long, Shane thinks, and is opening his mouth to say something when Theriault continues, “I expect a lot from my players.”

Shane bobs his head. “Yes sir.”

“I don’t tolerate candy-ass days off, or pansies on the ice. You play for me, you work.”

“Yes sir.”

“Your tape is good. Your play is good. Give it a few years, you might be great. But only if you listen to every fucking thing I tell you, got it?”

Shane nods. He wonders if this is the only reason Coach called him in, to tell him he needs to work hard. The pep talk is unnecessary, if so. Shane thinks maybe he doesn’t know how to do anything except work hard.

(A flash of a memory: Rozanov’s hand in his hair, pulling him upright. Too good, in a soft, Russian accent. The first time since hockey that Shane felt he was good at something immediately; the first time he didn’t have to think. His brain, blissfully silent.)

“Good.” Theriault finally leans back in his chair and steeples his hands in front of his face. He’s frowning, now, and there is a brief, tense pause as Shane tries to figure out if there’s any way the frown could be related to the thing he’s desperately trying not to think about. “Now, Hollander. Owners told me they’re excited to have someone… diverse on the team. I’ll be honest with you that I would’ve been skeptical, if it weren’t for your stats in the juniors. Hockey is about hockey, and nothing else.”

A stone drops in Shane’s stomach. He thinks he manages to keep his face straight. “Yes sir,” he says, and tries to put some feeling behind it even as his fingers twitch on his knee. “I’m just here to play.”

Theriault nods slowly. “You can’t have days off just to go fly home because you miss it, all right? You’re in Montreal now.”

Shane wants to tell him that he was born in Ottawa. That the closest he’s come to Japan is his grandmother making oyakodon in his kitchen when he was five, the last time she visited before she died. That he doesn’t eat sushi because the texture of raw fish makes his tongue itch. Instead, he nods again, and digs his fingers into his thigh.

He’s here for hockey, and nothing else. He’s on the team he dreamed about. It’s enough. It will be enough.

Theriault nods more decisively this time, a satisfied look on his face. Not a smile. He reaches out one hand and clasps Shane’s, pumping it twice. Hard and sharp. “Well then. Welcome to the Voyageurs. Go find your team.”

–--

The locker room is like any locker room he’s ever been in, and Shane feels something in his chest relax. The first full breath he’s taken all morning smells like old socks and sweaty jockstraps. He tosses his bag into his cubby – emblazoned with his name, now, Shane Hollander, and if that isn’t the best thing that Shane’s ever seen he’s not sure what would be – and closes his eyes. Just breathes. He thinks his face is hidden enough that no one will judge him for it, and all the guys seem busy anyway.

They’re ribbing each other, clearly comfortable. By the sound of it, one of them is in an on again, off again relationship that is currently very off.

“What, did she get tired of sucking your dick, Gil?”

“Fuck off, she still wants it.” The speaker is Gilbert Comeau, d-man. 59 points last season, averages 24:27 time on ice. 

“You taking advantage of the break?”

“Must be nice, right? Freedom!” 

“Oh shit, Gil, what if your dick is too small and she got confused, thinks she’s been fucking a lady all this time? Maybe she left you for another pair of tits.”

“I’ve seen your dick, mine’s bigger.”

“What, you checking me out in the showers?”

A laugh, a coughed, “Fucking fag.”

Laughter, hard and jagged. Shane opens his eyes in time to see Comeau make a jerk off motion with his hand, and to hear the new round of laughter that follows. It slips off his shoulders. Nothing about this is new; he’s been in locker rooms like this since high school. He knows his place. Stay quiet, focus on hockey. Chirp when it’s about goals or stats or conditioning. Make one off color joke that makes his stomach feel oily the rest of the week, but earns him a place in the locker room. Not too bad, though. There are lines. 

Stay quiet. Focus on hockey.

A body slides up next to him, warm and close, and Shane nearly flinches back before he can help himself. He looks up to see Hayden Pike – drafted last year, mid-range pick, but solid player – looking at the rest of the room with a vaguely distasteful frown. “You’re Shane Hollander?” he asks, without looking at Shane. Shane uses the moment to shake out his shoulders. 

“Uh, yeah. Pike, right?”

“Hayden.” Hayden nods, and finally looks at Shane with half a smile. “I hear we’re cup contenders with you on board.”

Shane gives a half nod and a shrug. He won’t downplay how good he is; he knows what he can do. “Just happy to be playing,” he says, and if it’s not the whole truth at least it’s honest. 

Hayden’s grin widens at that. “Dude, I’ve seen your tape. It’s fucking insane. We’re going to crush.”

Shane breaks into a real smile. It’s a relief, focusing on hockey. Knowing what he can do. Talking to other people who know, too, and who have the same goal. “Rookie cup, huh?”

“Fuck yes!” If Hayden’s voice is a little too loud, Shane doesn’t mind. It’s easy to be swept up in his enthusiasm. “Hey, if you ever want to come over for dinner or whatever, let me know. My wife Jackie –” he raises his voice a bit – “she’s the fucking best, my wife, and she’ll totally welcome you to Montreal.”

There are groans from around the room before Shane can respond. A balled up sock comes out of nowhere and hits Hayden in the chest. 

“Fuck off, Pike!” someone yells. “Just because you’re whipped doesn’t mean we can’t have fun!”

A few more laughs, but Hayden’s comment seems to have spurred the room into movement. Everyone is gathering their sticks, lacing up skates, moving with purpose. One by one, players come up to clap Shane on the shoulder or shake his hand.

“Welcome, rook.”

“Show up, alright, kid?”

“Hope you’re as good as they say you are.”

Shane smiles, accepts handshakes, bumps fists where it’s asked of him. His body sinks into the rhythm of it, the sway of the locker room and the bumps of shoulders. And when he steps out onto the ice ten minutes later, surrounded by the blue and red and white of his childhood, officially part of the team that made him a hockey player – well. He breathes all the way into his lungs and feels the certainty pulse through him like oxygen. This is where he belongs. This is his team. He’ll do anything – anything – to stay here.

ii. 2013

Shane is panting, and his lungs feel like they’re on fire, but he forces himself to stay upright as he squirts water into his mouth. Some of the guys are not doing as well. Comeau is retching on his hands and knees; J.J. is flat on his back, starfished and coughing. 

Shane has never played on a team like this, where bag skates are an expected part of the end of practice rather than a punishment. Where at least once a week someone throws up from conditioning. It’s brutal, but he has to admit it’s effective. A few years in and he feels stronger, plus the Voyageurs skated circles around Colorado last week.

(A text from Lily after that game: Good stamina. Bet I can find a way to wear you out.

Shane shoved aside the warm feeling in his chest that Rozanov had watched, tilted his phone toward his chest so no one else could see, and replied, Maybe if you stop smoking you can keep up with me.

No reply for a few minutes, during which Shane shucked his sweaty jersey and tried very hard not to think about how maybe his nagging had ended the conversation. Then, the buzz of his phone.

Will stop if you put something else in my mouth instead.

He had to shove his face into his cubby to hide his blush.)

“Fucking Christ, Hollander,” Stedlund gasps from where he’s slumped against the boards. He’s one of the rookies, and Shane can tell he hasn’t adjusted to an NHL schedule yet. “How are you standing right now?”

Shane shrugs. He’s actually starting to feel better, legs less like jello. “Practice,” he says casually. “Conditioning.” It’s true. He runs ten kilometers most mornings and often does sprints afterward. 

“He’s a machine,” Wilson pants from across the ice. He’s on his feet, at least, but his hands are braced on his knees. “A hockey machine. Dude eats, sleeps, and breathes puck.”

“It’s not human,” someone grumbles. Shane can’t tell who.

“We need to get you laid, Hollzy!” There’s a general chorus of agreement.

Not the problem, Shane thinks. All getting laid has done recently is make him work harder. He’s not sure if that’s just how he is or if it’s something about fucking Rozanov, specifically, but he refuses to spend any time interrogating the question. “Are you offering, Mitty?” Shane calls back. Laughter from the team, even as Shane thinks maybe he’s not as recovered as he thought. His legs feel shaky again.

Mitty sputters, and Drapeau skates over to clap him on the shoulder. “Yeah, Mitty, maybe taking it up the ass is what you need to actually catch a pass someday.”

“If that’s Hollander’s secret, he can keep it,” Mitty replies, struggling to his feet. 

“Hey, yeah, Hollzy, what is your secret?” That’s Wilson.

For a moment, Shane gets hit by an insane temptation to say, Taking it up the ass, actually. He thinks Rozanov would. He thinks that kind of brash awareness, that complete comfort, would maybe deflect reality better than anything else could. 

But Coach Theriault has just appeared at the boards, and is yelling, “Hollander!” with an imperious “come here” gesture, and Shane won’t make him wait. 

Instead, he says, “Being good at hockey. You should try it sometime,” and skates away as the team descends into catcalls behind him.

He skids to a stop in front of Theriault, trying to block out the sound of jeers behind him. Theriault’s face is closed, but it always is, so Shane has stopped taking it personally. Or has tried to stop, at least. “You wanted to see me, Coach?” he asks breathlessly.

For a moment, Theriault doesn’t look at him, instead fixing his gaze on the rest of the team as they sprawl across the ice. Shane follows his eyes. Mitty stood up, but not many others have made it to their feet. Even flat on the ice, they project a comfort that Shane has never been fully able to relax into. He still feels an unmistakable fondness well up in his chest.

When Theriault’s gaze finally swings back to Shane, there is the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. “Hollander,” he says, and Shane can’t explain it but something about the way he says it slows down time. He’s suddenly hyperaware of the radiating cold beneath his feet and the laughter of his teammates echoing through the empty arena. It’s like everything has been turned up to eleven. His heart hammers in his chest. Shane is sure it’s visible. 

Theriault continues, “Control your team, would you?” and presses a wad of bundled up something into Shane’s hand.

Holy shit, Shane thinks, like the ice of the rink has stolen up through his body and stilled his pounding heart. I know what this is.

He unfurls the fabric as Theriault walks away. It’s a jersey – his jersey, number 24, bright and clean in blue, red, and white. It smells new, like plastic packaging and nothing else. It smells wrong to Shane, missing something vital, but he holds it up to his face anyway. Breathes in, out. Runs his finger down the front panel, until it catches on something that wasn’t there before. A white C, sewn in a place of honor. 

Captain, he thinks, of the Montreal Voyageurs. Holy shit.

And on the heels of that, something he’ll never admit in pressrooms or to himself, something that creeps in on the back of the swelling of pride and excitement and hunger, something that burrows under the need to prove himself and to win and to remake this team into what it always had the power to be –

A voice, small and scared and lonely with want, thinks, Fuck.

–--

His first season game as captain is against the Boston Bears. Which, of course it is.

It’s not that he’s been looking forward to showing up with the captain’s patch on his jersey. It’s not that he held it in his hands for a few extra seconds before throwing it over his head in the locker room, thinking and trying not to think about how Rozanov might react.

It’s just.

Rozanov has been captain for a year now. The press made a big deal about it when it happened: youngest captain ever to be named on the Bears. Generational talent. Can Rozanov find a way to harness his on-ice energy into team building off the ice. And, because it was inevitable, what does this mean for the Hollander-Rozanov rivalry? Is Hollander being left behind?

Shane didn’t think about that headline when it came out, not really. Maybe his shots on goal had a bit more fire; maybe he bit Rozanov’s shoulder too hard the next time they saw each other, breaking his rule to never, ever leave marks. He could see the faint outline of a bruise the next week, when Rozanov answered press questions with his shirt off. Probably no one else noticed.

It’s just that the worry started to sink its hooks in somewhere deep, even when he wasn’t willing to admit it. Was he missing something? Shane worked harder than anyone; he was better than anyone on the team. He knew how to read a play, how to call out gaps, how to marshall his team on the ice. And if that wasn’t enough, if that didn’t do it, then Shane was somehow deficient. 

Maybe they knew. They didn’t know about Rozanov, they didn’t know about Shane, but maybe something about him oozed out of his pores and infected the air around him. Maybe something about him screamed different, different, different at a frequency no one could hear but everyone could feel. Maybe he would burn out, become another player fans were disappointed in, lose all his brand deals because he never quite made it to the top. Maybe he would never get a shot at the thing that had driven him since he could pick up a hockey stick, the thing he built his life around – being a Voyageur. Being a leader. 

He is that, now. He can see himself clearly enough to know that it’s not necessarily healthy to want more than he has. He’s lucky. He gets to play a sport that he loves for a living. He’s one of the best in the world. Why should a patch sewn onto his jersey change any of that?

Still, when he meets Rozanov on the ice and watches his eyes flick down to Shane’s jersey and fill with undisguised delight, he can’t help the balloon that fills up in his lungs. He feels dangerously light as he leans down for the face off.

“I am sorry,” Rozanov says, face serious but eyes dancing as he looks at Shane through his visor.

Shane shouldn’t take the bait. A ref is standing right there, and he knows how this goes. He’s a captain now; he should be above the chirping, above whatever this… thing… is, that they have going on. He should. But, like a puppet  being pulled along, he says, somewhat helplessly, “Sorry for what?”

“For your first loss as captain.” Rozanov sighs heavily as Shane rolls his eyes. “So sad. They will say, new captain cannot handle pressure of Boston. Too bad, he was good player, but leadership got to him.”

Shane ducks his head. It’s just chirping. He’s heard it a hundred times from a hundred different players, including the one in front of him. It shouldn’t hit something raw in his nerves. There’s no excuse for the way he responds, hard and angry, so far from the playful tone he and Rozanov usually adopt. “Fuck off,” he says, as cold and as serious as he can manage, and pretends not to notice as Rozanov’s whole body flinches.

“Hollander –”

The puck drops. 

Shane wins the faceoff.

–--

It’s not a bad game for his first one as captain, all things considered. Boston is always tough. They make him work for it, make him skate off the ice with a 3-2 win and bruises on every inch of his body. He gives short, pointed pep talks during intermissions about where they can improve. The team does it, mostly, and Shane feels a glow of pride when Wilson takes his advice to cut through an open lane and it ends in a goal.

He ignores the way Rozanov grips his hand too tightly during the handshake line. Just says, “Good game, Captain,” and doesn’t meet his eyes when Rozanov mutters it back. 

(He feels a glow at that, too, even when he shouldn’t.)

He feels clean after a game like this. Sore and tired and completely settled in a way he doesn’t anywhere else. His body has done what he asked it to, and his brain can let that be it for a while.

He’s pulling off his shoulder pads in the locker room when one of the rookies yells, “We’re celebrating tonight! Club after showers!”

There are a few whoops. “Good, I need to get laid,” Wilson says with a huff.

It’s more than one voice that responds, “Good luck with that!”

Wilson ignores it. “Cap, you coming?” he asks, and suddenly, the energy in the room seems subdued. Shane looks up to find more than one person shooting him covert glances. 

“I…” Shane trails off, swallowing the words on the tip of his tongue. Early practice tomorrow, need to work on that PK, he wants to say. Gonna go to bed. You all should, too. He isn’t planning on going to bed, truthfully. His phone is burning a hole in his peripheral vision, waiting for him to text Lily when he’s done. He wants his body pressed into the mattress while Rozanov kisses up his spine; he wants to apologize for being a dick by making Roz come so hard he blacks out. 

“Hollander doesn’t go out,” Comeau says, walking over to Shane and tossing an arm around his shoulder. It’s the wrong weight. Shane swallows his discomfort. “No more wild nights for the Voyageurs, am I right? Cap’s cracking down.” He shakes Shane’s shoulder a few times. 

Comeau is smiling, but the words send something skittering down Shane’s spine. He knows he’s boring. He knows his teammates don’t understand why he doesn’t drink, and he knows he misses out on bonding time with them because of it. It’s never seemed to matter before – he shows up on the ice, they win, end of story.

The patch on his jersey suddenly feels heavier.

Because that’s not what captains do, is it? Captains lead their teams, on and off the ice. Captains show up for celebrations, losses, breakups, weddings. Captains treat their teams to drinks and buy tables at clubs so they can keep an eye on things. So they can bond. Shane might not be a drinker, he might not be fun, but he is burning to be a good captain. 

He shrugs under Comeau’s arm and shoots a grin at the room. “It’s a celebration, right? Fuck Boston. First round’s on me.”

Noise explodes in the room, cheers and “fuck yeahs” and plans suddenly being made for who they’ll meet and where they’ll go. Comeau shakes his shoulder one more time and lets go, gives Shane enough space that he can grab his phone from where it sits on top of his cubby. There’s already a text waiting from Lily.

See you tonight, Captain?

Time stamped ten minutes ago.

Shane lets his thumbs rest on the keyboard for a moment before he responds.

Hey, I have to bond with my team. I don’t – 

Deletes it.

I wish I could meet you but – 

Deletes it.

Did you mean what you said? Am I a shitty captain?

Deletes it, letter by letter. He imagines Rozanov watching the bubble appear and disappear. He’s probably not watching that closely; he, unlike Shane, has a life.

Sends: Can’t tonight. Team stuff. Rain check?

It’s barely a moment before his phone buzzes in response. 

Stupid English expression. Who checks rain
Fine, Hollander. Go be perfect with perfect team 
I will be up if you are too boring to stay late

Shane shakes his head instead of responding and tries to ignore the feeling that his stomach has been scooped out with a spoon. This is responsibility. This is what he needs to do.

He goes out with his team and tries not to think of golden curls and an impish grin, mouthing the word “captain” at him from across the bench.

iii. 2017

Shane thought it would be easier, after this summer. 

Now that he and Ilya are together. Now that they have a plan. Now that this raging, ravenous want in his chest has somewhere to go. He thought that he’d feel more… settled. 

The problem, Shane thinks, has a few pieces. Things he can study, catalogue, then attack – the way he approaches hockey.

First, and easiest, despite the flush of embarrassment he feels at the thought, is that he just misses his boyfriend. He misses Ilya’s poking, prodding sense of humor. He misses the shape of Ilya’s smile when Shane says something that surprises him. He misses Ilya’s hands, his mouth, his body. The hunger inside him is more focused, now that he and Ilya are officially together, but it feels like it has only kicked up in intensity. 

The next problem is harder to pin down. Shane turns it around in his mind, pokes at it from a few different angles. It’s not a problem in the traditional sense of the word. It’s more that being with Ilya is so… not a problem… that the rest of the world is starting to pale in comparison. He’s never met someone that he can relax around so completely. It never bothered him before, he thinks, because he had nothing to compare it to. But now, his laughter in the locker room feels more polite than genuine. The slaps on his back are perfunctory, pointed, not meant to make him feel like part of the team. He’s noticing cracks, and he wants to stop. 

The biggest issue, though, is that the wanting is starting to feel dangerous. It’s been dangerous the whole time, but never because of Shane. He has never really been worried about not being able to handle the secrecy. He has structure. He has rules, and if he follows them, no one will ever know. 

Now, though. Ilya calls him just to talk, and ends the call with a Russian I love you. Ilya texts him stupid pictures of unlikely animal friends, because he knows Shane loves that and won’t admit it to anyone else. Ilya shows up when he can, as often as he can, and Shane gets to have something he never, ever thought was possible, in slow blowjobs and morning coffees, sweet and blissful. It’s intoxicating, is the problem. He’s dizzy with this new reality. It feels like he’s running just ahead of a train, one missed step away from tumbling down and getting run over by the strength of his feeling, and part of him wants to trip on purpose.

It kills him that he can’t tell anyone.

That’s the whole point, he knows that. There are very good, very real reasons that they can’t tell anyone about this – reasons that Shane falls asleep thinking about, and wakes up panicked to. But, there’s a part of him, growing larger every day, that says he’s the happiest he’s ever been and maybe, just maybe, people would be happy for him if they knew… something. Not all of it, but the shape of it. That he’s gay. That he met someone. That he’s so fucking in love he could die.  

It’s mid-September, the season only a few weeks away. A barbecue at Shane’s, because he’s still committed to being a good captain and this is what good captains do. The air in Montreal is still sticky hot, fall refusing to appear, and Shane wishes he wasn’t standing in front of a grill right now. He feels itchy. He feels like his skin is too small.

His teammates are sprawled around him, already halfway to a drunken rowdiness that makes Shane prickly. He’ll have to make the rounds in a minute to swap out beers for waters, remind the rookies that the season is coming up faster than they think. He knows the groans that will accompany that reminder, though, so for the moment he just… stays. Flips a burger that probably won’t get eaten. 

Nearly has a heart attack when a hand claps his shoulder.

“Dude, thank you for putting this together,” Hayden says, seeming not to notice how Shane jumps at the contact, then relaxes when he realizes who it is. “I needed it.”

Shane grins at him. “Four kids too many?”

Hayden flips him off. “Fuck off, you know I love those little monsters.”

“You know Jackie does all the work, right?” Shane asks, teasing but also half serious. He’s never seen anyone put as much into parenting as Jackie does.

“I took them to the aquarium yesterday!” Hayden cries. “Jackie went to a spa!” Shane shoots him what he hopes is a withering look, and it seems to get the message at least mostly across because Hayden waves a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah. She’s a saint and I don’t deserve her, I know.”

“Don’t forget it,” Shane says, mock stern.

Hayden toasts a beer bottle at him, then asks, “Where were you this summer, anyway?”

Shane’s chest freezes. What does that mean? “I was…” He coughs, and tries again. “I was at the cottage. You knew that.”

“Yeah man, I’m aware of your magic wilderness mansion that’s like your place of solitude or whatever. I still want an invite, by the way.” Hayden flaps his hand again, and some beer sloshes out the neck of the bottle. “Oh, shit. I just meant that you didn’t answer my texts. The girls are used to a few loon photos from Uncle Shane.”

I’m gay, Shane wants to say, all of a sudden. The words are pressing up against his throat. I’m gay and I was at the cottage with the love of my life, finally admitting to something I’ve maybe felt for nine entire years. That’s why I didn’t respond. He swallows. “I was busy,” he replies instead, pleased to find his voice doesn’t wobble. He reaches for the excuse he gave his parents, the one Ilya laughed at. “I was doing this solitude retreat thing. Recommended by my trainer?”

Hayden blinks at him, and Shane tries to keep his expression relaxed as his heart kicks up around his ears. Finally, blessedly, Hayden says, “Right. I don’t need to know what weird shit works for you these days. Just pick up the phone, all right?”

Shane’s breath rushes out of his body, but before he can even nod, someone is shouting from the table a few feet away, much too loud for the distance.

“Dude, are you guys in love?” Andropov shouts. “Fucking, text me back, and shit. That’s what my girlfriend’s always saying.”

“Fuck off, Andy,” Hayden yells back.

“Maybe you should text your girlfriend back,” Shane mutters, but he’s pretty sure Andropov doesn’t hear it. He’s getting up from the table now, 200 pounds of lumbering muscle made loose with alcohol, and he half launches himself toward Shane and Hayden to sling an arm around each of their necks. 

“You guys would be cute,” Andropov continues, oblivious. “All gay and shit. Always texting each other.”

“Is it gay to text people now?” Shane asks dryly, mostly to cover the pounding of his heart. He could say it. It’s an opening – not an ideal one, but an opening nonetheless. It is when I do it. By the way, I’m gay.

Andropov squeezes Shane’s shoulder, knocks his head into Shane’s a little too hard, like he’s forgotten they’re not wearing helmets. He tries, and fails, to look Shane directly in the eye. “Yes,” he says seriously.

The table, which Shane hadn’t even realized was paying attention, erupts into laughter. 

“Andy, you’re a fucking idiot!”

“It’s gay to text people, what the fuck does that even mean?”

“Hollzy can’t be gay, Cap is a beast, didn’t you watch him chuck Kent into the boards last week?”

“Dude, Hunter’s gay now, that dude can throw a punch!”

“Yeah, like once a year, and only if his boyfriend is in the stands.”

“Pike, on the other hand…”

“Pike has like seventeen fucking kids, I think he knows how to use his dick.”

More laughter, and Hayden ducks out of Andropov’s arm to mime pouring a beer over Wilson’s head as he makes the last comment. Drapeau, always ready to one-up, tips his elbow so the beer actually splatters out. Wilson sputters, and Shane tries not to think about how long it’ll be before he can clean that up without anyone making fun of him. He ducks out of Andropov’s arm as well.

“Water, Andy,” he says calmly. He dips down to the cooler to grab a bottle of water and hopes his knuckles won’t be white when he hands it off. 

Instead of turning back to the table, Andropov waits for Shane to rise and puts both hands on his shoulders. He looks intense, as much as he can with heavy, drunk eyes and his body listing to one side before he corrects it. Shane sees a chip on his left incisor, something he probably hasn’t gotten fixed yet because he thinks it makes him look cooler. “Cap,” Andropov says seriously, “we don’t actually think you’re gay.” He squeezes Shane’s shoulders, hard, as if to impress the gravity of what he’s saying. “You’re so fucking good at hockey, man. Nobody thinks you’re gay, all right? You’re too fucking good.”

And that’s the rub, isn’t it. Shane Hollander can’t be gay. Shane Hollander is a hockey player. He’s too good, too needed, too much a part of the fabric of this game. Shane being gay doesn’t fit Shane Hollander, captain.

Shane presses the water bottle into Andropov’s chest and waits til he sways back enough to take it. “Drink that,” he says, firmly but without heat. “We still have practice tomorrow.” Andropov nods and walks back to the table, where he’s welcomed with a few claps to the back. Shane should join him. He pulls out his phone instead.

How’s Boston? he texts Ilya, and gives himself thirty seconds to wait for a response before he needs to leave.

It doesn’t even take ten. Boring without you.

Shane smiles at the phone. I thought I was the boring one?

Usually. Now is ugly hockey players being sore losers.

A pause, and then a picture: half of Ilya’s face, grinning, and Cliff Marlow’s profile in the background. Marlow looks furious as he gestures with a controller at the screen.

Shane laughs under his breath, then glances over his shoulder. His team is still at the table, not paying any attention to him, which means he can take in Ilya’s face for one more breath before he has to delete it. 

His fingers feel heavier as he types. You won?

Obviously.
How’s the party?

Shane thinks about all the ways he could answer that. Fun. Good to be with his team again, after this summer away. Nice to be back in a routine. 

Overwhelming, also. Causing a knot to develop in Shane’s stomach that he can’t find a source for, except that he wishes Ilya were here. 

Fine, is what he eventually sends. Good bonding.

Ilya sends a sleeping emoji.

Shane huffs out another laugh. He should really go back to the table. 

I should go, he sends after a pause. Hoping his reluctance comes through, but also embarrassed if it does. 

Ilya sends a thumbs down. 

Then, Missing you, солнышко.
Call later?

Shane’s heart trips. Always, he sends.

He slides the phone back into his pocket with shaking fingers. Scrubs a hand down his face. Then he picks up his ginger ale, and sits down with his team. 

–--

It’s three hours later when everyone leaves, the sun kissing the bottom of the horizon, the night finally cooling down. Shane should go inside. He should get a mop to deal with the sticky mess of beer, should start picking up bottles and bringing them into the recycling. He’ll be mad at himself later for not doing it now. The sooner he does it, the sooner he can call Ilya.

But the air is soft on his skin, and it feels like he can finally breathe for the first time all day, so Shane sits on the steps instead. He takes out his phone, twirls it a few times in his hand.

Then he calls his dad.

David picks up on the first ring. “Hey, kiddo!” he says cheerfully.

“Hey, Dad.”

There’s a scuffed sound, and David calls to someone off mic, “It’s Shane!” Shane hears the indistinct pattern of his mother’s voice, and then hears his dad say, “Yes, okay, I’ll ask him.” To Shane, much clearer, he says, “Your mother wants to know if you’ve reviewed the new CCM contract yet.”

Shane huffs. “Tell her I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I can tell her you’ll do it this weekend, if you’d rather.”

He shakes his head, even though he knows his dad can’t see it. Watches a mosquito, probably the last of the season, land on top of his knee. “No, I know she needs it. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“All right, bud.” Shane can hear footsteps, and the soft thud of a door. He moved to the office, then. David’s voice is softer when he continues, “Did you need something?”

Shane opens his mouth to reply in the negative, but he pauses. He’s not sure why he’s calling, really. He doesn’t think his dad will be able to unravel the mess inside his head if Shane can’t even figure it out. “I guess,” he says eventually, slowly, working the words out as they come, “I wanted to ask about McGill.”

He can hear the surprise in the pause before David answers. Then, “Sure. What about it?”

“Were they your best friends? The hockey team, when you were there?”

David blows out a breath. “Of course they were. Hard not to get close to those boys when you’re with them all the time.”

“And the hazing, right?” Shane has heard plenty of stories. Most of it would never fly today.

David chuckles. “And the hazing.” 

Shane traces a circle on his knee, presses a bit harder to see the half moon of his nail reflected in his skin. “And did they… how long were they your best friends, after?”

A longer pause this time, like David is thinking. “For a while,” he says finally. “Not forever. We grew apart, got different jobs. Had families.” Another pause, and then David’s voice is fond. “I started spending more time with your mother.”

“Oh.”

Shane can’t explain it, the shift that feels like it’s happening inside of him. Like tectonic plates are crashing together, one for hockey and one for Ilya and one for the Montreal Voyageurs, and whatever formation they make after they’re done colliding is going to remake him in ways he won’t recognize. He rubs his chest, hard enough to hurt.

He must be quiet for too long, because his dad ventures, “Shane?” in a tone that sounds too gentle, too careful. 

“Sorry,” Shane says. He shakes his head, sharp, and stands up. “I don’t know what I’m asking, don’t worry about it.”

“Is this about Ilya?”

Just the sound of Ilya’s name in someone else’s voice is enough to make Shane’s brain stutter. “I just…” His eyes feel wet, and he blinks at the setting sun a few times to clear them. “I’m just thinking about the future, I guess.”

“Ah.” The best and worst thing about David Hollander is how much he understands, and how little he’ll push to make Shane say it. “Well, all I can say is that I wouldn’t trade the way my life worked out for anything. I have your mother. I have you. It’s more than I ever dreamed it could be.”

“Yeah.” Shane is standing now, surrounded by beer bottles. “Um – thanks.”

“Love you, kid.”

“You, too,” Shane says. He rubs his chest one more time, then drops the phone from his ear and hangs up.

He’ll give himself twenty minutes to clean up. Then he’ll call Ilya. 

iv. 2019

The leather of his car’s steering wheel is warm in Shane’s hands, and he really, really doesn’t want to let go of it.

He spends his life making his body do impossible things; letting go of the wheel and opening his car door should not be so hard. Especially when what waits inside is hockey, which has always been the one thing Shane can count on, the one thing that he looks forward to. 

The ice is the same. His routine hasn’t changed – he drinks the same smoothies, stretches out the same muscles. He’s playing well. He’s playing some of the best hockey of his life, actually, his stick and his skates clicking in a way that feels like the culmination of an entire lifetime of effort. 

Which is why it feels like such a betrayal that his chest his tight and his fucking fingers will not unclench.

It’s been almost a year now. He should be over this, he should be settled into this new normal of being out. Of having said the thing he’d been wanting to say for years. Even if his team isn’t quite… well. 

In some ways, it’s better. The needling threat of constantly defending his sexuality is gone; he doesn’t have to analyze every comment to wonder if it’s a joke or a sign that someone knows. He only has to police one thing in his mind now, and that’s maintaining outward indifference toward Ilya.

In most ways, though, it’s much worse.

The ease he spent years working up to is just… gone. Slaps to his shoulder are awkward, or avoided. His teammates look nervous when they ask about his weekend, as if Shane is suddenly going to start recounting his sexual exploits in explicit detail. Comeau looks at him sideways when taking his shirt off; Steddy darts in and out of the shower before Shane can even remove his pads. Shane catches a few clandestine punches when someone opens their mouth, like comments are being cut off. Like the team came to a decision about him without him there.

(In fact, his almost entirely sure that’s what happened, and the thought of them talking about him when he’s not there makes his skin crawl. Theriault called him into his office a few days after Shane came out.

“Hollander,” he said, eyes steely. “No distractions.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“You’re here to play hockey. You’re here to captain this team, and keep them in line. If I see anything that hints you can’t do that, we have a problem.”

“Yes, Coach.”

A pause. “I can’t tell you what to do. But I told you on your first day, on my team, hockey is hockey and nothing else. We’re not the fucking Admirals, not if I have anything to say about it.” 

Shane’s skin prickled. “Yes, Coach.”

“Good.” His gaze pinned on Shane’s, his meaning impossible to ignore. Do whatever you want, but stay silent. Don’t talk about it. The team doesn’t want you to. 

Theriault didn’t smile as he added, hard, “Now go win me a fucking cup.”)

Now, Shane takes a deep breath – in, hold, out, hold. He knows it’ll settle, he knows it’ll be fine in the long term, so he needs to just –

A buzz against his leg shakes him from his useless contemplation, and Shane grabs at his phone embarrassingly quickly.

Lily
Is us (heart eyes emoji)

There’s another buzz, and a picture comes through: a cheetah and a dog, looking out over a zoo enclosure. Shane is laughing before he even realizes he’s doing it.

Which one am I? he replies, even though he’s sure he knows the answer. 

Lily
Dog, obviously
Your puppy eyes and little dog growl
And because you are my favorite

Shane rolls his eyes. 

So you’re the anxious cheetah in this scenario?

Lily
Cheetah is not anxious! Cheetah is fast
For fastest player
Me

The cheetah is definitely anxious, Shane sends, and links to an article about the dog being a therapy animal. Which, he does have to admit, is pretty cute.

Lily
(frowning face)
Hm
Maybe both are you then
Because you are anxious before game, no?

Shane’s breath catches in his chest. This is just like Ilya, to take a joke and cut right through the heart of it. He’s probably just poking Shane about how nervous he still gets, even after all these years. He’s probably making fun, but he could be genuinely checking in. Ilya knows that it hasn’t been exactly ideal in the locker room, since Shane came out. That his team has felt distant, and that Shane has felt on edge.

But he doesn’t think Ilya knows about the thing that’s been clawing at Shane’s insides, getting stronger and climbing farther up his throat with every game. He isn’t sure what to call it. He’s anxious, sure, but that’s not necessarily new – he’s always been a little anxious before games, he’s always wanted to perform well. This is… uglier. It’s anxiety and hurt and anger and want, volcanic and disruptive, so much that he’s not sure how long he can hold it all in. A hooking, horrible kind of desire for something he can never have. For things to go back to the way they were in Montreal. To play hockey, without distraction or question or the feeling that he’s constantly being watched, monitored, controlled. For Ilya to be there with him, to clap him on the shoulder and make everything seem okay. Things that are contradictory and impossible, that Shane has to wrestle down every time he parks at the rink. 

He makes his thumbs move. It’s just Toronto, he types. It’ll be fine.

There’s a longer pause before Ilya responds this time. Long enough that Shane has twisted to grab his bag and is gearing up to open the door when his phone buzzes again.

Lily
Leave some teeth in Kent’s mouth tonight
I will knock them out next week

This pulls enough of a smile out of Shane that he opens the door and swings out. He’s typing as he walks across the parking lot and into Bell Centre – the place that has always meant home. 

No chance.

–--

Half the team is in the locker room when he arrives, already stripped out of gameday suits and partway into pads. Shane pretends not to notice when Comeau grabs a towel wrap around his waist as soon as he sees him walk in. 

“Cap!” Hayden calls as Shane throws his bag into his stall and loosens his tie. It’s a bit too loud, given that Shane is right next to him. “Any words of wisdom tonight?”

“Fuck Toronto,” Shane says, almost automatically. There’s an appreciative laugh throughout the room. 

“Right up the ass, right, cap?” Andy says. “Just the way they like it!”

“Definitely the way someone likes it.” It’s a mutter, too low for Shane to catch exactly who says it. He yanks at his tie so hard the knot gets stuck. 

Deep breath. Shove it to the side, because the team is playing good hockey. “Toronto is going to be physical,” he continues to Hayden, as if nobody said anything. As if he’s not ham-fistedly pulling at his tie, as if nothing is bothering him. “And their power play is on a tear lately, Kent and Barrett have been making some new things work. Just stay out of the box and we’ll be fine.”

It’s nearly the same speech he gave last time they played Toronto. The Guardians are physical, brutal, and not that creative – he doesn’t have to reach far to find something relevant. He catches a few nods in the room, and then a glimpse of Comeau rolling his eyes. 

Shane shoves his jacket and his shirt off without looking at anyone and changes as quickly as he can. It’ll settle, he thinks, taking a deep breath through his nose and shoving the thing in his chest down with both hands. Hockey first.

By the time he steps out on the ice, his heartbeat feels less riotous. He skates a few zig zags, aims for a spot on the crossbar and smiles when the puck hits it dead on, clanging into the net. He lowers next to Hayden to stretch out his hip flexors. This is something he can do. This is something he’s fucking good at.

“Hey, um,” Hayden starts, looking around and pitching his voice low. Shane glances around as well and nearly laughs. There’s no need for Hayden to be quiet because no one is around them; it’s like they’ve created a forcefield no one else on the Voyageurs wants to cross. Hayden continues, “I’m sorry about Wilson in the locker room. I’ll talk to him, okay?”

He looks so fucking earnest. Shane wants to slap him. He was feeling so good for a second there – he was focused on hockey. “Don’t worry about it,” he says eventually.

“But –”

"Hayds. Don’t worry about it. He was just…” Shane isn’t sure how to finish that sentence. He doesn’t think what is said in the locker room is okay, really. Before he came out, when he was just a captain, he may have called them on it. But he’s not sure how to explain to Hayden that any time he defends himself now – anytime anyone defends him – it feels like the walls are closing in. It feels like he’s being caged into advocating for something he never agreed to. All he wants to do is play hockey.

He changes the sentence. “Let’s just play, all right?”

Hayden nods with a pinched look on his face, and then the refs are blowing whistles and Theriault is yelling and it’s time to go, it’s time to start this ritual that Shane has been completing since he was three years old. 

He skates up to Dallas Kent in the faceoff circle, feels without looking that Hayden is settling in at his right and JJ is poised and ready at his back. The ref eyes both Shane and Kent as they crouch down. “I want a clean game,” he says. “No blood on my ice, ya hear?” Shane nods, and Kent grimaces, and then they’re off.

Shane wins the faceoff. He kicks it back to JJ, who pulls it back with a tight twist of his stick and then passes up to Hayden, who – fuck, gets slammed into the boards by Barrett, Kent’s wing and a huge dick, which doesn’t matter because Shane is skating til his lungs burn and poking the puck out of Barrett’s hold so he can chip it to Olsson, a new member of his line who’s really been clicking this season and –

His mind is quiet for the first time since Ilya spread him out on the dock this summer, sunkissed and gleaming, and Shane was too lost in the worship of his body to think about the future. This is what hockey does to him. What hockey has always done to him, a feeling only being with Ilya has ever matched. 

He pushes to the end of his shift without much changing, but it’s okay because lanes are opening and he thinks he can see where it might happen. He shouts to Wilson as he hops the boards, “Try a backhand, defense is sloppy on the left!” and gets a weak wave in return, but it’s okay because Wilson fucking does it and gets a shot off, blocked by the goalie but now Shane can see how he’s favoring his left glove and that means an opening.

He slams down on the ice for his next shift, and it’s one of those perfect moments where everything feels right from the beginning. Barely twenty seconds in and there it is – Hayden sends a beautiful pass, tape to Shane’s tape, and he sees how the goalie corrects left. Sends it right, just over the shoulder, and it’s in. 1-0 Montreal, not even ten minutes into the first period. 

“Let’s go!” Shane yells, and Hayden skates by and crashes their helmets together, and it’s good. It feels good. Ilya is watching, somewhere, and Shane is doing the thing he’s best at. 

He skates back to the circle and sees Kent with a sour look on his face. Shane can’t help himself. “I’ll describe it to you, if you want,” he says, catching his breath. “Scoring a goal. Since you’ve never done it before.”

Kent’s face contorts. “Fucking bitch,” he says, looking ready to say more, but the puck drops and Shane is already spinning away with it.

The game goes like that for a while, back and forth. It’s rough, scrappy, but it always is with Toronto. Shane keeps his head on straight and calls plays to his teammates, trying to keep them in line and out of the box. It works, mostly. Andy picks up a minor for boarding, something unnecessary that Shane will talk to him about later, but they kill the penalty so it’s fine. Shane picks up another point in the second, a slightly frantic goal tipped off an assist from Olsson. He can almost taste the hat trick, like copper in his mouth.

He’s heading back to the locker room during the second intermission when his gaze snags on Comeau and Kent, heads close together on the ice between benches. As he slides past, Kent looks up at him, something almost… feral in his face. Disgusted. Shane barely stops himself from flinching and focuses on what he’s going to say in the locker room.

The third period is different from the jump. Kent meets him at the circle with that same disgusted look on his face, and Shane can feel Barrett’s eyes on him from the wing. Kent sneers as they lean over and spits out his mouthguard. “So,” he says, low and vicious, too quiet for the ref to hear, “they let cocksucking sissies run the Voyageurs now?”

It’s not new. Shane hears it all the time: sissy, cocksucker, faggot. But there’s something about the way Kent says it that makes it seem almost pointed. Like he knows, like he’s been told –

The puck drops, and Shane is too rattled to realize he’s a beat behind as Kent spins away. He’s – Kent is – but it’s fine. He pushes his legs to move, ignores how they suddenly feel leaden. He intercepts a Guardians pass, spins around a d-man and can’t get a shot off so he cuts behind the goal, searching for Hayden through an open lane, and then he’s –

Slammed.

It feels like getting hit by a truck. It feels like getting pummeled by 200 pounds of high-speed muscle, which is technically what happens as he’s crushed into the boards so hard his feet lift off the ice. 

He crumples down as the whistle blows, sharp and piercing. Shane is… he shakes his head. His ears are ringing, but he takes a quick inventory. Muscles, sore. Bones, aching. He’ll have a nasty bruise on his hip, and his knee is tweaked, but he’s had worse hits before – nothing he can’t play through. Still. He stays down for one more moment, to give his head a second to clear.

Shane doesn’t look up when someone skates close to him. It’s Hayden, probably, coming to give him a hand. He almost waves it off until he hears the muttered voice. “If you’re too soft to take a hit, maybe you shouldn’t play hockey,” Kent says, spitting and ugly. “Fucking fairies.”

The Toronto d-man gets a two minute minor for cross checking. Shane scores on the power play, an almost thoughtless shot that hits the bar and clatters into the net. Hayden slaps him on the back, yells, “Fucking home ice hatty, let’s go!” loud and exuberant in Shane’s ear, but all Shane sees is Comeau skating back toward the Voyageurs’ bench. No celebration. No glance over, no bump to the helmet. Shane feels a pit open up in his stomach.

The crowd is roaring. Hats flutter down, a sea of red and blue, the colors Shane has worn for ten years. He picks one up, waves it toward the crowd. Smiles. Forces his brain to think of nothing but hockey, hockey, hockey.

–--

Shane makes it through the media scrum with vague, polite answers. It’s always an honor to get a hat trick on home ice. Toronto played hard, but we were up for the challenge. Yeah, the boys are really clicking, it’s great to be a part of it. Every word is a drumbeat: stay the course. Don’t break, don’t tell, don’t freak out. His phone is burning a hole in his pocket. Ilya texted right after the game, a simple, concise: what the fuck was that. Shane knows he’s going to call the second this media circus is over, and he just needs… a second. Just needs to box up the roiling mess in his stomach and put a lid on it before he says something he can’t take back. Even to Ilya. 

Sure enough, Shane has barely gotten back into his car before his phone is buzzing against his thigh. He imagines Ilya pacing his apartment, one hand pulling his hair and the other holding the phone out in front of him – on speaker, so he can gesture while he talks. The image is enough to make Shane pick up.

“What the fuck, Hollander?” The words come immediately, no preamble.

Shane sighs and tips his head back to rest on the seat behind him. Closes his eyes. “Hello to you, too.”

“You give your team hat trick on home ice and they can’t even fucking block for you? What is this?”

“Ilya.”

“If Montreal Voyageurs would rather play for Dallas Kent than fucking superstar Shane Hollander, best player in the league –”

“Best player, huh?” Shane interrupts.

“Second best, I said.” Shane can picture Ilya waving his hand around, pushing the comment aside. Then, suddenly, his voice is closer, like he pulled the phone up to his ear. Shane squeezes his eyes tighter, lets Ilya’s voice rumble through him. “Shane. What happened?”

There is quiet for a moment, as Shane thinks about all the answers he could give to that question. That he’s breaking, just a little bit, every single day. That his team hates him, probably. That he doesn’t know if he can do this, but he has to do it, because hockey is the only thing he’s ever wanted and the Voyageurs gave that to him and despite everything, he still loves them. 

What he eventually says is, “Kent knows.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then Ilya’s voice, trepidatious, “Kent knows?”

“About me, I mean,” Shane says, but even that is enough. “Not us. Not – anyway. I think Comeau told him tonight. Which is fine, it’s not like it’s not an open secret now, I expected everybody to know eventually, but I just…” he trails off.

“Comeau told Kent. About you.” Ilya’s voice is cold, hard. It’s phrased like a question but it doesn’t come out that way.

Shane sighs. “Yes.”

“Did Kent say something? Is that why –”

He cuts himself off, but Shane can fill in the rest of the sentence. Why you let Dallas Kent beat you at a faceoff for the first time all game. Why you skated like shit afterward, like your legs didn’t work. Why you got boarded like a fucking rookie, like you can’t keep it together doing the one thing you’re good at. 

Ilya comes back, breathing heavily. “I am going to kill him.”

“Ilya.”

“I am going to break his jaw, that mother fucker, that mudak –” he continues in Russian for a while. Shane catches about every fifth word, but he gets the gist. 

Eventually, he interrupts. “Ilya. It’s Kent, he’s always an asshole. There’s no reason to get this worked up over it.”

Ilya stops almost mid-word. There’s a pause, then his voice comes back, carefully controlled. “You think I am angry with Kent?”

For the first time, Shane feels a glimmer of confusion. He flexes his fingers on the steering wheel to buy himself a second to think. “Yes?”

“Kent is a fucking piece of shit! You know this, we all know this. I am going to knock his teeth out for hurting you, of course, but this is not new! Hollander,” Ilya says, and his voice is so close it’s almost like Shane can feel him breathing against his ear, “I am not mad at Kent. I am mad at your piece of shit teammate –” he almost spits the word – “who does not have enough decency to keep his captain’s business to himself.”

Shane’s heart, which has been galloping somewhere in his throat for most of this conversation, plummets down into his stomach. There’s a pit opening there, so dark and deep that Shane can’t see the bottom. He can’t – he’s not – “It’s fine,” he says, clawing himself away from the edge. “It’s not a secret, I want the league to know eventually –”

“Your team should not be making this decision for you. Especially not with fucking Dallas Kent, who tells fucking Guardians to board you after the puck is off your stick.”

The words stick in Shane’s chest. His team. His team. They travel down to the pit in his stomach, which is yawning wider and more terrifying with every word out of Ilya’s mouth. He manages, “It’s really fine –”

“It is not!” Ilya cuts him off. “Shane, this is not fine, you are not fine. You get hit from behind, you score a fucking beautiful hat trick and you do not even celebrate, this is –”

“Stop, okay?” Shane says, or snaps. It feels like the words are being pulled out of him on a fishhook, slicing up his throat as they go. “Don’t make me defend this to you, don’t – it’s fine, everything is good. The team is great, we’re playing well, we’re –” he stops, takes a deep breath. Almost gives into the urge to tip his forehead onto the steering wheel but doesn’t, because he’s not sure he’ll keep it together if he does. He sees Comeau, deep in conversation with Kent during the second intermission. He hears Kent’s voice, spitting, Fucking fairies. He squeezes his hands on the wheel until his knuckles are white. “It was a physical game,” he continues eventually. “That hit hurt. I’m just… tired.”

Ilya is quiet for so long that Shane would think he hung up if it weren’t for the soft shuffle of his breath through the speaker. Shane curls his fingers around the phone, presses it closer to his ear. Even when Ilya is tense, he’s the closest thing to comfort that Shane can find. 

“Shane.” Shane sighs in relief this time, because Ilya’s voice is softer. Quiet, the way it only gets when it’s the two of them. If it’s also a little bit sad, Shane can push that to the side. 

“Let it go, okay?” Shane says, and listens for Ilya’s huff of resigned breath.

“Okay, lyubimyy,” Ilya replies eventually, quietly, and Shane finally lets himself fold inward. “Just… tell me when you are no longer tired, yes? I will show you how to be angry instead.”

Shane stays like that for a while after Ilya hangs up. Hears the parking lot empty around him. He leaves his head on the steering wheel, lets his now silent phone sit in his lap while he breathes. He resets. He lets Ilya hold something he’s not ready to name.

When the lot is quiet and the cars are gone, Shane starts his car and drives home.

v. 2021

Shane has taken to getting on the ice early since the video. 

It’s all relative, of course. He’s always been early to arrive at practice. The vets used to make fun of him for it – nearly gave him the nickname Eager Beaver, turned into Beaver, which made Shane laugh almost hysterically before he talked them out of it. Eventually it stopped being notable. Hollander was early because Hollander was a hockey freak, and that’s how it was.

Now, though, he gets there early because the alternative is, frankly, awful. He’s early because it means he can be changed and laced up before the comments start. He can be on the ice before someone whips a black and gold towel at his chest and calls him a whore for Boston. 

Fuck. He shoots a puck toward the empty net as hard as he can, watches the webbing ripple as it hits. Right where he meant it to go.

“Hollander!” 

Theriault’s voice echoes through the empty rink, cutting through Shane’s focus. Shane can’t tell if he sounds angry or just firm, the way he always does. He skates over regardless. “Coach?”

“Scrimmage today. Full speed. Lead it.”

Shane blinks. Scrimmages during the season are usually slow, plodding things with lots of stoppage. They focus on drills, on execution. Full speed scrimmage means checking, which means potential for injury, which means someone might be out for the game against Nashville in two days. “Coach –”

“Hollander.” Theriault stares at him. His gaze flicks up and down and Shane thinks he sees his mouth curl dangerously for a split second before his face is a mask again. “Are you still leading this team, or aren’t you? Scrimmage. Now.”

Shane thinks, No, but he’s not sure what he’s responding to. He nods tightly and skates back to the center line, where the rest of the Voyageurs have loosely gathered, finally out of the lockers.

“Scrimmage today, boys,” he says, and pointedly ignores Hayden’s immediate look of concern from where he stands to the side. “Set it up.”

There’s grumbling, far more than there used to be, and some sidelong glances, but the team does split into smaller groups and lines up to play. It’s enough that Shane still thinks, Maybe, before Theriault calls for them to start and it all goes to shit.

Wilson misses the faceoff strike and hooks his stick around Shane’s foot instead, which could be an accident except that Shane catches a vindictive smile on his face when it happens. Shane stumbles and loses control of the puck in an attempt not to go down. 

“What was that, Hollander?” Theriault yells from the bench, and Shane can’t make himself answer as he sprints off toward the next play. 

It doesn’t get better.

He gets slammed against the boards by Drapeau, precisely and painfully, too hard for a practice match with a teammate who shouldn’t want to injure his captain. He watches Hayden get hooked and pulled down by Olsson, shuffling up a second later without a word from Theriault. He gets checked, boarded, shoved. His lungs are burning, and the team is playing ugly, and he can’t say anything because anything he says will make it worse. 

There’s something building in his chest again, something sharp and dangerous. He doesn’t want to name it. He wants it to settle, he wants to believe his team is capable of being his again. Ilya’s voice sneaks into his head, slow and steady. Tell me when you are no longer tired and I will show you how to be angry instead.

Ten minutes in, after a quick water break, Shane is battling for a puck against Comeau when it happens. They’re up against the boards, sticks clashing together, when Comeau’s stick slips out and goes high. Shane hears the crack first, almost like it landed on the glass. And then, a split second later, there’s the pain. Bright and hot, and the wetness on his lip, and Shane is still registering the fact that his fucking teammate made him bleed in practice when Drapeau slams into him from the other side and jams a stick into his ribs.

It fucking hurts. Shane bounces against the boards again, heavy and unrelenting. It hurts in a way that breaks him in half, that pushes him out of his body, that abruptly makes him more furious than he has ever been in his entire life. 

He shoves as hard as he can and doesn’t feel anything as Comeau and Drapeau stumble backward off of him. Shane is boiling. His hands don’t belong to him anymore. His feet are numb. The only thing he’s aware of is the unpleasant wetness sliding down his chin and the ringing in his ears.

“What the fuck!” he yells, and he hears it echo back to him through the suddenly silent rink. No one is moving. Drapeau blinks up at him from where he fell, looking furious and also a little shocked. 

Comeau spits, pushes himself up, but before he can say anything Shane is inches away from his face. He’s not even sure how he got there, with his hockey stick on the ice and his gloves down next to it. His body is moving faster than his brain. He sees his hands shoot out and shove Comeau in the chest again. His brain is cataloguing: the silent onlookers, the bloom of pain in his side, the face he’s known through ten years of weddings, breakups, Stanley Cups, now twisted up in a sneer. 

His mouth is moving again. “What the fuck was that! This is a fucking practice, we’re a fucking team, I am – I’m your fucking captain!” 

Comeau’s expression goes a little wild at that. “Some captain,” he snarls. “How many games have you thrown so you can stick your dick in Rozanov, huh, Hollander? Do you decide how many goals he can score on us so he’ll suck your cock? Fucking pathetic.”

It lands in Shane’s ears with the force of a car crash. The ringing intensifies. He hears it again: Fucking pathetic. As if he hasn’t sacrificed his body to this sport. As if he hasn’t given everything he has to this team, to this city. As if Ilya Rozanov is nothing but a good fuck and Shane is nothing but a weak, pitiful dog who will roll over and do what he’s told because Rozanov can make him come. 

Suddenly, completely, Shane wants to kill somebody. There’s a haze around his vision. He moves, before he’s sure what he’s going to do, but someone catches his arm.

“Shane, hey.” It’s Hayden. His voice is smaller than Shane has ever heard it, frayed at the edges. “Back up, okay? Take a breath.”

Shane tries. He thinks he tries, anyway. He’s never been this angry and he’s not sure how to make his lungs into something he can control. He stops, at least, and bends down to pick up his hockey stick, trusting that his hands will work even when he can’t feel them. Fucking pathetic. 

He looks at Comeau, and then scans across the rest of the ice. The faces range from horrified to shocked to furious, but no one says anything. Shane wipes his chin, ignores the flash of pain and shakes splatters of his blood off his hand. They land on the ice like something ending. 

This is it, then. He breathes, lets the silence fill up the space around him. Says, finally and flatly, “Call me when you remember I fucking built this team,” and skates toward the tunnel.

“Hollander,” Theriault calls from behind him, “if you leave you are benched, this is not an optional practice!”

“I’ve already been suspended,” Shane replies over his shoulder. The tunnel is close now, freedom and absolution and a terrifying new path all in one. “Get a new threat.”

“Hollander!”

Shane peels off the ice to the sound of his own name echoing in his ears.

–--

By the time he pulls up to Ilya’s house in Ottawa, the anger has dulled to something less like a stab and more like an old bruise. Mostly, Shane feels tired again. His ribs pull as he moves to get out of the car, the skin tightened up and sore. At least his face looks less gruesome. He stopped at a gas station and dabbed at it with some wet napkins, probably terrified the poor attendant, but it’s no longer bloody.

Ilya’s car is in the driveway. Shane feels like he can breathe for the first time all day.

He left in such a whirlwind that he didn’t even pack a bag – just fled, straight from the rink and onto the autoroute. He’ll need to borrow something from Ilya. Doesn’t know how to explain that to his boyfriend other than that he just wanted to get here, more than he wanted anything else, a dumb, animal need that sent him speeding for the first time in his life. 

Shane is tired. 

He fits his key into the lock and opens the door slowly, quiet in case Ilya is in the middle of a nap on the couch. The house is warm. It’s filled with a golden, afternoon light, and Shane hears the blender whirring as soon as he steps in. He kicks off his shoes and just stands for a second. Breathes. Loosens his shoulders and rolls his neck. He feels at home here, more at home than he’s felt in Montreal in a long time, and while he doesn’t want to interrogate that thought too closely he does want to let his body finally relax. 

He hears the click of a plastic cup on the counter and then a pause. “Shane?” Ilya calls, and then Shane is moving, like there’s a hook in his sternum and he’s being reeled in toward Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

He rounds the corner to see Ilya in gym shorts and no shirt, hand wrapped around a smoothie as it sits on the counter. His face is open, delighted, and something fundamental unfurls in Shane’s chest at the expression.

“You’re early,” Ilya says, releasing the cup and rounding the island. “I thought maybe another hour until – oof.”

He stops because Shane has stopped him, because Shane has taken five steps forward without realizing it and has pressed himself into Ilya’s body, Ilya’s arms automatically wrapped around Shane’s ribs and Shane’s face buried into the crook of Ilya’s neck. 

“Yes, hello, moy mishka,” Ilya murmurs with a huffed laugh into Shane’s hair, and all Shane can do is burrow himself deeper. He breathes in Ilya’s skin, which is sticky with dried sweat from what Shane assumes was an afternoon workout. He smells sharp and perfect. Shane doesn’t ever want to leave.

Ilya lets him stay there for a long minute, seemingly just as content to hold onto Shane as Shane is to hold onto him. Eventually, Shane says, quietly, “I missed you.”

Ilya pulls back and smiles when Shane makes a small noise of complaint. “I missed you too, solnyshko.” Shane closes his eyes as Ilya kisses him on the nose and the cheeks. He lets Ilya scratch his fingers into his hair, soothing and steady, and only opens his eyes when he feels Ilya’s thumb pull gently on his split lip. 

Ilya’s face is soft, concerned but not angry. “What is this?”

Shane could brush it off. They play a rough sport; a split lip at practice wouldn’t be anything notable. But his ribs still hurt and he’s tired, and he wants his boyfriend to do the impossible and make it better. “Bad practice,” he says, and watches Ilya frown. 

“How bad?”

“Bad,” Shane repeats. He can see the storm gathering behind Ilya’s eyes. He’ll have to talk about it eventually. But instead of letting it get any bigger, instead of facing the thing he doesn’t want to face, Shane leans in and kisses him, ignoring the bloom of pain. “Take my mind off of it?”

Ilya’s eyes are dark when he pulls away. “Shane –”

“Later,” Shane says, and god does he love the man in front of him, who takes the dismissal with a nod and tightens his fingers on Shane’s waist and looks at him with a ravenous, devouring hunger. It doesn't take much. Shane is lost. 

Ilya presses him backward, guides him to the couch and holds onto Shane’s hips as he lowers them both down. Shane goes. He goes without question. His thoughts have staticked out in the best possible way, in the way that makes everything quiet. All he feels is Ilya’s fingers slipping on his skin, Ilya’s mouth hot on his mouth, Ilya’s cock hard against his thigh. 

His side flares with pain as he falls onto the couch, but the small gasp that escapes is buried in Ilya’s panting. He doesn’t think about it. Pushes aside the sneer on Comeau’s face, the shock on Drapeau’s, the splatter of red that was his blood on Voyageurs ice. He’s not thinking about it. He’s thinking about Ilya kissing down his stomach, Ilya’s breath on his thighs, Ilya finally taking his cock in his mouth and – oh. Fuck.

His brain whites out. It’s all the wet heat of Ilya’s tongue and the buzz of his breathing and Shane is gone, he’s so gone that he forgets, except when he forgets he doesn’t remember to guard his side and he twists, or Ilya grabs, and suddenly the pain is so hot and bright that he can’t ignore it.

“Fuck, hold on,” he pants, and his hand flies to his ribs automatically. Ilya pulls off his cock with a wet sound.

“What? What happened?”

Shane doubles over and winces into his knees. “Nothing, just – give me a second.”

Ilya hovers from between Shane’s legs. Even without looking, Shane can see the worried expression on his face. He can feel it in the way Ilya’s hands skim up and down his thighs. “Did I hurt you? I didn’t – what did I do –”

“Stop, you didn’t do anything.” Shane lifts himself up. The expression on Ilya’s face is so naked that Shane can’t help but touch his cheek. “I’m fine.”

Ilya’s eyes dart over his body once, twice. “You are hurt.”

It’s ridiculous, having this conversation with his dick out of his pants. “It’s hockey,” he replies, a bit snappish.

Ilya just gives him a flat look and, without ceremony, shoves Shane’s shirt up his chest. 

Shane hadn’t looked in the car. It didn’t seem like it mattered, really, and he was in such a hurry to leave that he just… went. Sweaty and unshowered and fuming. He figured he’d take care of it later, without Ilya noticing.

He can see now what a mistake that was.

His ribs are an angry, swollen red, the skin around them tight and hot. This doesn’t look like a minor fall. This doesn’t look like something he can brush off. It looks like someone took a hockey stick and beat him with intention, like they were trying to change something under his skin.  

“I –” he starts, not sure where he’s going, but Ilya cuts him off in a low, horrified voice.

“This is from today?”

Shane sighs and closes his eyes. Ilya’s fingers ghost up his side, so light and tentative he can barely feel them. “Bad practice,” he says quietly, and Ilya makes a noise in the back of his throat that sounds more animal than human. 

“Shane,” Ilya says, strangled, “this is not – is more than bad practice, this –”

“Don’t.” It slips out unbidden, but once it does Shane finds his eyes are wet. “Please. Just don’t, I’ll – later, okay? Don’t say anything, don’t touch me differently, just – I can’t –”

The panic is clawing its way up Shane’s body, buzzing in his fingers and in his tongue. It’s too much. If he thinks about it right now he’ll go under and he’s not sure he’ll come back. His team tried – they tried – and he said – 

“Okay,” Ilya whispers, and his hands slide all the way up Shane’s body to cup the back of his head. “Hey, is okay. Later, solnyshko, yes.”

Shane nods, and Ilya tugs his face down until they are pressed forehead to forehead, until all Shane can do is breathe Ilya’s breath. “Take me to bed,” he whispers. He feels the nod more than he sees it.

Ilya stands up and tugs Shane behind him. His feet feel heavy; it’s like the bruise is a weighted vest, pulling Shane down with every step. But Ilya just pulls him up the stairs, insistent and careful, and Shane can let himself go.

In the bedroom, Ilya presses him on the shoulders until Shane is lying on the bed. “On your stomach,” he says quietly, and Shane goes. “Let me take care of you, hm?”

Shane barely manages a shuffled nod into the pillow. The sheets smell fresh, like Ilya washed them earlier today. He sinks into the mattress as Ilya flattens over him, kissing the back of his neck, licking down his spine. Shane has never been more grateful for his years of meditation. His brain just… floats. He stays in the moment, stays with Ilya pulling him open and pressing his tongue flat against Shane’s hole, gentle and demanding and so fucking good that Shane is hard before he even knows it.

It doesn’t take long. It never does, when Ilya does this – he’s shifting on the mattress in minutes. “Ilya,” he moans, half broken, and feels Ilya’s smile on his body.

“I have you.” He shifts Shane up just enough to get a hand around his cock, and that’s it, that’s the game.

–--

They make dinner, after. Or, Ilya manhandles Shane into a stool and sets a ginger ale down in front of him while he makes dinner. Shane lets it happen. There’s a thought growing roots in his mind, and soon he’s going to have to face it head on, but he doesn’t want to do it yet.

Ilya flips a piece of chicken in the pan, mostly golden and a little bit black. He gestures with the tongs immediately afterward, flinging oil into the air. “Harris is telling me that Chiron cannot come to road games, but I think this is bullshit. He would be good for team morale, which I am supposed to be manager of, as captain, so I think I will make this call.” Ilya flicks a glance at Shane, something Shane doesn’t quite catch, then barrels forward. “And Bood wants me to try his new hot sauce, because he thinks I am rookie he can intimidate.”

“Maybe he just wants to see how bad you are with spice,” Shane says, just so he can watch the indignance bloom over Ilya’s expression.

“Lies! You are liar. Nobody believes this, they say Shane Hollander is too perfect, too nice, he would never say something so rude and like such a liar –”

“They might believe you now,” Shane says quietly, before he can stop himself, and then he quickly shakes his head before he can hear the fracture in Ilya’s laughter. “Sorry. New hot sauce. Why does Bood want your opinion if you’re not going to like it, anyway?”

He looks up, barely catches the devastation in Ilya’s eyes before the expression smoothes and Ilya rounds the counter. He presses a kiss to Shane’s ear. “Because everyone loves me the most,” he whispers, too close, and Shane feels his boyfriend’s laughter as he makes a face.

They eat, quiet and comfortable on the couch, Ilya balancing a plate on Shane’s shins because he won’t let Shane be anywhere without touching him. It’s nice. It’s so nice that Shane forgets, for a few hours, the bubbling horror in his gut and the thought that keeps ripping thick, thorny branches through his vision of the future. 

He brushes his teeth without tasting it, climbs into bed automatically. The mattress shifts as Ilya settles next to him and presses a kiss to Shane’s bare shoulder. “Goodnight, lyubimyy,” Ilya whispers, soft and fond, and rolls over to go to sleep.

Shane stays awake. 

His ribs hurt. He’s exhausted, but none of the usual tricks to fall asleep are working. Tell me when you are no longer tired, he hears Ilya say, again and again. I’m still tired, he thinks, but maybe it’s not the most true thing.

Since the first time he went to Bell Centre with his mom, he’s had a picture in his head: a jersey, number 24 because that was the coolest age he could imagine when he was eight, with his name on the back. Hollander. Bright in white, ringed in red and splashed on a blue field. His name, his number, his legacy on the Montreal Voyageurs, hung up for the world to see. Retired, whenever he was finally ready to give up hockey. A monument to the game he changed.

He doesn’t think he can have that anymore.  

The thought is devastating, cataclysmic, too big for the night and this bed. If he’s not a Montreal Voyageur, who is he? What does that leave?

I will show you how to be angry instead. 

“Ilya,” he says into the dark, barely aware that it’s probably been hours and his boyfriend should be long asleep. But Ilya rolls over immediately. Shane hears it happen as he stares at the whorls of wood on the ceiling. “I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

There is a silence, and then a shuffling of sheets as Ilya presses closer. His hand slips up Shane’s chest, rests over his heartbeat. He doesn’t say anything.

Shane keeps his eyes trained upward and adds, forcing the words past the lump in his throat, “They don’t respect me anymore.”

Ilya’s fingers spasm on his chest. “Solnyshko,” he says, low in the darkness, “You know this is them, this is not you.”

“I know,” Shane whispers, and he does. He knows, it’s just – “But I’m not sure they ever respected me. I’m not sure I ever… fuck.” It’s too much, suddenly. He wants to climb out of his skin, throw himself off a cliff or run somewhere that no one will ever find him. Instead, he doubles over and digs his fingers into his sides, so hard the pain flares and he’s gasping. “Was I a bad captain? Did I – did I make them this way, did I let it happen because I never said anything? I don’t –”

“Shane.” Ilya’s hands tug on his arms, trying to loosen them. Shane barely feels it. The thought, now that it’s free in his brain, is careening around like a bull and smashing everything else. He can’t play with the Voyageurs anymore. They don’t want him. Did they ever want him? Was he a bad leader? He has to finish this season, but then – what if he can’t play hockey? He’s never said anything in anger to his coaches, to his team, and he doesn’t know if they’ll let him back in the rink after walking out. That’s not what a captain does. He can’t be their captain anymore. What if this is it, what if he’s done, he crashed and burned like he always worried he would, and nobody will remember him for being anything other than a hole for Ilya to fuck –

Ilya’s weight slams down on top of him, hard enough that Shane groans. There are hands on his face, tilting it upward. Ilya has swung himself over so he’s sitting in Shane’s lap, demanding and insistent, and all Shane can see now are Ilya’s eyes, determined and so beautiful and flicking over Shane’s. 

“Whatever you are thinking,” Ilya says, seriously, “stop.” Shane makes a weak attempt at pulling away, but Ilya tightens his grip. “Hollander. Your team is roster of dickheads. If they do not see the way you fed them wins on silver platter, if they are willing to let you go, this is their fault for being stupid.”

“I played with them for ten years,” Shane says, an automatic defense that comes out like more of a plea. Embarrassing. Ten years, and this is what he has to show for it. Bruised ribs and a split lip. 

Ilya’s eyes soften. “Yes, you did.”

“I don’t think I can keep doing this,” Shane whispers again.

Ilya strokes his thumbs over Shane’s cheekbones, traces the line they take with his eyes. “No, I do not think you can.”

“I…” Shane tips his head forward into Ilya’s neck, closes his eyes. “What do I do now?”

He feels the rumble of Ilya’s hum against his face. “Well,” Ilya says, “you have very hot, very rich boyfriend. So you could tie up your skates and become, what do they say? Kept man. Sugar baby. This is one option.”

Shane scoffs, even as his chest seizes. If he can’t play hockey, he can’t –

“But I don’t think this is for you,” Ilya continues, as if Shane said something out loud. He tugs lightly on the hair at the back of Shane’s head. Shane follows, helpless, until he’s looking into Ilya’s eyes again. “No, you are Shane fucking Hollander.” Ilya’s voice is serious, his eyes even more so. “You are going to play more hockey and break more records. You are going to win more Cups. You are going to show them that you are a fucking hockey god, and they will regret ever pushing you away. This is, I think, what you do now.”

He wants to put on this vision of himself like a new suit, to see if it fits. He also wants to give voice to the caged, pitiful animal in the back of his brain that keeps reminding him it was his job to lead this team, and it turns out he failed. He hates that he has to ask, that he needs this comfort, but God. He does. “Will anyone take me?”

Ilya’s half-laugh tickles Shane’s hair. “You are very stupid sometimes, lyubimyy.”

It probably shouldn’t help. But Ilya’s weight is heavy and comforting, and his skin is warm under Shane’s palms, and his voice is soft and sweet and fond.

Ilya keeps his eyes fixed on Shane’s until he eventually nods, until all he can do is be swept up in Ilya’s certainty. “Okay,” Shane says, like it’s easy. Like he’s not rewriting himself with every breath. “I’ll play somewhere else.”

“Okay?” Ilya thumbs over his freckles again, warm and steady.

“Okay,” Shane repeats, and this time he feels it settle into his chest. Things are changing. His life will be different than he pictured. He’ll wrap himself in Ilya’s warmth and Ilya’s arms and Ilya’s conviction, and he’ll keep playing hockey. On a new team. Maybe, possibly, on a team that lets him have everything he can imagine.

Not what he built in Montreal. Something better, with Ilya.

A new future.

Okay. 

+1. 2025

It’s his first game with the NHL, and Anders is nervous. 

Everyone in the AHL dreams of getting the call. It happened for him on a Tuesday, an empty morning before afternoon practice, when he was debating whether to go for a run or sit on his couch for an hour and play Call of Duty. In retrospect, that’s maybe why he isn’t in the big leagues to begin with. He’s pretty sure Shane Hollander has never skipped a run for video games. 

But it happened anyway, and now he’s playing his first game on real NHL ice. As a Montreal Voyageur, the team that Hollander built from the ground up. He knows Hollander won’t be there now, but maybe he can, like… absorb his energy, or something. Touch the same stall that Hollander touched, and it’ll rub off on him.

Not in a creepy way. 

But his sister has always been a huge hockey fan, bigger even than Anders was growing up, and there was a stretch of time when she wouldn’t hold her wife’s hand when they went to games together. Hollander changed that, a little. 

Also, he’s really fucking good at hockey. 

Anders sets his things down at an empty stall and chances a glance around. It’s pretty much the same as the AHL, so far – hockey players, halfway dressed, smacking each other with towels. Then he hears someone say, “So, Hollander and Rozanov tonight. Think they can still play, or are their knees too sore?”

A few guffaws around the room. Someone else – Anders recognizes Gilbert Comeau – says, “Can’t believe the League didn’t kick them out. How long are we supposed to pretend it’s okay for them to be in this fucked up situation like it's normal?”

Anders’ spine goes cold. Does he have to say something? This is – he’s new, he’s not sure – 

“Weird how obsessed you are with this guy you say you hate, Comeau,” Pike says loudly, interrupting his train of thought. “Jealous much?”

Anders watches Comeau’s face turn red before he deliberately turns his back on Pike and says something to Olsson in a low voice. Pike seems entirely unbothered, reaching up to grab tape so he can work on his stick.

That was… well. Anders had heard that the Montreal locker room was still something of a mess, but this is a fucking nightmare. At least Pike seems nice. And maybe there’s a chance for him to show the kind of player he wants to be. 

“Hey, Pike?” he asks. 

Pike nods at him but doesn’t look up from where he’s sloppily wrapping tape around his stick. Jesus. Anders’ fingers itch to pull it out of his hand and make it neater.

“You’re friends with Hollander, right?” Might as well shoot his shot.

Pike’s fingers freeze on his messy tape. “Yes,” he replies eventually, but his voice is clipped. He doesn’t say anything else.

Nothing to do but barrel on ahead. “Could you introduce me at the end of the game? My sister is like his biggest fan and I don’t know how long I’m gonna be here, so I’d love to meet him while I can.”

Pike sighs. “He doesn’t usually stick around after Montreal games, kid. I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Anders says. But he hears Liss in his head, yelling at him if he blows this for her, so he might as well go for broke. “It’s just, she and her wife like, love him. Not in a weird way! Just that they were Montreal fans forever and he made the game feel different for them, so I thought…” he trails off.

Pike squints at him, like he’s sizing him up. Anders isn’t sure what to do but straightens his shoulders and smiles, probably a little awkwardly. “Jesus,” Pike breathes eventually, then points his stick directly at Anders’ nose. “You better be cool about this, alright? Shane hates when people do this shit.”

“Uh – yes! Of course.” God, Liss is going to flip. 

“Good. Now go score us some goals.” Pike claps Anders on the back and moves out of the room without saying anything to anyone else.

Here’s the thing: Anders does not score any goals.

He doesn’t have the chance. He’s not a bad player, he doesn’t think, even if he hasn’t gotten used to the furious pace of the NHL yet. But the Voyageurs’ lines are, frankly, a mess. Olsson can’t connect a pass to save his life, Comeau has been checked into the boards so many times that he can barely stay on his skates.

But it's not a total bust, because at least he can watch Hollander.

He really should be paying attention to plays and angles and weaknesses of the opposing team or whatever, but he can’t help it. It’s a whole different thing, seeing a player like that in person. Close up. He’s watched Hollander play before, of course, games and tape to prepare, but it looks different tonight. His lines are perfect, his passes are quick and precise, all of that is still true, but he also looks like he’s having… fun. 

Troy Barrett says something to him as they skate back to set up at center line, and Hollander replies, loud enough for Anders to hear, “You’re such a dick,” but he’s smiling as he says it. Barrett taps him on the helmet and Hollander shoves him away, still grinning. 

Hollander hops the boards for a shift just as Anders is coming off, and he swears he hears Ilya Rozanov yell, “Trick shot! Between the legs, Hollander!”

Hollander flips him off as he skates hard toward the puck, but ten seconds later Anders sees him do the neatest little deke he’s ever seen and the goal horn sounds. Hollander skates back to the bench and says, panting, “Better to actually score, I’d say.”

Rozanov grins at him. “I still prefer something between your legs.”

“Jesus,” Hollander groans, but his face is pink and pleased as he heads back toward center ice.

Later, in the third period, Anders is rounding the back of the Voyageurs goal during a penalty reset, and he hears Wyatt Hayes say to Hollander, “Hey, if you and Roz want to come over tomorrow, Lisa promised to make muffins for anyone who tried DnD with us.”

Hollander is leaning against the goalpost, more casual than Anders has ever seen him. “You know we’re still playing a game, right?”

“We’re going to win, though,” Hazy replies with a flip of his hand. Anders probably should be more hurt by that than he is, but it’s hard to argue with a 4-0 scoreboard. “You and Rozy never let Montreal beat us.”

Shane laughs at that. “Yeah, alright, then. Text me the time after and I’ll make sure Ilya wakes up.” He knocks his stick on the post. “But let me at least pretend to focus on hockey until the buzzer, okay?”

“Like you’re ever not focused,” Hayes argues, but Hollander just skates away, grinning. 

It’s so different than what Anders expected. Everything he’s ever heard about Hollander, from pundits and press and players in the locker room, is that he’s something of a hockey robot. Plays hard, tracks stats, doesn’t laugh. Takes the game seriously. Pushes himself hard. And it’s not like he’s not taking this game seriously – Hollander has two goals and an assist, and Anders is pretty sure Olsson will be nursing a bruise from Hollander’s check for days. But he's also… loose. Happy, maybe. Free. 

Anders pulls Pike aside right after the final buzzer, before he can forget his promise and make his way into the tunnel. “Now?” he asks, hopefully.

Pike doesn’t look thrilled, but he nods. “Yeah, okay, sure.”

They both turn toward the Ottawa bench, where Rozanov and Hollander are leaning against the boards. They both have their helmets off, and Rozanov is trying to rub his sweaty hair into Shane’s cheek. 

“Gross!” Hollander shouts, but he’s laughing. “Jesus, Ilya, get off.” He shoves with one hand, but Rozanov doesn’t go far, and Anders clocks Hollander’s other hand tangled in the hem of Rozanov’s jersey. 

“God, I hate interrupting,” Pike complains, but it’s under his breath. Anders ignores it and follows Pike as he skates closer and calls, “Shane, hey! Someone wants to meet you.”

Rozanov groans dramatically and flops his head down onto Hollander’s shoulder. “Shane, solnyshko, please leave before Pike ruins this very good thing of winning game against your horrible old team,” he says, and his voice is muffled.

“Shut up,” Hollander replies, but it’s fond. He nudges Rozanov’s head off his shoulder and skates to meet them halfway. “Hayden, good game.” Hayden makes a face, and Shane grimaces. “Well, okay game, I guess. And it’s Anders, right?”

Anders feels like he's been struck by lightning. Hollander knows his name. Shane Hollander knows his name. “I – uh, yes – hello. Hi. Mr. Hollander, hello.” What is he saying? What did he come here to say again?

Hollander gives him a polite smile. “Just Shane is fine. You played well today. First call up, right?”

“I – yes. Thank you, wow. Not as well as you, though. Obviously.” Jesus.

Hollander chuckles a bit. “Well, lots of practice.” He glances back at Rozanov, who is now looking at his wrist with a petulant expression on his face. “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

There’s a short pause, while Anders’ brain short-circuits and Hollander waits politely for him to say something else. When he doesn’t, Hollander sticks his hand out, somewhat awkwardly. “Nice to meet you, Anders.”

“Yeah, you, too. Uh – wait,” Anders manages, then shakes his head to clear it. “I just wanted to say, um… my sister. You mean a lot to her. She’s a big fan.”

“Oh.” Hollander looks at Rozanov again. Rozanov’s face is much less petulant and much more gleeful this time. “That’s very – nice. I’m married, though, so…”

“No!” Anders nearly shouts, and Hollander startles. Rozanov has his hand over his mouth now, clearly trying to stifle laughter. “Sorry, no, I just – so is she? My sister. To her wife. For like, a long time now. But they’re big hockey fans and you… it means a lot to them, that you’re playing. And so good. And such a role model? So I guess – uh, thanks. I just wanted to say. And hi.”

Hollander’s face softens somewhere in this muddle of words, and when Anders manages to meet his eyes again, he’s smiling. “Thank your sister for me, then. And tell her I hope I get to see her brother playing in the NHL for longer, he’s got real potential.” Hollander claps him on the shoulder, nods at Hayden, and turns back to Rozanov. 

“You are his sister’s role model!” Rozanov says delightedly, as Hollander reaches him. “My husband, so good at hockey and so sexy to baby players.”

“Ilya,” Hollander groans. 

Rozanov throws an arm around Hollander’s shoulder and pulls him toward the tunnel, where the rest of the Centaurs have long disappeared. He leans down and murmurs something in a language Anders doesn’t catch. 

“Maybe I’m just lucky,” Hollander replies.

“Mm, I don’t think so.” Their voices are getting quieter as they move away, but the fondness in Rozanov’s tone is unmistakable. “I think you are just you.”

Hollander pauses, glances back around the emptying stadium. Anders watches a small, satisfied smile tip up on his face. “Yeah,” he says, and he looks steady. Sure. “That, too.”