Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander

Additional Tags:

Canon Divergence, Show / book canon mashup but it's mostly show, This is not a fix it is a speed run, Yuna's got a plan, Yuna's plan is absolutely going to work and isn't going to make anything worse, I'm going to put them in a jar labelled 'institutional homophobia' and shake it vigorously

Language:

English

Series:

Part 5 of It starts in an elevator

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-22 Completed: 2026-03-11 Words: 96,337 Chapters: 22/22

the best laid plans

Summary

When Ilya and Shane decide they want a plan to let them soften the rivalry and (maybe, eventually) come out without it being an NHL emergency, they ask Yuna for help. Yuna's got a 6 stage plan and it is absolutely, definitely going to work.

Notes

Thanks to any readers who are returning once again!

For any new readers - you can probably get away with starting here and you'll only be a little bit confused, but you may want to start at the beginning of the series if you want to see some backstory to Yuna and Ilya becoming friends well before she knew that he was her future son-in-law.

The work is finished but needs some fairly heavy editing - I'm planning to stick to daily updates provided my editing stays on schedule. Chapter count may change slightly since a couple of the later chapters are 20,000 words long and I might break them up.

Serious warning: I truly and sincerely intended this as a lighthearted fix-it. I failed in that effort almost immediately. I will add content warnings chapter by chapter as needed, but as a general warning the later chapters contain some fairly detailed depictions of workplace homophobia and mental illness, amongst other things.
Have fun!

Chapter 1: Stage 1: Start with your teams

Chapter Notes

Thanks to any readers who are returning once again!

For any new readers - you can probably get away with starting here and you'll only be a little bit confused, but you may want to start at the beginning of the series if you want to see some backstory to Yuna and Ilya becoming friends well before she knew that he was her future son-in-law.

The work is finished but needs some fairly heavy editing - I'm planning to stick to daily updates provided my editing stays on schedule. Chapter count may change slightly since a couple of the later chapters are 20,000 words long and I might break them up.

Serious warning: I truly and sincerely intended this as a lighthearted fix-it. I failed in that effort almost immediately. I will add content warnings chapter by chapter as needed, but as a general warning the later chapters contain some fairly detailed depictions of workplace homophobia and mental illness, amongst other things.
Have fun!

Okay. This isn’t about coming out yet – it’s about setting things up so you can.

The ideas you had make sense. A charity to give you a reason to be seen together is a great idea. Even Ilya switching teams makes sense, I suppose.

(Yes, alright - I care about hockey too much. We’ve established this.)

The problem is – that doesn’t undo the story. It doesn’t undo the rivalry. People aren’t going to know what to make of it, and they aren’t going to accept it. And until they do, your problem isn’t solved.

Starting a charity together is too big, too fast — people won’t know where to put it. Start smaller. Start with your teams.

September 2017

The game was over – a narrow but pleasing win to the Metros – and Shane is sitting in a bar beside JJ and Hayden, fidgeting with a beer glass and wishing his Mom hadn’t convinced him this was a good idea.

It’s a nice bar, at least. Shane tries to distract himself by taking it in. Modern, clean lines, but not echoing like a museum. They’re seated in a nook off to one side, giving them the chance to talk in relative privacy, but – and Shane tries not to cringe – there are sightlines enough that if someone wants to take a sneaky photo of Shane out with his buddies, they have every chance.

“Are you actually going to spit it out any time soon?” Hayden asks in exasperation.

“Yeah, Hollander. Tell us what the big favour is. The game is over. We could be partying with the team but we are here with you to meet your secret girlfriend or whatever.”

“We are not meeting my secret girlfriend,” Shane immediately retorts. He can feel the flush already climbing onto his face. He’s only glad Ilya’s not here to hear it; he’d not be able to hold back from at least six terrible jokes. “Don’t – don’t repeat that.” He turns his beer glass in a quarter circle, then figures it’s probably easier just to drink it. Takes a long swallow, sets it down, and says “We’re here to meet Ilya Rozanov.”

Hayden and JJ just stare at him.

“…weird joke, dude,” Hayden says eventually.

“Not a joke,” Shane sighs. “It’s – look, it’s a long story, okay? But my Mom wants us to put the rivalry story to bed, and came up with this whole plan for it. And I want your help. So, if you’re not up for that, you can just go. I won’t hold it against you.”

“Your mom wants the rivalry put to bed,”  Hayden repeats slowly, like he thinks he might be dreaming and is examining the words for minute inconsistencies.

Shane tries not to fidget. He really hates this part of the plan. “Yeah. She and – and Rozanov have this weird friendship, ever since that time they got stuck in the elevator…”

“Capitaine, please say Rozanov will not be your new beau-père,” JJ says, half-joking but screwing up his face.

“Fuck! No!” Shane says, almost choking. “JJ, that is so fucking gross.” He can feel his shoulders bunching, and he gives JJ a flat look. “Don’t ever say that again.”

JJ spreads his hands. “What else am I meant to think?” he asks, as if wounded.

“Not that! Jesus. It’s fucking gross, JJ.” JJ doesn’t seem to get it, more pouty than penitent, so Shane lets his anger bubble through for once. “It’s gross to my mom, but even leaving her out of it… they were stuck in an elevator. A tiny box. For two hours. They had to have the door pulled open by the fire service. She was just about having a panic attack. You think Rozanov is the kind of creep who would hit on someone like that?” JJ hesitates, and Shane can feel his glare ratchet up from ‘tense’ to ‘furious’. “Really, JJ?”

“He is always saying shit,” JJ says defensively.

“Yeah? What kind of shit? He ever talk about Jackie, Hayden? He ever call you a slur, JJ?” Shane is fully pissed off now. “He talks a lot of trash and he’s annoying as hell and yes, he’s an asshole, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t trust him with your sister more than you’d trust Dallas Kent. Or Troy Barrett.” Shane’s eyes flatten further. “Or Gil Comeau.”

Hayden recoils at that. “Shane! Buddy! He’s our teammate!”

Shane stuffs down the horrible feeling of disloyalty and brazens it out with a shrug.

“Are you saying Rozanov wouldn’t make a move on my sister?” JJ says, sounding incredulous and oddly insulted.

“I’m saying that if he did, he wouldn’t tell her that his wife doesn’t put out because she’s a frigid bitch who doesn’t understand him and they’re really going to separate this time,” Shane says flatly.

He sees the surprise in JJ and Hayden’s faces, and tries to drown his grimace with another mouthful of beer. Then he breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and tries to get a hold of himself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be running down Comeau.” He shouldn’t, he knows; he’s the Captain, and he’s not there to judge his teammates on their personal lives. It just… rubbed him the wrong way, that Hayden and JJ had both been in the bar last week when Comeau was chatting up some girl with that horrible line, but they’d have thought nothing of getting a beer with him after a game. Rozanov, though – the man who shut down reporters looking for a sexist quip and broke Dallas Kent’s nose after he insulted Yuna – gets a side-eye.

Hayden stares at him. “I thought you hated Rozanov,” he says slowly.

Shane sighs. This is the bit that his mom had seen coming; the bit she said would happen over and over again, the biggest hurdle before all their plans. Bigger than coming out, she’d warned him, and insane as it had seemed at the time he’s now realising that perhaps she’s read it right.

“Hayd, I’ve known him since I was seventeen,” he says, trying for patience. “We played in two junior world cups. We were in the same draft, in the same hotels, working out in the same gyms. We’ve done ad campaigns together, we’ve been in I don’t know how many stupid interviews or award panels. We see each other every year at All Stars. I’ve played on the same line as him at All Stars! Outside of the Metros, there is no single player in the league that I have spent as much time with as Rozanov.”

“But he always fucks with you on the ice!” JJ complains.

“Yes, he’s an asshole, we’ve covered this,” Shane says.

“You love it, Hollander,” says a familiar voice, and there he is; smirking smugly, looking relaxed and arrogant as if he’s in a hockey bar in Boston, fully assured of his welcome, rather than in a city that has a special hatred for him, about to sit down for a drink with two people who look like they’d like to punch him.

Ilya slides into the seat next to Shane without hesitation, and despite everything else – the thrumming tension, his frustration with JJ and Hayden, his desire to check Ilya into boards that don’t exist here for that particular chirp – Shane can’t help but smile at him.

“Uh, hi,” says a second voice, and Shane forces himself to look past Ilya to the significantly more discomposed man half-heartedly following behind. “Rozy dragged me along, said it would be okay…”

Hayden makes a frankly outraged noise under his breath. “Fucking Cliff Marlow, too?” he says, and Marlow looks even more uncomfortable.

“Sit, Marly,” Ilya orders.

Shane glares at Hayden and JJ, gives Marlow a small smile, and says “Yeah, of course, I told Rozanov he should bring whoever. As long as everyone can play nice and we don’t end up having a bar fight.”

“No promises,” mutters Hayden, staring balefully as Marlow sits.

“I really am sorry about the hit,” Marlow says to Shane directly. “I was glad to see you back on the ice today.”

“Rozanov passed on your apologies,” Shane says easily. “It’s fine. It’s the game. We all get our bell run eventually, right?”

Under the table, Ilya slides his foot so it’s touching Shane’s. Shane moves half an inch closer to him, angles his foot so the whole length of it is pressed to Ilya’s.

There is a strained silence, while JJ and Hayden glare suspiciously at Rozanov and Marlow, Marlow mostly stares at his beer, and Ilya just grins as if he personally finds the awkwardness to be hilarious.

“This was such a bad idea,” Shane mutters. The tension at the table is coming from too many directions, now, and he feels it like an itch over his skin. Even the pressure of Ilya’s foot against his isn’t enough to counteract it.

“All Yuna’s ideas are good ideas,” Ilya contradicts him immediately. “You are just very bad at this.”

Shane gladly focuses on glaring at him. “Suck-up,” he retorts.

He shrugs. “Not my fault I am favourite son,” he says innocently.

“Fuck off.”

Ilya smirks again. “Like I said, Hollander, you are bad at this. I just arrived. The point is we all stay for a while, yes? We are all good friends who have a good time together.” Like an asshole, he raises his glass and holds it theatrically up. “To friendship!” he says. No one responds, and he pointedly continues to hold his glass. “No, I know how this goes. We all tap glasses now.”

“I will murder you,” Shane tells him between gritted teeth, and lifts his own glass to match. Marlow obligingly follows along, and Shane glares at JJ and Hayden until they reluctantly do the same. They clink the glasses together and drink.

“I don’t get it, Capitaine,” JJ complains. “He is still fucking with you, why are you trying to help his image?”

Shane can feel a headache starting to build from all the tension in his jaw. He closes his eyes for a moment in a bid for patience. Ilya moves so their knees are nudging together.

“He fucks with us, too,” Marlow says resignedly. “I think it’s some kind of birth defect. He opens his mouth and it just comes out.”

“So you’re saying Shane isn’t special?” Hayden asks.

“Hollander is very special,” Ilya objects, and Shane tries to brace himself. “He is more fun to fuck with then the Raiders.” Shane can’t stop himself glaring at Ilya, wondering exactly how hard he’s going to push it and trying to communicate wordlessly exactly how much revenge he is willing to exact. “Puffs up like angry kitten when I chirp at him.”

It isn’t what Shane was expecting – he was steeling himself for some innuendo that would fill him with a mix of fury, arousal, and anxious dread. Instead he’s caught by surprise, flushing and off-balance. “I do not,” he retorts.

“Very cute,” Ilya assures him.

“Oh, fuck you, Rozanov!” Shane replies.

“No, thank you. Am meeting Jane later,” he says with a grin.

Shane shuts up tensely at that, though Marlow lets out a little guffaw. “Jane is Rozy’s Montreal girl,” Marlow explains easily as a server comes, depositing on the table various fries and small plates of snacks. Ilya waves them all to eat; Marlow takes a fry without hesitation, though JJ and Hayden look profoundly suspicious. “I can tell he’s serious about the weird PR stunt because otherwise he’d have ditched this to go hook up with her.”

“Sounds familiar,” Hayden mutters, and Shane feels a cold line down his back even as his shoulders tense further. He leans away from Ilya, into Hayden and JJ’s space.

“You will stop right there if you don’t want a full practise of bag skates tomorrow,” he mutters direly.

Ilya reaches over and casually digs a finger into his ribs. “Hollander, your teammates think I am trying to poison them,” he complains. “Eat something, so they know that I’m not trying to take out thirteenth and fifteenth best Metro.”

Shane hesitates; Ilya casually rearranges the snacks on the table so the small plates of olives and roast vegetable pieces are closer to him, the fries further away. Ilya has a point about the worry about poisoning, he reasons, and accepts an olive.

“Happy?” he asks sarcastically. Ilya just grins at him.

Hayden hesitantly reaches out and takes a fry, then after eating it seems to surrender, and take another. JJ isn’t far behind him, though he mutters a complaint about Ilya not having ordered the charcuterie that this bar apparently is known for.

Shane’s takes another mouthful of his beer. His tension is starting to ebb, though its absence doesn’t help his headache any. JJ’s flagged down the server, and Ilya tacks on an order for ginger ale on top of the request for some kind of fancy selection of cheese and cured meats that JJ is giving.

“What is the PR stunt, anyway?” Hayden asked. “All we got out of Shane was that his mom doesn’t like the rivalry.”

Ilya spreads his hands like a showman. “Is true,” he says. “Yuna is very concerned for me. I am like long-lost child of her heart. She wants to have family Christmas with matching ugly sweaters. But rivalry gets in the way of her happy family dreams.” He looks at Shane, and calculatingly adds, “Alas.”

Marlow eats more of the bar snacks, looking unperturbed. Hayden and JJ look at Ilya like he’s crazy, then swivel to look at Shane.

“Horrifyingly, that’s more or less true,” Shane says with a sigh, shoving away his instinctive, rueful warmth at the image of it. “The ‘alas’ was over the top, though.” He narrows his eyes at Ilya. “As was the Christmas sweater thing. Don’t put that idea in her head.”

“Was David’s idea,” Ilya says, and Shane has to bite back a groan.

He can see JJ and Hayden looking somewhere between baffled, stunned, and freaked out, so he tries to salvage the situation. “Ignore him. I know it’s hard, but try. Uh, mostly Mom wants to do a bunch of brand deals with the two of us. She’s been talking with Rolex and stuff. They like the ‘competitive edge’ but want to know that their two brand ambassadors aren’t going to strangle each other.” Shane shoots Ilya a dark look. “Though I still might.”

“You love me,” says Ilya cheerfully, and Shane rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I love you,” he replies sarcastically. Under the table, Ilya’s leg moves to press against his own, and his sarcastic smile softens into something warmer.

 It goes… alright. They share the snacks between them. Everyone gets another beer, apart from Shane who with relief drinks the ginger ale Ilya ordered for him, giving Ilya a smile as he does. Marlow, after a moment, leads them into familiar conversations – complaining amiably about hotels and roadtrips, talking about the pre-season, recent games, new rookies who don’t know a stick from a puck.    

Shane suspects – strongly – that JJ and Hayden would quite like to ambush him and interrogate him about Ilya, but he can still feel the headache lurking at the base of his skull. So he finishes his ginger ale, checks his watch, and says to them as calmly as he can, “Thank for coming out and doing me a solid, but I’m beat, I’m going to call a car.”

“Come on, Capitaine. Don’t go yet. Let’s lose the Raiders and have another drink,” JJ suggests, with an expansive gesture at Shane and Hayden.

“If you think I’m going to take responsibility when Jackie yells at him for being late home, you’re wrong,” Shane tells them, shaking his head. “If you’re having another drink, I’m claiming ignorance.” He taps on his phone, calling a ride, and nods to Marlow. “It was good to spend time with you.”

Marlow gives him a grin back, markedly more relaxed than he was at the start. “Especially without the paramedics getting involved, huh?”

“As long as you don’t undo all my hard work by starting a brawl,” Shane cautions them.

Ilya gives a smirk. “Boring, Hollander,” he says. “Leaving early and leaving rules.”

“I thought you had somewhere you’re meant to be?” Shane challenges him.

“Meeting my Jane, yes,” Ilya agrees. He smiles, toying with his phone. “She will be impatient if I’m late. But sometimes that can be fun, too.”

Cliff guffaws again, and Shane rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He hopes Ilya doesn’t mean it; thinks he doesn’t. But he can’t ask here, in any case, and his hovering hesitation will start to look strange soon. He gathers himself, checks the timing of his ride.

“Ah, cap, you’ve already kept her waiting,” says Cliff easily. “Let’s call a car, and I’ll drop you at Jane’s on the way back to the hotel.”

Ilya shakes his head. “You think you are smart guy, huh? I will call car, I will drop you at hotel on my way to Jane.”

Cliff drains the last mouthful of his beer. “It was good to meet the two of you,” he says earnestly to JJ and Hayden. “We should do it again sometime. I think we probably have more in common than we guessed.”

“Yeah, maybe,” says Hayden uncertainly. “We’ll, uh, see you at practise, Shane.”

Shane is just grateful to make his escape without any major carnage behind him.

Shane has changed into sweats, turned the lights to dim, taken Tylenol, done some simple yoga stretches, and given up and slumped onto the couch with his face pressed into one of his throw pillows by the time the door opens and he hears Ilya’s familiar footsteps. He doesn’t call out, trusting Ilya to find him, and instead he just listens for the steps that wend their way through the condo, hesitate, and then make their way to his side.

Ilya’s weight settles next to him, and then Ilya’s hands are warm and strong on the back of his neck, his thumbs rubbing soothing lines and circles over the base of his skull, the hinge of his jaw, his fingers fanning out under Shane’s collar to stroke the tight muscles of his shoulders. Shane lets out a low groan of relief, feeling the relaxation ease down his spine from Ilya’s presence as much as his touch.

“Bad?” Ilya murmurs.   

“Mmph,” Shane says, having to turn to escape the pillow before he can answer. “Not bad. Already fading.” It’s not a lie; and when Ilya’s lips join his hands on Shane’s neck, the shivers that chase each other down his skin make it even more true. Shane sighs in pleasure and relief.

“I have kissed it better?” Ilya asks. Shane can hear the smile in his voice. “I can do more, if you are hurting from the game.”

“Pff,” Shane says, still half into his pillow. “The game? It was nothing. Easy. Hey!” Ilya swats him on the buttock, and he yelps a protest. “Sore loser.”

“Canada’s golden boy,” Ilya says. “Winner of the Lady Byng. If only everyone knew the truth. You are secret asshole.” Shane smiles and trusts Ilya with his weight as Ilya’s arms come around him, pulling him into his lap, into a kiss.

“I am not a secret asshole,” he murmurs after, cuddling close.

“This is true. Your asshole is no secret to me,” Ilya says easily, automatically pinning Shane’s arms at his sides when Shane tries half-heartedly to elbow him, and kissing him again. “We are old friends.” He gives Shane’s ass a friendly pat, as if to demonstrate this. “You have not eaten since game? Just protein shake and then three olives in the bar? I bet you have boring healthy meals in fridge, yes?”

Ilya stands up holding Shane – a casual display of strength that Shane finds more than a little distracting. “I had more than three olives,” he protests automatically, even as he reluctantly tolerates Ilya carrying him into the kitchen and depositing him on a stool at the breakfast bar.

“Four olives, then,” Ilya says, rummaging through the fridge. “Have a boring healthy meal with me, Hollander, then I will suck your cock very nicely as a reward for being brave and having a beer with me in public.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says automatically. “No, not that one, the quinoa,” he says as Ilya holds up options. “What do I get as my reward for winning, then?”

Ilya puts their choices in the microwave to warm up, pours them each a glass of water, and comes over to kiss him lingeringly. “Whatever you want, moy lyubimyy.”

Shane slumps a bit against him as he tries to activate his general state of mild horniness – now edging back up into moderate horniness as Ilya slips a hand under his shirt and kisses lightly over his jaw - into some kind of plan, but hits the roadblock of cognitive strain that’s been with him all evening. Ilya takes his chin, tilts his gaze up, and Shane smiles at him ruefully. “Coming up blank,” he admits.

Ilya’s gaze softens. “You just want to sleep?” he checks.

In answer, Shane parts his knees, and draws Ilya between his thighs, wrapping his legs around him and rocking against him as he kisses him. “Definitely not,” he says.

“You want me to decide for you?” Ilya asks, and Shane sighs a little with pleasure at the idea of it. Ilya kisses him one last time before disentangling them to get their food from the chiming microwave. “I will choose a very good reward for you.”

Chapter End Notes

Translations:

beau-père – stepfather
moy lyubimyy – my beloved

(It's all google translate - please do correct me if I have got it wrong!)

Chapter 2: Crowd noise 1

Chapter Notes

I'm so excited with how many people are already reading, commenting, and making predictions! Please know that I grinned a goblin grin every time one of you started speculating about what Marly, Hayden, and JJ suspected. I hope those commenters in particular enjoy this chapter.

I suggest keeping an eye on the scene time-stamps - the chapters take place from different points of view and some of the time periods overlap between this chapter and the next couple.

September 2017

Puck Insider Blog @PuckInsider
🚨 SPOTTED 🚨 Rival captains sharing drinks in a Montreal bar after Metros win. 👀
[blurry photo of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov mid-toast]

TMZ Sports @TMZ_Sports
Hockey’s Hottest Feud Cooling Off? Check out our EXCLUSIVE body language commentary on the surprisingly cosy meeting between long-time rivals Rozanov and Hollander. [Full article here]

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Is this some kind of PR thing? There’s no way they are actually friends.

@ChaosGoalie
If this is a PR stunt I respect the commitment bc they are sitting CLOSE.

@HollanderHive
Hollander looks like he wants to kill him. I approve.

@NHLTea
Friendship? In MY hockey rivalry?

@NHLTea
But seriously folks, lets zoom in, because this uhh does not look like hatred.
[cropped image of Rozanov leaning toward Shane, Shane mid-eye-roll but smiling]

@HollanderHive
You’re reaching.

@MontrealStandard
You don’t break bread with a guy who cheap-shots your teammates. What kind of leadership is this?

@saypuckit
This is good for the league. Personal hatred is exhausting.

@RaidersRiot
Honestly? Power move. Go into enemy territory and drink their beer.

@KaytlaTweets
Enemies to reluctant drinking buddies.

@BlueCollarMetro
What the hell is this nonsense. I swear if they’re actually friends I’m burning my jersey.

@bringback1987
Back in my day captains didn’t have “wine nights” with the enemy. Soft league.

@TumblrRefugee
The sexual tension in this blurry iPhone photo is insane.

@RaidersRiot
here is no sexual tension. Log off.

@TumblrRefugee
No ❤️

Late September 2017

October 2017

November 2017

Early December 2017

Sportsnet @sportsnet
Are hockey’s fiercest foes changing the script? Read our Big Read on what’s behind those late-night meetups. [From Hatred to Happy Hour? Inside the Softening of Hockey’s Fiercest Rivalry]

@TheStatsGuy
“The rivalry hasn’t cooled — but the hostility has.” This is exactly right. Competition =/= hatred.

@RaiderFaithful
As long as they show up on the ice I don’t care.

@RozanovApologist
Rozy invented diplomacy.

@RaidersRiot:
I still want blood in playoffs.

@HollanderDefender
Cap setting the tone

@RealHockeyOnly
This is just woke nonsense now. But I guess this is what happens when you let 23-year-olds run the league.

@saypuckit
Just because they’re rivals doesn’t mean they can’t be friends.

@TumblrRefugee
Just because they’re rivals doesn’t mean they can’t be in love.

Chapter 3: Stage 2: Show Restraint

Chapter Notes

I am loving everyone's comments, thank you!
We are now moving into the section of the story where I went from 'completely plotted out 11 chapter fix-it fic' and into 'hmm okay this is not actually going to be straightforward.' I hope you enjoy it!

Content warning: this chapter includes a scene where a minor OC is being sexually harrassed, before someone intervenes. If you would like to have more details on this before reading, check the notes at the end.

The problem is bigger than just the perceived hostility. Your images don't align.
Ilya, people think you’re an asshole.
(Be quiet, Shane.)
They think you’re reckless or volatile, and they’re waiting for proof. Which means anyone close to you looks foolish. You need to show them you can be restrained.

July 2017

It makes sense.

It’s mildly insulting, too, of course.

Well. More than mildly. Ilya takes a break from the planning session when Yuna first suggests that he needs to show restraint, and walks out of the house to smoke a cigarette behind a tree. Tries to tell himself that the unaccustomed bitter taste in his mouth was just from the smoke; that too much time with Shane, leaving the packet tucked away for days or weeks on end, was changing his taste buds.

Just like Shane and Yuna want to change him, apparently. Change him into something more palatable.

The sour taste only strengthens.

Before he’s more than halfway through, Yuna walks out, too. He expects her to tell him off for smoking – she is so like Hollander – but instead after a moment she finds her own tree to lean against, and just waits in silence.

He thinks he’ll be able to wait her out, but instead the words bubble up almost immediately.

“Are you afraid of me?” he snaps out. He can feel it in his body – rising to his full height, rocking away from the tree into a ready position, shoulders bunching. As if, he realises sickly, part of him wants her to be afraid of him, wants her to stop lying if she is afraid of him and if that’s what’s going on.

Instead of flinching, her face goes so, so sad, and his pugnaciousness dies away before it. “Oh, Ilya,” she says softly. “Oh, honey. No. I have never been afraid of you that way. That’s not what this is about.”

“Are you afraid for Shane? Afraid I would hurt him?” He feels sick at the very thought of it. He knows  – he’s always known, though he’s not always let himself look at it – that there are times he’s got it wrong. Not let Shane in, brushed him off too roughly. But he’s been trying and it isn’t like he’d ever truly meant to harm...

His cigarette has burned up until the heat kisses his fingers; he drops it hastily and stamps it dead.

“Absolutely not,” Yuna says. Her voice is certain to the bone and some of the sick feeling eases away. “It’s not about that. I know you. I just… I want other people to know you, too. I want people to see more of you than the chirper, the fighter, the womaniser.” She looks so serious, so intent. “I don’t want people ever looking at you and Shane and wondering why Shane wants to be around you. I want them to see you as funny, and hard-edged, and moral, and think of course Shane wants to be around you.”

Yuna steps closer, and after considering for a moment Ilya allows her to draw him into a hug. She’s a strong woman, athletic and lean, but she’s also shorter than him and fine-boned and it’s absurdly reassuring that she doesn’t seem at all conscious of that when she hugs him; that a woman who calculates everything sees no need, with him, to calculate risk.

So he takes a breath, and follows when Yuna leads him back inside. Shane makes a face at the smell of cigarettes but for once doesn’t complain, and holds his hand, and that helps, too, to soften that sick feeling. And at that, Ilya says he’s ready to keep talking about the plan. 

So, yes: mildly insulting, but also yes: it makes sense. And really, when they operationalise it into potential actions it doesn’t seem so bad.

Early October 2017

The first action point was the media.

The pre-season games hadn’t really attracted that much attention, but the season opener against New York had the corridor outside the locker room jammed so full the other players could barely get through behind him. They’d pulled him out pretty quickly – no time to strip off his undershirt as he always used to make a point of doing. Probably all in line with Yuna’s plan, he muses resignedly.

A calm voiced reporter starts off the questions. “Big win to start the season, especially against the champs. What did you like about your team tonight?”

It’s just rhythm setting, Ilya knows. “We played our game. We’re strong, we’re physical, and that worked for us.”

It doesn’t take long at all for the real questions to start. “You’ve got Montreal next week — another team people see right at the top of the conference. Does a win like this change how you look at that game at all?”

“Not really. Playing Montreal is always a challenge. Different style than us, but I think pretty well-matched. Will have to see how it looks on the ice.”

“You and Shane Hollander have been at the centre of that rivalry for a long time now. Does it still feel different when it’s him on the other side?”

Ilya almost wished he had someone to bet against when it came to these questions, so he could win something when the rivalry came up within the first three. In the past he’d hated it, and loved it. Hated it when reporters rubbed in his face that Hollander had just overtaken him in the scoring race, or had scored a hat-trick last week against the team he’d just scored two points against, or that he was generally just existing in the world being fucking perfect and showing Ilya up with his presence. And loved it – loved imagining Hollander watching his press, watching soundbites, the media relaying his chirps all the way to Hollander no matter how far he was. Loved the idea of getting under his skin, of occupying space in his mind.

He’ll miss it, it’s true. After a while it stopped being love or hate and just became fun to wink at the camera and think of Shane rolling his eyes, or to say something insulting and imagine Shane calling him asshole, with that ruffled-up angry kitten look.

But the plan makes sense, so Ilya keeps his sigh internal, and says, carefully and with sincerity, “Hollander is an amazing player. Getting to compete against him is highlight of the season for me. I always want to go up against the best.”

There’s an almost perceptible deflation of the room at that – a sense of cameras sagging backwards. A smile almost breaks across Ilya’s face - he understands their reaction. He consoles himself that at least he can spend time later on the phone and personally tell Shane that he’s going to leave him in the dust like a younger, hotter Scott Hunter.

“Fans love those games because they usually get pretty intense — sometimes ugly. Do you still expect that kind of edge this year?”

There’s a needling tone to it – a nasty little edge. This is someone who catalogues hockey fights. Ilya  sympathises, in a way – as someone who’s had a number of hockey fights, he understands the appeal. And in the past he might have obliged with a wolfish smile and some kind of comment – they can bring it, we’ll finish it, or perhaps even better – we plan to bring it, we’ll see if they can finish it. But – show restraint, Ilya… He tightens his jaw briefly. Unclenches deliberately.

“We want to play hard. That’s hockey. Hits are part of the game. Beyond that, I’m not really sure what else you’re getting at.” Boring.

The next reporter sounds almost disappointed. “So you’re not expecting anything… extra?”

Ilya shrugs slightly. “I’m expecting a good hockey game.” So boring.

A PR handler steps in, taps Ilya on the shoulder. “Last one.” He nods; he’s done with this anyway.

“No message to Montreal?” A last ditch effort – a pretty pathetic one too.

Ilya’s already backing up and through the door as he says, “We’ll be ready.”

Carmichael laughs at him in the locker room. “I caught some of that. Not feeling it today, Cap?”

Ilya doesn’t answer him, but Marlow claps a hand on his shoulder affectionately as Ilya walks past. “Guess we’re all behaving ourselves this year, huh?” he says, loud and genial and totally at ease, and Ilya smiles back at him.

It’s a good plan. It will be fine.

Late October, 2017

Another action point had been about leaving hockey fights on the ice.

It’s not that Ilya makes a habit of getting into bar fights with other players – it’s more that he just does absolutely nothing to de-escalate if someone comes at him. And why should he? He likes to joke, likes to talk, likes the power of flicking at someone with a well-chosen word and seeing the hit. Likes to see how far he’s come since he was eighteen, having to focus fiercely to pick up even half of what was said around him; having to think so hard about every word he said that it was easier just to glare or smirk, or the moment would pass him by. And if the other player can’t take it, but can’t admit that Ilya is funnier, sharper, quicker than them in his second language than they are in their first – can’t take the sting and walk away - why should he respond any differently off the ice than on, if someone throws a punch? He knows how to fight. He’s good at it.

Mostly it doesn’t even reach that level. A hard shove will send someone reeling back to their teammates, and they’ll usually let themselves be held back at that point. It’s true that in his younger days Ilya was sometimes disappointed in such a pathetic ending – would see if he could re-ignite things with a victory lap, or a vicious chirp, see if he could pick up the girls they’d been flirting with before the fight…

…alright, so maybe Yuna had a point about him being an asshole.

But it’s not like he made a habit of it - he’s not done that in years. Mostly these days, if someone tries to start shit, he’ll just chirp viciously until they’re ready to square up, and then square up back and see if they change their minds. If they do, he lets them. Yuna pointed out, though, that the optics of him scowling in a bar face-off, hand twisted in their collar or forearm jammed over their chest as he shoves them back, are bad whether or not he goes on to throw the punch.

So, he’s going to try.

Though, he wasn’t expecting to have an opportunity to practise quite so soon.

It had been startling to him that his and Shane’s initial attempt to build a bridge between the Metros and the Raiders seemed to just pick up steam. He’s too grateful to question why Marlow’s apparently taken it on as a personal cause, but just because he has Stage 2 and Stage 3 of Yuna’s plan to be getting on with doesn’t mean he can completely drop Stage 1 in Marlow’s lap. After all, if he and Shane aren’t seen as contributing to the new-and-improved teams relationship, they lose the whole point of it.

So he’d magnanimously welcomed Hayden and JJ and a gaggle of rookies into the Raiders’ favourite bar in the pre-season, bought everyone a drink (including the visiting Metros), and stayed long enough to be noticed, before going home to have dinner with Shane and then making a spirited attempt to fuck him through the mattress. But he’d decided that the first season game against Montreal is worth another effort, and had come out again to Benny’s.

“You invited the Metros again?” he asks Marlow when they’re there.

Marlow shrugs. “Seemed like the sportsmanlike thing to do. And mostly it’ll be the rookies coming, I guess. It’s not like they had anything to do with the win.”

Ilya can’t help a smirk. “Yes, you are definitely all sportsmanlike,” he quips back.

Marlow grins. “Your pal Hollander was on fire tonight, is all I’m saying.” Ilya had noticed, with a blend of irritation, admiration, and a hefty dose of arousal. He’s not planning to stay for more than one drink. “He coming out tonight?”

“No.” They’d talked about it, but Shane had felt nervous about the idea of them leaving the bar at the same time, and Ilya doesn’t want to waste a precious minute he might otherwise get to spend with Shane on choreographing unsuspicious exits. “Hollander is so boring.”

Marlow just grins. “He seems like an alright guy. When he’s not scoring on us,” he offers. “I wouldn’t mind seeing more of him sometime.”

Ilya eyes him. It’s friendly, but with a little undercurrent; he wonders what Marlow’s picked up on. But Marlow’s loyal, and easygoing – there’s no jab or tension there. Nothing that he needs to unpick.  

So Ilya checks in with his players, and makes sure that people are making room for the Metros when they arrive, and announces that everyone can have a drink on his tab.

Pike and Boiziau and a couple of the other established players are there, presumably making sure the rookies don’t trip over their own feet and that they make it back to the hotel without getting lost. Pike comes over and greets him, awkward but clearly making an effort to be friendly; Ilya makes sure he’s pleasant back and doesn’t call him ‘fifteenth best Metro’ to his face. Boiziau seems to be only able to bring himself as far as a passably cordial nod. Ilya returns it from the bar, and then goes back to checking in with the staff as he moves closer to the bottom of his own glass.

One of the Metros rookies doesn’t seem to have picked up on the cautiously friendly positioning from his minders. He slides into place beside Ilya at the bar, brashly asks for a drink; the bar staff look to Ilya and he nods confirmation.

The rookie’s grin turns cocky. He looks back over to his table for a moment, then back at Ilya. “Hey, we win in your barn and you still roll out the red carpet? You trying to impress us, or…?”

Ilya sighs internally. The rookie is buzzed. From the win, certainly; from something quick from a flask in the hotel, probably; from the fact that Benny’s staff don’t tend to card NHL players unless they look impossibly baby-faced, so he’s getting a beer he’s too young for on this side of the border… quite possibly.

“I hear there is thing called sportsmanlike behaviour,” Ilya says dryly, turning his attention mostly back to his own drink. “Figure I should set example.”

The rookie snorts. “Didn’t expect you to be this nice after a loss to the Metros.” His grin turns a little sharp, now, over the cockiness. “Something change lately?”

Ilya feels a trace of unease. Not about the rookie – rookies and young players squaring up to him, on the ice and off, is just noise at this point. But something about the phrasing sets him on alert. The Raiders have mostly taken Ilya’s changed positioning towards their rivalry in their stride – some scepticism that it will last, some grumbling, but no sense of rebellion. He suspects the Metros may be resisting a little more.

Still, he says nothing. Eyes the rookie. Waits.

The rookie seems off balance now, but decides to push ahead rather than retreat. “Must be weird buying beers for the guys who just beat you.”

At this point people are looking over. Pike has a worried, tense face on; some of the Raiders look amused. One of the bar staff – a woman who has a definite soft spot for hockey players – has a slightly hungry look on her face as she pauses what she’s doing to watch.

Ilya eyes the rookie him a bit longer. He can see the uncertainty under the posturing, but also the refusal to back down. It’s stupid, and it’s irritating; under other circumstances he’d have taught him a sharper lesson about it. But… Show restraint, Ilya; instead he pats him condescendingly on the shoulder. “Enjoy your drink,” Ilya says, and walks away.

There are smirks and snorts from the Raiders, and a casual glance establishes that Pike’s expression is relieved and thoughtful, and the bar server’s is poutingly disappointed.

Ilya doesn’t linger for the reactions long – he’s finished his drink, left instructions for his tab to be closed after another ten minutes, and so he says a few goodbyes and then slips out to go congratulate Shane on winning the game.

November 2017

Another action point had been to change the playboy vibe.

“Mom,” Shane had snapped, flushing, outraged and mortified all at once.

“Honey, this is not about whether you are exclusive or not –“

“We are,” Ilya had interrupted firmly. Shane had looked quietly dubious, so Ilya had put an arm around him and squeezed. “We talked about this. I do not mind, and it matters to you, so we are. Yes?” He’d spoken in an undertone, and Yuna had politely pretended not to be listening in, but the soft look in her eyes betrayed her. “No one else even compares, lyubimyy.”

He’d kept Shane tucked tightly to his side as he turned back to Yuna. “Is no problem,” he’d said confidently. “Talk to me about how I change playboy vibe.”

The ideas Yuna had made sense. And it wasn’t as if he’d lack opportunities to use them.

It’s after an away game, in the arena bar, when Ilya’s approached. He doesn’t hold himself back from an appreciative smile; the woman is beautiful, moves with an easy athleticism he appreciates. He thinks he’s seen her face on a billboard somewhere.

“Okay, I have to ask — do you ever get tired of people congratulating you?” She smiles at him; it’s a great smile. Ilya naturally gives her a smaller smile back.

It was a tough win. Hard fought, and Ilya’s feeling pleased with his team, and pleased with a particularly neat goal that nipped in just under the goalie’s knee. When he checked his phone after the game, there was a text from Shane timestamped just after that goal, saying ‘Very hot’; Ilya has every intention of calling him shortly and asking him for a lot more details about exactly how hot he found it and what he wants Ilya to do about it.

“Tonight, I’m very happy to be congratulated,” Ilya responds. There’s probably a bit of a smirk tugging at his mouth; he can’t bring himself to mind.

She smiles again, appraises him. “I’m Piper,” she says. The name lines up for Ilya, vaguely; model? Sportswear? Something like that. “I’m in town for work, but I’m glad I made it to the game. It’s good to see what a real hockey win looks like.”

Ilya smirks a bit more, thinking about how that will land in this room. It’s not only the Raiders who are present here, after all; there’s a smattering of Chicago players also decompressing after the game. “Dangerous thing to say, in this crowd,” he jokes back.

She leans in. Her eyes are sparkling a little. “So, can I lure you away from your team and buy you a congratulatory drink?” she asks lightly.

In the past, Ilya would have said yes. She seems nice enough; beautiful, confident, charming, willing to laugh at his jokes and maybe even self-aware enough to make some of her own. Even if he wasn’t planning on anything coming of it (and he wasn’t; beautiful as she is she’s not nearly as appealing as the prospect of a video call with Shane) it might have been a fun way to fill some time. But –

“You don’t have to stop flirting. Just - change the way the words land. Give people less alongside it - less generosity, less time, less one-on-one.”

Right now, he’s standing with his players. This is a side conversation, nothing private or intimate. If he goes to the bar with her, it changes.

“No. Thank you,” he says. And stops.

“Don’t flirt when you’re saying no. Don’t try to give a soft landing or make it cute. It just reads like you’re holding the door open for next time.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s new,” she says. She seems genuinely taken aback, covering it with a little laugh.

It feels rude, is the thing. He can feel the responses lining themselves up. “Not tonight.” “Another time.” “I wish I could – but I need to stay with my team in case the win goes to their heads and they try to take over the rest of the city next.” But – show restraint, Ilya.

He keeps his gaze easy but clear. “I’m flattered,” he says, trying to inject warmth. “But not interested.”

There’s a moment where the conversations around them seem to go quieter. Ilya suddenly feels very on display, and not in the usual way he enjoys, when the eyes are on him because he’s asked for them to be.

It doesn’t take long for her to recover her balance. “Fair enough,” she says. She smiles - a little tighter than before, but her voice is passably light.

Ilya lets his own smile go more professional. “Enjoy your night,” he says, and turns back to his players.

“Cap, what the fuck?” Carmichael hisses to him. “That’s Piper Harding. You don’t know who she is? She’s fucking hot, man. You’re not going to go for it?”

“Getting old, Rozanov?” St-Simon teases.

Marlow claps Ilya on the shoulder. “Ah, leave Roz alone. You all just wish you had so many models approaching you that you can afford to pass some up.”

Ilya gives Marlow a half smile.

Then - “Manage your exits. You don’t have to stop going places - you just need to think about how you leave.”

The team will want to linger over their drinks, maybe have another, but he’s done; after another minute or two he drains his drink and heads out alone. His mind is already running ahead to his hotel room, and a phone call.

It’s a couple of days later when it comes back around again; some reporter looking for a soundbite. “You were seen talking with Piper Harding after the Chicago game. Looked pretty friendly. Is there a story there?”

And… “Don’t act like there’s a story when there isn’t one. No ‘I don’t kiss and tell’ winks at the camera, no coyness. You can’t stop people making up their own stories, but you can stop giving it oxygen.”

So, “No,” Ilya replies flatly.

The reporter blinks, then rallies. “But is it true you talked in the bar?”

“We talked. I left early,” Ilya says, and walks away.

Show restraint, Ilya… He thinks – briefly - that maybe he’s getting the hang of it.

Early December 2017

The game against Las Vegas had been an easy victory – of the slightly unsatisfying kind, leaving the team keyed up rather than exhausted. It hadn’t been Ilya who suggested going clubbing, but when he says he’ll go with them he’s met with a rousing cheer.

“He’s back!” Carmichael cheers. “Rozy, I was getting worried about you!”

“But Cap, you gotta leave some for the rest of us,” Nelson says.

Ilya grins back. “Nels, is big club. If you do not find someone who likes your look, nothing to do with me.” 

Nelson protests, and other players laugh, and they all bundle out the door and into cars to head to the club that Carmichael chose. In the car, with his phone tilted so that his teammates can’t see, he texts Shane.

When he tucks his phone away, Marlow is smirking at him a little. “Already setting up an after party?” he jokes and Ilya grins back.

“Maybe,” is all he says; and then they’re arriving at the club.

Ilya isn’t planning to get drunk, but he does a couple of shots with the team. He spends a bit of time on the dance floor, but disengages when anyone tries to move too closely into his space. He wants to move, not to flirt.

He’s come off the dance floor and is taking a break when he sees it. He doesn’t quite know what attracts his attention – perhaps something about the set of the man’s shoulders, like something he’s used to seeing on the ice. Or perhaps something, deeper, older – an antenna that’s never quite been un-tuned.

The woman is wearing short sleeves; the nightclub lights flatten colour but he can see the man’s hand, a paler contrast against her skin as it clamps on her wrist. She tries to tug away – the man draws her back in closer, leans in to speak into her ear. She turns away, tugs again; her face is tight, her eyes flicking around the room.

Ilya is moving before he thinks about it - close enough, fast enough to see her tug harder, manage to pull back a step before he re-firms his grip. Close enough to hear her shaken “Please let go”; close enough to hear the man start to laugh it off.

Ilya steps in close – show restraint, Ilya – and forces his hands to stay at his side as he shifts himself between them, leans into the man’s space. “She said no,” he says. His accent is thickening, his voice turning vicious.

The man looks up at Ilya, seeming to calculate the odds. Doesn’t drop the wrist. “Mind your own business,” he snarls back, and that’s enough; Ilya grabs the man’s collar in one hand, his forearm in the other. Digs his fingers in brutally as he forces the man one step back. Behind him, he just barely registers it as the woman snatches her wrist free, as the babble of bystanders around them starts to rise.

Show restraint, Ilya, he tells himself, and releases his grip.

The man looks furious now. “The bitch is my fucking girlfriend, okay? Fuck off out of my way,” he orders. Tries to back it up with a little shove – one that barely rocks Ilya on his feet – and steps around him again.

It’s a sound from the woman behind him – part sob, part revolted protest – that activates Ilya more than the push does, and he’s suddenly no longer thinking about showing any kind of restraint. At that point, it’s muscle memory as much as decision; he steps back between them, and shoves back hard.

For a hockey player, the shove would have been enough to knock them a few steps; for a man who doesn’t know how to brace for it, who’s been drinking, the targeted force sends him staggering backwards. He knocks into a high top, sending glasses clinking and falling, the people clustered around it scattering with a shout.

Ilya clocks it enough to notice they have their phones out, and all he can think is fuck before security finally arrives.

One security guard steps between them; the sprawled man starts shouting, and the second guard speaks urgently into an earpiece before going to try to contain him. Ilya tunes out the shouts – “he shoved me – asshole thinks he owns this fucking place –“ and forces himself instead to focus in on the guard who’s between them. The guard’s talking to him, telling him that’s enough, to back it up.

This, too, is familiar; Ilya knows where the lines are, even if he sometimes chooses to cross them. His jaw tightens but he lets his arms loosen and drop. Lets them assess the situation, doesn’t argue at the conclusion when the guard says firmly, “Sir, we need you to come with us.”

He doesn’t bother to look behind him at the still shouting man – there’s nothing more he can do there, now – but he does take a second to try to see the woman, see if anyone’s helping her. There are too many moving bodies clustering around the spectacle for him to be sure, and the two further guards forming a wedge around him, politely steering to a door make it even more useless.

The door opens, and closes behind him; Ilya blinks and lets his eyes adjust to the lighting of the service corridor, his ears to the sudden quiet. Deliberately slows his pace. Keeps his hands visible. The guard at his side looks at him warily – the silent question are you going to cause more trouble clear in his eyes.

“The woman – she was asking him to leave her alone,” Ilya says. Keeps his voice flat and level. “Please can you make sure someone checks on her.”

The guard nods, and relaxes a hair when Ilya shows no further signs of balking. “We’ll take it from here,” he says firmly, and Ilya has no good options other than to believe him.

“We’re taking you out through the side,” the guard in the lead says, and Ilya nods, unsurprised.

At the door, he pauses. “Please tell manager – I will cover spilled drinks,” he says automatically. “Tab is for Ilya Rozanov.”

“We’ll handle it, sir,” he’s told. And at that he’s out of the club and onto the sidewalk.

The first thing he does is text Marlow.

That done, he hesitates, thinking about the woman.

He doesn’t know her, of course. She might have friends still in the club who she’s gone back to; might plan to dance off and drink away the scare. But when Ilya had seen her, she had seemed alone.

He lets his feet carry him slowly back to the front of the building; the hubbub from the cordoned off area joining the faint pulse of the music coming through the walls. Pulls out his phone again; ignores the laughing emoji from Marlow; considers rideshares.

A change in the quality of the voices behind him is what first alerts him – a shift in the usual rhythm of the buzzing people waiting to go in, security checking IDs. He half turns, and sees the woman being guided out by security. Clutching a bottle of water, looking lost.

Ilya stays where he is. She anxiously runs her eyes over the road – looking for the man, perhaps? – a word from the security guard seems to settle her, and she nods. She sees Ilya, seems to hesitate; takes another look back at the security guard, who shrugs; and then she walks over.

“Um. Hi,” she says, very uncertainly. Now that she’s closer, Ilya can see that her makeup is blurred around her eyes; she doesn’t seem drunk but she doesn’t seem fully sober, either. Unsteady, shaken. “That was you in there, right? Um. Thank you.”

“Is okay,” Ilya says. Considers. “You are not with friends?”

“Um. I was. They’re still in there, I think. I just wanted to go.” She looks back at the club with trepidation.

“You texted them?” Ilya checks.

“Yeah. No answer yet, though.” She looks at her phone, a little forlornly. Ilya imagines that she’s still hoping one of them will come out to her. Then she seems to remember herself, looks back up at him. “I’m Sarah, by the way.”

“Sarah. I am Ilya.” He doesn’t reach for her – doesn’t offer a hand to shake. She has her phone clutched in one hand, the bottle in the other, and though she approached him, she’s kept more than a full arm’s length between them. “Sarah, can I call a rideshare for you? I can put it on my account. Then you will be home safe. And you will not need to wait for your friends unless you want to.”

“Oh.” She looks uncertain – glances back to the security guard again. Ilya makes his shoulders soft, keeps his arms close to him.

“A ride for you, not me,” Ilya tells her. “I need to get back to my own hotel.” He hesitates; but she didn’t show any recognition at his name, and though it’s not quite true, if it helps… “My partner will be waiting for me to call.”

It seems to make a difference; at the very least she lets Ilya call a rideshare for her. The street is full of them, and it’s not long before she’s sliding safely into the car.

As the car pulls off into traffic, the security guard at the door gives Ilya a measured nod before turning her attention away, and Ilya lets himself sigh. Rolls his shoulders, calls a car for himself. He checks his phone on the way back to the hotel – no new messages from Shane – and despite what he said to the woman there’s nothing he’d like less than to call Shane and tell him about the happenings of the evening.

Or at least, that’s what he thinks until he wakes up the next morning to a flurry of notifications, including one from Yuna and one from Shane, linking him to an article; Shane’s text with a series of question marks and Yuna’s just saying ‘call me?’

TMZ Sports: NHL’s Rozanov removed from Vegas club after altercation involving woman.

“Blyat,” snarls Ilya softly, and rolls in bed to shove his face into a pillow.

So much for fucking restraint.

Chapter End Notes

Translations:
я тебя люблю - ya tebya lyublyu - I love you
Blyat - fuck

Detailed content warning:
In the final section of the chapter (Early December 2017), Ilya goes to a nightclub and witnesses a woman being sexually harrassed. This is described in relatively brief detail. Ilya intervenes forcefully. The woman is distressed but later leaves the club safely.
If you wish to avoid reading this section altogether, I advise stopping reading immediately at the point Ilya arrives at the club, and then do a search for the phrase 'security finally arrives' as a re-start point.

Chapter 4: Crowd noise 2

Chapter Notes

This is just a very short one which is why you get it as an extra treat! Next chapter will be up soon.

Please know that I was quietly delighted with how uncomfortable so many of the commenters were with the 'Show Restraint' plan. The discomfort is 100% intentional on my part. Please do keep the comments coming!

Early October 2017

Hockey Jaw (Check out our podcast!) @Hockey_Jaw
New season, new Rozanov? 👀 The Raiders captain took the high road when asked about Hollander and the Montreal rivalry — and fans aren’t sure what to make of it. Full breakdown: [link]

@RozanovApologist
Who gave Rozy PR training? And HOW did they make it stick?

@SmirkOfTheNorth
And how do we unstick it??

@RaidersRiot
As long as his play this season is less boring than his media…

@HollanderDefender
What’s with that fake-nice stuff? Is he trying to get in Hollander’s head?

Late October, 2017

@RaiderFaithful
Saw Rozanov at Benny’s after the game. Montreal rookie was being a clown. Roz just patted him and walked Lol.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Wow PR really have a leash on him this season, huh?

@RaiderFaithful
He’s putting his money where his PR is, too. He paid for drinks for both teams.

@RozanovApologist
Rozanov’s restraint era?

@SmirkOfTheNorth
😩😩😩

@MetroMeltdown
We used to have a rivalry, now dumb kids are mouthing off and getting away with it? When did Rozy get so soft?

November 2017

TMZ Sports @TMZ_Sports
Rozanov spotted with Sports Illustrated model after road win! Piper Harding seen in a ‘close conversation’ with Raiders Captain after winning hockey game in Chicago. [link]

@RozanovApologist
…they spoke for three minutes in a bar and left separately, how the fuck is this a story?

@SmirkOfTheNorth
For a moment I was actually interested, but nothing. Anyone else notice Rozanov’s been quieter lately?

@RaidersRiot
Man’s all business this season

@NHLTea
It sounds like he turned her down flat lol

@saypuckit
Why though?? Bedpost so notched its in danger of falling apart?

@TumblrRefugee
👀

Early December 2017

TMZ Sports @TMZ_Sports
NHL’s Rozanov removed from Vegas club after altercation involving woman. Raiders captain seen shoving man before security steps in. Click through for the full article – and video! [link]

@HockeyHotTakes
You Can’t Teach Chaos: Rozanov Reverts to Form in Vegas. The smirk may have softened in press conferences, but in a nightclub, instincts don’t lie. Our latest blog post is up! [link]

@BlueCollarMetro
There it is. Same old Rozanov. Does it bring him out in a rash if he doesn’t make it into a tabloid once a month?

@ChaosGoalie
I was worried we’d lost him. Nature is healing. 😭

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
His ‘rebrand’ lasted what, 6 weeks?

@HollanderDefender
People don’t change. Hollander better be careful not to tie his image too closely.

@SarahSays
The video doesn’t show the beginning of the fight. What if there’s more to it? I think this might be being taken out of context.

@saypuckit
Oh, is the hot rich hockey player who punches people for a living just misunderstood? 🙄

@StickToTheSix
If you’re always “misunderstood,” maybe you’re just reckless.

Sportsnet @sportsnet
Raider Or Rescuer – is there more to the story? After Rozanov was escorted out of a club in Vegas earlier this week, we spoke to club staff about the ‘altercation’.

@pucktalk
Damage control article dropped fast 😂

@MontrealStandard
I hope his PR team is getting a good Christmas bonus after all their overtime

Chapter 5: Stage 3: Use Rose

Chapter Notes

I'm sure we are all agreed that 'Stage 2: Show Restraint' was a total success, no notes.
On to stage 3!

Use Rose. She’s famous, she’s sociable, and people already associate her with hockey. We get Ilya into her orbit without it going through Shane, and you get overlapping social circles and plausible deniability.
(Ilya, stop scowling. You asked for my help.)
(Yes, Shane, that means parties. Plural.)

August, 2017

Mid December, 2017

“This just feels like a terrible idea,” Shane says to the full length mirror.

“What are you talking about? The suit is perfect, you look great,” Rose tells him encouragingly from her perch on the edge of the bed.

“Not the suit, Rose, the party! This isn’t my scene, and I hate having to pretend that it’s my scene.” Shane deliberately doesn’t run his hands through his hair in frustration, and instead turns to look at her. She looks beautiful, of course; the kind of relaxed beauty he would have called effortless had she not demanded he keep her company while she spent almost an hour doing her hair and makeup. “I’m not going to know anyone there apart from you and Sveta and Ilya, and I’m going to have to watch every word I say to Ilya, and it just feels so - risky. Surely it’s better to just wait for your holiday party instead?”

“Shane. Babe. The holiday party is the farm team. You know this.” Rose comes over, carefully hugs him round the shoulders. “This is the big leagues. Scarier but worth more.” Shane doesn’t even try to hide how unconvinced he feels. She sighs. “Look… If you really can’t bear it, you can tap out and Sveta and I will keep doing our best to find new options for January. But you’ve already seen that it’s not easy.”

Shane has seen it, and that’s the problem.

The charity gala hadn’t gone too badly, he supposes. The visibility of it had made him tense, but it was Scott Hunter’s pet charity for sports scholarships, so it had felt… normal, almost, to go to it. The kind of cause Shane was happy to support, even though usually he’d have supported with an anonymous donation rather than showing up in a tux and making small talk. Getting separate invites for all four of them had been a breeze - the only logistical problem was the back-to-back flights to get him in and out of New York in the tight window between games. The worst bit of it should have been trying to act normal around Ilya, while Ilya alternately flirted and chirped at him every time they stood in whispering range.

Instead, the actual worst bit had been Ilya texting the week before to say that there had been team scheduling changes and he could no longer make it, so Shane didn’t get to see him at all.

Much as it frustrated him, it had made sense for Shane to go, and he knew it. Too odd, if anyone was caring to look, to have him cancel right after his rival did. Not to mention it was also a chance for Rose to casually introduce him to her new friend Svetlana.

His ‘first meeting’ with Svetlana went somewhat better than his actual first meeting with Svetlana had gone – mostly because unlike the first meeting over the summer, he wasn’t vibrating with barely suppressed jealousy. Spending time with Svetlana – and, crucially, seeing her treat Ilya like an indulged and slightly irritating brother, rather than a boyfriend - had slowly cured him of that, and so he’d been able to dance with her at the gala with no more than an average amount of awkwardness, and respond relatively smoothly as she and Rose brought him along and worked the room. He even thinks he laid some good groundwork – when Sveta ‘admitted’ during conversation with some of the other guests that they had a mutual acquaintance in Ilya Rozanov, he’d been able to make the expected joke that he wouldn’t hold it against her, and then even go on to lay out some of his carefully honed soundbites. Honestly, Rozanov’s not as bad as they paint him, it’s just talk. He’s an amazing challenge to skate against. Oh, he was meant to be here tonight? Well, it makes sense, it’s a good cause.

So, if it had just been that one, it would have been fine.

The second one he looks on as a dodged bullet, and he’s just glad he pulled the plug when he did. He tries not to be ungrateful, and he knows Sveta and Rose have pulled out all the stops for this project, but even as Rose’s plus-one no one who had ever met him would have expected to see him at some fancy private dinner hosted by Porsche. Then Rose’s agent hadn’t even managed to secure her an invite after all. She and Svetlana had made one tentative attempt to convince him to ask for one himself, but hadn’t argued when he’d turned them down flat. In the end, Rose had gone as Svetlana’s date, and kept Ilya company while Svetlana took advantage of the event to do some fairly predatory networking.

Rose and Ilya had gotten papped leaving the event – nothing suggestive, just a shot on the steps - but she’d laughed that off. Ilya hadn’t even broken stride when someone came after him for a comment, just saying “We have a shared friend. People have friends sometimes. This is not news.”

Once again, fine. Sveta had seemed pleased about her evening’s work; Ilya seemed to now be seriously considering buying another fancy new car if he could get one in a lurid enough colour; and Rose said it was boring but her policy was to never pass up a chance to make connections. So Shane didn’t even feel too guilty about bailing on them.

It was the Rolex party that had been especially painful. Shane still blames his mom for that one – she’d entered into the ‘Rose’ phase of her plan with an enthusiasm Shane finds disheartening, and had been particularly pleased when it carried with it the opportunity to have Shane playing nicely with his brand partners. It had been her who had flagged up the Rolex party to Rose and Sveta as a potential – and, he strongly suspects, her who greased some wheels to get Sveta an invite that kept her plausibly separate from him. The thought of Ilya being there as well had been a familiar source of tension – but when his mom and Ilya’s agent had hit a bump in their talks with Rolex, and Ilya was advised that it was ‘just too murky right now’, he’d felt his stomach drop. The only reason he hadn’t veto’d on the spot was knowing how hard his mom works securing all his brand deals, and how much harder he’d make her life if he refused.

“I’ll look after you,” Rose had told him laughingly as he complained, and she had; in fact, her and Sveta taking turns to firmly squeeze his arm and take over the talking for him had almost made this one of the more bearable brand events of his career. But normally he does these in the summer, not when he’s snatching a day out of the season; normally he’d not be aching with a bruise on his stomach from a stray puck, making it even harder than usual to force down the tiny canapes that are so exquisitely alien that he can barely register them as food; normally he’d not be at one of these echoingly performative parties while missing Ilya like a lost tooth, an absence that’s impossible to ignore.

By the time an hour is up his whole body had been jangling with tension, his skin twitching with the idea of being watched – a whole body awkwardness that he couldn’t redirect into any knowable action. Rose had taken him back to her place after, and once he’d changed into sweats prodded him to come watch a movie with her. She’d sprawled next to him, dropped a cushion on his lap and slung her legs over it, then kept up a soft running commentary about the terrible cinematography until some of the tension finally left him. By that point, Sveta had arrived (the soullessness of the party having exhausted even her motivation to prowl), had taken one disgusted look at Rose’s movie choice, insisted on putting on a hockey game instead, and had then called Ilya on speaker and ordered him to watch it too.

Sveta and Rose had carried out a thorough analysis of the photos on social media after, and had given him clear instructions about how he was to respond to different ones. Sveta had coolly flicked past a series of tweets and images and told him to ignore all of them (easily done, already there), and Rose had picked out of the dross a photo in which he appeared only moderately awkward as he engaging the smiling pair in conversation, grabbing it for his socials. Overall, though, while they were clearly counting the Rolex event as moderate progress on ‘Step 3’, Shane still finds it hard to see it as anything other than survival.

And yet here he is, preparing to go into the breach once again.   

“It won’t be as bad as the Rolex party,” Rose promises him. “There will be probably be edible food, and at least some of the people there will be interesting or nice. Plus, you’re going as my date, so all you need to do is fetch me drinks and glare at anyone who annoys me, and if anyone tries to get in your space I’m allowed to put a stiletto through their foot.”

Shane relaxes enough to smile at that. “Here I thought I was the one who wears weapons on my feet.”

Rose bounces on her toes, letting the narrow spikes of her heels lightly tap the ground. “Years of ballet and contemporary dance,” she says confidently. “Don’t try me.”

“I’m just glad you’re on my team,” Shane says. He sighs out, takes a deep breath, and straightens. “Alright, Coach. Put me in.”

“That’s the spirit!” Rose cheers him, and leads him down to the car.

Shane sends Ilya a text while they wait in traffic.

Rose looks over at him, and Shane shows her his phone screen. “He’s never going to stop saying that,” he complains.

Rose pats his arm consolingly. “It could be worse,” she tells him brightly. “At least you don’t have to be part of the cultural conversation.”

When they finally arrive, he slides into his company manners like a well-worn and only slightly ill-fitting pair of shoes. Offers Rose a hand out of the car; smiles at her ruefully as she takes a moment to smooth the set of his jacket for him and then gives a brief smile to the paparazzi lurking across the street; gives her his arm as she leads them to the door and brightly introduces herself to the discreet staffer greeting the guests.

He lets Rose take the lead as they track down the host (brief digressions along the way for affectionate greetings to passing guests), exchange compliments about the party that Rose manages to make sound warmly genuine, and then retreat to a quieter part of the room where Rose can assess the crowd like a general appraising a battle map.

Rose is good at this, of course – not only good at the party, but good with Shane. She brightens at one point, and charmingly intercepts someone; briefly introduces Shane but then laughingly tells him she’s not going to make him pretend to follow as she talks about film production, and sends him to find them drinks. By the time he makes his way back (champagne for her, sparkling water for him) she’s moved onto someone new – a culture editor who she introduces Shane to with somewhat more intention, and who speaks with him knowledgeably for a few minutes about the hockey season.

Seeing Rose work the edges of the crowd like a dancer – assessing the patterns, sliding gracefully into place to intercept – gives Shane a whole new appreciation when Svetlana makes her entrance and makes her way through the glittering crowd like a shark. People give her space, Shane notices, like they do for an enforcer on the ice, and she uses it to cleanly slice through towards the host.

“God, isn’t she great?” Rose murmurs admiringly to Shane, and he has to nod in agreement. Svetlana is moving through the room much more directly than Rose does – approaching conversations she’s interested in with a glittering smile and no hesitation, and finally making it over to them.

Rose greets her with a delighted cry and an air kiss on each cheek; Shane clocks Sveta’s ironic eyebrow and gives her a more restrained single air kiss.

“Don’t hurt yourself trying,” she murmurs to him as he does.

“Good to see you too, Sveta,” he murmurs back sarcastically, and she laughs.  

It’s… bearable, as Rose had promised him. It’s not fun, nor even the kind of satisfying quasi-fun that Sveta and Rose seem to find it, as they rack up wins on a game field he still doesn’t understand, but it’s fine. Rose gives him cues for his role in conversations – sometimes overt (“I’m going to nab Margarite – just stand here and look hot and supportive”) and sometimes subtle (“Not Shane’s field, I’m afraid, but he won’t mind if we talk shop for a moment”). Sveta and Rose both direct conversations his way at times, when someone's willing to talk about sports culture. They both do him the kindness of sending him away for drinks or to retrieve them canapés on a regular basis, and he blesses them for it.

He’s returning with another flute of champagne for Rose and a cocktail for Svetlana when Svetlana catches his eye from where she’s deep in conversation, and intentionally flicks her gaze towards Rose. Shane deliberately brushes Sveta’s fingertips in acknowledgement as he hands over her glass, and then weaves his way over to Rose. It’s the work of a moment to align beside her, hand off the flute to her and take a quarter step in towards the older man blocking her in against a high-top. Shane meets his gaze flatly and holds himself poised, and the man steps back rather more than is needed to make space for him. “I think that’s my cue to circulate,” Rose says easily, slipping her free hand into Shane’s elbow and letting him guide her away.

“You’re better at this than you think you are,” she tells Shane seriously on their way back to their now-familiar corner. He quirks a little smile at her, but shakes his head, and she sighs at him fondly.

Shane feels briefly restored by the familiarity of glaring someone down, but he’s still relieved to hear Sveta’s gleeful murmur of “Here he comes,” as she slides her phone back into her pocket. He looks up at her cue and at the slight, interested rise in the babble at the door, and then finds himself swallowing when Ilya saunters in.  

He looks… unfairly attractive, Shane can’t help thinking. And of course, Ilya always is attractive – sweating in a hockey jersey or helmet, mooching around the house in ratty sweatpants and a worn t-shirt, in the boxy tuxedo he wore for their first NHL awards as rookies, before he upgraded to bespoke tailoring… but here, in closely fitting trousers, jacket with some kind of texture to it that catches the eye, open collar shirt with his mother’s necklace gleaming in the hollow of his throat… he looks like he belongs. Then Ilya scans the crowd – deliberately, slowly – and he lights up with his wicked, crooked smile when he sees Shane watching.

“Aaaaand look at me,” Rose orders, a laugh in her voice. She deliberately half turns Shane, and tugs on the lapel of his jacket to draw him down towards her ear. “Quick, pretend you’re flirting, or telling me a joke,” she murmurs to him.

“I’m not that bad,” he mutters back indignantly.

“Blushing adorably,” she assures him, releasing him again with a little grin. “Nice work on the outfit, Sveta – or I’m assuming that was your work?”

“Some collaboration,” Svetlana shrugs, though with a pleased, sharp little smile. “He goes too loud when left to his own devices. Excuse me – I should intercept him before he comes over here.” And then she’s off, slicing through the crowd like a knife to reach Ilya and take charge of his route through the room.

Shane feels pricklingly aware of Ilya’s presence, but he follows Rose’s cues and tries to ignore it, focusing instead on the conversations she sets up for herself. Eventually Sveta draws him over to them at last, where he kisses Rose’s cheek.

“Hollander! This is not your usual scene, no?” Ilya says to him. There’s a little edge to it, but he’s grinning, and his eyes are soft.

“I begged him,” Rose says easily. “Too many parties without a plus one and people start to write sad opinion pieces about you.” She grins up at Shane. “Plus, I’m not going to be shooting in Montreal again for ages, and you never want to visit me in LA.”

“In the season? It’s amazing I made it as far as New York,” Shane says lightly back. He accepts the clasp of Ilya’s hand, the brief squeeze of his bicep. He sternly tells his pulse not to jump and his skin to stop registering the touch even after it drops. “Not really your scene either, I would have thought?”

Ilya grins a bit more, and angles himself to display his outfit. “You do not think I fit in well at fashion party? I clean up well, no?”

Shane rolls his eyes, but he’s already relaxed just from talking to Ilya, hearing his voice, even in a room filled with unfamiliar eyes. This is different from hockey spaces – from the NHL awards, from the All Stars, where there’s already a set story that influences what people will see… but that’s the point, isn’t it? This crowd might read flirtation where a hockey crowd would read chirps… but they will also read ease where the hockey crowd reads tension. And he trusts Rose and Sveta to make sure they don’t expose themselves.

Sveta smiles at them both. “If I circulate some more, can you two be trusted not to have a fist fight?” she teases.

Ilya looks performatively affronted, and gives Shane a commiserating look. “As if we are poorly trained circus animals,” he says with a sigh.

Shane smiles wryly back. “We’ve been in social situations together without drama oh, whole handfuls of times,” he assures Sveta, very dry, and Ilya laughs and claps him lightly on the shoulder.

One of the people who Rose and Sveta had brought over to him earlier to talk about ‘sport culture’ is hovering nearby, and Rose sends him a warm, inviting smile. They’ve already worked out the beats of this, and with Rose and Ilya both with him, ready to catch, it’s easy to pass the puck back and forth.

How’s the season? Starting strong - Shane’s ahead in points – Ilya quickly intercepts to say out that he’s ahead in goals – Shane says they’ll see about that after the next Boston-Montreal game. “Looking forward to it,” Ilya says with a grin, and Shane grins back.

Will they be at All Stars? Most likely – hopefully – it’s always a good time. Might they be on the same team again? Wouldn’t that be great if they were? It had been fun – they’d love to do it again. “If the two of you ever end up in the same club, it would be curtains for the rest of the NHL,” Rose teases.

Shane can feel his smile going soft, and sees the same thing when he looks over at Ilya. “God, wouldn’t that be a dream,” he sighs.

Rose and Sveta expertly steer them through the rest of the party – sending Shane for another round of drinks, dispatching Ilya and Sveta together for a side conversation, posing for a shot of all four of them together as the house photographer made her rounds, and then Rose looks Shane up and down and says that she’ll start her goodbye tour. Shane lingers in the corner as she laps the room, says his goodbyes to Ilya and Svetlana, and tries not to react when Ilya waves him off casually and lets himself be lured into a side conversation with a particularly beautiful blonde.

“It’s been lovely to see you,” Sveta tells him.

Shane forces himself to re-orient towards her. His smile feels a little wooden, now, but he pins it back on nonetheless. “You too, Svetlana,” he says.

She leans in, air kisses him on the cheek, and as she does he tries not to startle to feel her slipping a card into his pocket. She rolls her eyes at his surprise. “You think he would be able to resist?” she asks. “He’ll text you the room number. Don’t be stupid, go back to Rose’s first and Uber from there. I’ll make him stay for another drink anyway.”

“Thank you, Sveta,” he murmurs. He looks over at Ilya and manages to catch a quick hit of his gaze, his smile, before Rose is back and he’s heading gratefully for the door.

Chapter 6: Crowd noise 3

Chapter Notes

Late October 2017

Page 6 @PageSix
Hollywood meets the NHL - Rose Landry stepped out with “bad boy” hockey star Ilya Rozanov at an exclusive Porsche dinner — weeks after appearing alongside his on-ice rival at a charity gala. We’re  watching. 👀 [link]

@CelebGossipGirl:
Rose Landry playing BOTH sides of a hockey rivalry??

@ChaosGoalie
The layers to this are insane

November 2017 

Early December 2017

Mid December 2017

Vanity Fair Online @VanityFair
New York’s Most Unexpected Guest List: Hollywood, Hockey, and a Changing Rivalry. Actor Rose Landry seen laughing with NHL’s Rozanov and Hollander at a recent event. Apparently animosity is so last season – this season is all about access. [link]

@CulturalLens:
Why is hockey suddenly chic?

@RaidersFaithful:
He does clean up well.

@LAIndustryInsider
Rose building crossover brand. Smart.

@FilmGirlLA
Or she’s just into hot athletes?

@StyleCircuit:
Rozanov at a fashion editor's party was NOT on my bingo card.

@bringback1987
Next stop, Hollywood?? 🙄 Can they ditch the parties and get back to the ice already?

@saypuckit
Chill, dude, both the Raiders and the Metros are crushing it at the moment.

@NHLTea
It’s almost like NHL players are… people? With friends? Wild concept I know

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Funny how the ‘fiercest rivalry in hockey’ looks like a press tour

@ChaosGoalie
You think that after last year’s All Stars the NHL realised they were sleeping on the unlikely friendship of the decade, and are desperately trying to pivot? 😂

@saypuckit
The rivalry thing is just so wild at this point. Honestly they low-key come off as friends.

@RealHockeyOnly
Have you ever seen a Raiders-Metros match? They look like they’re an inch away from blood on the ice at all times

@TumblrRefugee
Yeah except that one time when Hollander’s blood WAS on the ice and Rozy was SHOOK.

@RealHockeyOnly
Take your weird shit back to tumblr and leave us out of it

Mid December, 2017

Late December, 2017

Late January 2018

Chapter End Notes

See you tomorrow for the January game! 😈

Chapter 7: Stage 2: Show Restraint (Again)

Chapter Notes

I'm super excited to share this chapter! I hope you enjoy reading it, please come yell at me about it in the comments after if you do!

The two of you are still being portrayed differently - and people are waiting for the next headline.
Ilya, the issue’s not with you. The issue is that people don’t notice when nothing happens, only when something does. The absence of drama doesn’t look like growth — it just looks like silence.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t working. It means it’s slow. You’re doing the right things - you just need to stay with the plan for long enough that it starts sticking.

Late December, 2017

One of Yuna’s action points had been about keeping on-ice fighting smart, not showy.

It hadn’t seemed especially fair. Ilya doesn’t run from a fight, if one comes his way, but he tries to make them useful, not gratuitous. He’d argued a bit about that with Yuna – pointing out that even the grandstanding was functional, not just fanservice. Driving the other team to hate him more than they wanted the puck was his job.

“Just – no fighting for fighting’s sake?” she appeals. Ilya had raised his eyebrows at her for that, and she’d had the grace to blush, but she lifted her chin and said grudgingly, “Dallas Kent can be an exception, I suppose.”

Which seemed reasonable enough to Ilya.

There have been a few times when he’s ignored an invite to fight or ended one early, but mostly – when he weighs it up coldly – it’s worth more to him to take a hit or throw one than to spend the extra effort to avoid it.

This time, though, the rookie is just wasting his time.

It’s late in the third period. Pittsburgh have played a bruising game, matching Boston hit for hit and sometimes more so – Ilya’s chirps goading at least two of the vets into reckless moves that handed Boston a power play. They needed both – they’re up by one and LeClaire had given Ilya a hard look when he sent him out for his shift. Ilya doesn’t need to be told that the refs are watching him closely.

The rookie – Maxwell, maybe, Ilya thinks – is out of his depth. A few checks from Ilya, and some comparatively easy chirps (he hasn’t studied Maxwell, so he can’t target them on anything other than today’s game) and he’s already rattled and making mistakes.

The rookie clearly knows it, too. When the whistle sounds and Ilya starts to head to his bench, the rookie gets in his face instead. Shoves at him a little. “What, you skating away? That’s all you got?”

Ilya can hear, behind him, noise amping up from the Pittsburgh bench, the sound of tapping on the boards. The buzz increasing from the stands.

Ilya shakes his head, moves to keep skating; the rookie shoves him again, harder. “You hear me?” Maxwell says, louder.

It’s not even tempting, really. A rattled rookie on the ice is better than one in the box, and Ilya can see a ref already looking over. He doesn’t even need to look to his bench to know what the expression on LeClaire’s face would be.

Ilya leans in. “Not this time, kid,” he says. Chooses to be as kind as he can; knows if anything, it will only rattle the rook worse. “You played hard. Do not waste it. Go sit.” And with that he turns away decisively, and as the tapping of the boards abruptly dies away he puts on a little spurt of speed to get back to his own bench.

He doesn’t really think much of it then; he’s too focused on holding onto their lead until the final buzzer sounds.

He doesn’t think of it much after, either. It hadn’t felt like showing restraint, not really. It had just felt like smart hockey. So when it turns out that a hot mic captured his words on the ice… when it turns out it was broadcast and replayed… when talking heads discuss if he’s growing up or going soft… he just feels perversely insulted.

When Yuna sends him a warm, approving text about it the next day, he can barely bring himself to respond.

Early January, 2018

Another action point had been about not being an agitator or instigator off the ice. Looking for opportunities to take the temperature down, not hype it up. Sounds boring, of course – but most of this step of Yuna’s plan has seemed boring. He’d talked it through with her and acknowledged without argument.

In the middle of the season, mostly it’s not an issue anyway. They sometimes go out after games, but it’s not like they’re trying to throw ragers every night.

When some of the Raiders suggested a drink after the Detroit game, Ilya figures he’ll go along for one. Then, as he makes his rounds, he sees Carmichael sinking a shot and figures he’ll stay a bit longer.

It hadn’t been a great game; Ilya had scored a hat trick, but it’s hard to feel great about that when the score ended at 5-4, with an overtime loss.

For Carmichael, especially, it hadn’t been a good game. It hadn’t been the worst performance Ilya’s ever seen, but one of the worst he’s seen in a while. It’s not all on Carmichael – Connors let through shots he should have blocked – but Carmichael had made bad reads, and then he’d lost his temper. Made some sloppy checks, sent time in the box. It hadn’t been him who’d been on the ice for the winning goal – but that was no doubt its own kind of humiliation.

It galls Ilya, too – but he’s not going to hold it against Carmichael, or at least not to his face. It’s one shitty game of an otherwise strong season – they beat Detroit in the first season game, and there’s no reason to think they won’t beat them next time, too.

By the time he’s checked in on a few other players and made it up to Carmichael at the bar, he’s about to sink another shot. Ilya settles in beside him, orders a beer.

“You don’t want to join me?” Carmichael asks, a little sharply. “Celebrate your hat trick?”

“Not tonight,” Ilya says quietly.

Carmichael seems to take it as a dig. “Yeah. Figures,” he says bitterly, and drinks it down.

He goes to order again – Ilya pauses him with a hand on his arm. “No more shots,” he says quietly, but firmly. “We have more games this week.”

Carmichael jerks away. “I’m not a damn rookie,” he says hotly. “Go look after them instead.”

Ilya doesn’t even consider smacking him down for it, really. He knows what it’s like to lose his temper, make mistakes, get stuck in it. He just waits for long enough to be sure that Carmichael orders something other than a shot (he goes for a rum and coke, with a double measure and a glare at Ilya, but still an improvement), and then Ilya does another round.

Connors is unhappy too, of course – not surprising, but at least after he’s had his drink he says he’s going back to the hotel. Some of the rookies and younger players want to talk excitedly about Ilya’s hat trick; it was actually one of the rookies who scored the fourth goal, so Ilya takes a moment to congratulate him, too.

When he looks up, he can see that at the bar Carmichael’s shoulders are bunching. He tries to keep his sigh internal.

Ilya is already planning to go over, but unfortunately the fans have other ideas.

It’s a sports bar – it’s almost always a sports bar – and a group have clearly clocked who they are. Come over, start asking chatting, asking questions.

They’re Detroit fans, but it’s friendly enough. It still makes Ilya want to grind his teeth when someone wants to meet him, shake his hand, and says to him sympathetically, “You’re Rozanov, right? Hell of a night for you, huh?”

Another of the group nods earnestly. “If not for you, it wasn’t even close.”

True. But not helpful. Ilya looks back over toward Carmichael, but the fans have mingled in and he no longer has clear a clear route to his player. He looks automatically for Marlow – he’s stepping away from his corner table, but he’s even further than Ilya.

“It’s a team game,” Carmichael snaps, before Ilya can say it himself.

“Yeah. Yeah. And you’re a hell of a team. I can’t believe Detroit hung in with you that way,” says another fan, half stunned and half forgivably smug. “If not for a couple of mistakes, the game was yours.”

The fan almost certainly doesn’t recognise Carmichael, Ilya knows. He’s wearing street-clothes, he’s got an ordinary sort of face – it’s not intended as a dig. Nonetheless, Ilya sets down the beer he’s been nursing and starts working his way free of the group even before he hears Carmichael’s response.

“You think you could do any fucking better?” he snaps, rising from his stool by the bar. The quiet ripples out from him, and Ilya can see people turning to look, eager-eyed. Someone swears tightly, but it fails to make a dent the hush. The fan who’d made the comment backs up a step, wide-eyed. Carmichael steps forward into the space, into the silence. “You don’t get to talk about my game!”

And then Ilya is there, stepping between them. It’s unthinking – he knows Carmichael, knows that he won’t take a swing at his own captain; knows that he burns hot but fast, and then cools off. So he grips Carmichael’s shoulder, squeezes hard to get his attention. Carmichael’s eyes rise to his, and a little of the tension goes out of his frame. Ilya knows Carmichael will accept it, and so he pushes him back a step.

“Enough,” Ilya says firmly.

The air comes back into the room as people breathe out again. A few nervous conversations pick up again. After a long moment, another notch of tension leaves Carmichael’s shoulders, and he taps the back of Ilya’s hand. “Yes, Cap,” he says, sullen and shamefaced but not rebellious, and Ilya cautiously releases him.

The fan has backed off another step, but has the grace to try to smooth it over. “It was a good game to watch,” he offers. “You all played great.”

Ilya nods at him tiredly, but holds his place between Carmichael and the rest of the room as the fan retreats again. Carmichael sighs hard, and rubs his face.

“I think is time to pack it up,” he says, pitching his voice to his players. “Finish this drink, then back to hotel.” Everyone nods. Ilya waits with Carmichael as drinks are downed, jackets and coats found, and makes a point of walking beside him the short distance back to the hotel, while Carmichael stews.

As they part ways, Ilya grips his shoulder again. “Do not let it stick with you,” he says firmly. “Was one night. Next time will be different.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Carmichael says tiredly.

Ilya goes to bed, feeling glad to have headed off a headline.

The next morning at the hotel breakfast, there are copies waiting of a local paper, which has reported on Detroit’s unexpected win. There’s a sidebar, too, with the heading “Agitator or Peacemaker? Rozanov Keeps it Cool.”

Ilya thinks about ‘showing restraint’ versus ‘being Captain’, and has to clench his jaw hard so as not to swear aloud.

“You’ve been getting really good press,” Yuna says warmly, after she’s finished her usual unflinching three-line analysis of his most recent game, the searing indictment of whatever ref or player Yuna sees as being responsible for any recent misses or bad calls (Yuna is nothing if not loyal), and concerned interrogation about any recent injuries.

It had stunned him, as the season started, to realise that Yuna is apparently watching all of his games; but nothing else accounts for her depth of knowledge.

“Yes,” says Ilya flatly. Discussing the press might not have been the first thing she said, but it now reads as the most important thing, the reason she asked for a call at all. He can’t help but find it dispiriting. Ilya had been sitting, but he’s too restless for that now; he rises and starts to pace aimlessly around his house.

“Ilya,” she says, tone affectionately chiding. “Getting good press is the whole point. And the things they’re saying are exactly what we’ve been trying to get.”

Up and down the long, open hallway; the house is light and bright but he still feels trapped. Stuck.

“It makes no sense, Yuna!” The words burst out of him despite himself, carried on his frustration. “I am not trying to do those things. I am not doing those things. Not growing up, not going soft, not – changing.” He kicks the edge of his couch mulishly. It doesn’t help. “I am Raiders Captain for years – why so much surprise that I am good at it? I do not fight because I am some dumb fucking bully – I fight when it is smart to fight.” He kicks the couch again, harder. It hurts, and he clenches his jaw, uses the sharp ache of it and his own annoyance with himself to ground him. “There is nothing new here,” he grinds out, quiet and bitter. “They just did not look.”

Yuna is quiet on the phone, waiting for him to finish; she doesn’t interrupt any of the choppy breaks where he had to wait for the right English words to come to him through his anger. She waits a full breath after he’s subsided before she speaks.

“Shane sees it,” she says. It’s soft, but Ilya doesn’t feel any desire to ignore her. “It was one of the first things he said to me - when we really talked about you, and not just the rivalry. He told me that what you do on the ice – your chirping, your fighting – is purposeful. Strategic.” It doesn’t surprise him, that Shane knows that; but it obscurely satisfies something in him, that Yuna knows Shane knows it. “The next game of yours, I saw it too,” Yuna continues. Her tone is a little rueful; Ilya wonders how hard it was for her, as the family’s acknowledged hockey witch, to see Shane surpass her in analysis as well as in gameplay.

The bitterness is still there, but Ilya can feel some of the frustration easing, now, at least. “I know that,” he says, more calmly. “I know Shane sees me.”

Yuna lets out a breath, and when she speaks again the businesslike tone is creeping back into her voice. “I know it must be frustrating… but the current media wave is a good thing,” she says. It’s somewhere between declaring and beseeching, like she can’t quite work out her pitch. “It’s the kind of press we want. They’re seeing a different side to you–“

“No,” says Ilya harshly. “They do not see different side – they do not see me at all. They just see – stories.”

A beat. “You’re right,” Yuna says heavily. “Fuck. You’re right. I’m sorry. This isn’t about who you are; it’s not even about what you’re doing. This is just - the story they want to tell right now.” She sounds bitter now, too, and tired; a part of Ilya feels sorry to have been the cause of it, but a larger part just feels relieved. “But… just because it’s bullshit, that doesn’t mean we can’t use it. If we can ride this wave – keep letting them see the good things you do, keeping the drama down – we stack the odds in favour of this becoming the new story for good, not just for the season.” Her tone is earnest; Ilya knows she isn’t just selling him a line. She believes it’s possible; she’s so certain of it, and so hopeful, that it’s hard to doubt her.

Ilya drops back onto the couch, rubs a hand over his face and into his hair. It had been easier by far when he didn’t care what story it was people were telling about him. Easier when he had no qualms about whether the story he told matched expectations or thwarted them. The impulsivity, the smirk, the barely channelled aggression – it wasn’t the whole truth, but it was true enough, and it was easy, and fun, and it hadn’t been a problem.

And now it’s so tangled up with the rivalry that apparently one can’t come down without the other.

Yuna is waiting, he realises. Waiting for him to process, waiting for him to speak. “You want me to keep doing it,” he says flatly.

“Yes.” Yuna’s voice is apologetic, but unflinching. “I can see how hard this is for you. I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I didn’t think it would help.”

“I know,” Ilya says. He does know. It would be easier if he didn’t; easier if he distrusted her.

“And it’s not because I want you to be different, either,” Yuna says firmly. ”I just want it to be easier for you and Shane.”

“I know,” Ilya says again. “I know… you care about us. You care about the future.”

“I do,” Yuna says, but there’s an odd note in her voice. “But, Ilya… it’s not just you, plural, as in you and Shane together. It’s you as just yourself, too. I care about you, honey.” He voice is warm, kind. Ilya doesn’t know what to make of it. “I love you.”

He doesn’t know what to say. He knows that she’ll expect some kind of words back, but he can’t seem to find any. “Okay,” he says blankly.

Yuna lets out an outbreath that might be a soft laugh. “I know family isn’t easy for you. I don’t expect you to be instantly ready to feel the same for us. But I wanted you to know, we’re here for you, David and I. We want to be a family to you.”

Ilya has to swallow to clear his throat before he can speak. Has to think oddly hard for the English words. “Thank you, Yuna,” he manages. Then, after a moment of struggle, “I care about you, too.”

“I know you do, Ilya,” Yuna says to him. “I know you must need to start switching off. I’ll let you go.”

“Good night,” Ilya says, and the call ends. He closes his eyes, and tells himself he can keep going. Tells himself that he’ll keep trying.

Mid January, 2018

Ilya could probably think of something Yuna had advised he do, but he’s too tired to bother. It’s less than two weeks until he’ll next see Shane, but their schedules are brutal at the moment – even with both of them trying, they’ve not seen each other in person since Christmas. In the thick of the season, with both of them on separate game schedules, even video calls are a challenge. Not helped by Shane’s apparent mid-season energy slump, and definitely not helped – Ilya sourly thinks – by the fact that despite being captain, Shane continues to routinely share a hotel room with Hayden Fucking Pike on road trips.

It’s ridiculous to be so frustrated, he tells himself. In the past they’ve gone months between meetings – to be seeing each other at least one a month, as they have since the summer, should be considered a luxury. But since admitting to himself how he feels for Shane, he feels more hungry for him, not less. And, embarrassingly, not just hungry for sex; he wants to see Shane’s freckles, to catch him in an unguarded moment when he has his glasses on. He wants to see Shane’s eyelids, drooping and heavy as he fights off sleep to stay awake with Ilya. He wants to see Shane with pillow creases on his cheek.

He wants to have a goddamn photo of Shane on his phone, so he can look at it on road trips and smile, but he’s not allowed even that.

He tells himself to put it out of his mind. It should be a good game; playing in Florida is always fun, with a surprising number of Boston fans. And they like Ilya, in particular – or at least, they had last year at the All Stars.

It’s during warmups that he first really notices the kids – a gaggle of them glass side, in matching jerseys and looking thrilled. He’d seen them earlier, he realises – a glimpse of them on the ice, skating hard, as he’d arrived at the arena. Or – he saw most of them. There’s a boy among them with his arm in a sling. Dark hair, dark eyes, and laser-focused on the skaters – something about his intentness nagging at Ilya’s attention.

On his next pass around, he lifts a hand and the kids half-erupt with excitement. The kid in the sling switches from serious to thrilled in a millisecond, and Ilya smiles a bit.

The kids have been moved by the time the game starts, of course – some special treat for the youth hockey team, Ilya assumes, and then dismisses it, focusing on the game.

Play starts fast – two goals for the Raiders in the first period, one for Tampa Bay. The second period is a slower grind – pushing back and forth over the ice, with more heavy hits than shots on net. Each team snatches a hard-won goal.

After the slog of the second period, Tampa Bay takes them by surprise in the third period with an early goal, and the crowd noise ramps up into a blur of sound.

Ilya was tired before the game but now he’s alive; a part of him loves a tie, loves the knife edge of it – score, or they will. Sudden death is the best for that feeling, really, but pride and points have their place too – there’s a satisfaction in winning within regulation time.

He almost doesn’t think he’ll make it this time – the defensemen are on him all the way to the net. He gives a drop pass to St-Simon, dodges left – the defensemen follow him, then pull up short in confusion, rushing back to St-Simon – a pass back just before they hit.

Ilya doesn’t wait or hesitate. A split-second fake out, and then he backhands it into the net as the crowd screams.

There’s less than a minute left on the clock, and Ilya lets himself grin.

When the final horn sounds, the crowd noise spikes again. St-Simon slaps Ilya’s back on his way to Connors in the goal – Ilya grins at him, glances towards the bench, but then his eyes drift almost instinctively to the stands by the neutral zone, where there’s a group of kids in jerseys.

His stick is still in his hand – no chance yet to trade it in – and without a second thought he pushes into a deliberate glide towards the boards.

The kids clock him before the staff do – he can see them surge forward, and doesn’t try to hide his grin. He lifts the stick, looks for the kid in the sling, who had looked out at the skaters doing warmups like he was going to be tested on it later. Taps the glass – nods to the kid as he gapes at him – and hands the stick over the glass to a staffer to pass over. Ilya waits just long enough to see the kid grab it with his uninjured hand, eyes shining, gives a nod, and skates over to his team.

“Soft fucking touch, Rozy,” Marly laughs at him. Ilya shrugs – doesn’t deny it. But it’s a kindness that costs him nothing – it’s not like the equipment manager’s going to bitch at him for the loss. And the kid had been pleased to see Boston skaters – it’s a novelty to play an away game where cheers mix in with the boos.

With that thought in his mind, he pauses at the bench gate, takes off his gloves, and leans on the boards by the tunnel. A staffer offers markers, and some of the audience surge forward. A few of the other Raiders stop, too – give a few signatures – but it’s Ilya who is in most demand.

“The curse of fame,” Marly murmurs to him. The big defenceman is a fan favourite, too, but finishes up before Ilya does; Ilya finishes signing someone’s hat, caps his marker, and follows him down the tunnel.

By the next morning he’s more or less forgotten about it – a late-night flight and the short bus ride to their next hotel has him more focused on trying not to let his bruises stiffen up than on anything else. So when Marly gives him a friendly nudge and says “Yo, Rozy, you’re going viral,” he has trouble even figuring out the meaning of the sentence, let alone guessing what it could be about.

Marly shoves his phone under Ilya’s face, and Ilya sees various rapturous captions under videos and stills of him passing over the stick. Ilya gives a little grin – the kid looks like he’s having every birthday at once – but then scrolls onto a headline that hits him like a late check.

Tampa Insider: "Edge Meets Empathy: Signs of Maturity From Boston’s Most Polarizing Star."  Not the Rozanov you expected? Boston Captain shows a different side in Tampa, in a heartwarming moment with a young fan. [Full article].

For a tired, bitter moment, Ilya can’t help wondering if the motherfuckers are doing it on purpose.

Late January, 2018

The win against Montreal should have left him buzzing.

Bits of it had. Every face-off with Shane, every tussle for the puck; chirping Shane or slamming him into the boards and seeing his angry kitten snarl; the hot flash of fury when Shane steals the puck and scores, the flash of pure delight when he does; it’s what he loves best, a fizzing cocktail of neurochemicals that he feels nowhere else.

But something… something was off. Montreal, when they play best, play like clockwork; ticking along precisely together, everyone in their right place with the right play – while Shane pinballs between them like the engine that winds it up. But today… there seemed to be some kind of grit in a couple of the gears. Passes too late or too early, players lagging out of position.

Or maybe that was his imagination; maybe something based off of the way Shane sat rigid and tense on the bench between shifts. Or maybe something about how perversely fucking pissed he was by it when St-Simon and Marly were able to foul up Shane’s shots again and again. Shane being too fast for his own team to keep up and keep him covered isn’t anything new, but this feels more than usual. Pike is trying for a promotion to second best Metro, and may even be earning it today, but he can’t fill every gap.

When Boston wins by a two goal margin, Shane looks just as privately furious about it as he always does, but there’s a different tension there as well, flattening out his expression after the horn in a way Ilya’s not quite used to. He raises his eyebrows at Shane, but Shane just responds with the tiniest shake of his head.

Marly had blocked one of Shane’s shots with his shin in the second period, and by the time they’re back to the hotel his lower leg and foot are painfully swollen. Ilya steers him to his hotel room himself, dumping him on the bed with a pillow and a heap of ice packs.

“Your boy is a fucking demon,” Marlow tells Ilya, and Ilya snorts and fetches water, fishes Marlow’s Tylenol out of his bag for him.

“Great job,” Ilya tells him, sincere despite his resentment towards Shane’s linemates. The fact is, Shane is a demon on the ice. The fact that he’d still given Montreal to a goal and an assist, despite having being isolated more often than not, spoke to that. Ilya snaps an ice pack, lays it over Marlow’s viciously bruised leg for him.

“Ah, fuck,” Marlow grits out, then clearly makes himself blow out a breath. “I fucking hope he’s feeling it too.” Ilya’s sure Shane is, but is less happy about that than Marly. Especially not when he sometimes still remembers that heart-stopping moment when Shane crumpled on the ice with Marlow’s hit. Marlow seems to catch his expression, and mutters, “Sorry. I know he’s your, uh, friend.”

Ilya wonders sometimes if Marly knows more than that, but right now isn’t the time to ask. “Is the game,” he shrugs it off. He’ll have a chance to go check on Shane’s bruises personally as soon as he’s settled Marly in, and that’s what he’s more interested in. “Got everything?” he asks.

Marly looks around with the resignation of a seasoned professional. “Yeah, think so,” he says. Absently checks his phone. Then says, “Oh, fuck, wait,” and sits up straight on the bed.

“Fucking what now?” Ilya asks. “You want me to sing you a lullabye or something?”

“No – it’s the rooks,” Marlow says. “They gone out to meet the Metros.” Marlow seems to lose a mental debate with himself, and leans back on the pillows with a scowl at his shin.

“And?” Ilya says, trying to wrestle his impatience aside when he sees the hovering worry on Marlow’s face.

“And… I don’t know,” Marly admits, rubbing his face. “Pike said – you know we text about team drinks and shit? – he said I should send a vet with them tonight.” Some of the unease Ilya felt earlier starts to crystallise; it must show in his expression because Marly says tentatively, “Maybe you know more about that than I do?”

“No,” Ilya says harshly. He doesn’t explain himself; what is there to say? The Metros Captain isn’t going to cry on my shoulder about locker room shit, or Hollander takes on too much, always, or Shane is convinced that he needs to be unbreakable? All true, but all set against something acid and bitter that says Shane should have fucking talked to him, whatever it was; should have known he could. Should have wanted to.

Ilya deliberately rolls his shoulders back, trying to stop the tension setting into them. “I’ll go babysit the rookies,” he says flatly.

A little delay before he sees Shane might be better after all.

The rookies have done what they’re meant to, and checked in on the group chat before heading out. It doesn’t take long for Ilya to shove his own game bag back in his room, change out of his suit, and then he’s setting off after them.

When he walks into the bar and sees them, he instinctively slows, scanning the scene. It should look normal. Four Raiders rookies and two of their younger players, a similar sized mob of young Metros players whose names he can’t recall and who he barely recognises in their street clothes, taking up a corner of the bar. A little cluster of Metros veterans – all familiar faces - sitting just to one side.

But the two Raiders sophomores are telegraphing tension. Rossi in particular has a responsible streak, and he looks strained. The Raiders rookies look a varied mix of confused, anxious, intimidated, or annoyed. The Metros rookies… confusion, anxiety, intimidation, for sure. Also, if Ilya’s reading it right, embarrassment edging into shame.

And the Metros veterans… yeah, those are faces Ilya can feel himself already itching to punch.

Rossi catches sight of him and his expression turns to naked relief; Ilya strolls over as casually as he can. His immediate impulse – violence – is followed up quickly by his instinctive desire to send the rookies back to the hotel. A scan over the tables makes him discard that impulse too, and almost as regretfully. Most of the glasses are still half-full; by contrast, the veterans look like they’ve barely sat down. Ilya thinks of start with your teams and show restraint and can only imagine how it would look if he hauled his players out now.

The headline almost writes itself – ‘Rivalry Reignited: Raiders’ Rozanov breaks up friendly post-game drinks’, perhaps?

“Cap!” The rookies greet him with varying levels of enthusiasm and thankfulness. Ilya deliberately doesn’t look for a chair, but keeps his posture relaxed as he greets them, then turns to give a carefully measured nod to the Metros veterans, too.

“Rozanov,” one of them says tersely. Drapeau, Ilya identifies absently. With him, Comeau, Finley, and Byrne. Ilya doesn’t know much about them, off the ice; none of the four has ever played at All Stars, and none of the four have been among those Metros skaters who’ve come to Benny’s after a game.

Comeau shifts in place a bit, and Ilya lets his attention settle on him. “Hollander not with you?” Comeau asks. There’s a little twist to his mouth that’s between smirk and sneer, one Ilya’s seen before. It’s a weak opening to a chirp, Ilya thinks, and so rather than answer he lifts his eyebrows and waits. Comeau’s expression twists a little more, but he continues. “Weird – I always expect him wherever you are now. Like a shadow.”

The Metros rookies seem more uneasy at the dig than the Raiders rookies do – not that Ilya’s sparing much attention for them. He rapidly runs through the potential sources of Comeau’s comment. There’s no way they could know that Ilya spent Christmas in Ottawa with Shane’s parents. A few photos from Rose’s party made it onto social media, but before then… the fashion editor’s party? The one time Shane came to drinks at Benny’s? Were these fucking losers really that pathetically attached to an inter-team rivalry?

Ilya rapidly sorts through potential responses. Can’t blame him for preferring my company to yours… true, but not helpful. What’s the problem, need your captain to tuck you in at night? Definitely not helpful.

“Perhaps you should keep better track of your captain,” Ilya says. Manages to keep it mild and level, and doesn’t add a stinger. Finley’s expression darkens anyway.

Drapeau turns as if addressing Finley and Comeau, but he doesn’t lower his voice. “Guess this isn’t really his kind of place,” he says. “This bar’s a little rough around the edges for him, yeah?”

Comeau snorts as if this is a great joke. “Yeah… wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t feel comfortable here.”

“Not everyone’s built for rooms where people say what they mean.” Finley’s speaking more quietly, and not looking at Ilya sidelong. Bunching his shoulders a bit. The schoolyard bully’s henchman, Ilya thinks disgustedly, all grown up.

Drapeau seems to get tired of waiting for Ilya to interrupt them, and looks up at him. “You should have told him you were coming. Maybe he’d show up for once if he knew you were here to look out for him.”

No one is shouting, but the tension is practically crackling, and the group of rookies and sophomores behind him has gone very still and quiet. Ilya thinks about restraint, thinks about the crowded bar around them, and he keeps his breathing very slow and even. “I am not in charge of Hollander’s social calendar,” he says, as boredly as he can.

“I guess he didn’t want to show his face tonight,” Comeau says, a bit louder. “What a leader, eh? Lose, then vanish.”

“Hard to win when your Captain’s first priority is not upsetting anyone,” Finley says resentfully.

Finley plays wing, Ilya remembers. Not first line, but still the idea of him – him – insulting Shane is more than Ilya can listen to. He thinks of Shane smothered by two defenders for half his shifts and still fighting to take a shot at the net and Ilya wants to step forward, grab his head, and slam his face into the table. It would take maybe a second, and it would feel so good. Then he could turn to Comeau. He’s sure he could think of something to do there. Drapeau would try to sucker punch him, he’s pretty sure, but he could take it. Byrne hasn’t said anything yet, though he’s stubbornly taken another sip of his drink – he’d probably just piss himself if this turned physical, if he can’t even handle the words.

Show restraint, Ilya. The idea of restraint tastes of acid and bile, but he thinks of Shane, and he thinks of Yuna, and he manages to keep his clenched fists at his side.

“Shut your mouths,” Ilya bites out instead. He keeps his volume low, but his tone is a barbed knife. “If you skated half as hard as you talk, Hollander wouldn’t be carrying your dead fucking weight every night.” He turns to his rookies, and with a glare and a wave he gestures them up. None of them question it; Ilya raises his voice enough to be heard over the scrape of chairs as the Raiders abandon their drinks and head for the door. “Until then, get used to losing.”

In the street, Ilya walks for a moment, trying to let the movement settle him.

The rookies cluster around him, anxious and trying not to act like it. “Sorry, Cap,” Rossi murmurs to him.

Ilya finds some last shred of patience, and grips Rossi’s shoulder. “You did nothing wrong,” he says firmly.

“What – was that about Hollander?” one of the rookies blurts out, sounding almost scandalised.

Ilya tries not to sigh. “Hollander is boring, annoying, and also is fucking amazing skater and captain,” he says with conviction. “Those men are problems. Ignore them.”

The rookies seem willing to accept that, and Ilya tries not to feel sour as he thinks of the group of Metros rookies he left in the bar. Feels even sicker when he thinks of Shane – of how useless the advice of ignore them would be on the other bench, in the other locker room.

He’s furious with the Metros, and furious with Hollander for not telling him, and sick at heart and just so done, and his yearning for Shane licks up through his fragile control.

“Rossi, get everyone back to the hotel,” he tells the sophomore abruptly, and digs out his phone to order a car.

“Where are you going, Cap?” Rossi asks tentatively.

“Will see you tomorrow,” Ilya says, and waves them off.

He takes the car directly to Shane’s. He doesn’t text on the way – he doesn’t know what he’d want to say, too knotted up about the events of the evening.

He lets himself in with his code on the door, and walks in to see Shane scowling at him. His hair is still wet and his cheeks are still pink, but he’s re-dressed himself in sweats and one of Ilya’s t-shirts, and Ilya feels something turn over inside him.

“You couldn’t text to say you were running late?” Shane says. There’s something more than irritation there – a tightness around his eyes, something tense in his posture – too ready to stiffen up and clamp down.  

So. Words won’t help here.

Instead Ilya drops his jacket on the floor next to his shoes and stalks over, kissing Shane hard even as he crowds him against the wall. Shane’s hand is in Ilya’s hair and his mouth open under Ilya’s even before his back hits the wall. “Ow, fuck,” Shane hisses, then before Ilya can pause or pull back Shane is drawing him back in again for another kiss, pushing him back to fight his shirt off, and dragging a hand down his back to pull him in greedily again to grind their hips together. Ilya pushes Shane’s shirt up; the bruises he’s expected are there, dark blotches on his skin. Shane pulls his shirt off the rest of the way impatiently and reveals more.

They’ve both had worse, of course, but Ilya sees a particularly vivid one on Shane’s side and recalls the check into the boards – the press of their bodies - Shane’s snarl at him as Ilya swiped the puck – and feels a moment of swooping disorientation.

“Don’t,” Shane says, voice a little rough. Ilya focuses back in, to Shane’s hands clenched on the waistband of his jeans, holding him close. “Don’t be careful with me,” Shane tells him, and Ilya pins him back against the wall, scrapes his teeth against Shane’s jaw.

“Okay,” he says. “Moy lyubimyy, yes, fuck, okay. Anything you need.”

Afterwards, Shane kisses Ilya’s shoulder and gets out of the shower. “Have you eaten?” he asks from the other side of the glass. “I ate already, but I have some of the pasta that you like.”

When Ilya follows a few minutes later, the pasta is waiting for him on the table. He looks at it, frowns, and grabs it, an ice pack, and Shane, taking all three with him to the couch. Shane rolls his eyes, but lets Ilya arrange them together. “Don’t drop crumbs on me,” he orders sleepily, and lays himself half in Ilya’s lap, the ice pack on his ribs.

Between bites, Ilya runs his fingers through Shane’s hair, and watches as Shane’s eyes half-close and he slumps closer. The brittle tension from earlier has eased off now, but Ilya doesn’t like how tired Shane looks.

“Your team played like shit,” he tells Shane, as kindly as he can.

“Fuck you,” Shane mumbles into his thigh.

Ilya gently tugs on Shane’s hair, turning him enough to see Shane’s face. “Not you. Your team,” he clarifies. “Two against one and Marly’s shin is going to be black tomorrow from blocking you.” Shane’s eyes are closed, but that sends a satisfied smile flickering over his face before it dies again. Shane still doesn’t say anything, so Ilya tries again. “I watch your games. This is new?”

Shane finally opens his eyes; he’s clearly trying for neutral but his expression comes off as bleak. “It was worse today,” he admits.

“Worse. But not new,” Ilya concludes, and feels angry with himself for missing it.

“I’m handling it,” Shane says, and looks away.

Ilya tugs at his hair again, asking for eye contact. When Shane looks at him a moment later, he asks, “Handling what?”

“I’m handling it,” Shane says again, tighter, and purposefully closes his eyes again, turning to angle his face back into Ilya’s leg. Ilya slowly takes in a breath, considering one last try, but Shane says, “Fucking leave it. Please? I don’t want to talk about it now.”

Ilya sighs slowly. “Okay, kotenok,” he says.

After a moment, Shane says, “Will you stay tonight?”

“Yes. I can do that,” Ilya says, and gently repositions the ice pack before it can slide off Shane’s ribs.

Shane wakes earlier than him; there’s a blurry moment in the morning where Ilya registers movement, a hissing breath, and instinctively tries to rouse himself. Shane’s hand on his shoulder and lips on his forehead ease him down again.

When he wakes with his alarm a little while later, it’s still uncomfortably early by his own internal clock. Nonetheless, he forces himself out of bed, brushes his teeth with the toothbrush he keeps in Shane’s bathroom, and digs through his drawer for fresh underwear and socks.

When he comes downstairs, he’s expecting to see Shane still doing yoga by the windows where the morning light is best. In the end, Shane’s yoga mat is still laid out but Shane himself is kneeling, staring at his phone, expression tight and with spots of colour high in his cheeks. He looks up when Ilya walks in, and Ilya’s surprised to see the banked fury that’s directed at him.

“Ilya,” Shane says slowly, and turns the screen to him. “What the fuck is this?”

Ilya recognises himself even in the still image; when Shane hits play he hears his own voice come scratchily through the speaker. ‘…Carrying your dead fucking weight… get used to losing…’

“Blyat,” he says tiredly.

Shane turns the screen back to himself. “‘The rivalry’s back on, boys,’” he says, voice flat and cold as he reads. Scrolls, finds another. “‘Raiders captain disrespects Metros veterans after win.’ ‘So much for Rozanov’s new leaf.’ ‘Rozanov wins the game but loses it off the ice.’”

“I didn’t lose it,” Ilya interrupts, irritated. “If I had lost it I would have fucking punched them, like they deserved.”

“I don’t need you to fight for me!” Shane explodes. “Fuck, Ilya! Do you think this is going to help?” He stabs at his phone, reads in a vicious tone, “‘Rozanov defends rival after Metros veterans target their own Captain.’ ‘Funny how he only goes nuclear when it’s Hollander.’” Shane glares at him. “What, you can’t walk away from a fucking chirp without weighing in?”

“Jesus Christ, I did not go there for a fight!” Ilya snaps back. “I go to find my rookies cornered by your fucking vets. Then they start saying shit about you? They were ones looking for a fight!”

“So you gave it to them,” Shane says bitterly.

It’s a little stab. The phrase show restraint, Ilya, echoes in his mind, but this time the tone is sneering. He hates that right now it sounds to him like Shane’s voice. Blindly, he turns away towards the door. “Fucking fuck. It is too fucking early,” Ilya says, furious and hurting, acid churning in his stomach. “I need coffee. I need to get back to team.”

“Fine. Go,” Shane says coldly. “I have to get ready for practise anyway,”

That has Ilya turning back despite himself. “Shane, no – is optional. Fucking rest, for once!”

“That’s my team, Ilya!” Shane rips back. “I have to go in! You get to insult them and walk away, I have to fix the fucking damage!”

Ilya whirls away, locks his jaw shut, slams the side of his fist into the wall, and keeps walking before he says anything else that he’ll regret later.

He shoves his sneakers on without untying the laces first, and is grabbing at his jacket by the time Shane comes around the corner and catches his wrist. Ilya goes still, glares at him. “What,” he asks flatly.

Shane is locked hard with tension, colour high and eyes glittering. “I don’t want – I love you, okay?” he snaps out. “I’m so fucking mad at you. But I love you.”

Something twists in Ilya, squeezes. He remembers too many times like this – harsh words and walking out. He presses Shane into the wall again, murmurs “Fuck, ya tebya lyublyu, I love you,” into his neck, then kisses him hard. “I am fucking mad at you, too,” Ilya tells him, and he leaves.

Chapter 8: Crowd noise 4

Chapter Notes

Late December, 2017

Hockey Jaw (Check out our podcast!) @Hockey_Jaw
Growing up or Going Soft? See our latest on Rozanov’s recent hot mic moment in the Boston-Pittsburgh game!  🎤👀 [link]

@RaidersRiot:
What happened to our favourite menace??

@TheStatsGuy
Expected value of fighting there = negative. Smart hockey.

@HollanderDefender
Oh so Rozanov held himself back from one (1) hockey fight. Should we throw him a party? Should we give him a medal? 🙄

@RaiderFaithful
Rozanov knows how to win.

@NHLTea
Is Rozanov… growing up?

@ChaosGoalie
Say it ain’t so!! 😭

Early January, 2018

Detroit Free Press @DetroitFree
Agitator or Peacemaker? Rozanov Keeps it Cool. Raiders captain calms down a heated situation in a local bar after the Boston team’s OT loss. [link]

@RaiderFaithful
Did anyone else hear about Roz pulling Carmichael back from a fan tonight?

@RaidersRiot
Like Rozy hasn’t been at the centre of a bar brawl himself a time or too! Man the C really has changed him 😟

@PuckTalk
Good for him, honestly this sport doesn’t need any more punch ups than it already has

@HollanderDefender
Amazing how there’s always a someone there with a camera or mic when there’s good press available… do you think he pays people to follow him around or just has them make shit up?

Puck Insider Blog @PuckInsider
Rozanov: Maturing or Managing Optics? Check out our breakdown of the Raiders’ captain’s top news beats so far this season. [link]

Mid January, 2018

Tampa Insider @TampaInsider
"Edge Meets Empathy: Signs of Maturity From Boston’s Most Polarizing Star."  Not the Rozanov you expected? Boston Captain shows a different side in Tampa, in a heartwarming moment with a young fan. [Full article].

@HollanderDefender
The man gives away one game stick and people act like he’s not been consistently an asshole for years?

@RozanovApologist
Okay, not combatting the asshole allegations bc Rozy can and should go off whenever he wants to… but also he does this shit all the time?? He’s genuinely really sweet to young fans.

@HockeyParentsUSA:
That kid will remember that forever.

@NHLTea
Okay this is legit cute, that kid looks so happy 🏒🏒🏒

@bringback1987
We scoring goals or filming Hallmark movies now? 🙄

@saypuckit
It was literally the game winning stick he gave away…

@RozanovApologist
He’s going to come top of the scoring race and people are trying to pitch it that he should focus MORE on scoring goals? 😂

@HollanderHive
Our boy Hollzy begs to differ -  Rozanov is going to come SECOND in the scoring race.

Late January, 2018

Puck Insider Blog @PuckInsider
🔥 🚨 Rozanov goes OFF! 🚨 🔥 Check out this video of Raiders cap Rozanov decimating Metros veterans in a Montreal bar – right after decimating them on the ice! [link]

@RaidersRiot
Looks like we’re allowed to hate Montreal again! The rivalry’s back on, boys,

@MontrealStandard
This should say ‘Raiders captain disrespects Metros veterans after win’ 😡

@HollanderDefender
He’s always had zero respect, what else did anyone expect?

@RozyOwnsYou
The dead weight comment was lethal 😂

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
So much for Rozanov’s new leaf…. again.

@HockeyHotTakes
Rozanov defends rival after Metros veterans target their own Captain – new videos surface with longer clips of Rozanov’s interaction with Montreal veterans! 👀 [link]

@StickToTheSix
Imagine lecturing another team about respect and leadership

@RaiderFaithful
Imagine publically trashing your own captain?? Or have you only seen the short clip? 🙄 It’s the Metros who need a lesson in professionalism here.

@RozanderWatch
This doesn’t look like a rivalry – this looks personal

@ChaosGoalie
Funny how he only goes nuclear when it’s Hollander.’”

@TumblrRefugee
Yes… ‘funny’…

NHL Rumour Log @NHLRumourLog
We’ve seen some interesting things in Rozanov and Hollander’s media clips lately… so we’re bringing the source straight to you!

Video description: Clip of Boston Raiders Captain Ilya Rozanov speaking to media in post-practise scrum.

Reporter: You’ve had some criticism – and some praise – this week for criticising a group of Montreal veterans, apparently in defence of Shane Hollander. What motivated you to step in?

Rozanov: Private complaining should stay private. They made it public; I answered. Hollander is an amazing player – he is the one-to-beat, for me. But I always want to beat him at his best, not run him down.

Reporter: Haven’t you in the past made comments about him having a weak backhand, and called him ‘second best’?

Rozanov: Yes. Weak compared to me. Second best compared to me. Who else would I be comparing to?

Reporter: You’ve been seen at some social events together lately. Would you say you’re on friendly terms?

Rozanov: Off the ice, we get on fine – no problems. (small shrug) On the ice, we try to kill each other. Both things can be true.

Video description: Clip of Montreal Metros Captain Shane Hollander speaking to media in post-practise scrum.

Reporter: Videos circulated this week of Ilya Rozanov speaking up for you in an argument in a bar. What do you think motivated that?

Hollander (very calm, even tone): We’ve competed against each other a long time, but I have lot of respect for him as a player, and as a Captain. I’d guess that’s mutual. Beyond that, you’d have to ask him.

Reporter: Did it surprise you that he took your side?

Hollander (tone flat): I really don’t have anything else to say about that.

Reporter: You’ve been seen at some social events together lately. Would you say you’re on friendly terms?

Hollander (very calm, even tone): I try to stay on civil terms with people across the league. I don’t think off-ice beef leads to the right kind of on-ice play, or the right kind of competition.

Reporter: What do you say to Rozanov’s comments calling you ‘second best’?

Hollander (smiling with genuine warmth): I say I’ll see him on the ice.

Video description: Clip of Montreal Metros Captain Shane Hollander speaking to media in post-practise scrum.

Reporter: Longer videos have surfaced of the recent argument between Rozanov and Metros veterans, which seem to show Metros veterans criticising your leadership after the recent Montreal-Boston game. Do you have any comments on this?

Hollander:  Emotions run high after games. Everyone’s competitive, and losses can sting. But ultimately, we all care about the team and about winning. We’re on the same page.

Reporter: Will there be any problems for you in working with the Montreal veterans from the video?

Hollander:   I’ve spoken to the veterans from the video. The conversation was a private one and now we’re moving forward. As Captain it’s my job to set the tone, but it’s also my job to make sure I’m hearing out my players and working with them. That’s my focus.

Reporter: Are you feeling supported by the organisation at the moment?

Hollander: Coaching are aware of the situation and they’re engaged. We’re having a lot of conversations. We all want to make sure we have a good team culture, that we’re aligned on values.

Reporter: Where do you think these concerns have come from?

Hollander: Mid-season is intense. I think we’re all looking forward to a short break, so we can come back hard after All Stars.

NHL Blogger @NHLblogspot
Respect, Rivalry, and Rumors: What’s Really Going On Between Rozanov and Hollander? We dissect the argument between Rozanov and the Montreal veterans, and their recent media clips. Check the full post: [link]

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Honestly I’m not always impressed by Rozanov but they both answered like pros? Mutual respect is a reasonable answer. Does it need investigative reporting?

@NHLTea
Interesting that Hollander didn’t deny tension… 👀 😬

@RaidersRiot
Sounds like Hollander IS carrying dead weight.

@RozanovApologist
Lol Rozy wasn’t wrong

@CaptaincyMatters
Respect across team lines should be the norm, not newsworthy.

Boston News @BostonLocalNews
Rozanov Praises Rival, Keeps Swagger Intact. An unapologetic Rozanov describes Hollander as “Second best compared to me” – our reporting on recent rivalry upheaval between the Raiders and the Metros. [link]

@StickToTheSix
Classic Rozanov – cause a fuss, lap up the attention 🙄

@RaidersRiot
That’s our Rozy alright 😂

@HollanderDefender
People talking about Rozanov ‘defending’ Hollander like he didn’t just blow up the Montreal room and walk out laughing…

@saypuckit
Dude it sure sounds like the Metros don’t need Rozanov’s help to blow up their room.

@LockerRoomLeaks
Nothing new verified yet on the Montreal locker room sitch – but Montreal bartenders love to chat and I am ON IT

@ChaosGoalie
We thank you for your service

Montreal SportsLine @MontrealSports
Hollander Acknowledges Internal Tension After Veteran Comments – but is this normal mid-season friction or something more? Our columnist weighs in: [link]

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Midseason slump and friction is a real phenomenon, it’s not a big deal

@bringback1987
This doesn’t happen in stable rooms. They call him a prodigy but what they mean is ‘kid’ – Hollander’s too young for the C, and is getting stuck in some woke agenda when he should be playing hockey.

@HollanderHive
He's 26 and he's been captain for 3 years already, he's not some rookie 🙄

@MTLInsider
Press conference tone can tell you more than headlines. Rozanov leaned in. Hollander pulled back. Is that just personality — or pressure? Full analysis: [link]

@NHLTea
One of them sounds like he likes the other.
One of them sounds like he’s managing optics.

@HollanderDefender
Or maybe one guy overshares and the other is disciplined.

@saypuckit
The tone, too, though - did anyone else think Hollander sounded really flat?

@MontrealStandard
Hollander’s just not emotional with reporters. This isn’t new. Why are people acting like there’s some conspiracy to keep him quiet?

@HollanderHive
For me it comes down to - why is Rozanov praising our captain more enthusiastically than our own room is?

@RozanderWatch:
He goes nuclear for him.
He smiles at him.
He defends him publicly.
He visits spends time with him socially.
👀 👀 👀

@TumblrRefugee
At this point the rivalry is just flirting. Or foreplay. 😂

Chapter End Notes

Up next: All Stars!

Chapter 9: Stage 4: Lean into All Stars

Chapter Notes

Because I didn't want to kill my darlings, this chapter starts with a special bonus scene! I hope you enjoy it, as well as the chapter as a whole.

Marlow swings by unannounced, while Ilya was in the midst of packing to leave. Ilya’s in no mood for company, but Marlow’s expression is odd – serious and tentative all at once – and so Ilya lets him in, lets him follow him back through and hover in the doorway of his bedroom as Ilya goes back to tossing his clothes in a suitcase.

“So,” Marlow says, with noticeable awkwardness. “You looking forward to All Stars?”

“Yes,” Ilya says shortly.

“You’re playing on the same team as Hollander again, right?” Marlow says. Ilya just gives him a look for this obvious non-question. “That will be pretty cool. You two were awesome together last year.”

Ilya slept poorly the night before, with no practise or game or sex to take the edge off his worry, and the beating around the bush is wearing away his limited store of patience. “Marly, what do you want?” he asks shortly.

“A fucking conversation with my friend?” Marlow suggests.

Ilya’s in no mood. “Blah, blah, nice talk. Goodbye.”

“You’re being a dick,” Marlow observes easily. “Have you not patched things up with –“

Marlow hesitates tellingly. “Jane,” Ilya snaps. He looks up, and Marlow’s expression is awkward but unflinching, and Ilya lets out a sigh. “Just – say Jane,” he says more quietly.

“You sure about that?” Marlow asks.

Ilya shrugs tensely, turns back to his packing. “Is not mine to fucking talk about, okay?”

Marlow leans against the doorframe. “You can talk about yourself,” he points out. “You know. If you want to.”

Ilya unclenches his jaw, and stops pretending to pack. Glares at Marlow. “Fine. I fuck men,” he says flatly. “Big shock, big news, whatever. You do not give a shit. Why talk about it?”

Marlow rubs his face, and Ilya knows he’s being an asshole. Knows that Marlow has probably had to work at not giving a shit, that Ilya is giving him too little credit for that – but the bubbling irritation that’s been with him since his argument with Shane, just over a week ago, still hasn’t let up. “Seriously, Roz, I get that it’s not just your secret,” Marlow says. “I’m not going to fucking blab, but I get it. But – tell me this. Are you and your guy okay?”

Ilya sighs. “Jesus. Fuck if I know,” he says. Marlow just waits, patiently. “Is fucking hard, Marly.” Another long beat, and he thinks it might as well be said. “I am leaving the Raiders. At end of this season.”

Marlow jerks as if Ilya’s kicked him. “Fuck, what?” he blurts. “No, Roz -”

“I never get to fucking see him,” Ilya runs over the top of him. “And… I do not want to be just Russian citizen. Canada would be good place to live.”

“You can get a Green card!” Marlow snaps at him. “You don’t need to move to Canada! Fuck.” Marlow turns, paces a few steps away, comes back, while Ilya waits. “You can’t be thinking about the fucking Metros?”

“No. Never,” says Ilya, instantly and with cold venom. “Fuck them.”

“Then where?” he demands.

“Nothing is settled,” Ilya deflects. “Marly… No more now, okay?”

“Fucking hell,” Marlow mutters. “Fucking hell! No wonder you’ve been trying to clean up your act, if you’re shopping.”

Ilya doesn’t hold back the bitter scoff as he thinks of his wasted efforts. “Trying, yes.”

“That’s what the fight was about?” Marlow asks heavily.

“Marly, enough,” Iya says tiredly.

“Fine, alright,” Marlow surrenders reluctantly. “But sort things out with Jane over All Stars, will you? Stop taking your shitty mood out on us.”

Ilya quirks a wry smile. He wonders if the team selected Marlow as their ambassador or if he decided all on his own to draw off Ilya’s fire. “Will try,” he acknowledges. “Now fuck off. I need to actually pack.”

Marlow steps in long enough to grip Ilya’s shoulder for a moment, and then nods and leaves.

You were great at All-Stars. Fans loved it. So this year we lean into that — interviews, social media, whatever comes up. Talk to the other players. There will be people there who know you both, who know how to work a story and keep the temperature down. We want it to read as ‘intense together’, not ‘against each other’.

Early February 2018

His mom is worrying for him.

He and his parents flew together from Montreal to LA, which has given Shane altogether too much time alongside her ever-present, barely contained stress. She can’t talk about it freely – not in an airport or airplane – which only makes it worse; rather than a dissection and a planning session, he’s subject to her repeated glances, and sees her trying not to fidget.

Finally he takes off his headphones, leans over the arm of his seat to her, and says quietly, “Just – ask a question.”

Yuna looks at him keenly, then takes his hand and squeezes. “Are you two alright?” she asks just as quietly.

It’s not the question he was braced for – he’d been expecting ‘what are you doing about the locker room’ and ‘are coaching aware’ or ‘do you have a damage control policy for the press’. Instead, the question is so soft that it disarms him for a moment, and he has to take a moment to swallow before he can talk. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “It’s not – not our first fight.” He smiles weakly. “Just the first since the, um, playoff finals. It’s better than how it used to be.”

A world of difference from being left on a rooftop after winning Rookie of the year, lips still stinging and tasting of cigarette smoke; from six months of utter silence, his texts falling into a void; from walking out of a Vegas hotel room tasting vodka and salt and feeling like he was walking across a tightrope in high winds. Ilya told him he loved him, and kissed him before he left; they text most days, even if Shane doesn’t know what to say.

Yuna nods, accepting that. No one is paying attention to their low-voiced conversation; the seats are spacious and set apart from each other enough that the words are probably lost under the engine noise in any case. “You know, I found one of the longer videos,” she says quietly. “Not just the short clip that’s everywhere. The audio is rubbish but they had a lip reader caption it.”

Shane tenses. He’s seen those videos himself – not that he needed to, by the time it belatedly made the rounds. When interrogating the rookies had just made them squirm he’d told Hayden to use his dad voice on them. Hayden had squirmed in turn, but with him Shane had no compunctions about digging out the nature of the insults.

“I said one question,” Shane says firmly. He’s not going to discuss this with his mother ever, if he can help it – but definitely not here, not now, not with eyes around and nowhere to escape to.

“No questions,” Yuna says immediately. “Sorry, Shane. I just wanted to say – he lost his temper, but it's not all bad. People don’t think of the rivalry like they used to, now.”

Shane nods, and puts his headphones back on to try to hide the slightly sick, frozen feeling about all the questions Yuna no doubt is still sitting on after that video, and all the answers he doesn’t have under the PR shell. What else can he say? Complaining about it won’t change the situation.

After a moment, Yuna pulls out a laptop and starts working on something. At least she apparently feels better for having asked; at least there’s one problem here that can be fixed.

They land in LA and catch a taxi to the hotel. Traffic is terrible, naturally, but Shane tells himself firmly to enjoy the sun and the warm air, and it seems to work; it’s a constant reminder that he’s away from Canada, away from the usual grind. He’s the only member of the Metros here, and that feels like even more of a gift than the sunshine. A text from Ilya saying that he’s already at the hotel does its part, and by the time he gets there he’s feeling lighter than he has in weeks.

As soon as he drops his things off in his room, Shane wants to go find Ilya – and almost as keenly, he realises he’s hungry to talk to other players, too. To immerse himself in the world he knows best, but without the current thorns. His mom is almost as eager – to see Ilya, and to start tracking down good media opportunities – and his dad is just happy to be included, so they troop down to the lobby bar together.

Shane hangs back, smiling painfully at the little piece of theatre as his parents see Ilya and greet him first – Ilya smiling and kissing his mom on the cheek, shaking his dad’s hand. Just as if they hadn’t each given Ilya a lengthy bear hug when Ilya left after Christmas. He knows his mom would like nothing more than to do the same again - and then start nagging Ilya about something, no doubt - but she’s as mindful of her own optics as she is of theirs. So instead she exchanges a few social niceties, warns him laughingly to be careful of elevators, and marches off to find whatever conference room the NHL have booked and start laying plans. His dad excuses himself to go find a nice place to sit with a book, and then Ilya and Shane are alone.

Well. Alone in the middle of a room milling with hockey players and members of the public.

Ilya waves Shane to join him at the bar, casually gripping his bicep in greeting. Even through his shirt the touch feels more intense than it should. Shane’s aware of his face, his body, and how awkward he feels, and this is so stupid. They have had years of this, years of meeting in hockey spaces and pretending everything is normal, so why is it so hard?

“Still mad?” Ilya asks in a conversational tone, after the server has left to go find Shane’s ginger ale, and - right, yeah, that might be it.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Not quite as much. You?”

Ilya offers him a twist of a smile. “Same,” he says.

Shane glances over – the server is still at the end of the bar. “Has it been messing you up, too?” he asks, and Ilya’s smile untwists into something more genuine.

“Marly says I am traumatising the Raiders,” he admits, and Shane finds himself relaxing, smiling back. It shouldn’t feel like a relief to know that Ilya also feels pissed off, that he’s hurting about it, but it does. It’s enough of a balm that he doesn’t stiffen at Ilya’s searching look, or when Ilya asks casually, “How’s Montreal?”

Shane murmurs a thanks as the server returns with a glass of ice and a cold can, but Ilya’s still waiting patiently. “Pretty much the same,” he says levelly.

Ilya’s expression sours, and his hand tightens on his beer. “You manage to… fix things?” he asks. It’s only half sarcastic, Shane thinks.

“That was a shitty thing to say to you,” he acknowledges.

Ilya shrugs. “But not untrue?” he challenges, and Shane looks away. “Hollander… Shane. I prefer you be shitty to me than lie or hide,” Ilya murmurs.

It’s hard to take in, hard to feel the wait of it. “You lie and hide too,” he accuses instead, even though he knows he’s deflecting.

“Bad habit,” Ilya agrees without demur. “Not as much, now. You know that, yes?”

Shane does know that, is the thing. A year ago in a hotel room in Tampa Bay Ilya had told him about his dad’s diagnosis and cried on his shoulder, and since then he has given more and more. Shane doesn’t quite know how to keep up.

“Can we just… bench it for now?” he asks. Almost begs, really. “My team isn’t here, and it’s All Stars. It’s meant to be fun. Can’t we just… give the argument a break?”

They’re interrupted by a whoop, and Carter Vaughn all but bounces over to them, pounding them each on the back. “Rozanov! Hollander! How are you two doing?” he asks. “Man, you two on the same team again – who decided that? The rest of us don’t stand a chance!” Without waiting for an invitation, Carter slings himself into a seat next to them. “So what are you two talking about?” he asks brightly.

“I am telling Hollander, this is a break,” Ilya says easily. “He can have a beer.”

“It’s barely afternoon,” Shane responds, but his heart is lighter than before. “And I like ginger ale.”

“Nah, loosen up, Hollzy – no one wants to do the afternoon shit sober,” Vaughn tells him laughingly, and Shane finds himself relaxing into the moment.  

The ‘afternoon shit’ that Vaughn shrugged off is, regrettably, important for them – or at least, important for Stage 4 of his mom’s plan. She wants to set up some interviews, meets with sponsors. And she’s already told them she wants them to get mic’d up, and has asked them to prepare suitably gracious agreements for when she arranges for it to be suggested.

Shane is impressed by his mom; by the time he does his round through the conference room, not only does someone earnestly talk to him about being mic’d up for the skills competition, they ask him to do a paired segment after with Ilya. “Everyone wants to know what’s up for our favourite rivals these days,” he’s told, and Shane keeps his media face on with an effort.

“Sure, I guess. If it will help the broadcast,” he says with a shrug, and privately hopes that at least this part of the plan works out.

When he eventually makes his way back to the bar, Ilya’s talking to a somewhat wary looking Scott Hunter, a permanently enthusiastic Carter Vaughn, and a man Shane can’t place but who looks familiar. Ilya sees him, and casually waves him over; Shane tries not to visibly drag his feet as he does. He likes Hunter fine – he just hates this part of stage 4.

Hunter gives him a friendly smile in greeting. “Hollander, nice to see you again," he says. "I don’t think you’ve met my boyfriend, Kip?”

Suddenly the familiarity of the man clicks, and Shane nearly chokes. He watched Kip and Hunter making out on live TV, in what was possibly one of the most significant moments of his adult life – after the NHL draft and winning silver at the Olympics and every single time Ilya had made eye contact with him and his world had turned over, even before he was willing to name it. He can feel his eyes widening and the smile sliding off his face despite himself. Scott Hunter didn’t just kiss his boyfriend on live TV, apparently – he kept doing it. Bringing him to hockey events, where he’s not just with his team, not hiding…

And Shane is standing here next to a man he loves like he never thought it was possible to love a person, and he can’t even touch his hand.

He’s been silent too long; he can see Hunter’s welcoming expression cooling off into confusion, and Kip’s expression turning into a light scowl. He needs to say something; he needs to say anything, but he feels a spike of anxiety and the words just aren’t coming –

“Blyat,” Ilya says, low-voiced. “Vaughn. Take a walk.”

“What? Why?” Vaughn objects.

“Give us a minute,” Hunter says firmly, and Shane doesn’t know whether to feel relieved that Hunter’s got rid of his teammate, or even more humiliated that he’s now clearly been clocked as on the verge of having a panic attack in front of the active NHL player he most admires. And his boyfriend, who he’s still not been able to say a word to.

“Breathe, Hollander,” Ilya orders him. He puts a hand to the back of Shane’s arm, apparently casual but squeezing hard enough to hurt, and something clears enough that he can take a full breath.

“Sorry,” he says, colour high, the moment that he can. Ilya’s hand drops away again, and he rocks a half-step away; Shane hates it, and then he thinks of the eyes on them and feels relieved, and then he hates himself a little bit for feeling relieved. He forces himself to take another breath before he can spiral again.

Kip at least has moved from angry to confused, which is good, but Hunter has shifted from confused to compassionate, which is mortifying.

“Something you wanted to talk about?” Hunter asks kindly, and Shane thinks about the email he’d sent him, after the playoffs kiss. He’d been as careful with his words as he could be – just saying how much he admired Hunter’s courage, and respected him as a player – but what had felt then like an acceptable risk feels now like he’s scrawled something in marker on his forehead. “I saw that video of your teammates…”

“Not that,” Ilya says immediately, to Shane’s relief. “I mean, yes, Hollander should definitely talk to you about that –“

“I do not need to talk with anyone about that -” Shane says flatly, talking over the top of him.

Ilya gives him a look, and Shane glares back. Ilya gives a skeptical look but a conceding shrug, and continues. “…but actually we wanted to ask you for a favour.”

Kip has been watching this exchange with his eyebrows going higher and higher. “Is this a favour that needs me to take a walk, too?” he asks at the close of this. “Because if not, maybe we should start with an actual introduction.”

Shane wants to die a little bit. “Uh. Hello. Shane Hollander,” he offers.

“Yes, Hollander is not homophobic. Just very awkward,” Ilya says briskly.

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Shane tells him, and immediately feels somewhat better. “Um. We don’t need you to go. Honestly Vaughn didn’t even need to go – what the fuck, Ilya? What’s he going to think?”

“Don’t worry about Carter,” Hunter says. He now looks somewhat exasperated – definitely better than compassionate. Kip looks increasingly amused. “Instead, why don’t you tell me what’s so important?” Shane looks instinctively to Ilya, but Hunter says, “No. I’d prefer not to be asked for a favour by someone who can’t go two sentences without insulting me to my face.”

Ilya shrugs unrepentantly. “If your face was less stupid I might insult it less,” he suggests.

Shane would kick him, but it would look weird, and anyway that’s a love tap as far as an Ilya Rozanov chirp goes. Instead he forcibly tries to organise his thoughts. “It’s this stupid rivalry thing,” he says. “It wasn’t ever what the media said it was,” and Shane can feel the blush coming back in; surely this is painfully obvious now. “And now it’s just… ridiculously outdated. And it’s annoying. It’s not a big favour – just, you have a following. If you ever have a chance to change the story, can you take it?”

Hunter takes that in; as he does so, he absently puts his hand on Kip’s back. Kip beams up at him, and in that little moment Shane wonders how long it took Hunter to do that the first time; how long for it to be natural, how long for it to be automatic. “What are you looking to change the story to?” he asks.

“Nothing big,” Shane says immediately. Hunter’s playoff cup kiss isn’t something he’s looking to emulate any time soon. “Just – that we’re competitive but don’t hate each other.. That we’re friendly, even.”

Hunter says drily, “I’ve seen you two half-kill each other over an All Stars game.”

“Like he said,” Ilya says. “Competitive.”

Hunter looks between the two of them. “Sure,” he says. “If there’s ever a chance, I can push the friends angle.”

“But competitive,” Shane cautions him. He chews his lip for a moment, then spits it out. “Maybe even… so competitive, that you can’t believe either of us would ever throw a game even though we’re friendly,” he says quietly. “If that – if that ever gets said.”

Kip hisses out a breath. Hunter stiffens up. “But you haven’t. Have you?” he asks, voice going even quieter.

“Fuck no,” Ilya says, at the same time as Shane says, revolted, “No fucking way, never.”

“But you think it… might get said. Someday,” Hunter says, looking between them again.

“Hopefully not. Hopefully… rivalry will be old, boring story soon, no one will ever even think about it,” Ilya says calmly.

Shane doesn’t say anything. Can’t quite say anything, can feel himself stiffening up a bit. Hopes that it will be missed by Ilya, but – “Blyat, Shane!” Ilya says tightly. “If someone is saying that shit –“

“No one actually means it,” Shane cuts him off. “It’s just mouthing off.” He can see Ilya’s jaw jumping, and Ilya’s fists clenching; Ilya lets off a quiet but intense stream of Russian, too fast for Shane to catch anything he recognises, but which he’s guessing is mostly profanity. He talks fast before Ilya finds the words in English again. “But, if anyone mouthed off in public…”

“…I could tell them I’ve seen you two half-kill each other over an All Stars game,” Hunter finishes. “I could tell them that you are two of the most insanely competitive players I’ve ever met with other people, but that you take it up by a factor of ten when you’re up against each other. And that it’s not surprising that you’re friendly because you’re two of a kind.”

“Yes. Please,” says Shane gratefully.

Hunter nods. “I can do that,” he says, and some of the tension goes out of Shane. “And Hollander – if you ever do want to talk to someone, Captain to Captain, about locker room shit –”

“I’m handling it,” Shane says, instantly and automatically.

“…Right,” says Hunter, looking from Shane – rigidly determined – and back to Ilya, who to Shane’s eye looks like he’s aching to punch someone. “Well. If that ever changes, you have my email address.”

“Thanks,” Shane says. “And, um, nice to meet you, Kip?”

“Likewise,” Kip says to them. “And I think I should say… good luck?”

Shane hates to admit it, but he thinks they might need it.

After they leave Scott Hunter, Ilya takes a breath through gritted teeth, then says “I need a fucking cigarette.”

Shane automatically opens his mouth to tell him that he is endangering his career (and his life), but Ilya hold up his hand, his expression harsh, and Shane makes himself wait.

“I know you fucking hate it,” Ilya says, weary and tight at the same time, voice very low. “But right now I need to smoke, or I need to fly to Montreal and kill your teammates, or I need to fuck you against a wall, or I need to yell at you for a half hour.”

Shane blinks as he hears the list of options, his mind snagging on one in particular and refusing to move on. Ilya clearly sees something in his expression, because the harshness fades a little from his face and the beginnings of a smirk appears.

“Jesus Christ, Hollander,” he says. “We are in the middle of a bar.”

“You started it,” Shane grumbles.

“And I’ll finish it,” Ilya says. His grin is there but there’s a restlessness to him still. “But later.”

“Only after you’ve brushed your teeth,” says Shane automatically. Ilya rolls his eyes, gives him a casual wave, and walks out looking a touch less strained than he did a moment earlier. Shane, meanwhile, takes a breath and looks for some of his teammates for the weekend.

Shane always looks forward to the Skills Competition. Ever since that first year, as rookies, when he broke Ilya’s new record a bare minute after he set it, he’s loved it. Because it’s a game – in the purest, stakes-less sense of the word – there’s no true chagrin, just the drive of the competition and the buzz of the win.

With all that’s happened over the last few weeks, he’d not known whether he’d be able to let go of his ever-present tension enough to enjoy it - but after Ilya made good on his promise the night before (and with no variety pack of brand new bruises to work around), and after they had the rare joy of a slow morning together, he’s feeling a pleasant, loose relaxation and is ready to play.

Ilya had suggested the passing challenge, because it was new and sounded fun, and Shane had been happy to agree.

Doing it mic’d up is new. He’s been asked before – but he’s never wanted to say yes, and mostly his reputation for being serious means that they don’t bother to ask too hard. This time, though, they’re clearly counting on getting some interesting content on their ‘favourite rivalry’ – which Shane would resent, if he wasn’t counting on it, too.

At first Shane feels self-conscious, of course. He’s sitting with Ilya, which helps – and some other skaters from the weekend’s assigned team, which is overall neutral – but he’s very aware of the mic tucked into his collar, and he feels tongue-tied in a way he's not accustomed to, with hockey.

“Hey, Hollander,” Ilya says from beside him. “I know you’re new to the mic thing, but I think you’re meant to be talking.”

“Oh, really? Are you always mic’d up? Is that why you never shut up?” The retort comes without him even thinking about it, and Ilya laughs.

“When did you go to chirp school?” he asks.

“Skating against you practically is a chirp school,” Shane tells him, but the player taking to the ice now is from their team, and his usual sense of duty activates, and he starts commenting. “You can see that was a good release… he just missed the window. Yes, there it goes… he’s settling into it now…” 

“Oh my god, Hollander, you are so polite. You know they bleep the fucking swears, right?” Ilya drops his voice to a confidential tone. “Now, this is big secret, but Captain Shane Hollander who always is so polite on news clips actually –“

“Rozanov, quit it.”

“- actually has big potty mouth -”

“I do not!”

“- people think he does not even know swears, but they are wrong –“

“Rozanov, if I say ‘fuck’ will you be quiet and let me watch?” Shane asks.

Ilya chuckles and subsides, watches with him. “That was… interesting approach,” he says after a moment, tone dripping judgement.

“It’s a hard target,” Shane defends the player.

“For some people, maybe,” Ilya concedes.

“If you crash and burn out there, I will laugh, and you’ll deserve it,” Shane informs him.

“I will be flawless. It will be so beautiful. You will cry from the beauty,” Ilya says loftily.

“Do you plan to talk the pucks into the nets?”

“Do you think that’s what this guy is trying?” Ilya asked, as they watch a new player go up. “I am not sure it is successful approach.”

“It was a decent miss,” Shane says, mostly for argument’s sake.

“At least it hit the ice.”

Shane finds that he’s enjoying the back and forth despite his consciousness of the mic. The opportunity to talk to Ilya essentially as much as he wants to is a heady one, and while he is trying to counter Ilya’s relentless chirps he also can’t help grinning at them.

Then it’s Ilya’s turn.

“Crying from beauty,” he tells Shane firmly as he stands. “At least one tear.”

“You planning to get on the ice sometime today?” Shane asks him. As Ilya skates away to set up, he says to his own mic, “You know, it would serve him right if I just said things like ‘Interesting choice’ and ‘sometimes it needs a practise round’ and ‘gravity is a challenge’, but unfortunately I think… yeah, there it is.” He watches Ilya hit the lit up targets in rapid succession. “He was watching, you know. This whole time, making his stupid comments, he never had his eyes off the ice.” His tone is probably too warm, but it’s hard to simultaneously police it and watch Ilya, and he knows what his priority is. “Look at his approach each time – he already knows exactly what he wants to try. That kind of consistency doesn’t just happen accidentally. That is really clean. And he is moving fast…” It doesn’t take long before Ilya finishes with his targets, and Shane sighs in mingled irritation and admiration. “Unfortunately, that was very good,” he says quietly. Ilya comes back over, grinning at him. Shane grins back, unable to help it.

“Well?” Ilya says, settling beside him.

“Eh,” Shane says. “You were alright.”

Ilya just laughs. “You think you can do better?” he challenges.

“Always,” Shane says.

In Shane’s own attempt, he shuts the mic out of his awareness altogether. Shuts out the audience. He’d watched Ilya as carefully as he’d said Ilya watches everyone else. He saw the angles Ilya used, and now he runs them through in his mind as he skates over and sets up, imagining every muscle movement. And then there’s nothing else but him, the stick, the pucks, the targets, and his own singing desire to win.

Time stretches oddly for him, and then compresses again as soon as the last target is struck. Shane blows out a breath; he has no idea what the time is, but even before the cheering crowd registers he’s smiling as he skates back to Ilya.

“Well?” Shane says. “Are you crying from beauty?”

“Hollander, oh my god, get your own chirps,” Ilya says, but taps gloves with him with a grin.

They’ve both been watching the jumbotron, so when the final scores are announced back (Shane taking first place, Ilya behind him by a hair) it’s no surprise, but Ilya makes a disgusted noise all the same after the applause has stopped. “Who times this thing?” he complains. “They were napping, they fell asleep and added extra time on.”

“It’s a computer,” Shane tells him, obediently standing and shuffling out with the rest of their group.

“The computer is wrong.”

“Do you want to go again?” Shane challenges him with a grin.

As their group is steered away, a chirpy woman in a headset steps into their eyeline. “Hey guys – looking great out there! We’ve got a follow-up interview queued if you’re good?”

Shane gives Ilya a rueful grin, and they let themselves be steered to the correct places, their jerseys tweaked into alignment, extra mics added, and then seated in front of a camera.

Ilya reaches out with his now-sneakered foot, and momentarily taps it to Shane’s. Shane reminds himself that he is good at media, and he’s run questions with his mother, and – crucially – this is a fluff piece. No one is going to ask him searching questions about his Captaincy style and whether he is failing his team. He takes a breath; focuses on the pleasant buzz in his body, on Ilya’s proximity, and he relaxes. He’s ready.

“Congratulations, Shane — you edged out your longtime rival by a razor-thin margin. How does that feel?”

“Honestly, great,” Shane admits. ”It’s not a very sportsmanlike thing to say, but winning against Rozanov is always a thrill. And something like this – it’s just pure fun.”

“And you came second, Rozanov – we heard you on the mics blaming the scoring system! But be honest, how are you taking second place?”

“I was robbed,” Ilya says. Shane rolls his eyes, but is still smiling. “I will beat you next year,” Ilya tells him firmly.

“Any time, any place, Rozanov,” Shane retorts.

Of camera, a producer gives him a big smile.

“You two sounded like you were having fun on the bench — is that something that surprised you?”

Ilya shrugs. “No – we know each other pretty well.”

Shane finds himself instinctively wanting to wince at Ilya’s answer – too open to interpretation. But the producers don’t seem stressed, so he tries to match the friendly vibe they’re offering. “It’s a nice change for me to be able to laugh at his chirps rather than getting annoyed by them,” Shane says. “They’re less funny when you’re in the middle of a hockey game, that’s for sure.”

“We could hear some pretty competitive commentary between you guys — is that how it is when you’re on the ice?”

“Worse,” says Ilya immediately.

“Worse from Ilya, less from me,” Shane says. “I lock down, he tries to get under my skin.”

“Does not work,” says Ilya. “He’s too good.”

“It sometimes works,” Shane disagrees. “You’re extremely annoying.”

“You’ve pushed each other since you were rookies – is there extra motivation when you’re trying to outdo each other?“

“Yes,” says Shane.

“Yes. Always.”

Off camera, a producer makes a circling gesture with her hand. Ilya and Shane look at each other, shrug.

“There just is,” Shane says.

The interviewer rallies. “You’ll be on the same team tomorrow – second time running! – how are you feeling about that?”

“Looking forward to it,” Shane says warmly. “Last year was a great time for me – it’s set the bar high for tomorrow.”

“Feeling like we’ll win,” Ilya says. He grins at Shane, who grins back.

“You’ve said you’re motivated to outdo each other – how does that show up as teammates?”

“If Hollander makes a play, I want to keep up, every time,” Ilya says, voice very sincere. “If I make a play, I know he will be doing the same.”

Shane nods to that. “We’ve been pitted against each other so much,” he explains. “I’ve watched more tape of Rozanov than any other player. I can read him, I know where to be.”

“Yes, same for me,” Ilya agrees. “Against each other, is like a mental battle – try to outthink, or try to be so fast that prediction does not help. With each other, is amazing.”

“Today on the bench we heard some chirps… but also some compliments.”  A clip plays – Ilya’s voice, saying “You think you can do better?” followed by a clip Shane hasn’t heard, a softer murmur of “No wasted movement. That is Hollander all over. He does not need to look before he moves – he already knows where to go next. Does this in games, too. Is even more annoying then.” He realises that that must have been while Ilya was watching him compete, and tries not to feel flustered. “So which is real – the chirps, the compliments, or a bit of both?”

Well, that flusters him in a slightly different way. It’s the big question, isn’t it? Can they be rivals and also be friends? Or – as his team seems to think – does the rise of friendship make competition impossible?

“Wait,” says Ilya, interrupting his thoughts. “Can I hear clips of Hollander complimenting me?”

He’s got his chirping face on – that grin, where he sees a target and is ready to jab. It calls Shane right out of his head, and he says, straight-faced, “There aren’t any.” Ilya gives him an aggrieved look, and he says with faux sympathy, “Listen, I know you tried – but your performance, it was – it was average, really.” He knows he’s being set up, setting himself up… but as long as he’s going there with Ilya, it’s fine.

“You are liar. I can tell. You loved it,” says Ilya confidently.

Before Shane can think of his next quip, and audio clip plays: Shane’s voice saying “That kind of consistency doesn’t just happen accidentally... Unfortunately, that was very good.”

Ilya looks delighted, of course. Shane shakes his head but can’t keep off a responding grin.

And the answer feels easier now – less momentous, if no less true. “The truth is, Rozanov is a great player and also he is deeply annoying and also I will push myself to the edge to destroy him on the ice.”

Ilya’s smile becomes a matching, predatory grin. “Same here,” he says.

The interviewer seems happy enough with this answer. “We don’t always hear you talk about the rivalry this way – does being at All Stars change the tone?”

This question feels dangerous. He knows what’s being prompted this; his formulaic media lately, always waiting for the next problem to drop. He speaks slowly, carefully crafting his answer to be the acceptable kind of true. “All-Stars is always a great reset. You’re not carrying your team’s whole season on your back for a weekend. It’s a chance to enjoy the game again.”

“Is good to just play hockey together,” Ilya says more simply. “Good to remember it is just fun.”

That seems to wrap it up; the interviewer thanks them nicely for coming, various assistants come over and strip off the mics again (to Shane’s quiet relief), and the producer comes over to them, beaming.

“You two were great,” she says enthusiastically. “Great energy together,”

“Is all me,” Ilya says. “Hollander is extremely boring interview on his own.”

Shane elbows him on principle, but it’s so clearly true that he doesn’t disagree.

The producer looks chagrined, possibly about the mic packs already being gone. “Well, hard to push the blood feud narrative after that,” she says wryly.

Shane feels a mix of relief and worry over that, but Ilya seems pleased. “Was like blood feud sometimes, early on,” he offers. “Like when I beat him in the draft.”

Shane scowls at him. “Rookie of the year,” he counters.

“MVP,” Ilya says.

“Two Stanley cups,” Shane instantly jabs.

“Boys, you’re killing me,” the producer says. “Don’t do this after I’ve already taken you off mic.”

Ilya laughs. “We do this all the time,” he says.

“It’s why the ‘blood feud’ story lasted so well,” Shane admits. “The competitiveness looks sharp, even when we’re both having fun.”

“Well, I hope you have a good time for the rest of the All Stars,” the producer finishes, and they’re clearly dismissed.

The rest of All Stars is not exactly an anti-climax – more like the slow, easy final slopes of a rollercoaster after the big drop. Shane’s mom is thrilled about the interview feature, and gives them strict instructions about social media. Ilya probably takes in about half of it, and Shane ultimately just turns his social media over directly for the weekend, which is a relief for them both. Their interview has clearly landed them on some kind of list with the NHL production team for good media assets, because both he and Ilya are approached several times during the game to capture quick hits of them bickering on the bench, or giving their views of the game.

Shane doesn’t mind, because the game was, as anticipated, great.

The team have no problem sending Shane and Ilya out in a line together, and they do paper-scissors-rock each period for who will play center. After the puck’s down, though, it hardly matters -  they’re moving with each other and with the game, not based on any pre-determined plan or position. It’s like flying and it’s like coming home, all at the same time.

Shane had asked Ilya privately not to kiss his cheek this time, but at the end of the game, when they’ve won, Ilya hugs him on the ice, and lightly taps the front of their helmets together, he does nothing to supress the blaze of his smile.

He has a full night more with Ilya before he flies back to Montreal; after months of attempts and failures they’ve finally laid enough groundwork that the NHL will start to change the rivalry story for them; every nerve and muscle feels fired up and singing in easy harmony from matching himself to Ilya; just for now, he’s not going to hide his happiness for anyone.

Chapter 10: Crowd Noise 5

Chapter Notes

I think the AO3 problems yesterday may have eaten some comments... if that might have been you, please tell me something nice about yesterday's chapter!

Early February 2018

Allstars rinkside interview with Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov
[Video transcript]

Interviewer: Shane! Ilya! How was it out there on the ice tonight?

Shane: It was great – great fun skating with the team tonight, and a real buzz to end on a win.

Ilya: Of course we won – who could match us?

Interviewer: Fans loved seeing the two of you playing together.

Shane: I’m glad the fans enjoyed it – we definitely did too.

Ilya: Was very fun.

Interviewer: You’ve shown a different side of the rivalry this weekend! Should fans expect more of this?

Ilya: In future, I hope so.

Shane: For now, we have one more Montreal-Boston game this season, so we’ll be on the same ice but not the same side.

Ilya: He will be very serious. No laughing at my jokes.

Shane: He’ll be trying to throw me off my game. But I’ll be focused on the hockey.

Interviewer: Focusing on the game is clearly important to you. Do you ever feel like the rivalry gets in the way of that?

Shane: Yeah. Honestly, that’s my biggest irritation with it. People can’t see past the hype to the hockey.

Ilya: Hollander and I play amazing together - but also amazing against each other. People make this into a big story, say we’re enemies. Don’t like it if we act like we’re not, act like it will change the hockey. But the hockey is still the same, is still great.

Shane: The great play never came from the hype. The hype came after people saw us play.

Interviewer: It was definitely great tonight – congratulations on the win!

Sportsnet @sportsnet
From Blood Feud to Bench Banter: Mic’d-up moments, mutual compliments and a helmet tap that had fans talking — Hollander and Rozanov’s rivalry may be entering a new chapter. We break down what changed. [link]

@StickToTheSix
This is just typical All Stars PR fluff. They can’t stand the edge.

@saypuckit
It seemed like authentic chemistry to me. If they’re faking that, forget the NHL, they really should be heading to Hollywood.

Hockey Jaw (Check out our podcast!) @Hockey_Jaw
The NHL’s fiercest rivals sounded like teammates on the mic this weekend. From chirps to compliments, the All-Star vibes between Rozanov and Hollander hit different.  New breakdown up now. 🎙️ Check out the pod → [link]

@CaptaincyMatters
That’s real respect between competitors.

@RozanderWatch
“I can tell. You loved it.” SIR.

@HollanderDefender
I just don't trust it. After years of chirping and hits, Rozanov is now acting all friendly? It can't be as simple as it looks.

@HollanderHive
It's weird, sure, but they seem to have a nice vibe together

@HollanderDefender
You're not even a little suspicious that Rozanov's fucking with Hollander just for the hell of it?

@HollanderHive
I think Rozanov might be an asshole but probably isn't a comic book villain

@RozanovApologist
“You know they bleep the [BLEEEEP] swears, right?” I just love him so much 😂

@ChaosGoalie
Yes, but can I raise you “Rozanov, if I say [BLEEP] will you be quiet and let me watch?”

@RozanovApologist
I think that maybe Rozy’s menace energy is contagious. This is a cause for celebration.

@TumblrRefugee
WITH EACH OTHER, IS AMAZING

@puckmemes
[screenshot of Rozanov saying “I was robbed”]
[screenshot of Hollander saying “Unfortunately, that was very good” while trying and failing to look annoyed]
[screenshot of Rozanov saying “You will cry from the beauty.”]

@NHLTea
Going straight into my reaction folder…

@hockey_gif
Some people have been asking for these…
[gif of Rozanov and Hollander playing paper-scissors-rock-on the bench]
[gif of Rozanov and Hollander hugging and tapping helmets, both with blazing smiles]

@hockey_gif
Also bringing this one back from last year…
[gif of Rozanov kissing Hollander on the cheek/helmet while Hollander smiles]

@TumblrRefugee
Yessss thank you I need these

@ChaosGoalie
I’m a convert. Paper-scissors-rock on the bench 😂

@RozanderWatch
You understand my vision

Montreal SportsLine @MontrealSports
All-Star smiles and mic’d-up banter are great for the league — but is it good for Montreal? We break down what a “softer” dynamic with Rozanov could mean for the Metros. [link]

@RealHockeyOnly
Hockey’s an aggressive game. If everyone’s in their feelings all the time how are they going to play? Enough with this soft nonsense.

@MontrealStandard
There’s a history between the Metros and the Raiders that needs to be upheld – you can’t just re-write that.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
They both REPEATEDLY talk about how competitive they are against each other. Using words like ‘destroy’. They can have a laugh together and still take the game seriously.

Mid February 2018

NHL Rumour Log @NHLRumourLog
For those who wondered if the All Stars energy would last… we’re bringing you more video clips of Hollander’s latest media scrum.

Video description: Clip of Montreal Metros Captain Shane Hollander speaking to media in post-practise scrum.

Reporter: “At All Stars, you described the rivalry between you and Rozanov as ‘hype’. What messages do you have for fans who worry about what this means for your motivation to win?”

Hollander (very calm and even): I think I’ve been pretty clear about my position – I absolutely believe that being motivated to win, having a competitive spirit, is an important part of play. I want that for myself, and for my team. I’m not convinced that personal animosity is the best way to build that motivation - that’s not the kind of motivation I want for me, or for my team.

Reporter: “Your tone around Rozanov felt noticeably different at All-Stars — was that intentional?”

Hollander: All Stars is great, but it’s a break, too. I’m always more serious in the season – I want to focus on playing the best games we can, so that’s where my head is at.

Reporter: “How do you balance Captaincy expectations with personal relationships around the league?”

Hollander: I value civil relationships across the league. I think that that’s very important as a Captain – being able to think about the people you play, not just the positions, helps strategic thinking.

Reporter: “And does that apply to cross-team friendships?”

Hollander: I think it’s normal to have people you’re friendly with on other teams – surely most players do?

Reporter: “Do you think your position about the rivalry with Rozanov will change as you approach the Boston game in March?”

Hollander (calmly): No, I don’t. I’ve consistently said that I want to win, and I will do everything I can to make that happen. I don’t imagine that changing anytime soon.

@RozanderWatch
“I value civil relationships across the league.” Oh really? 👀

@MontrealStandard
Civility doesn’t score goals.

@CaptaincyMatters
“I’m not convinced that personal animosity is the best way to build that motivation.” Measured and professional. Hollander is setting a benchmark here.

@HockeyHotTakes
Hollander laughs and jokes with his ‘rival’ and locks down at home? That’s not just professionalism, that’s pressure. He’s being guarded for a reason.

@NHLTea
Yeah you definitely get the vibe that his org values the ‘hype’ a lot more than he does…

@TumblrRefugee
PR handler standing to one side with a big hook?

@MontrealStandard
He's being professional. Not everything is a conspiracy. 🙄

Sportsnet @sportsnet
Different Settings, Different Shane? Hollander looked looser in Los Angeles, joking easily with Rozanov. Back in Montreal, the answers returned to structure and control. Read our full analysis here: [link]

@TumblrRefugee
So when I, a humble hockey RPF enjoyer, say it I am dismissed as delusional, but when a respected sports media publication says it suddenly people pay attention? Unfair, frankly.

Chapter 11: Stage 2: Show Restraint (Still)

Chapter Notes

I know you all just love the Show Restraint chapters so much - so you get another one!
Seriously, I've been SO excited for you all to read this one, please let me know what you think.
(Note: I have been quite stressed about the fact that the AO3 downtime has made it hard to update / hard to get comments! If there are more outages after I post this I'll probably pause updates for a couple of days until things seem to be settled - so if that happens, nothing's wrong on my side and regular updates will resume soon.)

Content warning:
This chapter contains an uncensored slur! If you would like more information about this before reading, please check the end notes.
There is also some physical violence but nothing that's out of keeping with ice hockey circa 2018.

All Stars helped hugely, but we can’t be complacent. The rivalry story is shifting, but it needs your images to stay balanced if that’s going to hold. If it doesn’t – that’s when the questions come in, and the old story snaps back into place.
Or snaps into something darker.
I know that isn’t fair. I know you’re tired. I know it feels like you’re being punished for other people’s expectations.
Please. Just… keep it in mind.

Mid February 2018

After the bright spot of the All Stars weekend, the dive back into the season becomes a grind. The draining game schedule, the slow accumulation of little injuries… and for Ilya, most particularly, the knowledge that it will be almost six weeks before the next Montreal/Boston game.

It will be the longest he’s gone between visits to Shane since the playoffs kiss, and even only a few days out from All Stars the prospect of it is depressing. He and Shane had compared schedules, wondering if they could sneak a day together in between, but their only windows were painfully narrow ones, and they’d reluctantly concluded that it just wasn’t feasible.

Now, Ilya’s grimly realising there’s an additional problem beyond missing Shane’s presence. If he’s not there in person, it’s much too easy for Shane to duck his calls when he doesn’t want to talk about what’s going on.

Shane’s media clips following Metros games since the All Stars had started as expected – very Captain Hollander, with all his media-training clearly visible. Lots of repeating of the same old soundbites about mutual respect, valuing civil relationships, and wanting the ‘right kind’ of competitive play. Some new bits, as people try to bait him into inconsistencies about his media style at the All Stars and when with his team – he’s started saying things like  “If you want to watch the clips again, I’m sure they’re online. Right now, I’m more focused on the season / the game / the next period…” and “All Stars was only two weeks ago – I haven’t changed my mind or forgotten anything I said. But right now, my focus is…”

When he’d called Shane the evening after he saw that repeating, to tease him gently about the new items in his library of stock phrases, Shane had sounded tired. “Management wanted me to walk it back,” he explains bitterly. “What happens at All Stars stays in All Stars. I was carried away by the good vibes and reasonably priced alcohol. Nudge nudge wink wink, we all know the NHL loves a buddy story, I was just playing along like a good boy, but really the rivalry lives on…”

Ilya had been pissed on Shane’s behalf – as useless as that emotion is – but more concerned about the weariness. Shane had just come back from a brutal road trip that had left his body clock jangling, so Ilya told him to go to bed, talked him off over the phone, and then let the phone line sit open between them until long after Shane fell asleep.

After that, when he saw those stock phrases in continuing, he recognised them as Shane’s iron stubbornness under fire. Only now, they’re also being joined by new lines of questioning… ones which worry Ilya a lot more.

“Hollander, the Metros have had a run of challenging games – how is the team taking it?”

“The Metros haven’t been meeting their expected goals lately… what do you think is behind it?”

“At this point in the season, it’s hard to make up points if you fall behind. We’ve started to hear the word ‘wildcard’ used. How do you see the team’s playoff chances?”

“Earlier in the season, this team was rolling. What’s changed since then?”

“How’s the mood in the room right now?”

Shane’s developed a new collection of responses, but Ilya can’t help thinking he looks hunted.

Ilya thinks bleakly that perhaps he shouldn’t blame Shane for ducking his calls – it’s probably one of the few lines of questioning he’s still permitted to avoid.

Not that his own media is exactly a treat, he thinks, in a post-game media scrum against Toronto. The Raiders had won – possibly helped along by the fact that Dallas Kent hates Ilya and can’t seem to help but react to his chirping - and the Raiders’ own playoff chances are still steady enough that no one’s asking him too many searching questions, so Ilya hadn’t been expecting anything too heavy.

Then – “We’ve been talking about leadership challenges around the conference since All Stars — Montreal’s had some questions there. As someone who plays against them regularly, have you noticed anything different from Hollander this year?”

Well. Noticing that the Metros team seem intent on destroying their best player is definitely different, Ilya thinks savagely. Noticing that aside from Pike and Boiziau, his teammates aren’t bothering to back up his plays half the time is different – because that’s no longer just happening when they play Boston now, Ilya realised as he watched the last few games.

He doesn’t even have to remind himself to show restraint, not this time. This isn’t just about him being an asshole – volatile with the media, rude about other players. This is about Shane. Anything and everything he says could become part of Shane’s narrative, not just his.

“No,” he says, simply and clearly.

The reporter blinks at him. “So you don’t think there’s anything going on there at all?”

 Ilya shrugs. “Hollander is the same player and captain he’s always been,” he says.

The questions, thankfully, move on.

Late February, 2018

Shane’s been missing phone calls regularly since All Stars.

Well. It’s hard to know that for sure – it’s the season, after all. It wouldn’t be surprising if he really was too tired, too bruised, or too in-a-hotel-room-with-Hayden-fucking-Pike to take a call. And he’s not dodged every one.

Fuck, maybe it’s just that Ilya’s wanting to call more often that makes the disparity show up.

But Shane has a pattern, if there’s a disconnect. If they’ve set it up in advance, he’ll text to cancel. If Ilya calls unplanned and Shane doesn’t pick up, he’ll text or call back when he sees the missed call. If he’s ever upset with Ilya, he doesn’t give the silent treatment – he gives a small barrage of texts, anxious or awkward or angry, then goes silent.

Not like today. He knows Shane’s travel schedule as well as his own; he’s in Montreal, no game or travel. He should have had endless opportunities to respond to Ilya’s mid-morning text suggesting a call; he should have already been home for the evening by the time Ilya rang. But… nothing.

Ilya feels the anger as a restlessness in his hands and a tension in his shoulders, and feels the anxiety as acid in his stomach. He thinks of the different things he could do – say screw tomorrow’s game, go hop on a plane to Montreal? Hard to care about the game, now. Go bang on Marlow’s door, insist he hand over Hayden Pike’s number, and interrogate Shane’s best friend about it? Only not tempting because Pike would just hang up on him. Call, and call, and call until Shane picks up just to swear at him? Tempting; more tempting than he likes, really. He doesn't know if it's the anger or the anxiety that makes that one so appealing, and the uncertainty of that makes him waver queasily into indecision.

Throw his phone into a wall? Increasingly fucking tempting, and Ilya deliberately drops it on the bed and paces back and forth until that urge fades.

In the end, Ilya picks up the phone carefully, and types out a message.

And then he grabs his headphones and a water bottle, and heads for the hotel gym. Coach won’t be thrilled if Ilya is up all night working out the night before a game, but he’ll probably be significantly less happy if Ilya puts a fist or a foot through cheap hotel drywall because he loses his temper.

No text or call interrupts his gym time, or his shower afterwards. Ilya looks at his phone again, and sets the text message alert to the highest volume it can go before flopping into bed.

It finally wakes him at six in the morning.

Ilya is still groggy with sleep, and the English lettering is hard to translate into words at all. He sits up in his hotel bed and rubs his eyes until he feels able to parse them.

He hesitates a long moment before writing back.

There’s a long pause – longer than Ilya likes, and it sets him churning. It’s not unusual for Shane to be awake this early, but it’s rare for Ilya. Shane knows his travel schedule as well as Ilya knows Shane’s – with a game the night before and the flight not until late morning, Shane would be expecting him to still be asleep.

He feels the urge rise to hit the call button, and strangles it.

Ilya remembers Boston, remembers cooking for them for the first time, murmuring Shane for the first time against his lips, and remembers how Shane panicked after and ran. It’s different now, they’re different now – but he knows that recoil all too well.

Finally the phone screen lights up in a call, and Ilya’s body unclenches as he picks up. “Sorry for waking you,” Shane says. “I thought your phone would be on silent.”

Ilya just barely holds himself back from jabbing at that little admission. “I prefer talking to you to extra sleep,” he says instead. “You okay?”

There’s a painful hesitation. Then, “Yes,” Shane says. “Sorry for not texting yesterday.”

Ilya waits for a moment. “You want to talk about it?” he asks, when no more is forthcoming.

“No,” Shane says. His voice is sharp on the word, and there’s a moment after where he just breathes, in and out, before he says, voice even again, “It’s nothing. Rough day.”

Ilya thinks; no game yesterday, no press. Just an ordinary day in the season. A day with his team.

The thought hurts.

“Please talk to me,” he says. “Blyat. Shane. Lyubimyy. Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Shane says. Bitter, but with an emptiness in it, too, that sneaks into Ilya’s stomach and sets knots into him. “No changes. Nothing new. I’m still –” The sharpness rises back into his voice; he breaks off, takes another breath. Ilya would prefer it if he’d screamed. “I’m still handling it.”

“You do not have to handle it with me,” Ilya tells him.

Shane’s breathing goes ragged for a moment. “Stop. Please,” he says. The rawness makes Ilya flinch back. “Not – not yet, okay?”

“Okay,” Ilya says. “But soon?”

“Yes.” It’s a promise and a deflection all at once, and Ilya holds himself back from grabbing on as Shane ends the call and slips away.

The day’s short flight to New York only intensifies his restlessness; in the evening he takes a savage satisfaction in a particularly aggressive game against the New York Admirals. At the end, when the horn goes, Scott Hunter lingers near him for a moment. Ruefully rubs a hand over his ribs where Ilya hit him into the boards earlier.

“I’ve been hearing some stuff about the Metros,” Hunter says casually.

“Yes,” says Ilya flatly. “Me too.”

“I’ve been wondering about sending Hollander an email,” he says.

Ilya thinks of the call. Thinks of Shane’s pattern in interviews, of being perfectly honest while saying nothing clear at all, and he thinks of all the things ‘nothing has changed’ might mean. Thinks about powerlessness; about having nothing to offer Shane that he would accept.

“I think he needs the help,” Ilya says.

Early March, 2018

Ilya had not had mentoring a Metros rookie on his bingo card for today.

When he came in to Benny’s, he’d seen the young man in street clothes and a knee brace sitting with the Raiders rookies, but hadn’t questioned it. He’d wanted a quiet drink with Marlow, St-Simon, and Carmichael, listening to their gossip and trash talk and getting out of his own head for a change, and so he’d given a casual wave and walked straight past.

It’s only when the stranger nervously approaches his table – accompanied by a concerned delegate from the Boston rookies – that Ilya realises he looks familiar. A darkly resigned suspicion is forming even before Martin nudges him and the kid says, “Uh, sir? I’m Reilly, one of the Metros rookies. Can I, uh, get some advice?”

Ilya keeps his sigh internal. Carmichael and St-Simon look vaguely annoyed, but Marlow says, easy but wry, “Always on duty, right?”

Ilya nods an acknowledgement of Marlow’s quip, and St-Simon and Carmichael pick up their drinks and go to push the rookies off a different table to finish them. Marlow hovers for a moment, a mute offer to stay, but Ilya waves him off. “You too, Martin,” Ilya says to his rookie, gesturing him back to his own table, and kicks a chair out for Reilly.

“Okay, Reilly,” he says, as the rookie sits. “Talk.”

The story he gets is hesitant, hedging, and full of gaps that Ilya has no trouble filling. It’s also utterly unsurprising, for all that it makes him sick and clenched. An early-season pushback against bigoted language – not started by Hollander, but backed by him and taken on by him when it got backlash. The quiet, eye-rolling sneers about it. The conversations that kept happening whenever Hollander wasn’t in the room. The talk about Hollander being soft on Boston – and soft altogether. And since All Stars… that’s when the rookie starts getting more tongue-tied.  “They’re saying all kinds of shit,” is what he finally resorts to.

Ilya wonders if the hesitation to tell is because it’s shit about him, or shit about Shane.

He wants to grill the kid about it. Find out exactly who’s said what. He can guess some – he’s kept Comeau, Drapeau, Finley and Byrne very much in mind – but he wants to know everyone, anyone. Wants to make a hit list and check it off. He’s willing to be patient, he can take his time – game by game he could make them fucking regret it.

But the rookie is eying him nervously already, and even with his messed up knee he looks like he’ll bolt for the door if Ilya comes on too strong.

“That is fucked up,” he says instead, and Reilly relaxes a beat.

“I thought – you’re friends with the Cap, right? Is there anything you can do?” he asks hopefully.

And that’s the fucking question right there, isn’t it? The question which Ilya’s been asking himself daily for weeks, when Shane misses his calls or says ‘it’s fine’ or says – over and over – that he’s handling it. And here it is, the direct appeal for help that he’s been desperate for – but not from Shane.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters sourly, and then “No,” he says bluntly. “Hollander and I are friendly, yes. Is fucked up situation, yes. But… is not my locker room. Not my team.” Reilly looks downcast. Ilya doesn’t blame him. “It should not happen this way,” Ilya tries to explain. “It is not – fuck,” he mutters. “Marly!” he calls. Reilly jumps, but Marlow comes over casually, drink in hand.

“What’s up, Rozy?” he asks.

“If I give the team shit. Real bad shit, not just shitty mood and bag skates at practise,” Ilya carries on, seeing Marly’s expression start to shift into a smirk. “Start talking shit about you, bad names, all that. What do you do?”

He can almost see Marly consider and reject the joke. “Here? Talk to Coach. Talk to management.” He considers a moment, shrugs. “They’d probably take care of it before I needed to call a PA rep.”

Ilya waves him off again – he leaves obediently, but with an interrogative look back.

Reilly looks overwhelmed. “But it’s not the Captain causing trouble,” he protests.

“Does not matter,” Ilya says. “Coaching, management, they should be fixing this. Hollander should not have to deal with this shit. You  should not have to deal with this shit. You should not have to come to another fucking captain for advice, you should already have it.” He sits back, watches Reilly’s face; the kid is clearly struggling to absorb this, and Ilya mentally adds the entirety of the Metro’s coaching and management team to his hit list. “You talk to Hollander?”

Reilly looks appalled. “I can’t do that. It’s not directed at me. Not like it is…” he pauses, side-eyes Ilya, and dodges around. “He’s got too much on his plate.”

Ilya thinks sickly that if Shane could hear this he might combust from the weight of the conflicting expectations on him. He hopes desperately that if the rookie ever does go to Shane for advice, he doesn’t tell him why he waited so long. “Hayden Pike?” he offers instead. “Shitty player, but not shitty guy.”

“He’s alright,” the rookie agrees, despondent enough to not even react to the chirp. “He does what he can.”

“You know your PA rep?” Ilya asks, trying for evenness. “You ever talk to them?”

The rookie predictably looks tense. “I don’t want to make this a, a thing,” he says anxiously.

“You are sitting in Raiders bar, talking to Raiders captain, about your shitty locker room,” he says flatly. “I think is already pretty big fucking thing.” Reilly looks even more unsure, and Ilya sighs. “Maybe they just give you advice. Think about it, yes?”

Reilly nods, at least. As he gratefully starts to beat a retreat, he pauses. “You won’t tell Hollander about this, will you?” he asks tightly.

Ilya thinks of Shane trying to tear himself in two, desperate to absorb all the damage without breaking while not letting others do the same, and thinks Kid, you have no idea how little I want to tell him about this. “No. Only if I have to,” he says, and both he and the rookie will have to be content with that.

After Reilly leaves, Ilya stares at the dregs of his drink for a moment. The pressures to act are dull ones now, like playing on an injury rather than taking it fresh. He wants to fly to Montreal. He wants to storm into the locker room. He wants to call a journalist and tell them everything he knows, eviscerate the Montreal management…

…and if he tried, nothing would come of it apart from making everything worse.

He can’t even tell Shane to call his PA rep, without getting back I’m handling it.

Ilya sets his glass down carefully before he throws it, clenches his jaw, and tries to accept the feeling of being painfully helpless.

Mid March 2018

It’s when he’s in the locker room for intermission that his phone starts buzzing. He grabs at it, of course, in case it’s Shane – but it’s Yuna. He hesitates for long enough for the call to go to voicemail, unsure if he should call back, when her text comes through.

He taps it instantly, and quickly skims through with an increasing sick rage. He can’t take it all in – instead his eyes snag on key phrases, like skin on thorns.

…Sources noted that Hollander’s emphasis on respect and inclusion has taken on an increased urgency in recent weeks…

…Hollander’s softer style is not the type of voice most NHL teams are used to hearing from their captain…

…A source from the locker room says “Hockey used to come first — now it’s complicated. There’s a sense that everyone’s walking on eggshells.”

…As the Metros slip in the playoff standings, the question is being posed: what makes a team - and a captain - tough enough for a playoffs push?...

…The room follows the voice at the top. When that voice isn’t focused on hockey, problems tend to follow…

Fuck, what? He normally understands the media, but this kind of mealy-mouthed talk fills him with a sick uncertainty. He doesn’t know what he’s meant to take from it. He doesn’t know what other people will take from it. It feels like poisonous gas – he doesn’t know if it’s thick enough to kill or if it will just float away.

He plays the third period of the game with an inchoate rage buzzing through him. It makes him mean and a little reckless – he spends more time in the penalty box for it, but also manages to land a goal in one of his wilder drives for the net, so LeClaire gives him a look but doesn’t call him out. They win, but Ilya feels more relief than pleasure when he hears the ending buzzer.

It’s probably his imagination that the reporters smell blood in the water, but he has to brace himself before going out to do media. He wishes he’d had time to talk to Shane – to Yuna – to someone about what mines he might be about to step on. But all he has is show restraint, Ilya – and it’s not like he needs anyone else to tell him that right now.

The scrum barely wastes time on the game he’s just played before they sink their teeth in.

“There was a piece out of Montreal this afternoon talking about leadership tension and focus. As someone who sees the Metros team up close, did anything in that ring true to you?”

Ilya doesn’t bother to deny that he’s read the piece. “No,” he says flatly.

“You’ve played against Hollander a lot this season — does he feel any different as a captain to you?”

“No,” Ilya says, flat and stony.

“The article suggests his emphasis on respect and inclusion might be causing friction — do you see that as a distraction, or just a different leadership style?”

They’re avoiding the closed questions now, and Ilya sense a trap. “I do not have much to say about another team’s room,” he says, as coldly as he can when his anger is heating up.

“There have been questions about whether Hollander’s leadership style can take them to the playoffs. What’s your take on the kind of leadership style that’s needed for a playoff run?”

“Hollander has won Stanley Cup twice. I have won it once,” Ilya says flatly. “Are you asking the right captain?”

He can feel the energy of the reporters buzz at that answer, but he doesn’t care – can’t care – has no restraint left. Pointedly, he turns to look at the PR handler – end this or I will – and she waves him back to the locker room.

His team give him space as he stalks to his stall and texts Shane.

Have you been outed? he wants to write, but can’t. Are you alone? Are you safe? Most crucially of all, will you let me be there?

But he can’t write any of that; not here, with too much chance of a glance over his shoulder. Possibly not ever, with the ever present worry of a phone hack that might expose them.

He’s out of the shower, dressed, and at home again, and there’s still no response.

Ilya looks at the text, at the painful, obvious, horrible lie of it. He clenches his hands tight into fists rather than hitting the call button, then as the muscles ache he finally loosens them, and types back.

Shane doesn’t send a reply.

Mid March, 2018

The day of the Montreal-Boston game is clear, bright, and cold.

Ilya can feel his jaw trying to clench and a jittery heat building in his muscles all the way through the plane ride, the bus ride, the short break at the hotel. Rest feels impossible, but he forces himself not to burn energy he might need later.

He’d texted Shane last night; there had been a reply waiting this morning.

Nothing new had been added to the thread since then; but it doesn’t seem like enough, now.

Ilya doesn’t really expect an answer, but he still spends a while looking at his phone. When it does buzz, it takes him by surprise.

Ilya feels a strange twist at the message. Thinks about what it means that Shane can’t say it back. Thinks about all the things he’s locking down so hard, to lose that, too. He tells himself it’s not lost, just tucked away inside; tells himself that Shane will let him call it back out again.

He turns to another text thread.

He feels the unspoken worry in every word of the text.

That done, he stuffs his phone away in his pocket before he can start obsessing again.

It’s a relief to him when they finally head to the arena, but he’s still cracklingly tense. The mood seems to be slipping out onto the rest of the Raiders, too; the bus is quiet, and he sees shoulders tightening as they all walk into the Bell Centre. He focuses hard on his breathing all through gear prep and warmups, and the movement helps; at least, he doesn’t feel a hair away from explosion.

He checks his phone one last time – still nothing – when Marlow reaches over from the next stall and hooks his arm.

“Shit. Shit. Rozy.” Marlow’s voice is low but tight, and his attention is riveted on his phone screen. He turns it to Ilya, who feels himself go cold.

Marlow looks angry and set. “Fuckers are trying to target you?” he says grimly. “I don’t fucking think so -”

Ilya’s thoughts are flying ahead, and he reaches out, grips Marlow’s shoulder, shakes him once. “Will not be about me, Marly,” he says flatly. “Not if they are smart. I can take care of myself. They will go after everyone else, try to make me mad.” Try to get him to fight. Try to make him look bad. Try to break his team’s discipline. Trying to break their own team’s discipline, and drag Shane into the bog with them. “Fucking fuckers,” Ilya snarls, temper rising against his control as the scenario plays out in his mind.

Some of the team turn towards him, alarm starting to show at this sudden outburst.

Ilya looks up, looks around, his eyes glittering. He’s always been known for his pre-game speeches, but this one is going to be a little different. “Raiders, listen up!” he says. “You all have heard that Montreal are unbelievable shitheads who throw their own Captain under a bus? Well, is true. And the fuckers think they can use us to make it stick.” A confused, perturbed murmur turned into an angry one at that. “Hollander is not our problem.” And fuck, does that hurt to say; but Ilya makes himself carry on without flinching. “He does not need favours from us. If you can catch him  with the puck, finish your checks.” Some pleased, determined noises at that; Ilya forces himself to tune them out. “But the rest of them… they are looking for a bloodbath. Looking to make us the assholes. So tonight – we do not give those fuckers what they want. We can win this – that is easy, they are fucking children who cry and throw tantrums when they should skate. But I want us to win so well we make them look stupid. Yes? So I want clean fucking hits but I want them hit fucking hard. You look out for each other – you keep cool – and we send them back to the locker room crying like babies. Yes?”

It’s not his usual request of the team – in the past he’d have told them if another team wanted a bloodbath, they would get one, and the Raiders would be the last ones standing. But they’ve played a clean season – by Raiders standards, at least – and with the context so starkly ugly, no one’s keen to play along. Various cheers and agreements ring out, and Ilya takes his team out onto the ice.

He’d seen Shane during warmups and stretching, but Shane hadn’t come over to greet him as he normally would. Given everything, it hadn’t surprised him – though he’d lingered near the line just in case. But as it is, skating up for the face off is the first time he’s seen Shane up close in weeks, and it’s not comfortable.

Shane looks as if he’s been losing weight, or losing sleep, or both. His eyes are shadowed, and the bones of his face seem to stand out further than they did at All Stars. He always looks locked down during a game, focused; but this time it’s more than that. Ilya has no sense that if he chirped or flirted it would even land; it’s as if all of the passion has been stripped away, leaving only a cold and cracking drive to win.

For possibly the first time in his life Ilya finds himself wordless during a face off.

Possibly it’s that swirl of confusion that gives Shane the edge – he explodes into motion when the puck hits the ice, and immediately he’s off, with Ilya flying after.

It quickly becomes a brutal game. Shane is playing his usual fast, precise play, his stick-handling and shooting as perfect as ever, but it’s as if he’s forgotten that he even has a team. Even when he has Pike on the wing, actually trying to keep up with him, he’ll shoot more than pass. And unless Pike or one of the younger players is on with him, he’s left alone more often than not, with the Metros veterans seemingly more focused on chirping and crowding the Raiders than they are with supporting their centre – and then, when the Raiders inevitably take possession, viciously trying to snatch it back with late hits and high sticks. The Metros rack up minor penalties but don’t seem to much care, and Ilya can feel the corrosive effect on the Raiders’ calm.

Ilya’s taking his own hits, too. Petty shit at first – hooks and holds that throw him off balance, taps and slashes when the refs’ backs is turned. Little, harassing bumps that don’t follow the puck. He locks his jaw to keep his temper – he’s never chirped less in a game - and it escalates. A nasty hit into the boards earns a boarding penalty, but as the refs get busier Ilya takes a cross check and a slash that get missed.

When the play pauses, he glares over towards the Metros bench. Shane doesn’t so much dodge eye contact as seem blankly impervious to it; Pike glares back at him with something like shame.

The Metros are struggling to work together in the penalty kills - the Raiders make two goals in the first period, compared to Shane’s one - but by the time the team leave the ice for the first intermission, away from the uneasily rumbling crowd, Ilya already has a collection of bruises and his team’s patience is wearing thin.

“So much for not targeting you, Roz,” Marlow says angrily to Ilya in the locker room, but at least he has the sense to keep his voice down.

“Let them,” he says impatiently back. “The game matters more than me taking hits.” He shakes off Marlow’s concern and circles the room, talking to those who look particularly pissed.

They want us angry. Staying calm is working. Their penalty kills are shit. They are giving us goals. He says it again and again and tries to let it sink into himself as much as his team.

LeClaire grips his shoulder encouragingly as they head back on. “You’re doing damn good work today, Rozanov,” he says. “Keep it up,” and Ilya just nods.

The second period starts just as nasty as the first had finished. The refs try to rein it in – a couple of borderline hits get called, but almost immediately worse ones get missed. The Raiders are putting pressure on the Metros goal when St-Simon gets tripped and the Metros clear the zone; Ilya glares at the refs, but Shane is already lunging after the puck, so Ilya follows him. The Metros don’t – Carmichael and Marlow box Shane in and the puck comes winging back to Ilya, bringing with it a sour taste in his mouth.

Ilya takes a shift off, but as soon as he comes back on the pressure resumes, and he starts to feel snowed under by the constant hits and missed calls. The electric buzz he gets from skating against Shane isn’t there today; Shane’s skills haven’t changed but the fire behind them has, and Ilya can’t seem to find the higher gear that’s usually there. He hates it; he can feel his hands aching from their clench on the stick, and has to – again – force himself to breathe.

He makes another try for a goal, but the goalie, Drapeau, ends it in a freeze. As play is whistled dead he tries not to let the weight of it show.

Comeau’s at his shoulder. He’s sent a number of dirty hits Ilya’s way, and Ilya should probably be watching him more closely, but instead he can’t help his looking past him to Shane. Shane looks as drained as he feels, and his eyes are flat and hard.

“You already know what he is, right?” Comeau says, and Ilya reluctantly turns to him. Comeau’s voice  isn’t loud – almost conversational, if not for the ugly little dig in his tone. Ilya says nothing, just waits, and Comeau gives him a little shove. “That’s why you’ve been handling him so careful all season?”

Ilya feels hot and cold at the same time. Comeau’s been chirping at him all game, as have Finley and Byrne, but it’s been ignorable shit – you’ve got real quiet - how long are you going to pretend you’re calm – team still with you, Cap? – all edge, no finish. As if he doesn’t know those lines back to front. The little insinuations about Shane are fresh material, this game, and for all Ilya’s been braced for them it’s hard to stop them landing.

“Fuck off, Comeau,” he says, letting the contempt in his voice and face do most of the work for him.

“Funny how you get precious about faggots and stop playing hard,” Comeau bites out with a sneer.

Shane is barely more than an arm length away, but he doesn’t even flinch. One of the other Montreal players starts purposefully heading back for the bench, and others look aside. The refs were busy with the goalie freeze, but something about Comeau’s tone must have caught their attention – one of them is starting to move closer.

Ilya’s heard slurs like that on the ice before; it’s more or less standard from a certain kind of player. Mostly he lets them be noise, sees them as lazy chirps – someone waving a club, rather than aiming a dart. It’s harder, much harder, not to react when it’s being used to target Shane. He knows it must have shown on his face – he can feel his mouth tightening, feel himself glaring.

If you punch him you make it seem true, an icy part of him observes under the heat, and he tucks the rage inside and starts to turn away. Distantly, he sees the ref lose interest.

“All that talk off the ice. Nothing to back it up,” Comeau taunts him.

Ilya ignores him, starts to move towards his bench. Comeau parallels him, not quite letting the gap widen.

“If you’re going to protect him, at least do it properly,” Comeau needles him. This one slides in perfectly, sending a cold wave through him. Ilya stops skating before he even thinks about it.  Comeau sees the advantage, presses it. “Because you’re not always going to be here,” he says poisonously.

Ilya pivots, his thoughts almost whited out with rage. Briefly, he sees the satisfaction on Comeau’s face – knows this is a trap – knows that if he punches Comeau first the game becomes the bloodbath that vindicates him – knows that he validates all of Comeau’s sick fucking conclusions – knows that, knows all of it, but he has waited and worked and contained and held it back and he cannot listen to Comeau threaten Shane and not act -

Ilya moves back towards him, and Comeau’s still talking. “Or what — you the same as him now? Too soft –“

A sound cuts off the last words – the smack of a gloved fist on Comeau’s face, his helmet snapping off. Comeau’s head jerks, his skates slip half a step and he staggers into a fall.

Ilya jerks to a stop at the sound of the arena’s collective intake of breath, their sudden explosion. Stares across the ice still separating him from Comeau’s sprawl to where Shane is standing, shaking out his hand, eyes glittering with despair and rage.

Chapter End Notes

Detailed content warning:
The uncensored slur takes place in the final section (Mid March 2018 - the section beginning 'The day of the Montreal-Boston game is clear, bright, and cold.') During a hockey game, a player uses the f-slur to refer to another player. This is treated in-story as a serious offence. Honestly, from a story perspective I would advise not skipping over it, but if you need to or just want to be prepared for it, the line that begins that section is “You already know what he is, right?” and the line to restart on is "Ilya’s heard slurs like that on the ice before."

Translation notes:
я тебя люблю - ya tebya lyublyu - I love you

Chapter 12: Crowd noise 6

Chapter Notes

I cannot emphasise enough how joyful it made me to see one group of commenters saying "YES SHANE 😈" and another group of commenters saying "NOOOO SHANE 😭" (and a third group of comments that were mostly incoherent screams).
It also made me so happy that there were no AO3 outages! So you get this chapter early as a result.

Mid March 2018

@RaidersRiot
Are we in opposite world? Why are the Raiders playing clean and the METROS getting in the mud??

@HollanderHive
Cap looks exhausted. And where the hell is his line?

@StickToTheSix
If he can’t take the pressure maybe he needs to hand the C back.

@NHLTea
OH WHAT

@saypuckit
Did Hollander just punch out his OWN TEAMMATE??

@NHLTea
Did anyone catch what Comeau said??

@RozanovApologist
No but Roz’s face changed before the punch. I think he would have thrown down but Hollzy got there first??

@NHLRumourLog
[video clip]
The commentators talked over it but did Comeau say what I think he said?

@ChaosGoalie
If you think he said f****t, then yes. 😡

@NHLTea
Fuck why did the mic only catch that one bit? Can we get the lip readers on this one?

@RealHockeyOnly
I don’t care what was said – Hollander punched out his own guy in the middle of a game! He’s completely unfit to be captain. So much for putting hockey first.

@RozanderWatch
I might be off base but was Comeau saying it to ROZANOV and Hollander punched him for it? Mutual protection!

@saypuckit
Seriously, lip-readers, get on it!

@RaidersRiot
Metros self-destructing in real time. 😆 Did their goalie ALSO get punched in the face??

@MontrealStandard
This is beyond embarrassing.

@RaiderFaithful
One captain lost it. One took over.

@RozanovApologist
Rozy playing like someone insulted his entire bloodline.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
That punch broke the room.

@NHLRumourLog
Rozanov is NOT messing around in this one 🫢

Video description of the post-game media scrum for the Montreal-Boston game, March 2018.

Ilya Rozanov, Captain for the Boston Raiders, stands surrounded by reporters. He is still wearing his team jersey – it seems he has not yet gone into the locker room.

Reporter: What did you see on the ice between Hollander and Comeau?

Rozanov: Comeau crossed a line. In Hollander's position I would have done worse.

Reporter: Are you saying the punch was justified?

Rozanov: [shrugs] I’m saying what I would have done. Whether other people see it as justified – is not for me to say.

Reporter: Did you hear what was said before the punch?

Rozanov: [looks angry] Yes. I will not repeat it here, but I it was highly insulting, and included a threat towards Captain Hollander.

Reporter: A threat of what, exactly?

Rozanov: [Pause] I think I should report it to the league before I talk about it to the media.

Reporter: Did it look intentional to you?

Rozanov: I assume the punch was intentional. The goading that came first was too.

Reporter: Are you accusing Comeau of baiting him?

Rozanov: I think Comeau was trying to get reaction, and he got one.

Reporter: If inappropriate language was used, what responsibility do players have to respond?

Rozanov: [looks even more angry] If inappropriate language is used on and off the ice, what responsibility does that player’s management have to respond?

Reporter: Are you saying this is a known issue in Montreal?

Rozanov: [Pause] I think you should ask the Metros that question. I think you should ask it when their coaches are not around.

Reporter: Does this change how you see the Montreal–Boston rivalry?

Rozanov: I think I have made it clear who I support in this situation.

PR Handler: Okay, that’s all tonight. Thanks.

@RozanovApologist
Go OFF, king! He just put Montreal management on blast.

@TumblrRefugee
“I THINK YOU SHOULD ASK WHEN THEIR COACHES AREN’T AROUND.”
Remember Hollzy’s media lately? Completely flat and robotic? Compared to his media at All Stars, WHEN HIS COACHES WEREN’T AROUND?

@saypuckit
He’s talking like he knows a lot more than he’s saying?? Makes sense if he and Hollander are friends and Hollander’s been taking shit like this for a while. Remember that article earlier this week?

@ChaosGoalie
Ugh yes. ‘Too soft for a playoffs push’. And then slurs on the ice?

@saypuckit
Makes you wonder about the ‘anonymous locker room sources’, right?

@MontrealStandard
Convenient that only Rozanov heard it clearly…

@NHLTea
A threat?? This is bigger than hockey.

Scott Hunter ✔ @scotthunterofficial
I think this incident has shocked a lot of us. I imagine there will be a DPS investigation, so I'm going to wait for that before I start speculating, but I do want to say: it takes courage to speak up about line-crossing behaviour. When players speak up about inappropriate language on the ice, that matters for the culture and safety of everyone in the sport.

@MetroStandard
We only have Rozanov’s statement about what is said, this is premature and is pointing fingers at an injured player

@saypuckit
Players talk. Hunter’s got to know some of the currents here.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Important framing. This is not about Montreal vs Boston, it’s about the culture in the sport as a whole.

@LipReaderGal
Okay so my usual caveats that I am not a forensic expert but @NHLRumourLog and others sent me a bunch of camera angles and I’m confident I have most of it. I’ve got captions here, then a longer explainer.
[Video]

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
That tracks with Rozanov’s media comments.

@HollanderHive
The protect him / not always going to be here bit is chilling

@MontrealStandard
You can’t convict a guy off of pixel analysis

@ChaosGoalie
That is NOT normal hockey chirping

@pucktalk
Is the implication that Comeau used a homophobic slur about Hollander? If that was personal, this is huge.

@TumblrRefugee
I should be feeling vindicated but mostly I just feel sick.

Montreal Metros @MTLMetros
We are aware of the incident in tonight’s game against Boston, involving Shane Hollander and Gilbert Comeau. We will gather information and cooperate fully with the league.

NHL Department of Player Safety @NHL_DPS
We will be reviewing the incident from tonight’s game between the Montreal Metros and the Boston Raiders, involving Shane Hollander and Gilbert Comeau.

Chapter 13: [ ]

Chapter Summary

PLEASE NOTE: this chapter is over 17k long and it is emotionally heavy all the way through.

Chapter Notes

I'm so happy with AO3 staying up and with all your lovely comments - thank you!!

I briefly considered trying to trim this chapter down but then I decided that if I enjoyed writing several thousand words of a vaguely legalistic phone call you might enjoy reading it, so here we are. I also considered breaking it into pieces and decided NOPE, one big trauma dump for everyone.

Content warning:
Dissociation / post dissociation recovery that is not named as such but is described as realistically as I could
Sex while in a really weird headspace (the sex is explicitly consensual, but the headspace stays weird throughout)
An uncensored slur
Descriptions of homophobic language including but definitely not limited to slurs and implied threats of violence
Workplace harrassment
Institutional homophobia
Forced coming out

Essentially none of those things can be easily skipped over because they are each lengthy and interwoven with each other. I've added more details in the end notes but the end notes will be rife with spoilers.

Ilya feels frozen in place.

Hayden Pike is yelling something from near the Metros bench. He thinks Pike might be yelling to Shane, but it’s hard to tell.

The linesmen burst into motion. One heads for Shane - he’s not fighting it, barely moving as he lets himself be pushed back – the other for Comeau.

A ref gestures him back but Ilya can’t move. St-Simon grabs him, starts pulling him away towards the bench. He’s saying something but Ilya can’t hear it over the roaring or the crowd and the blankness of his thoughts.

Trainers are running onto the ice now, crouching by Comeau, and the officials are sending all players off the ice, but it’s Shane that Ilya is looking for. He sees the ref – sees the gesture – watches as the linesman escorts Shane to the bench gate. Watches Shane disappear down the tunnel.

Some of the static clears from Ilyas’s mind once Shane is out of sight; he turns towards his bench at last, and lets St-Simon push him through the gate to sit.

Marlow pulls him into place beside him, and grips his shoulder tight. “You good?” he asks quietly.

Ilya wants to go to Shane. Doesn’t want to leave him there in a locker room that’s been filled by people who hate him.

Marlow shakes his shoulder a little, and Ilya closes his eyes for a moment and puts it away.

“Good enough,” he says back, and rolls his shoulders to loosen them.

He doesn’t bother to track the movement of the trainers as they help Comeau off with a towel over his face; instead he focuses on his team, trying to steady himself as he steadies them. Does his best to tune out the announcement of Hollander has been ejected from the game and the shocked hubbub that follows.

Nods when LeClaire asks if he’s ready to go back on for the face off, if he feels able to keep it clean. “We don’t need to play dirty,” he says flatly. “They’re falling apart all by themselves.”

And he heads out onto the ice to grind into the dust the team that’s so profoundly betrayed the man he loves.

Shane feels very strange. He wonders, clinically, if he might be in shock.

He takes off his gear mechanically. Always in the same order; always stowed carefully again in his stall. His hands are shaking.

His knuckles ache dully, and he feels that, at least – along with the ache of a handful of other assorted bruises from the game.

The sweat is starting to dry on his skin, but the thought of having a shower here – now – makes his skin crawl. He takes off his team jersey, washes his face and towels it dry, and then wonders blankly what he’s supposed to do now.

One of the assistant coaches comes in – Jameson. “Get your things, Hollander,” he says bluntly. “You can’t be in here with the team.”

Am I not the team? Shane thinks dully – but of course he isn’t. If you’re a member of the team you don’t punch out your teammate on the ice. If you’re a member of the team, people don’t leak rumours about you to the press. If you’re a member of the team, people don’t threaten you.

He doesn’t protest – doesn’t even speak - just numbly collects his belongings, pulls on a sweater against the cold that’s starting to seep into him, and follows Jameson into the equipment room.

It’s a snub, he suspects – there are surely plenty of meeting rooms or offices that he could have been steered into – but it doesn’t seem to land.  Instead, he finds a place to sit and lets his head fall back against the wall.

He wants Ilya.

He closes his eyes against the thought and the white-hot flash of pain that accompanies it. But – not here, not now – he orders himself not to cry.

When the door opens again he opens his eyes. Then, not liking the way Theriault is looming, he slowly stands.

“What the fuck was that, Hollander?” Theriault asks harshly.

“Comeau crossed a line,” Shane says. And, oh, there it is; through the numbness it’s coming back now, icy rage that holds his spine straight and steadies his voice.

“I don’t give a fuck what he said!” Theriault snaps. “You have been a problem in this team for half of the season, Hollander! We said to you no more fucking distractions, and then you punch your own teammate out on the ice?” Theriault glares at him. “You’re a disgrace."

Shane says nothing. What is there to say? With that icy rage running through him, he can’t even craft some fake PR apology. Not that Theriault would accept it if he did.

“We’ll deal with you later. No talking to your teammates. Nothing to the media. Got it?”

Shane nods once, sharply.

The door opens again before Theriault can leave – it’s the GM, and the cold rage wavers a bit against a familiar anxiety as the man grimly looks him over. “The league will call you tomorrow,” he says, and then turns to Theriault. “I want him gone before the media has a stakeout on every door out of here.”

The two walk out together without looking back at him, discussing logistics as is he were a bundle of dirty laundry needing to be picked up, and leaving him burning with shame and fury.

It’s not long before arena security arrive. They, at least, have the grace to look awkward. Shane knows them to nod to, has signed things for most of them; they’re polite as they tell Shane they’re escorting him out the back, and that a driver has been called for him. He nods without objecting the high-handedness; the thought of trying to organise his own travel home is a painful one. He goes with them without making conversation.

As he slides into the car, he can feel himself start to shake, but Martel self-consciously leans in a bit before he can close the door. “I would head straight home, Mr Hollander,” he advises earnestly. “You don’t want to get tangled up with media, or with fans leaving.”

Shane nods again, and from somewhere he dredges a “Thank you.”

The security team retreats. He gives his address and slumps into the seat as the driver sets off. He closes his eyes, and thankfully the driver doesn’t press him to talk about it. Or maybe the driver doesn’t follow hockey, is indifferent to what seems to Shane to be so utterly life-altering.

His body still doesn’t feel right; jittery waves of adrenalin leaving him wired and drooping by turn, and his eyes starting to sting. He forces himself to hold together, just a little bit longer.

He just wants to be home.

By the time he gets in, his hands are shaking worse than ever. He closes the door behind him, drops his bag. Distantly, he registers the buzz of his phone ringing, but it won’t be Ilya; Ilya will still be playing the game, and Ilya will come here afterwards anyway. So he strips off his shoes and coat by the door, and climbs the stairs. Through the bedroom without turning on lights. Into the bathroom. Mechanically throws his clothes in the hamper, turns the shower on as hot as he can stand, and steps in.

After a while, he slides down the wall and sits instead.

The Metros are a mess.

With both their captain and – presumably – the leader of any locker room rebellion out of the game, they can’t quite organise themselves into either cohesive dirty play or any other kind of tactics. Shane might have been able to go it alone and still score, but no one else has the same ability – and Connors slams the door the rest of the way. By contrast, the Metros’ goalie Drapeau seems shattered by what happened; St-Simon scores in the second period, and Ilya early in the third, before they wise up and finally pull him for Miitka.

At 4-1, Ilya doesn’t need the hat trick, but he’s angry enough to want it. His team, equally frustrated by the dirty game and triumphant when the Metros’ energy drops in the third, push alongside him and he manages to bring the score up to 5-1 within regulation time.  

Afterwards, he’s pulled directly into media… and vents some of his rage in a controlled takedown of Comeau and the Metros. By the end of the media scrum, the Raiders’ PR handler is cringing. He can’t bring himself to care, even when she pulls him aside after for a pointed lecture. She tells him bluntly to go straight back to the hotel, to not speak to any more reporters, and to not insert himself into the story any further in case people ask him why he’s so desperate to prove something. It’s a fair warning, and he appreciates it.

What he’s not appreciating right now is how fucking slow his team is. Their hotel is close enough to the Bell Centre that he could probably spit to it, and yet he’s stuck here waiting for his teammates to all clean up and load onto a bus so he can get to the hotel and then get a car to Shane’s?

He checks his phone; no word yet from Shane, but there is from Yuna.

He’s torn. He doesn’t want Shane alone, but he wants to be with Shane himself. He can’t help thinking about how hard Shane tries to live up to his mother’s expectations – his Metros fan mother – and cringe a little.

He tells Marlow to give his excuses to Coach – Marly doesn’t even pause to joke before agreeing – and then goes to find the PR handler. “I’m heading out,” he tells her. “I’ll get myself back to the hotel later.”

“Rozanov, don’t be stupid,” she tells him in exasperation. “Don’t put yourself in someone else’s situation.”

Ilya shrugs. “Do not know what you mean. I just need space,” he says, making no effort at all to be convincing. “But if you want to help me not be stupid, help me get a car from a back door.”

She tells him he’s reckless and it would serve him right if she didn’t – but she still does, giving orders to his car service for him and escorting him to the right door.

“Thank you,” he tells her.

“Just don’t make me clean up a mess tonight,” she orders him, and lets him go.

When he gets to Shane’s, he obediently has the driver let him out by the back door, but wastes no further time in getting inside.

Shane’s home is very quiet and dark.

With a sudden stab of panic Ilya wonders if Shane never made it back. Then he sees Shane’s shoes and bag dropped by the door, and feels a sicker, older dread that he ruthlessly crushes before it can bloom. He sets his own shoes next to Shane’s, and when Shane’s bag starts buzzing he reaches in to grab his phone for him, and heads for the stairs.

By the time he reaches the bedroom he can hear the shower running, and see the light under the door – the only light Shane had bothered with. He drops Shane’s phone on his bedside table and flicks a bedroom lamp on, and then calls to him. Raps on the door.

There’s no answer, but the door isn’t locked; he pushes it open onto steam, and through it the sight of Shane slumped on the floor of the shower, and his heart lurches.

“Shane, lyubimyy,” he calls urgently. He doesn’t realise how frozen he’d felt until Shane reacts to his voice as if he’s waking up, turning groggily to look at him, and suddenly he can move again. “Wait,” he orders, seeing how unsteady Shane looks as he tries to push to his feet. He turns off the water, grabs a towel, and then reaches for Shane.

“Ilya,” Shane says. There’s a fogginess to Shane’s eyes that he doesn’t quite like, but at least Shane is reaching for him, speaking to him, letting Ilya steady him as he stands and then drawing him out of the shower so Ilya can wrap the towel around him.

Shane seems to wake up further when Ilya is touching him; enough that he tries to take over towelling himself dry, but his hands are trembling enough that Ilya has to steady him anyway. “Sorry,” Shane says, “Sorry, I just can’t stop shaking…”

“Shh, is okay,” Ilya tells him. “Will pass.” He leads Shane into the cooler air of the bedroom, and hopes he’s telling the truth and not just coming up with a comforting lie. He finds Shane a loose pair of sweats to wear that he thinks Shane must have stolen from him, and as Shane puts them on thinks of the hot room, thinks of the game. Murmurs, “Will be right back,” and starts for the door.

Before he can take more than a step Shane has grabbed for him, his breathing suddenly ratcheting higher. “Don’t go,” he says tightly, and instantly Ilya steps back to him.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing – this is so far beyond the panic attacks and overstimulation that he’s learned how to help Shane with that he’s operating on pure instinct and guesswork. He draws Shane against him from leg to chest, and wraps his arms around Shane, squeezing tight.

“I am not going,” he tells him. “I am here all night.” And beyond that, too, Ilya privately thinks; there’s a two day break between games, and fuck practise when Shane clearly needs him here. Shane clutches him back, hiding his face in Ilya’s shoulder, and Ilya presses his cheek into Shane’s still wet hair. “I want to get you water, lyubimyy, but I will hold you for as long as you want first.” 

“Sorry,” Shane mutters against him. “Fuck, sorry. I’m not – I’m not meaning to be this clingy.”

Ilya just keeps holding him, thinking through his answer. “I like holding you,” he finally says sincerely. “I like touching you. Would do it always if I could.” Shane nods against him. Slowly, slowly, his breathing levels out. “Could be new All Stars competition,” Ilya muses. “Hand-holding shot accuracy.” Shane’s outbreath huffs in the tiniest of laughs; Ilya smiles into his hair. “You will have to learn to play left handed,” he continues more easily.

“Why me? Why don’t you play left-handed?” Shane manages to complain softly, and some of Ilya’s rigidly controlled anxiety starts to ease off.

“You will learn in two weeks,” Ilya says confidently. “No problem.”

Shane shifts himself a little, resting his head against Ilya rather than hiding his face. “If we faced opposite directions we could hold left hands,” he says analytically.

“But then I would not be able to look at you and see your freckles,” Ilya says. It’s nonsense, now, but he’ll say anything just to keep Shane talking again, thinking again; not the foggy automaton that Ilya had pulled out of the shower.

Shane makes a disapproving noise. “Eyes on the pucks, Ilya,” he says. “I want to win.”

Ilya can’t help himself; he moves them so he can kiss Shane’s forehead, the freckles on his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, his hesitantly curving mouth. “Of course we will win,” he tells him. “We’ll be together, that means we will win.”

It’s not long after that that Shane reluctantly takes a breath and peels himself off of Ilya. Ilya hurries to fill two of the stainless steel water bottles Shane likes, and grab a sports drink. Considers and discards the notion of food – for all Shane could no doubt use it, he doesn’t want to bully him into eating if he’s got no appetite, not tonight.

When he gets back upstairs, Shane has picked up his phone and is staring at it with a lost expression. “It just – keeps buzzing,” he says, a thin thread of panic coming through. “I probably need to talk to people, right?” He sounds half-sick at the thought of it.

“Not tonight,” Ilya says firmly. “Not unless you want to. Here – drink –” He swaps the phone in Shane’s hand for a metal flask, and then looks at Shane for a nod of permission before unlocking the phone and turning it to silent, handing it back face down so Shane isn’t tempted to look through his notifications. “I can text Yuna and David from my phone. Anyone else?”

Shane sips his water obediently, and lets Ilya pull them into bed together, sitting cuddled up against the headboard. At first he shakes his head, then says, “Hayden, maybe?”

“If you want,” Ilya says. “I can find text thread on your phone so you only have to think about one. Or I can text Cliff Marlow, say to tell Pike you are okay and will talk tomorrow.” Shane gives him a baffled look, and Ilya shrugs. “They are friends, I think.”

Shane takes that in, much more slowly than it would normally take him. “But – Marlow would know you’re here with me? And Hayden would know, too.”

“Marlow already knows,” Ilya says. “He guessed, about us. He will not tell,” Ilya tacks on firmly, catching the fresh tension in Shane’s body, tightening his arm around him. “He has known for weeks, has said nothing.” After a few moments, Shane nods reluctantly and sips more water. The tension in him slowly eases back. “Would it be so bad, if Pike knows?”

“No. I don’t know.” Shane sets the bottle aside, and Ilya frowns to see his hands trembling again. Shane burrows close against him. “He knows I’m gay,” Shane blurts first, and Ilya frowns more, suddenly tense. If Pike had been a shit about it – “The whole team knows,” Shane continues, his voice shaking now. “I – I told them last week. And coaching, and management… I didn’t want to. I couldn’t stop Comeau and the others, and management said it was just talk and I should deal with it, and I tried. I tried and I tried and it wouldn’t stop, so I had to tell them about me and I didn’t want to…”

Shane is crying now, and Ilya draws him fully onto his lap so he can wrap both arms tight around him and let Shane press his face against Ilya’s shoulder as he shakes with it.

“What kind of fucking captain am I, that I can’t control the room without running for help?” Shane is saying now, words tumbling out over each other and breaking up on cracked, sobbing breaths. “If I’m not good enough at hockey to make them think I’m worth listening to – not good enough with people –”

“Lyubimyy, sweetheart, this was not your fault,” Ilya tells him.

“And now they all know, they all know and I hate it,” Shane says. “I never wanted to tell anyone. I’m such a coward, but I never wanted to tell anyone, ever, and I can’t – I can’t take it back.” Ilya thinks about Shane telling him he was gay, just over a year ago; thinks about how long a journey it had been for him to even say the words. Thinks about how up until one week ago there were a bare handful of people who knew for sure that Shane was gay, and only one of those that he’d come out to himself, by choice. “And it’s so selfish, and stupid,” Shane carries on. “Scott Hunter did this on purpose and now he gets to – to be a role model, and raise awareness, I shouldn’t be this fucking upset -”

Shane’s whole body is shaking now, and Ilya’s heart is twisting for him. He doesn’t care about being ‘out and proud’ but if it wasn’t for his visa and for Russia he’d not have given a shit about living the way he wanted to without caring what people thought. But Shane’s different, he’s always known that; always so conscious of eyes on him and what they might see, as if he felt some duty to live up to it or exceed it. “Who you are is yours, not theirs,” Ilya tells him. “You should have been able to choose. You are allowed to be upset. You are not selfish.”

Shane seems to have run through the backlog of words he’d been storing through the long six weeks of dodged phone calls and deflecting text messages, and just lets Ilya hold him. Ilya keeps murmuring to him in what ends up as a tangle of English and Russian – calling him lyubimyy and sweetheart and telling him you’re not selfish and ty takoy syl’nyy, chto menya eto inogda pugayet.

Shane’s hitching breathing finally steadies out again. “I’m a mess,” he says. His voice is clogged almost to a whisper.

“Yes,” Ilya admits. “A bit of a mess right now. But not a bad Captain, or a bad hockey player, or selfish or stupid or a coward.”

“I hate being a mess,” Shane says forlornly.

“I know.” He does; it’s hard for him to miss it, when he’s possibly the only unequivocably messy thing that Shane permits in his life. “I love you. I am here. You have Yuna and your agent and old man Scott Hunter and other people too on your side. Will not stay a mess.”

“Okay,” Shane says. “Okay.”

After a little while longer, Ilya prods Shane up to drink more water, wash his face, brush his teeth. Ilya brushes his own and strips down to his briefs to curl up under the covers with Shane. Shane closes his eyes and burrows close; Ilya runs a hand through Shane’s hair as he checks his phone.

Ilya has a stack of missed calls from numbers he doesn’t know; he assumes journalists, and dismisses all of them without hesitation. Other than that, it’s not too bad. Texts from Marly and from LeClaire he makes a note to check on later; the texts from other Raiders, from Svetlana, from Rose, he ignores without a qualm.

He opens the waiting messages from Yuna.

Ilya strokes Shane’s hair again. “I am texting Yuna,” he says gently. “She knows I am here, that you are safe. Do you want to say anything else?” Shane shakes his head minutely, makes a negating noise.

Ilya can’t help a little twist of a smile at that.

He turns back to Shane – he thinks Shane is not quite asleep yet. “Did you decide about texting Pike?” he asks very gently.

“I – tomorrow?” Shane asks, as if unsure.

“Yes, okay,” Ilya says immediately. He puts his own phone away, switches off the bedside lamp. Slides himself down in the bed to wrap himself around Shane. “Will you sleep now?” he asks, and feels Shane nod. In the dark, Ilya finds Shane’s lips with his, and kisses him softly. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” he says.

“I love you too,” murmurs Shane, and goes to sleep.

Shane wakes slowly, feeling weighed down. His muscles are tender, like he’s done too much, and the sore spots of bruises feel more tender than they should. His thoughts feel cloudy, and he shies instinctively away from questioning that – from questioning anything. Instead, he fiercely tugs his attention back to the moment.

Back to Ilya.

For so long, for years, they snuck moments together only – waking up together had never felt possible. Now, waking up next to him feels like a dislocated joint has been pulled back into place – something painful and wrong now tender but right.

Shane’s cheek is on Ilya’s chest as much as it is on the pillow, and he presses closer instinctively to the warmth of him, to the faint smell of rink-soap on skin. He wants to press open-mouthed kisses down Ilya’s chest, wants to rub his face against him like a cat. Wants to bury himself in Ilya.

One of his legs is thrown over Ilya’s; he can feel the shape of it under his, and he instinctively presses closer, hooking his leg around Ilya’s rather than just overlapping it. But it doesn’t feel like enough – he’s wearing sweats, and he wants to feel his bare skin against Ilya’s.

Automatically, his hand goes to his waistband, to push the pants off and kick them away, but before he can complete the gesture he’s paralysed with a sudden vicious self-consciousness. It’s wordless, inchoate, and freezes him in place as he’s pressed against Ilya, confused and ashamed and teetering on the edge of panic.

“Shane?” Ilya murmurs, voice still rough with sleep. Ilya’s hand runs through Shane’s hair and cups his neck, and he shivers with relief at the sensation of it. He tries to unlock words to answer with but can’t seem to find any; and then Ilya’s hands are drawing him closer and rolling him under, using his full weight to pin Shane down to the mattress.

Shane shudders and goes lax, feeling the tension trickle out of his muscles like water from a sponge, the churning emotions of the previous moment pushed away by solid sensory awareness. He can feel Ilya’s chest against his, feel his ribs expanding and contracting; his own breathing instinctively slows to match it. He wraps his leg around Ilya’s again, slides his arms around him to feel the muscles of Ilya’s back and shoulders.

“Okay?” Ilya asks.

“Better,” Shane admits after a long moment, finding he can bring a word to the surface after all.

Ilya looks him over carefully. Shane feels a little spark of that same self-consciousness, but it doesn’t have a chance to take hold before Ilya kisses him softly. Normally, Shane thinks distantly, he would break out of the kiss early, insist that they each should brush their teeth. But today he can’t help but chase after each sensation as Ilya nibbles his lower lip, teases his lips apart, strokes Shane’s tongue with his own.

Ilya nips his lip a little harder. The sharp sensation shivers through him and Shane instinctively rolls his hips against Ilya’s. He’s absurdly surprised by the heated wave of pleasure he gets back, absurdly surprised by his own desire, and the surprise collapses him back into self-consciousness again.

Ilya draws back from the kiss far enough to look at him seriously, and Shane tries not to squirm under his gaze. “You keep going to… strange place in your head, I think,” Ilya observes.

“Everywhere in my head feels strange right now,” Shane tells him tiredly, unable to dissemble. He doesn’t want to think about yesterday; about glassy, sharp memories, or the strange, window-frost fragility of all that existed around them; doesn’t want to tip himself back over into that floodwave of emotions that feels like it scoured him out; feels too tired to think about the day ahead or what it might hold.

Ilya nods without requiring him to try to put any more of that into words. “How does your body feel?” he asks seriously.

He hasn’t moved from on top of Shane – still bracketing Shane in with his elbows, weight still holding him in place. Shane takes comfort in that, in the way it forces him to breathe slow to fill his lungs, and he responds to Ilya’s seriousness by doing a careful inventory.

“Sore,” he admits. “Like… overtime sore. Playoff sore. Tired. Feels odd.” Ilya looks concerned; Shane feels the flex of his back muscles and instinctively tightens his grip in case Ilya thinks he should move away. “You touching me feels good. You on me feels good,” he says quickly. “Just… odd.” 

Ilya seems to consider this, and checks, “You want me to keep touching you?” Shane nods immediately, glad of an easier question, but then remembers his earlier thought and squirms a bit again. “Problem?” Ilya asks.

“I want to take the sweats off,” Shane manages to admit awkwardly after wrestling with it a moment. It’s ridiculous that it’s so hard to put into words. Ilya’s in the past made him beg aloud and explicitly before giving Shane what he’s asking for; saying he wants to be naked should not have him feeling like he’ll be peeling off a layer of skin as well as clothes.

“Oh. Okay,” Ilya says. It’s a relief to have him be unconcerned by the request, for all it underscores how irrational Shane’s own anxiety was. Ilya shifts off him, and takes advantage of the distance to run his thumb over Shane’s cheek, over his lips. “Thank you for telling me what you want,” he says seriously, and some of the self-consciousness melts away again.

Ilya taps Shane’s hip, drawing the sweats down for him and letting him pull his feet free. Ilya runs a hand up Shane’s leg, drawing up his knee and bending to kiss the inside of it, strong fingers squeezing at his thigh. The pressure is just enough to awake a little edge of pain from sore muscles even as it sends a slow wave of pleasure up his body, and Shane instinctively lifts his other leg too, moving to bracket Ilya loosely in between them. Ilya grins at him, and matches the slow squeeze on the other side – another wave of pressure/pain/pleasure – but bypassing his cock before lowering his weight back down and kissing Shane again.

It’s easier to melt into now, with the sweatpants gone. Shane rubs his legs over Ilya’s and wraps them around his hips, and this time when he arches into Ilya the pleasure of it is not a surprise.

Shane traces the lines of the muscles up and down Ilya’s back, rocking into the kisses and letting his desire build slowly. Then Ilya kisses his neck and teases him with his teeth and Shane grips his shoulders with a moan as he arcs into him again. Drags his nails down Ilya’s upper back as he lowers away.

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya says on a gasp. “You are so beautiful. So fucking hot.”

Being beautiful, being so fucking hot, are things he has never striven to be; never cared much about except with Ilya. Perhaps that’s why it feels easier to trust Ilya as an authority on this score, easier to believe it, even when there are other parts of himself it’s still easy to doubt.

Shane reaches a hand between them, and strokes Ilya through his briefs. He’s hard, and with a damp spot where he’s leaking pre-come; Shane’s momentarily disoriented by the other damp marks until he realises that he’s been leaking too as he grinds up into Ilya.

Shane doesn’t want to put space between them; it hampers him slightly as he reaches into Ilya’s briefs to draw his cock free, but Ilya helps, impatiently pushing the fabric down out of the way. Shane strokes him, lighting up inside as Ilya kisses him and calls him beautiful again.

“Shane, lyubimyy,” Ilya pulls just a little back, and Shane instinctively whines at the loss of contact. “Can I touch you, too?”

Shane nods immediately; the question’s a little baffling, given that he’s hard and leaking underneath him. But then Ilya reaches between them and wraps a hand around him and it’s shock at the changed sensation as much as arousal that sets him gasping. Ilya lets his full weight onto Shane and reaches with his free hand to squeeze his thigh again; the pressure/pain of it mingles with the feeling of Ilya’s hand on his cock, smoothing out the sensation, and Shane moans.

There’s a moment where Ilya pauses to lean to get something from the nightstand, where Shane realises he’d got very distracted from getting Ilya off; but before he can do more than a teasing stroke Ilya is grabbing his hand to squirt lube into it, and lining their cocks up together. “Yes?” Ilya asks.

Shane doesn’t think, just answers by wrapping his hand around both of their cocks at once. He keeps feeling distracted by sensation, but Ilya sets his hand over Shane’s, driving the pace for them both.

The speed of his orgasm takes him by surprise, as if he wasn’t fully aware of his own need until Ilya started touching him, but this time at least the surprise doesn’t unbalance him. As soon as he’s slumped back into the mattress he’s reaching out again, focusing his attention on stroking Ilya, and it’s not long before Ilya, too, is cumming into the sticky mess between them, with Shane’s name in his mouth.

Ilya only half lies on him after – a loss, but a bearable one at this point – and Shane lets his eyes close as he tries to let his body calm down again. He feels… still slowed and blank and odd, but at least an odd with some endorphins laid over it and a slightly clearer sense of where his body begins and ends, he ultimately decides, and opens his eyes again.

Ilya’s looking at him with a faint frown, and Shane instinctively reaches for him, feeling a stab of anxiety through the oddness. “Are you okay?” Shane asks, and Ilya’s frown eases away.

“Yes. Worried for you,” he clarifies, and Shane accepts that.

“I still feel strange,” he admits. “But it mostly just feels… tired, I suppose.” Tired seems like a small word for it, but he doesn’t have another good one. “Well. Sticky, now, as well,” he says, as he starts to feel the gross feeling of their combined cum and lube drying on his skin.

Ilya smiles, some of the worry dropping away, and lifts Shane to his feet to herd him to the shower.

The pounding hot water helps ease some of the ache in Shanes muscles, and sharing the shower with Ilya seems to help even more. He’s feeling almost normal by the time he brushes his teeth next to Ilya at the sink and walks back into the bedroom to dress, only to end up blankly contemplating the sweatpants and underwear on the floor. He needs to put the clothes in the hamper, and he needs to get new clothes to wear, and somehow the two tasks feel utterly incompatible and he can’t quite figure out why…

Ilya is already half dressed when he glances over, sees Shane frozen, and his brow knits again. He walks over, quietly drops the clothes in the hamper and opens Shane’s closet for him. Shane covers his face with his hands and tries not to panic and then Ilya’s arms are around him again. “I’m sorry,” Shane says. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I feel like I’m concussed again, and I’m sorry…”

“You didn’t hit your head yesterday,” Ilya says pragmatically, running a hand through Shane’s hair as if to check for bumps. “Metros team are shit, but no reason to think Metros trainers are." Ilya hesitates for a long moment, as if trying to find the right words. "Shane, lyubimyy… I think maybe you have just handled too much for too long.” His voice is very gentle, and Shane can feel his eyes starting to seep with unwanted tears.

“But I need to be able to think,” he says, the panic and the tears competing for dominance. “I – I'll need to talk to people - the league – the team –“

“You need to get dressed,” Ilya interrupts him. He reaches past Shane, and picks out clothes – underwear, socks, soft pants, a t-shirt. Hesitates a moment, goes to his own drawers  and picks out a hoodie. “Then we need to eat some food. And while we are doing that, we can call Yuna, and tell her what time to arrive with her list of things that need to be done, and she will help you do them. Okay?”

Ilya’s certainty undercuts the panic, and Shane accepts it gratefully.

Breakfast, at least, is a well-learned routine, and much of it he can do on autopilot. He’d agreed to eat more out of routine and because Ilya is, rather than out of hunger, but as soon as he takes a bite it’s as if his appetite switches on, and he finishes faster than he thinks he will.

“You didn’t eat after the game,” Ilya points out to him as he stares at his empty plate.

“It’s not that it’s doesn’t make sense, it’s that I didn’t even realise,” Shane says. He feels… disconcerted by the whole thing. He wearily hopes that Ilya’s right and that he will return to normal soon; even though it’s not bad, it’s strange to him to feel so out of order and unpredictable.

Ilya moves until their knees are bumping under the breakfast bar, and hands him a banana from the fruitbowl, and Shane lets himself relax a bit into his care.

Shane lets Ilya handle texting Yuna – he still can’t quite bear to look at his phone. Instead, he cleans up the breakfast dishes – another well-worn routine that feels like a relief – and then, with nothing to do, comes to a baffled halt. When Ilya notices, he tugs him over onto the couch; Shane tucks himself against Ilya’s side and lets himself go quiet and still.

He doesn’t know how long it is before he’s summoned back by the sound of his parents letting themselves in and calling from the hallway. When he goes to stand, Ilya’s gentle pressure on the small of his back steadies him when the ache of his muscles makes him want to stumble, and then Yuna’s flying in and reaching for him.

She’s been crying, Shane realises with surprise; as she hugs him close her ragged breath tells him she’s close to it again. “Mom, I’m not hurt,” he instinctively reassures her, and she makes a little noise like she's had the breath knocked out of her.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she tells him fiercely. “I’m glad you hit him.”

Shane remembers the joke she made once – telling him that if he was to fight, he should have the most professional fight the NHL has ever seen – and shame washes sickly through the odd numbness. “I hit a teammate. I’m going to be investigated,” he says, eyes stinging again.

“I don’t care,” Yuna flashes, immediate and fierce. “I don’t care that he’s your teammate, I care that you are safe.” She steps back from the hug. “And it’s horrible that you have to be investigated, but it will be fine.  It will, Shane. We already have so much evidence.”

Shane blinks at her. “We do?” he asks. The surprise of it helps hook him out of the shame, and Yuna looks over at Ilya.

“You didn’t tell him about the media scrum?” she asks.

“Did not come up,” Ilya shrugs, even as the words ‘media scrum’ make Shane feel an instinctive sense of panic. God, the reporters must have been after blood…

David, less explosive than Yuna, draws Shane into a hug as well, and he gladly accepts the distraction. His father’s eyes are also a little damp, he notices with dismay – he has so rarely seen his father cry – and he’s disconcerted all over again to see the intensity of the hug that his mom’s giving Ilya.

“Thank you,” she tells him earnestly, and Shane’s relieved to see that Ilya looks a little off balance too; it makes him feel less out of step, less like his body and brain are misaligned. He shifts close to Ilya, and is further relieved to be instantly drawn back against Ilya’s side.

“Was nothing,” Ilya says.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shane points out.

“I did media after the game,” Ilya explains simply. He tugs Shane back down onto the couch with him, and gestures Yuna and David into chairs.  “They wanted to know what Comeau said… so I told them.” His arm stays gentle around Shane, but he can hear the sudden granite harshness of his voice on the words.

“He did more than that,” Yuna joins in. “He implied it was a slur, stated there was a threat, implied the punch was a justified reaction, suggested Metros management were failing to act on a known problem, and suggested the coaches would actively suppress dissent.” Her tone is viciously pleased under the professionalism.

“Yuna punched the air when she saw it,” David says fondly.

“Here, I can show you the clip –“ Yuna says, and Shane flinches before he catches himself.

“No,” he says, immediate and sharp. Then, “Thank you,” he adds.

Ilya leans close and brushes a kiss over Shane’s cheek. “His phone is going off so much he cannot even check his texts,” he explains quietly, and Yuna nods.

“Okay. So no reporters inside the house?” she asks, thankfully taking that as a full explanation and not asking further. “But, the reason it’s good is that fans have already been assembling audio and lip reading. Hockey twitter is on fire. What Comeau said is already out there. Everyone knows that you were provoked.”

The words everyone knows seem to twist oddly in Shane’s ears, and suddenly he feels sick and shaky again. “Coffee for everyone, I think?” he hears Ilya say bluntly, before he can quite figure out what he should do with the feelings. “Yuna, David, can you make?” And then he’s in Ilya’s lap and Ilya’s arms are both around him.

“I’m okay,” Shane says automatically, forcing the words out through the sick sensations.

“You are not,” Ilya tells him firmly. “This situation is not okay, why should you be?” He holds Shane close, and breathes with him until some of the horrible feeling fades. “People on hockey twitter know what Comeau said. Does not mean everyone knows something about you.”

He’s matter-of-fact and certain about it, and Shane closes his eyes and tries to let that convince him a little.

“Oh,” Yuna says softly, sounding sad. She’d given them space, but in his open-plan living area the illusion of privacy was thin at best. Shane opens his eyes again to meet her worried gaze. “I’m so sorry, honey,” Yuna said. “I didn’t realise that that would hit you hard.”

Shane shrugs helplessly; he hadn't known either.

Perhaps at some unseen signal, Yuna visibly orients into being practical. “Okay. The Department of Player safety emailed your management inbox – they’re going to be calling in a bit. Shane, are you expecting a call from your team or anyone else?”

“I… think so?” Shane asks. Trying to think back to what he was told yesterday feels like doing bag skates up a glacier.

“Okay. So we need your phone to be usable,” Yuna says, and Shane feels some looming pressure ease away as she effortlessly takes charge.

“I can be your secretary,” David offers. “I’ll leave any texts from known numbers for you to look at later, but I’ll clear your voicemails and screen any incoming calls for you.”

Shane agrees with some relief to that, and with even more relief to handing his social media passwords over to his mother. Yuna hands Ilya some phone numbers and instructions about making a report, which he nods to as if totally unsurprised.

His father is working on Shane’s phone; his mother starts setting up an organised work station on Shane’s coffee table, with laptop and legal pad and both her personal and work phones. After cuddling him a while longer, Ilya slips away to make his phone calls.

Crucially, no one asks Shane to do anything in particular apart from sit on the sofa and drink his herbal tea. Ilya’s absence leaves an odd pit in his stomach, but the hoodie he’s wearing of Ilya’s is warm and soft, and the tea is hot and pleasantly astringent, and his parents are here; he’s able to hold together.

Time seems to be moving just a little oddly – that, at least, doesn’t concern Shane, since it feels to him that time has been simultaneously rushing and crawling for weeks. When Ilya slots himself back in next to him and Yuna clears her throat, it’s hard for him to tell how long has passed.

“The call will be soon, Shane,” his mom says, and dread ripples queasily through him. “I have been researching this – your best bet is just to answer all their questions as completely as you can, okay? There are mitigating circumstances, we can show that, and trying to evade anything will just slow everything down.” Shane nods; not unexpected, but a relief to know he won’t have to remember what to edit. “I would like to be on the call, to record and make notes. Is that alright?”

Shane nods again; a part of him feels ashamed of the idea, of talking about everything in front of his parents – but the thought of trying to do it alone is almost suffocating. But – “I don’t want them to know that Ilya is here,” he says, on a little spurt of anxiety.

“You want me to go upstairs while you take the call?” Ilya asks, sounding concerned, and Shane instinctively reaches for his hand.

“No. No, I want you here,” he says as the anxiety widens into something more. "I just don't want anyone else to know." He knows that he’s being irrational, unreasonable, but the thought of Ilya not here and the thought of people speculating about him and Ilya each leave his skin crawling in totally separate ways.

“Leave it to me,” Yuna says, eyes narrowed as she thinks about it. “But, Ilya – not a word.”

Ilya nods, and pulls Shane back into his side, where Shane can feel his chest slowly expanding and contracting next to his own.

Shane’s phone buzzes – his dad must have turned the notifications back on in advance of the call time – and his mom takes it, answers it.

“Shane Hollander’s phone, Yuna Hollander speaking,” she says. Listens intently. Cross checks something against her laptop. “Yes, he’s here. He’s been expecting your call.”

Shane swallows, and takes the phone she extends to him. He supposes this is it.

“Mr Hollander, I’m calling  from the NHL Department of Player Safety. Are you in a place where you can speak privately?” It’s a man’s voice, brisk and professional. Shane wonders how many captains he’s investigated for punching their teammates in the face, and tries not to feel too sick.

“Yes, I can take the call,” he says. Looks over at his mother, who nods at him encouragingly. “My mother, Yuna Hollander, is also my manager. I’d like to put the call on speakerphone so she can make notes.” Shane hands the phone back to her; she flicks on the speakerphone and places it on the table. 

“Just to confirm, you’re not currently represented by legal counsel on this matter?”

Anxiety spikes through Shane at the question; he looks at his mother sharply, and she reaches over to squeeze his hand with a reassuring smile. The fact that she’s unsurprised settles him; if she’d researched it and believed he needed a lawyer, there would be one in his living room right now.

“Hello, this is Yuna Hollander speaking again,” she joins in, her voice very level. “Shane hasn’t yet engaged legal representation, but I would like to record this interview so we can pass it on to a representative if we engage one in future.”

“That’s fine. Please note that the league is also recording this call for accuracy.”

Yuna nods, and presses something on her waiting laptop. “Thank you. I’m recording from this point,” she says.

“Before we begin, I need to confirm that you understand this call is part of a formal review of last night’s incident.”

“Yes, I understand,” Shane manages. Ilya rubs a hand slowly down his back.

“Is anyone else present with you on the line?”

Shane looks to Yuna. “Is it alright for someone else to be present, if they aren’t joining in the conversation?” she asks. “Shane’s father is also here.”

“Is that something you’re agreeable to, Mr Hollander?”

“Yes,” says Shane immediately.

“For the record, that’s fine. We’ll direct questions to you, but you’re welcome to have someone else there.” Shane almost sags with relief at the lack of further questioning on the subject, and for a moment he has to struggle to attend as the interviewer keeps talking.

“…currently suspended pending the outcome of this review. This call is to gather your account and explain next steps.”

“Yes, I understand,” Shane says, since they seem to be expecting it.

“We’re reviewing the incident at approximately twelve minutes into the second period in the Montreal–Boston game. Can you walk us through what happened from your perspective, starting just before the whistle?”

Shane takes a breath, closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at anyone’s faces, and begins.

“The game had not been going very well. We were already behind. We were getting penalties, we weren’t closing the penalty kills tight enough. The atmosphere at intermission was… unpleasant. The team was stressed. The second period started very similarly.” A breath. This is… PR stuff, or something like it. He knows how to do this. He knows how to keep his cool when talking about a game that went badly. “The… incident was following a goalie freeze. Players from both teams were mixed together near the Metros goal. I, Comeau, and Rozanov were all fairly close together.” One of Ilya’s hands is on his back, the other clutched in his own, and he focuses on both. “Comeau started speaking to Rozanov. He said something like ‘You know about him’ or ‘You know what he is.’ I assumed he was talking about me – he had been doing a lot of talking about me.”

“We’ll come back to prior context shortly. For now, I want to clarify this specific exchange. Was Mr. Comeau addressing you or Captain Rozanov at that point?”

This part of the memory, at least, is glassily clear. “He was talking to Rozanov, but I was right there – he knew I could hear him.” Breath. “I think Rozanov told him to fuck off. I was mostly ignoring it at that point. I think I started to worry it might be serious when he said – um, should I repeat the slur?” Distantly, he thinks he might hear his mother shifting in her chair, but it doesn’t draw him out of the call.

“For the record, anything you can recall as close to verbatim as possible is helpful. I understand that it’s uncomfortable.”

“Okay. Comeau said something like ‘you protect faggots and you forget how to play hard.’ Still addressing Rozanov.” Shane checks that against his memory, feels uneasy. “Um, that might not be the exact wording. But that was essentially it. He definitely used the slur.”

“We understand that recollection may not be exact. As close as you can recall is still helpful.”

“Okay.” Another breath. “I had wondered if Rozanov would start a fight – I think Comeau wanted him to. But instead he – Rozanov - started to skate away. Comeau said something about Rozanov being all talk. Then he said that if Rozanov was planning to protect me, he should do it now, because Rozanov wouldn’t always be around.” Another very quiet noise from his mom, but it’s hard to attend to over the feeling of the bottom of his stomach dropping away. Ilya’s hand shifts to the back of his neck, squeezes. “That’s. Well, that’s when I punched him.”

“Did you perceive any of what was said as threatening?”

Shane almost blinks at the question. “Yeah. He was saying I was going to need protection.”

“Did you understand that as a threat of future harm, or as commentary on past incidents?”

“Future.” Shane answers instinctively, then frowns. “It was – I don’t remember what it was he said, exactly. But it sounded like he was talking about the future.”

“Threatening in what sense — physical harm, retaliation, or something else?”

“I assumed physical harm.” Shane tries to think back, but while his memories of the ice are sharp edged and clear, his memories of his own thoughts feel like shattered safety glass. “I guess… maybe I thought he might tell other teams stuff about me, try to have me targeted on the ice.”

“Understood. We’ll note your perception. For clarity, we’ll focus on what was said and how you interpreted it at the time.” Shane nods automatically, but they’re already continuing. “Did you believe Mr. Comeau was attempting to elicit a reaction from you or another player?”

“He was trying to get a reaction from Rozanov.” Again, Shane’s response is immediate. “He ramped it up when Rozanov skated away – that’s when Comeau made the threat.” A more hesitant pause. “I think he wanted Rozanov to prove his point for him - that I needed protection.”

“So is this incident part of a broader pattern you’re aware of?”

“Um. Yeah. A pretty long one, actually,” Shane admits. He’s expecting a wave of panic at the admission, at the idea of talking about it, but instead it hits the odd numbness and diffuses again.

“Please walk us through the pattern from your perspective.”

God, where to begin? ‘Well, he’s always been kind of a prick but I tolerated it for years?’ Would this investigator even care about the misogyny, the eye-rolling, the comments about ‘real men’? Shane takes a breath, forces himself to focus. “It started at the beginning of the season, I guess. Hayden - uh, that’s Hayden Pike - had started pushing back a bit more about language in the locker room – Comeau and a couple of the other guys were grumbling about it. I had always tolerated some joking around…” Shane cringes as he says it, feeling sick with himself. Had been too much of a coward to speak up, a part of him whispers insidiously. Ilya’s hand squeezes the back of his neck again, and he manages to keep going. “But, I told them that if they couldn’t stop when asked it clearly wasn’t a joke, and told them to cut it out. I think with that, and the stuff with Boston, that’s when they began talking about me going soft.”

“Can you say more about what you mean by the ‘stuff with Boston’?”

He’s been so immersed in it for months now (years now), it takes him a moment to re-orient. “There’s always been a bit of an atmosphere with Montreal-Boston games. I thought the inter-team rivalry was getting a bit out of hand. I’m on good terms with Rozanov, so it made sense to try to pull some of the guys together.” When his mom had suggested it, it had seemed so simple. So obvious. “Both teams going for a drink and stuff after games. Nothing big, but some of the guys began saying that I’d lost my edge.”

“Who in particular was saying that?”

“Comeau and Drapeau.” Shane makes himself think. “A couple of others. Finley, Byrne, Stedlund.” 

“We’ll note those names. We may follow up with them directly. But for now, let’s keep the focus on Mr Comeau.”

“Yeah. Fine.” Once, the thought would have made him cringe - too exposing, making him the problem. But now he can’t bring himself to care. “The comments weren’t a big deal at first. But it just… kept coming. I was losing my edge, I was going soft, I didn’t care about winning, I cared more about locker room talk than real hockey… that kind of thing.” That last had stung, that anyone could look at the way he played and think he didn’t care about hockey. “It wasn’t anything major, but it was… a bad vibe. Conversations would go quiet when I came in. I think the rookies were getting uncomfortable, but it was hard to get them to open up to me about it.” Another failure for his captaincy, Shane thinks bleakly. “I figured they were hearing shit about me and didn’t want to repeat it. Then there was an incident after a Montreal-Boston game in January. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it afterwards. It got caught on video.”

“We may ask for that video later. For now, please tell us about the relevance of the event.”

“Um, okay. We’d lost – it was a tough game. Comeau and Drapeau were in a bar with a group of rookies from both teams. Rozanov was there with his rookies, and ended up having words with Comeau and Drapeau. They were running me down, saying we’d lost because of me. Because of me being soft, I guess. Rozanov shut them down – they were pretty angry with him for it.” He’d been angry at Ilya too, Shane recalls. Had been angry for weeks, and then at some point the anger had just ended up ground away along with everything else. 

“Do you know if that was reported to team management at the time?”

“I assumed they knew. But I don’t actually know for sure.” He hadn’t suggested to the rookies that they report it - it would have felt too self-serving. He just… tried to smooth it over. “I didn’t report it - I hadn’t been there, I didn’t want to report it second-hand. Um, I do know that Coaching knew about it. Theriault spoke about it in practise. Or, alluded to it, I guess. He said that we all needed to stop whinging and start working if we wanted to win games. He said that we should think before we talked in public.” Shane can still feel an echo of the bitterness he’d felt then - knowing that ‘think before you talk in public’ was as much to him, about downplaying the rivalry, as it was to the men who’d insulted him. “It wasn’t specific to any of us - kind of general.”

“Did he say anything further?”

“To me? No. I approached him about it but he kind of blew me off. Said I should focus on the game, not on bar talk.” Another little echo of bitterness, trying to push through the blankness. “I don’t know if he spoke to Comeau or Drapeau or the others about it separately. I don’t think so.”

“Alright. We can follow up if we need to. Let’s move on. Were there further developments after the bar argument?”

“I got hassled a bit about it after – little jabs about needing ‘protection’. Not in a violent way, then - like, needing other people  to argue for me. I think that’s where what Comeau was saying last night started from.”  A little grimace. “All Stars fanned the flames a bit there, too.”

Another tiny, pained noise from his mother - but Shane’s attention is immediately recalled to the phone. “Can you tell us what you mean by ‘fanned the flames’?”

“We were asked to do some shared press at All Stars. Uh, Rozanov and I. Apparently ‘rivals to friends’ makes good content.” Was that safe enough? Hands-off enough? Shane doesn’t want to drag Ilya down with him, no matter how much Ilya’s willingly diving in. “But afterwards the team was pissed. And coaching, too, a bit.”

“Your coaches commented on it?”

“Yeah. Nothing major, but Theriault said they wanted me to come across as being competitive, as playing hard, they didn’t want ‘distractions’ or other stories floating around.” Shane recalls what felt like an endless parade of interviews, refusing to recant like it was some kind of crime or shame, but feeling too bowled over to reinforce the story. “The locker room was worse. Um, that’s when the insinuations really started.”

“Insinuations?”

“About me.” Fuck. Shane struggled to take in a breath. “About me being gay.” Fuck fuck fuck. He tries for another breath, feels like he’s choking on it; Ilya winches him tighter to his side, his breathing seeming deliberately slowed, and Shane instinctively tries to match it. “Sorry. Just a moment,” he manages to say.

“In your own time is fine. But anything you recall being said is useful for us to know.”

Shane still has his eyes closed, but he can feel tears welling under his lids all the same. He takes another breath, and leans into the touch as he feels Ilya’s lips ghosting over his temple, his cheekbone. Shane opens his eyes and looks at him; his gaze is nakedly worried and his jaw is locked hard.

“Okay,” Shane manages. “I’m okay.”

No, you are not, Ilya’s flat look contradicts him, but he shifts back a hair and Shane turns his attention back to the phone - deliberately keeping his eyes low so he doesn’t see the same worry in his parents’ faces.

Shane takes another breath, and continues. “Some of it was just – petty. Saying I played ‘pretty hockey’, ‘figure-skating shit’, saying I ‘liked it clean’. Stupid stuff like that. Some of it was nastier – calling me a ‘schoolgirl with a crush.’” Or a stalker with a crush, sometimes, when they laughed about him saying he’d watched more tape of Ilya than of anyone else. “Sometimes directly to me, sometimes just… to each other, but right next to me. If I tried to call people on it they’d roll their eyes, talk about me being too precious to take a joke. But it kept on escalating. They – fuck.” Another jerky breath. “They straight out said it was good that I was clearly crushing on Rozanov, because that way they didn’t have to worry about me looking at them in the showers.”

“Who was it that was saying this, specifically?”

“Um, a few people. I don’t remember who said what, exactly.” Sometimes it felt like it was all of them, even though he knows it wasn’t; it was just that most of the rest of the room wouldn’t even look up when it happened. “If you’re asking if it was Comeau saying shit, yeah. Yeah, he was the worst one. The comment about the showers - that was him and Drapeau talking. I guess kind of egging each other into saying worse and worse stuff. To each other, but - near me. Loud enough for me to overhear.” Darting little glances his way, to see how each word was landing. “I think they wanted to see how far they could get before I blew up.” Another breath. “That’s when I went to coaching and the GM.”

“You raised concerns?”

“It’s not like they didn’t already know. I kept on trying to bring it up with Coach in particular, but nothing… formal, I guess?” He’d been so desperate not to need it, and every time Theriault looked at him with that irritated, impatient contempt he’d felt told himself that he was overreacting. “But yes, I asked for an actual meeting at that point. I told them what was happening, told them it was affecting our play, asked for help in shutting it down.” The bitter taste in his mouth is at least starting to drive back the sick feeling, but the overwhelming dullness is still coming out on top, making his answers feel flat and leaden. “They said that it was just talk. That I was getting distracted by it and I should just ignore it. That it wasn’t a great sign for me as Captain that I couldn’t just ignore it.”

“When was this meeting, exactly?”

“I can look up the date if you need it. But it was in late February.” Shane doesn’t want to open his phone, doesn’t want to flick back through to the date when he’d felt his stomach knot as he put the meeting in his calendar, when he’d felt like a failure for even asking for it.

“Did they take any action following your meeting?”

“They told me to get my head back into the game, start winning and the locker room talk would change.” A tiny hiss from Yuna; a tightened grip from Ilya. Shane takes a careful breath. “No. No, they didn’t do anything. That’s when I called the Player’s Association.”

“You made a report?”

“No. No report.” The thought of making one had given him panic sweats. “I just - I needed advice. Scott Hunter had told me to call them -”

“Sorry to interrupt, I just want to clarify. Is that Captain Hunter of the New York Admirals?”

“Yeah. He emailed me, uh, two weeks ago, maybe? Something like that. He said he’d been hearing rumours about the Metros locker room. He gave me his number if I wanted to call, said I should talk to my PA rep either way.”

“Did you speak to Captain Hunter about this?”

“No. I didn’t even reply to his email.” He’d thought about it, but his thoughts always seemed too jumbled - and he hadn’t wanted to whine or vent or show his incompetence to a Captain who had already succeeded at what was burying him. “But a couple of days later Hayden said the same thing. Practically dialled the PA rep’s number for me. So I spoke to them. Like I said, it was just advice. I didn’t want to report anything.”

“Why did you choose not to report at that point?”

“They’re - this is my team.” Shane tries to shy away from the anguish in his own voice - doesn’t want to be pulled under by it. “I didn’t want to throw them under the bus. I just wanted it to stop.” He closes his eyes again, trying to step the welling up of fresh tears. “The PA rep said one option was to come out. Make it clear it wasn’t just talk, it was targeted, and the team would have an obligation to act.” One option. As if he had so many to choose from. “So - I did. I made a meeting with HR, with the GM, with coaches. And I told them.”

“I know this is uncomfortable. For the record, can you be specific about what it was you told them?”

Shane wants to throw up a bit, and has to swallow hard to drive it back. He had done this before. This was nothing new. “I told them I’m gay,” he says. His voice feels stifled; he only hopes it was audible on the phone and they don’t ask him to repeat it. “I told them, I thought the team had guessed or suspected. I said that the harassment felt targeted. I told them I intended to tell the team.”

“How did they respond to that?”

“I don’t think they liked it.” He thinks they hated it. “Coach didn’t want me to tell the team. Said this was the kind of thing I should keep to myself, keep out of the locker room. Said talking about it would only be another distraction.”

“Are you referring to your head coach, Theriault?”

“Yeah.” Another breath, just get through it. “I told him it was already in the locker room, and that I needed to say something so the speculation could stop and we could focus back on the game. I asked for him to be present, and someone from HR. They agreed.” It had surprised him, almost, the agreement; but maybe they could tell that by then he’d been pushed to the edge of what he’d comply with. “I told the team at a meeting later that day.”

“When was this, exactly?”

“Um.” Shane goes blank. Tries to figure out the days in his head, but he’s not sure he can even remember today’s date right now. Ilya’s hand strokes down his back, distracting him from his thoughts, and he settles. “I can figure out the exact day if you need. But it was about a week ago.”

“Alright. For now please carry on.”

“I think the meeting took people by surprise a bit.” Understatement; the meeting had been painfully awkward, the shock of Shane actually admitting it almost rigid in the air. “No one said very much. Nothing like - wildly homophobic or anything.” The silence had been almost as bad. “Coach said something about keeping personal lives and distractions out of the locker room, and there was some grumbling about political correctness and not being able to say anything anymore… nothing major, nothing specific.” He takes a breath. Say something, don’t lock up. Anything. “Hayden and JJ were pretty worried, though.”

“Just to confirm, that’s Hayden Pike? And what is JJ’s full name?”

“Oh. Hayden Pike and Jacques-Joyce Boiziau. They’re Metros players.”

“Can you tell me what you mean, when you say they were worried?”

That, at least, is easier to talk about than the rest of the team. “Hayden and JJ are friends of mine. I’d texted them before the meeting - just saying that I was going to share something big, that I was stressed about it. After, everyone headed out apart from me - the HR rep talked to me for a bit longer - but Hayden and JJ were waiting for me. They said they wanted to walk me to my car.” Shane almost smiles as he remembers how they’d fussed. “They were really insistent about it, actually.”

“Did you ask them why?”

“Not really.” It’s hard for him to bring up any curiosity about it, even now. “I was pretty tired and stressed. I wasn’t really interested in why. I let them walk me to my car since they were worried, and because I was relieved they were supporting me.” One of the few bright spots in the whole six weeks since All Stars was their instant, unquestioning support. Shane supposes he shouldn’t be surprised - Hayden has spent the last three months making increasingly obvious statements about how he’s on Shane’s side no matter what and he hopes Shane knows he can tell him anything - but it had still felt like a desperate relief. “Hayden said that he wanted to carpool with me after that, that I shouldn’t go to and from practises alone.”

“Do you know what Mr. Pike and Mr. Boiziau were worried about?”

“JJ said something about how they didn’t want me to get jumped.” The words come easily; Shane can’t seem to generate any emotion about it. It didn’t seem real. “Hayden hushed him, though.”

“Did you think there was a threat?”

Shane almost shrugs. “JJ sometimes doesn’t think before he speaks, and Hayden’s a worrywart. I didn’t take it seriously.” Ilya’s arm around him has tightened, vice-like, and Ilya’s breathing has changed for the first time since the interview began; he hears the sounds of careful movement across from him and wonders if his dad has shifted seats. He can’t help feeling like he’s missing something. “I don’t know. I was - really, really tired. I didn’t bother to ask them what worried them, weigh it up myself. They wanted to carpool with me, I didn’t care, so I let them arrange it.”

Yuna’s voice suddenly breaks in, strained. “Wait,” she says. “Hayden’s schedule is different from yours. He has four kids. You’re always at the rink early, always staying late. Did he stay late, too, to carpool?”

Shane blinks open his eyes and looks at her; she has tears on her cheeks and an expression that’s too intense for him to easily parse. His father is sitting on the arm of her chair, now. “Um, yes?” he answers, confused at first, and then feeling guilty for how much he’d taken for granted. “Sometimes JJ, if Hayden was needed at home. They’d hang until I was ready to go.”

She puts her hand over her mouth and mutters something that sounds like ‘Jesus Christ’, and Shane feels a sick, unsteady sensation that he’s missed something very important.

“Alright. We’ll be following up with Mr. Pike and Mr. Boiziau to get their perspective on this, too.” The interviewer’s voice has stayed neutral, at least. It was oddly reassuring; whatever Shane’s said that’s disturbing his family, it can’t have been too outlandish. Gratefully, he angles his head back down so he’s not looking at anything other than his own knees.

“Yeah. Okay.” Maybe whatever it is he’s missing, they can fill in the blanks later.

“Were there any further incidents since you came out to the team?”

“No… well, not exactly. Not in the locker room. The team locker room mostly just iced me out this last week. No one would really talk to me apart from Hayden and JJ. I mean, the rookies and sophomores seemed pretty much fine with me - but I didn’t want to drag them into the middle of anything.” Shane feels like he’s getting tangled on himself, forces himself to pause. “It was a… bad vibe, but people weren’t really doing anything but grumbling, eyerolling, giving me the cold shoulder. Lots of ‘if I can even still talk about that’ kind of comments.” He thinks hard, though the last week feels increasingly disjointed in his memory. “Someone talked to a journalist about me, I guess. Um, five days ago? An article with anonymous sources, talking about leadership problems. Some coded language about values and masculinity. I have no idea who was behind that.” Shane mostly just feels tired, and sick, rather than angry. “I’m not sure it really matters at this point. I think that was it until, well, the game.”

“I would like to ask some more questions about the incident, now that you’ve shared this context. Had you expected Mr. Comeau to confront you?”

“At some point, sure, I guess. I couldn’t really imagine him backing off all the way. But I thought it would be maybe… more articles, outing me publicly, or muttering things in the locker room when there weren’t witnesses. Calling me a slur, yeah, I guess I kind of thought that would happen.” He had felt more resigned than stressed by the idea, honestly. “I hadn’t expected it on the ice, in a game. I hadn’t expected the threat.”

“What was your intent when you struck Mr. Comeau?”

Shane goes blank. “I don’t really know,” he admits after a long pause. “I didn’t think about it. I just did it.”

“Were you attempting to stop the interaction, retaliate, or something else?”

Shane tries to think. He remembers the words; remembers the punch and the hot shock of it in his muscles; tries to shrink away from recalling the emotions he felt. Thoughts, amidst all of that, feel almost impossible to hold onto. “I guess… stop the interaction,” he says very slowly. “But not just that one interaction. He was saying this stuff about me needing protection, and I guess I thought… this is never going to stop. I’ve tried and tried, and I can’t get him to stop, and now he’s going to… I don’t know.” He feels very unsettled, and he thinks he’s about to cry again. Shane thinks of that last moment, where Comeau had been sneering something about Ilya; remembers wanting to stop Comeau from saying it, stop him from threatening Ilya… Shane feels like he’s running out of words, and has to grope around for a way to finish. “I don’t know what I thought he’d do.” 

“Did you intend to cause injury?”

Shane recalls the hit of the rage he’d felt, and cringes. There hadn’t been anything as clear as an intention to it at all. There hadn’t been a destination. “I didn’t think about the consequences at all,” he says honestly. “I didn’t have any particular goal in mind, other than stopping it.”

“Did you consider skating away or involving an official?”

The bitterness wells up again. “Because asking for help has been so effective so far,” he says harshly. Then, a flash of panic as he imagine alienating this person who stands between him and getting back on the ice, and immediately says “Sorry,” and forces himself to take a breath. “Sorry. No. I didn’t even think about it,” he says more quietly. “The refs were busy, and I was only thinking about what was happening right there in front of me.”

“Alright. Let’s move on. Immediately after the punch, did you say anything to Mr. Comeau, officials, or teammates?”

“I don’t think I said anything at all. I think I was kind of in shock.” After a night, the whole aftermath  sort of feels like a stress dream; the crowd sounding muffled, like they were underwater; the sound and shape of what the linesman and referee said sounding oddly distorted; the feeling of the whistles like sharp needles. “They sent me off the ice, told me to go to the locker room, so I did. Um, I spoke to one of the assistant coaches. Didn’t say anything, really, he just moved me out of the locker room before the intermission. Said I shouldn’t see the team.” He tries to think through the jumble of it. “Then, Coach – Theriault - and the GM came by. Theriault was pissed at me, but neither said much. They told me I should go home, had some of the security people escort me out.”

“You said your coach was angry at you - what did he say?”

“Nothing much,” Shane says. As far as he can recall, anyway. “Um, said I was a disgrace and a distraction - something like that. I’m sorry, I don’t remember the wording. I was pretty shaken up at that point.”

“Have you discussed this incident with anyone since the game?”

“My parents, obviously. Um. Rozanov called me after the game, to check in.” There, that was safe enough, wasn’t it? And probably true – he wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the missed calls on his phone had been from Ilya. “No one else. No press or anything, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t talked to any of my teammates yet.”

“We will be speaking with Rozanov separately.”

Shane feels acutely aware of the arm around him. “Yeah. Makes sense,” he manages to say.

“We will also be reviewing video, audio, and statements from other players and officials. You may be contacted again if we need clarification. We ask that you refrain from discussing specifics publicly until the review is complete…”

It becomes clear that they’re now in the ending phase, so Shane lets himself stop tracking quite so carefully. His mom starts speaking, clarifying contact details, offering to send through information on dates, and Shane feels glad that her voice is back to being mostly calm. “Thank you for your cooperation...” and Shane lets himself slump a bit, feeling vastly both vastly relieved and sick with exhaustion.

In the next moment, he’s drawn onto Ilya’s lap, arms tight around him and Ilya’s face tucking into his neck. Shane’s eyes fly open in surprise; Ilya’s arms are tight enough around him that it’s almost painful, and he thinks Ilya is shaking. Immediately, instinctively, he slides a hand into Ilya’s hair, trying to soothe him. He doesn’t know what to do; he doesn’t know what’s wrong and he can’t seem to think his way through to what it might be. He turns towards his parents, towards his mom – he knows how much she’s coming to love Ilya, surely she’ll help - and feels even more alarmed to see her with her hands covering her face, breathing shakily. His dad is still perched beside her on the arm of her chair, stroking her back, but his face looks grey.

Panic spikes through him. “Ilya?” he murmurs pleadingly, trying to get him to look at him. Ilya just grips him harder, and he turns to his parents. “Mom?” he asks, trying not to let his voice crack.

“Ilya, son, you’re scaring him,” says his father quietly.

“I am scaring him?” Ilya says furiously, loosening his grip enough to lift his head and give David a disbelieving glare. All the lines of his face are harsh and tight, like they are when he’s angry with himself for being sad. Shane reaches up to touch his cheek, and his face crumples before he ducks it back in Shane’s shoulder again. “Ty menya pugaesh. Ya ne mogu tebya poteryat. Y tebya lyublyu. Blyat, ya tak sil'no tebya lyublyu.”

Ilya’s voice is muffled, and Shane’s Russian learning has sporadic at best even over the last year, but he recognises some of it even through his prickles of panic; enough to murmur back “Ya tebya lyublyu. I love you.” He tries to catch his breath. “Please tell me what’s wrong, so I can help.”

“Shane, honey.” It’s his mother, who has managed to recover enough balance to at least pretend to be calm, despite the fresh tears on her cheeks. “Try to breathe, okay? We’re all just a little shaken after the phone call.” She does look shaken. “We hadn’t realised how much you were carrying.” Tears are glinting in her eyes again, and Shane feels obscurely shamed to have put them there.

“I didn’t want you to know,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to make it into a big deal. I just – I just wanted to handle it.”

Shane’s father shifts to sit on the coffee table in front of him and Ilya. Ilya still hasn’t released Shane off his lap, which is new – Ilya’s always demonstrative when they’re alone, but he tries to keep himself in check around Shane’s parents, and especially around David. “Shane,” his dad says. “None of us think you have made this into a big deal. In fact, Ilya is I think freaking out because you have been working too hard to not make this a big deal.” Shane still feels baffled, but this seems to be helping Ilya at least, because his grip is loosening to ‘comfortingly tight’ rather than ‘desperate’. His dad seems to clock his ongoing confusion, and says, “Son, I think if at any point in the future someone insists on walking you to your car because they’re worried for you, Ilya would very much like you to tell him.” He rubs a hand over his face. “As would your mother and I, for that matter.”

“Yes,” Ilya says flatly, finally sitting up properly again. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

Shane looks between the three of them, their strained and anxious faces. “But… Hayden and JJ were overreacting,” he says blankly.

Ilya’s face almost crumples again. “Shane, fuck! Fucking promise me right now that if anyone ever says they worry for you like that, you will tell me! Even if you think is joke or prank or you think they are crazy, you tell me!”

It’s the pain in it that does it; Shane still is struggling to process what they all three seem to be taking as obvious, but Ilya so rarely shows his feelings this freely - how can he not respond? “I promise,” he says, immediately and sincerely.

It helps; Yuna audibly sighs with relief, and David grips Shane’s shoulder, then reaches past him to Ilya’s, then goes back to his seat. Ilya just breathes for a minute, resting his forehead against Shane’s collarbone while Shane strokes his hair and watches as the tension ebbs out of his shoulders.

“Can not believe I need to like Fifteenth and Thirteenth Best Metro now,” Ilya mutters at last.

“Fifteenth and thirteenth?” Yuna says, outraged. “After this?”

Ilya grins, shifting Shane back to being tucked to his side rather than on his lap. The grin is tired and a little forced but it’s there at least, and Shane feels able to relax again. “The rankings are about hockey, not about not being assholes,” he says, then adds grudgingly “But they can be second and third least awful Metros from now on.”

Shane shakes his head, but breathes again. It’s okay; it will be okay.

Ilya slips away while the next phone call comes. It’s from Shane’s team, but it at least seems to promise less emotional devastation, seeing as  it’s mostly them repeating things Shane already knows, like ‘don’t talk to reporters’ and ‘you’re suspended’. Yuna had looked like she wanted to take a hammer to the phone, or possibly to crawl through it and take a hammer to the person on the other side, so Ilya’s not surprised when she joins him in Shane’s workout room a few moments later.

He is surprised when she immediately draws him into another hug, and even more so by the urge he has to rest his head on her shoulder.

“I fucked up,” he says harshly, instead of accepting her comfort. “I knew it was bad. I should have made him tell me.”

Yuna looks at him steadily, from her dark and anxious eyes that are so like Shane’s. “Then I also fucked up,” she says tightly. “Since I made the man who didn’t tell you.”

“Yuna,” Ilya says immediately. “Is not your fault.”

“Mine’s more true than yours,” she insists unflinchingly. “No, I mean it. You keep working hard to keep him safe, and I… I just keep ratchetting up the pressure, don’t I?” Her smile is fake, and bitter, and Ilya automatically reaches to touch her arm, but she shakes her head. “No – it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You and Shane are too alike,” Ilya tells her irritably, and her face softens.

“Yes,” she admits. “But the difference is, I have David. And you and Shane are both my boys. I’m the one who gets to be there for you, not the other way around.” The idea is warm but unsettling, as is the hand Yuna touches briefly to his cheek. “Come out whenever you’re ready, and we’ll start on the next round.”

Ilya doesn’t know what Yuna’s next round is, but when he comes out shortly – stubbornly crushing his craving for a cigarette – it seems to mostly consist of fresh coffee and Yuna fussing over Shane’s refusal of a snack.

Shane is starting to look haggard – Ilya can understand Yuna’s fussing – and Yuna seems unusually hesitant to get to her point as she minutely fidgets with her laptop, her pen, her legal pad before sighing in disgust, covering her face for a moment, before dropping her hands again and saying “Okay. Shane, you’re not going to like this, but I need to speak as your manager for a moment.”

Shane’s face drops. His usual ability to manage his face has been gone all day, and this is no different – he looks sick, and tired, and fearful, and Ilya squeezes his knee.

“People are going to have questions about what happened,” Yuna says. “The audio reconstructions will give some people theories, but it’s not an answer. If they’re halfway competent, the DPS will find out that you were provoked, but they won’t tell people much about it – so more questions and theories. And without an answer, people will make up their own. We won’t have control of the story.”

She leaves it there, and waits a moment. Shane looks wary, almost fearful, but he’s not yet made the connection that Ilya has.

“You want him to publicly come out,” he says flatly.

Shane folds over his knees as if he’s been punched in the gut, and Ilya might hate Yuna for a moment if he couldn’t see the anguish and guilt on her face – and if he couldn’t see exactly the links that she’d made herself to come to that conclusion. But although Yuna saw earlier that morning Shane silently crying as he talked about his team finding out, about having no choice but to confirm it, she hadn’t seen Shane last night, body shaking with sobs as he talked about it, saying how he didn’t want to…

“I would like you to consider publicly coming out,” she says firmly, voice calm despite the tears sheening her own eyes again. “Consider, only. It is not the only choice.” Ilya strokes Shane’s back, trying to soothe him, but doesn’t urge him to sit up. “If you don’t – people ask their questions, and we ignore them. The DPS says something ambiguous in their findings, probably - people ask questions, and we ignore them. People write articles and try to gather leaks, and we don’t comment on them. You serve your suspension, you go back to hockey. Eventually people forget.”

Shane takes that in, slowly. Finally nods to his knees. “And if he comes out?” Ilya asks.

Yuna takes a bracing breath. “I have a list of journalists from respected publications who have a good track record of sensitive writing,” she says evenly. “We would set up an interview with one of them as soon as possible. You wouldn’t talk about the investigation at all, or what happened on the ice. All you’d say about your team is things like ‘it’s been a challenge.’ No awful details. You’d talk about things balancing privacy and public life, about hockey culture in general terms. And you’d talk about being gay. And then when people hear about what happened on the ice, they don’t think ‘what the hell happened?’ they think ‘oh, someone who was being targeted hit back’.”

Shane takes that in, processes it. “I don’t want to,” he says miserably, and Ilya’s heart breaks a bit.

“Shane, lyubimyy, you are already out in ways that might hurt you,” Ilya says, trying to grind down the wave of anxiety at the thought. “The Metros know, including asshole Metros. It will travel. You know this.” It would travel to every arena in the NHL, and Comeau was right, damn him; Ilya wouldn’t always be there to protect him, and Shane was so terrifyingly focused on being strong that he might not realise he needed to protect himself until it was too late. “If you do this, you can be out in ways that can help you, too.”

Shane presses his forehead into his knees, and then very slowly sits up. “You think I should do it,” he says to Yuna.

“It’s a choice,” Yuna insists. “Your choice.”

“But you think I should do it,” he says, and turns to Ilya.

Ilya considers his answer, grits his teeth, and then says bluntly, “Yes, I think you should do it.”

Shane looks over at David, who spreads his hands. “Shane, I want you to be happy, not afraid,” he says quietly. “I think you should make the choices that seem likely to lead to that, but I don’t know which choices those are for you.”

Shane looks still on the edge of miserable and overwhelmed. When he says he’ll think about it, no one pushes him further, and instead they all take a breath while Yuna consults her lists for their next steps.

The chime of Shane’s doorbell startles all of them. Shane looks alarmed, David surprised, and Yuna looks like she’s ready to fend off invaders with violence if need be. Ilya is probably closest to Yuna’s mindset, but unfortunately for him he has to stay well out of sight of the door in case someone has a camera, so Yuna strides to the door, makes a surprised noise, and then opens it.

“Is Shane okay?” says a half familiar-voice anxiously. Shane looks startled, now, but actually pleased rather than upset. Ilya buries an instinctive sigh, since he apparently owes Pike a favour. The nasty reminder of exactly what favour at least burns through his usual pettiness. “He’s not answered my calls or texts -”

Shane looks guilty, and visibly wavers between going to the door and letting Yuna deal with it so that Ilya can remain hidden. Ilya, who doesn’t care about staying hidden but definitely wants Shane to stay cuddling with him, pokes him in the side lightly to distract him. Shane elbows his hand away.

“He’s fine, Hayden – just overwhelmed. But, it’s not really a good time…”

“If Rozanov is still here I don’t care,” Pike says in exasperation. “If you’re around, I assume he’s wearing clothes at least, and that’s been my biggest worry when it comes to walking in on him and Shane.”

There’s a moment of silence, then the sound of footsteps and Yuna closing the front door. Shane looks stunned, but Ilya mostly is more annoyed about Hayden’s presence than concerned about his knowledge. Then, as Pike steps into the living area and visibly sags with relief to see Shane, Ilya grudgingly softens a degree.

“Shane, buddy, you have got to learn how to answer a text,” Pike says, barely glancing at Ilya. “I have been freaking out since last night.” He clearly wants a hug, but when Ilya doesn’t cooperate by moving his arm from around Shane’s waist, Pike settles for perching on the coffee table instead. Yuna goes to the kitchen and starts fixing coffee for Pike.

“Sorry,” Shane says, sounding more blank than remorseful. “But why aren’t you freaking out about Rozanov right now?”

“Shane, I hate to tell you this, but if you wanted me not to figure out who Boston Lily is you shouldn’t have introduced me to someone who knows about Montreal Jane,” Pike says.

Shane makes a mortified noise, and covers his face with a hand.

“So Marlow told you,” Ilya surmises.

“Yeah, ish. Actually, we both talked around it until Jackie told us we were idiots who were scared to use the word gay,” Pike shrugs. Shane mutters something that sounds like ‘figures’ and Ilya decides that maybe one of the Pikes at least might be interesting to know. “Speaking of Marlow, call him, will you? I’m not your social secretary, but he keeps fucking texting me since I said I was coming over here. He wants to know if you’re catching the flight or not.”

Fuck.

Tension whips into Shane fast enough that it probably gives him a headache. “Fuck, Ilya, your flight! When is it? When do you need to go back to the hotel?”

Pike and his big fucking mouth. “Is fine. I can catch a flight tomorrow,” he says as calmly as possible. “Marlow can throw my shit in a bag for me and take it.”

Pike mutters something like ‘he’ll be thrilled’, but Ilya’s more focused on Shane’s un-soothed anxiety. “People will know!” he protests. “People will see you’re not with your team… you’ll miss practise…”

“Practise is not important,” Ilya says steadily.

“People will guess,” Shane says. “You vanish after – after last night – the Metros were already saying gross things –” Pike winces. “Your team will guess -” Shane’s spiralling into panic now, but he’s untucked himself from Ilya’s arm, so he has to make do with taking Shane’s hand and squeezing that instead.

“Shane, is fine. My team are not like Metros. No one is coming after me.”

“It will get out, Ilya!” Shane insists.

“I do not care about that!” Ilya retorts, finally pushed out of calm. “I have job, I have visa, I do not give a shit about ever going to Russia again, I do not give a shit what people say about me, or what guesses they make about us. I do not care if it gets out that we are together.”

“I don’t want it to,” Shane blurts, and there’s a moment where Ilya registers Pike looking incredibly uncomfortable and discreetly standing to go join Yuna in the kitchen, before he registers himself stiffening up and starting to pull back from Shane, before he registers the hurt that he’s already instinctively clamped down on. “No,” Shane blurts, grabbing at his hand as Ilya instinctively starts to stand. “I didn’t mean - no, Ilya, wait.”

 Shane scrambles to his feet as well. Yuna looks stricken, David looks quietly concerned, and Ilya viciously wishes the floor would answer Pike’s prayers and swallow him. “Come on,” Ilya says roughly, and takes Shane’s hand, gives it a tug. Shane looks confused. “Am not going to have an argument in front of your parents and fucking Pike. Come on.”

He’d like to go to the bedroom, and then after the argument he could bundle Shane into bed and wrap his arms tight around him and insist that he try to sleep more, until his eyes stopped looking so bruised. He has a nasty suspicion that Shane won’t be letting him do that, though, so instead he leads them into Shane’s workout room and shuts the door.

“I’m sorry,” Shane blurts. “I didn’t mean –“

He’s looking shaky again, so Ilya draws him in closer, letting his hands rest loosely on Shane’s hips. Some of the tension eases out of him again, and Ilya viscerally hates the idea of leaving him. Ilya lifts a hand to the back of Shane’s neck and rubs gently, trying to target where pain might be sitting. Shane sighs into it.

“I didn’t mean anything about… not wanting to be associated with you,” Shane murmurs. “That stuff Mom was talking about – about us having different images – I never cared about that at all. I do want to be with you openly.”

Ilya knows what Shane’s moving towards, but he hurts enough to be ungracious about it. “Good. I feel same way. So, I stay here tonight, yes?”

“Ilya,” Shane says. His name might as well be a swear word.

“Just fucking say it,” Ilya says flatly. He rubs his fingers gently over Shane’s scalp, and Shane moves to rest his forehead on Ilya’s collarbone.

“I came out to my team,” Shane says painfully, and Ilya’s hand falters; Shane’s frustration is so much easier to take than his pain. “I’ll do the stupid article. Not because I want to, not because I’m ready, but because it’s – the least bad option.” Ilya starts to take a breath,  but Shane cuts him off. “I know it’s not the same for you – you wouldn’t feel that way – but it’s not about that. Not only. What we have – it’s mine. It’s private. I don’t want it… stolen.”

“Fuck. Fuck!” Shane had sounded so small that Ilya can hardly bear it. He pulls free, paces across the room, and kicks at the base of Shane’s stationary bike. Then he kicks it again, harder. Paces back, wraps his arms around Shane again. “I do not want to go,” he tells him directly. “I do not think you are okay yet. I think me being here helps, and I want to help. But also – I am not okay, Shane! I am fucking terrified for you! I do not want to sleep tonight in a bed without you!”

Shane leans into his hold again, shoulders shaking, and Ilya feels a slash of guilt through the mix of feelings churning him up when he realises that Shane is crying. “I’m sorry,” Shane chokes out. “I’m so sorry for putting all this on you.”

It’s not I’m sorry for trying to push you away, is the thing that cuts at him. It’s not Shane conceding ground on ‘go or stay’ – it’s Shane wobbling on his feet, punch-drunk. If Shane was okay, this wouldn’t be the conversation. Instead it might end with Shane throwing up his hands and saying ‘do whatever the fuck you want, you will anyway,’ or it might end with Shane saying ‘if you miss your flight to Boston I hope you’re ready to find a hotel room, asshole, because you aren’t staying with me,’ or maybe it would lead to some kind of conversation or compromise. Not this… collapse.

“You still want me to go,” Ilya concludes tightly.

“I don’t want it,” Shane rejects instantly. “But I still don’t… I don’t want people to know about us yet.”

There’s no path that doesn’t hurt Shane, and Ilya’s brutally tempted to take that as permission to take the path that hurts him least; to push past the weak resistance that’s all Shane can muster right now, to take Shane’s relief – because he has no doubt there would be relief – as proof that he’s made the right call.

But… he’s always said he wants to beat Shane when he’s at his best, not run him down to do it. So he stays there, holding Shane, and tries to contain his bitterness and strain as he says “Fine, okay, fuck. I will go.”

After a little bit, Shane’s shoulders stop shaking and he stops trying to apologise for crying; Ilya holds him for a bit longer after that, too, before gently shifting him upright. “If I am going to make my flight, we should go back in,” he says with deep reluctance, and after a long moment Shane nods.

Ilya spares half a thought for what their audience will make of them coming back in with Shane’s eyes wet and himself no doubt with a face like thunder. In the end, Pike looks outraged and opens his mouth, but David and Yuna both take it in and their faces fall. After a moment’s hesitation and a glance at them, Pike closes his mouth again.

“When is your flight?” Yuna asks, once Shane has silently settled on the couch between Ilya and Pike, trying for brisk and only hitting resigned.

Ilya checks his phone, and grimaces. “Bus leaves hotel in about fifty minutes,” he says, and Shane makes an involuntary stricken noise before catching himself, rubbing a hand over his mouth as if to hold it in. Ilya looks at him and waits, but Shane is avoiding his gaze, so Ilya just grimaces again. “I have things I need from you,” he says directly, squeezing Shane’s knee to get his attention.

“Dude, are you setting conditions for leaving?” Pike says, glaring past Shane at him.

Ilya glares right back. “No. I am saying what I need so I do not have a fucking panic attack,” he says flatly, and Pike subsides sullenly. “One. I hear your voice every day on the phone, even if just for a minute,” Ilya tells Shane. He hesitates, then with great reluctance adds, “For as long as the investigation is happening, at least. And if I do not hear from you, I call Yuna to tell her to check on you.”

“I like this one,” Yuna murmurs.

“Yes,” Shane agrees immediately, taking Ilya’s hand. “Of course.”

“Two. You do not go to the arena alone. For practise you go with Pike or Boiziau, or for meetings you maybe go with a lawyer. And that doesn’t stop until after Pike and Boiziau say they are not worried anymore.”

“Fuck. Say yes, buddy,” says Pike, his earlier animosity forgotten. Ilya looks at him sharply, seeing the lines of strain in his face, too, and makes a mental note to get his number from Marlow and interrogate him at length about this.

“Yes, okay,” Shane says, that same slight bafflement coming back in at their shared intensity – but, thank god, that same willingness to agree for their sake.

“Three. You don’t stay here alone tonight,” Ilya says tightly.

“I can stay,” Yuna says immediately. “Or we can all go back to Ottawa.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay,” Shane agrees. “That’s all?”

There are about a dozen other things Ilya would love to tack on, ranging from ‘video calls, glasses on’ through to setting out specific demands that Shane eat or take a nap, but in terms of what he needs to have a chance to sleep tonight… it will do. Just. “That’s all,” he confirms grudgingly, and Shane settles.

Ilya texts Marlow to confirm that he’s on his way. After that, they work through a few more logistics - travel plans, check in plans, to do list for the day - but Ilya attends with half an ear at best. He’s much more concerned with the way Shane has gradually folded back into his side and gone almost silent. He’s clearly not the only one to have noticed, but after an exchange of concerned looks and with unspoken agreement,  the conversation carries on blandly without him.

Then Ilya’s phone - notifications reluctantly turned back on - chimes to alert him to his car service arriving, and Shane goes stiff against him.

“I’ll walk out with you,” Pike says. Ilya doesn’t even make a face - that had been Yuna’s suggestion, and a sensible one. Two men, neither of them resembling Shane, leaving together from the back door  with scarfs and hats against the cold air, does not suggest ‘Ilya Rozanov leaves illicit hook-up with disgraced Metros Captain’, even if there’s a photographer lurking in just the right place for a lucky shot. 

Shane seems to find it harder to accept; his grip tightens on Ilya’s hand.

“Lyubimyy, I am not going to pry you off me,” Ilya says to him. He keeps his voice as soft as he can over the utter refusal. “If you need me enough that you cannot let go, I am staying.”

Shane seems to gather himself, and releases his tight grip finger by finger. Before Shane can say anything, Ilya stands to remove himself from temptation, cups his cheek, and leans in to kiss him fiercely and with absolutely no regard for their audience. “I will call you tonight,” he promises roughly, and turns to go without waiting for a goodbye or a hug from Yuna or David - nothing that could delay him or make this any more painful than it already is.

Pike seems embarrassed; Ilya coolly ignores it (and him) through the process of gathering his coat and shoes and heading for the door. He does let Pike step out first, though he rolls his eyes at the way Pike looks anxiously around, all but shouting that he’s trying to hide something. Pike clearly needs eight years of illicit hookups under his belt in order to build his skills in appearing nonchalant.

They walk together towards where the car is waiting. Pike seems to be chewing on something, but Ilya beats him to it.

“Thank you,” he says. “For keeping him safe.”

Pike’s face twists a bit, like he’s bitten something sour; it’s in many ways a relief to Ilya that he’s not the only one to find this uncomfortable. “I guess thank you for the same,” Pike says.

“I will get Marlow to give me your number,” Ilya says. “I think at some point we may need to talk.” Then he nods to him, gets in the car before Pike can suggest something uncomfortable like a handshake, and lets the driver take him away.

He doesn’t let himself look back.

Chapter End Notes

Detailed content warnings:
Dissociation / post dissociation recovery - throughout, to varying degrees. This is described as disconcerting and sometimes leaving the person experiencing it as feeling confused or panicky, but at no point during this chapter is anyone at risk of harm to self or from others as a result of dissociation.

Sex while in a really weird headspace - there is about 1,300 words of what could be arguably considered a sex scene (it builds up slowly so hard to decide where it enters 'sex scene' territory). From a story perspective I would advise not skipping over it because there's also a lot of dialogue and checking in about the character's weird headspace. Essentially the sex scene is serving as fairly intense somatic grounding after a period of dissociation as much as it is serving any erotic purpose. The sex act involved is frotting. There is also some mild pain (deep pressure) stimulation used during the sex scene.
If you do for any reason descide to skip over scene, the first line where it arguably becomes a sex scene is "But it doesn’t feel like enough – he’s wearing sweats, and he wants to feel his bare skin against Ilya’s." The sex scene builds fairly slowly after that - I imagine many people would feel comfortable reading on for at least a while after the flagged line. Earliest re-entry line is: "Ilya only half lies on him after – a loss, but a bearable one at this point." Earliest re-entry line if you want to avoid any mention of sex-related mess is "Ilya smiles, some of the worry dropping away."

Uncensored slur - this is used once, when Shane is describing the events of Chapter 11. Warning line is: "Um, should I repeat the slur?”, re-entry line is "I had wondered if Rozanov would start a fight."

Descriptions of homophobic language including but definitely not limited to slurs and implied threats of violence
Workplace harrassment
Institutional homophobia
Forced coming out
This is essentially the whole chapter. There is really no way to avoid it and honestly I don't even think I can flag up 'brace'/'skip' points markers because it is essentially the whole chapter. It is all being thought/talked about in retrospect - nothing 'new' happens in this chapter - but there are fairly detailed descriptions.

 

Translation notes:

Ty takoy syl’nyy, chto menya eto inogda pugayet.
You are so strong that it scares me sometimes

Ty menya pugaesh. Ya ne mogu tebya poteryat. Y tebya lyublyu. Blyat, ya tak sil'no tebya lyublyu.
You terrify me. I can’t lose you. I love you. Fuck, I love you so much.

This was once again all google translate, please let me know if you think I got it wrong!

Chapter 14: Crowd noise 7

Chapter Notes

I'm so glad everyone enjoyed the very upsetting chapter! Your comments have blown me away, so thank you for that!
This one, by contrast, is very short and much less distressing, so you get a quick update.

NHL Department of Player Safety @NHL_DPS
Montreal Metros forward Shane Hollander has been suspended pending a hearing for striking teammate Gilbert Comeau during the second period in last night’s game against the Boston Raiders. Hollander will have a hearing with the Department of Player Safety. The date and time of the hearing will be announced when available.

NHL Department of Player Safety @NHL_DPS
Montreal Metros defenseman Gilbert Comeau has been suspended pending a hearing for use of inappropriate language during the second period in last night’s game against the Boston Raiders. Comeau will have a hearing with the Department of Player Safety. The date and time of the hearing will be announced when available.

Montreal Metros @MTLMetros
The Montreal Metros are cooperating with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety review of the incident between Shane Hollander and Gilbert Comeau during last night’s game against Boston. The team will abide by the league’s suspension of both players. We will have no further comment until the league’s investigation is complete.

Montreal Metros @MTLMetros
Gilbert Comeau sustained a stable jaw fracture during last night’s game and will be placed on IR. Surgery is not required at this time. No further comment at this time.

ESPN @espn
NHL Suspensions After Chaotic Montreal Loss. After a chaotic 5–1 loss to Boston, the NHL has suspended Hollander (striking) and Comeau (inappropriate language) pending hearings. Comeau sustained a stable jaw fracture during the incident. Full story: [link]

Scott Hunter ✔ @scotthunterofficial
Regarding the audio reconstructions: I’m not going to speculate on what was said before the incident at the Montreal-Boston game. But I can say that language like that in the reconstructions absolutely does exist in current hockey culture – and the impact of it is incredibly harmful. If that’s what happened here, I hope it’s addressed.

@HockeyForAll:
This is why representation matters.

@RozanovApologist
What’s that I’m hearing? ‘Rozanov was right’? Yeah, thought so.

@saypuckit
Respect for Scott Hunter – he’s right, this is a bigger issue than one room.

Shane Hollander ✔ @shanehollander24
Shane Hollander: I’m aware that there’s a lot of attention on the incident in last night’s Montreal–Boston game. I want to acknowledge that I’ve been suspended pending a review by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety, which I understand will be thorough.
Out of respect for that process, I won’t be commenting further until the investigation is complete.

@TheStatsGuy
Hollander coming across as measured and smart here. Good to see.

@StickToTheSix
A calm comment on social media hardly balances out breaking his teammate’s jaw

@ChaosGoalie
If he broke a dude’s jaw for calling him the f-slur, I don’t care about ‘measured’ and ‘smart’, I’ll buy his jersey twice

Ilya Rozanov (number 1 hockey player) ✔ @IlyaRozanov
I stand by the comments I made to the media following the recent Montreal-Boston game.
I’ve shared relevant information with the league, but at this point I’m allowing the process to play out before commenting further.

@RaiderFaithful
Captain behaviour. 👏

@SmirkOfTheNorth
Just this once I’ll forgive the clearly PR scripted post

Hayden Pike ✔ @HaydenPike35
I’ve got a lot of respect for Shane as a friend, a Captain, and the best hockey player I’ve ever met. That hasn’t changed.

@HollanderHive
It’s good to see that Hollander still has support from the room.

Scott Hunter ✔ @scotthunterofficial
The punch at the Montreal-Boston game has got a lot of people talking. I’m hearing from across the league about how far we’ve come – but also how far we’ve yet to go. No player should be facing slurs in their workplace. No player should ever feel unsafe walking to their car after practice. I hope that this can encourage teams to do some of the reflective work that will make the sport safer.

@HockeyForAll
“Unsafe walking to their car” -> that’s not about chirps. That’s about culture.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
That…. doesn’t sound like abstract examples. The fact that this is happening in a supposedly modern NHL is shocking.

@StickToTheSix
This is all implication – not fact.

@MontrealStandard
Is this the Metros being accused of something?

@NHLRumourLog
It has already been days and the DPS still haven’t announced the hearing date. What this means: they are interviewing a LOT of people. This is not about one slur or one punch.

@StickToTheSix
Either suspend them or don’t. This is getting ridiculous.

@HollanderHive
Days without your captain at this point in the season is brutal…

@ChaosGoalie
WOW what are they finding?

The Athletic @TheAthletic
Three Months. Seven Days. One Second. In an exclusive interview, Shane Hollander speaks publicly for the first time about the pressure inside the Montreal locker room, on coming out as gay to his team, and the on-ice moment that changed everything. [link]

Chapter 15: Writing for The Athletic

Chapter Notes

This one is for all the people who (like me!) click the fake links in soc med fics.
This is my first time writing a fake journalist article, it was a lot of fun to do, so I hope you all like it!
We return to the regular chapter updates from tomorrow - and I'll go back to one a day rather than two a day now we're past the immediate crisis.

Three Months, Seven Days, One Second: Inside Shane Hollander’s Hardest Season

Lia Bates || The Athletic

The silence in the hotel meeting room is heavy. Shane Hollander looks exactly as he always has for media appearances — jacket pressed, shirt crisp, posture precise. He speaks carefully, each answer measured, deliberate. The polish that defined his eight-year NHL career is still there. But something about it feels thinner now, as if the performance is being held together by effort rather than instinct.

That polish was shattered three days ago, during a Montreal-Boston game at the Bell Centre. In a moment that defied every prediction ever made about him, Hollander—a man who had never recorded a fighting major—punched teammate Gilbert Comeau in the mouth during a stoppage in play, leaving him with a broken jaw.

Hollander was ejected from the game, and is suspended pending a review by the league’s Department Of Player Safety. Fans and players alike have dissected the footage frame by frame to ask what happened and to speculate on Hollander’s future.

And from Hollander himself? “It was a loss of control,” he says unflinchingly. “It caused an injury. I’m not excusing it.”

But he says there’s more to the story.

“The punch was one second,” Hollander says. “There is another story, one that goes back eight years, or three months, or seven days.”

He doesn’t want the loss of control erasing those other stories — or those stories excusing the loss of control. He wants to give context.

Hollander talks often in our conversation about how stories calcify — how partial information hardens into reputation. What he fears most about the future, he tells me, is a narrative that might be built about the punch – one he can’t escape.

He knows what that feels like - because, he says, that’s what he’s been living.

Three months: Narratives and the narrowing corridor

This season Hollander began to question the utility of the hyper-aggressive inter-team rivalry that defines the Montreal-Boston matchup. In the world of professional hockey, questioning aggression is often seen as questioning the game itself, and Hollander says it introduced a rupture. He describes himself as “hyper-competitive”, but says when he questioned the aggression, his competitiveness was questioned in turn. “Not because that had changed,” he insists, “but because people couldn’t imagine one without the other.”

An article citing locker room sources released shortly before the recent Montreal-Boston game referred to Hollander as having a “softer style” and openly doubting that he was “tough enough” for a playoffs push. Hollander says this was only a public echo of conversations that started in the locker room three months ago.

And, he says the conversations about being “too soft” were only the beginning. “When I started to not fit the story in one way, people started questioning other things about me, too,” says Hollander.

Masculinity.

Identity.

His private life.

“There started to be a lot of speculation about me,” Hollander says, voice very flat.

Separately from trying to reform a rivalry, Hollander says he’d been trying to push back against “a certain kind of locker room talk” – but in this context, Hollander says, “That was seen as suspect.”

The pressure ratcheted up. He’d never shared stories about his personal life with the team, but jokes about “loosening up” or living like a monk shifted into scrutiny. “I felt like people were going to pry, and dig, and if I gave them nothing they were going to make something up,” Hollander says. “I felt I had to start editing myself... to analyze every stray comment before I said it, not knowing how it was going to be used.”

The cost was high. Personally, the last three months were draining. Professionally, they corroded trust and ease. “It was getting in the way of us being a team, in the way of us working together,” Hollander concludes.

Hollander is open about his intense love of hockey, his drive to win with the Metros, how much he cares about being Captain. A distraction this big, getting in the way of his game – I asked him what that was like for him. “It was a lot to carry,” Hollander says. “I felt like I was losing the room.”

So. What about the story of seven days?

“The speculation was out of control,” says Hollander, as he speaks about the final week before the Montreal-Boston game. “I couldn’t stop it or refute it. I felt like I’d already tried everything else I could think of. I felt like I was in a narrowing corridor, with my exits disappearing one by one.”

At the end, he says, “I was left with one option.”

“Confirm it.”

Seven days: The loss of privacy and the option he wanted least

“I’m gay.“

The words land heavily; Hollander confirms that it’s far from easy for him to talk about. He describes the process of coming out as – for him – anxiety-provoking and deeply painful.

“I’ve said it before,” Hollander says quietly. “In fact, I said it to management, to my coaches, and to my team. Seven days before the Montreal-Boston game.”

This was, he says, “the option I wanted least.” In a last ditch effort to stop the speculation, relieve the pressure, and reclaim the room, Hollander sat down in a room with his teammates and told them, as he told me, that he’s gay.

These aren’t words he’d anticipated saying – either to a journalist or in a locker room. Hollander describes himself as an intensely private person,  and says he’s known for some time that if he was to come out, “something very precious to me – my privacy – would be harder for me to keep.”

“I never, ever, planned to come out as gay while an active NHL player,” Hollander admits. “I was going to get all the way to my retirement before I even dared to hold hands with a man in public.”

Even being moved by Scott Hunter’s emergence last year as the first openly gay NHL player didn’t entirely shift this conviction. “I didn’t really think ‘I can do that’,” Hollander says when he reflects on this milestone event. “I still thought ‘absolutely no way’.”

“That is how much privacy means to me,” Hollander concludes. “That is what I have lost.”

And the response?

“Afterwards, the room was… very, very quiet.” The speculation stopped, he says – “But nothing else came back.”

No inside jokes. No eye contact. No trust. No ease.

And, one week later, a punch that shook apart eight years of reputation.

One second: A loss of control

Hollander tells me he is not able to give any details about the punch, or the on-ice events leading up to it – as these are still the subject of an active DPS investigation.

Others, however, have been less circumspect. Videos of the incident – complete with partial audio and lip-reading reconstructions – are the subject of hot debate. Captain Ilya Rozanov of the Boston Raiders – present on the ice at the time – spoke to media directly after the game, describing Comeau’s words immediately prior to the punch as having been “line-crossing,” “highly insulting,” and saying that they “included a threat to Captain Hollander.” 

Hollander refuses to discuss Rozanov’s allegation that there had been a threat. When I ask Hollander about whether he’d felt unsafe in the locker room, he demurs, saying “I’m not going to characterise it that way.” When I ask him about recent social media comments from New York Admirals Captain Scott Hunter, who talked about players facing slurs at work or not being safe to walk to their cars alone, he says he has no comment.

Three months.

Seven days.

One moment of rupture.

Inside the Room, Across the Ice

Hollander wasn’t entirely without support from his team – telling me about two veteran Metros players whose support for him has been a “lifeline”.

When I ask him about support from management, Hollander is characteristically careful. “Would I have liked more to be done? …of course,” he says. “Do I think more should have been done? …I’m not here to assign blame,” he says firmly. “Seven days isn’t very long for changes to be made and to take effect.” After he came out the speculation stopped – though he did also flatly note the timing of the anonymous source article that dropped two days afterwards.

If Hollander was being guarded, Rozanov has been remarkably less so. His comments after the punch threw a gauntlet at Montreal’s management, when he asked “If inappropriate language is used on and off the ice, what responsibility does that player’s management have to respond?” – and even more so, when he suggested reporters who wanted to find out more about what was happening in the Metros locker room should try asking players “when their coaches are not around.”

When asked about what it was like, to hear Rozanov’s comments to the media, he admitted it had been a “huge relief”. Having Rozanov witness and speak to the events meant “It wasn’t just - me, versus all the ways I could be interpreted.”

Hollander is clear that he doesn’t attribute Rozanov’s advocacy solely to friendship, saying that he sees Rozanov as having been acting as a good captain and leader, by speaking up when he perceived lines being crossed. Hollander has bristled at how he’s been interpreted in his own room, but admits that he views Rozanov as “very perceptive,” saying “I trust his interpretations more than most.”

This isn’t the first time Rozanov has stepped to Hollander’s defence. After a Montreal-Boston game in January of this year, a video was released of Rozanov coldly reprimanding a group of Montreal veterans who seemed to be criticising Hollander’s leadership and his performance in the game (Boston won 4-2). In that particular case, Hollander viewed the intervention as less of a relief, saying “It complicated things.” Some people, he says, interpreted him as needing Rozanov’s protection. Though he bristled at the implication – “I don’t see myself that way” – he confirmed that it came up within the locker room, saying drily that the argument had “provided more topics for conversation.”

When it came to the argument in January, Hollander says “I wish that the support had come from inside the room and not outside it.”

A pattern emerges: inside the room, scrutiny and silence; across the ice, support.

The Weight of the C

For all the noise, Hollander still sees himself as a hockey player first.

“At a basic level, I am intensely competitive, and intensely in love with hockey,” Hollander says, adding ruefully that for him ‘how are you’ and ‘hockey conversation’ are “pretty much the same thing.”

But Hollander isn’t just a player – he’s a captain.

For him, that’s not a responsibility that can be taken lightly. “The captain has to have the trust of the room,” he says seriously. He lists other responsibilities: setting the tone, keeping the team aligned, focusing on the big picture, absorbing frustrations so others can play.

Hollander notes, bleakly, that he’s well aware of the irony.

Captaincy isn’t the only weight he carries on the ice.

I ask him about the weight of being not only the Asian-Canadian man drafted highest to the NHL, but also ‘Canada’s golden boy’ – polite, respectful, sportsmanlike, and utterly uncomplicated. Hollander says he’s definitely felt a pressure. “It felt like I was meant to live up to something that was bigger than just hockey, bigger than my team, into being a certain kind of person,” he says. When I ask him how he feels about being called a role model, Hollander is notably hesitant. “It’s important,” he says. “But it’s also an extra weight to carry, to have to live up to other people’s stories.”

For him, another risk of coming out is that it will give him more stories to live up to. “I worry about what it will mean to have ‘openly gay’ tacked on in front of ‘star center’,” he says quietly. “I worry about not being seen clearly. I have always wanted my play to speak for itself – not to be seen as an Asian hockey player, or an openly gay hockey player, but just - a hockey player.”

And of course, being an openly gay hockey player had not been on his game plan. At eighteen, just starting out in the NHL, he admits that he couldn’t even conceive of coming out as gay – “At that age, I tried very hard not to even think about the word.”

Some of the predictions that would most have scared him away from self-examination – predictions of publicity, of loss of privacy – have undeniably come true for Hollander. Others, however, have not. “I've had more support than I once would have feared,” he says. “From people from within my team and across the league.” He talks with measured optimism about the way changes in league values have shifted the conversations at all levels, since he was first drafted. “There’s still a long way to go… but yeah. There’s been progress.”

“I don’t think as a rookie I would have felt able to have this conversation with you today and still go back to the locker room afterwards,” Hollander says ruefully.

I ask him if that’s still what he wants – despite the three months, the seven days, the one second, and the weight he carries onto the ice with him.

“I don’t want to be away for a moment longer than I need to.” It’s unequivocal and said without hesitation.

It sounds less like eagerness than single-mindedness.

The Room He Walks Back Into

The timeline of when he will walk back into the room remains unclear. The DPS investigation is ongoing; until their hearing, he won’t know how long he’ll be suspended for.

I ask how he’s coping in the meantime.

My answer comes piecemeal through our conversation as a whole. “Reeling,” he says first, followed much later, by “shaken”. He admits, when pressed, that the last few weeks have left him “very tired”. It sounds like the kind of phrase athletes use when they mean something heavier.

The suspension has, at least, mandated some mid-season rest, and Hollander says he’s been trying to take it easy. Staying with his parents in Ottawa has helped with this – with a rare flash of humour, Hollander admits that when he tries to watch game tape, his mother steals his tablet. “My family have been encouraging me to try to take a mental break for a few days,” he says.

Hollander has spoken about his coming out with evident pain. Alongside this, I asked, had there been any relief?

Hollander is silent for a long moment, then shakes his head.

“It’s all happening too fast for relief,” he explains quietly. “A year ago, I had said the words ‘I’m gay’ to one person, ever. Six months ago, there were five people in the world who knew. Ten days ago – fifty. Now…?” How many people watching the game, asking why the Metros captain had just punched his own player? How many people on the internet, reconstructing the words and asking questions about why Shane Hollander did what he did – coming closer and closer to an answer? How many people reading this article and knowing for sure?  “I can’t even wrap my head around it,” Hollander says. Then, perhaps not wanting to bring the mood down too much, he throws me a bone. “Ask me again in a year.”

Where Hollander might be in a year is not fully clear. For one thing, he doesn’t yet know if he’ll still have a C on his jersey at that point.

With the DPS review still pending, the future of his Captaincy has not yet been discussed with the Metros, Hollander says – though he admits “I think it would be surprising if none of my teammates had doubts.” If the C were to be taken away, he says he would understand it.

Not that he wants that. “What I most want is to have the room back,” he says, with utter determination. “To show them we can still play together, we can still trust each other. That we can still win.” He has a vision, he tells me - “I want to get on the ice, and for it to snap into place like clockwork – with no more grit in the gears.”

Hollander’s determined – but it’s not just up to him. While he hopes that the on-ice rupture – a rupture of control, but also a rupture of narratives – might let him “start new” with the team, he’s far from certain how it will go. “I worry that nothing will have changed,” he admits. “That I’ll walk into the same silent room that I walked out of and onto the ice three nights ago.”

And if that were the case – if he couldn’t win back the room – would he still want the C?

Somehow I’m not surprised when he says he would. “But… maybe not in a way that would be healthy for me,” he admits. He thinks it might end up being less about the joy of playing together, and end up being more about stubbornness, about refusal to back down from a challenge. “No matter how big the challenge is,” he says. “No matter if it’s too big for me.”

I say it sounds like there might be a fine line there between resilience and self-destruction.

Hollander winces. “I’ve been told over the last couple of days that finding that difference is not my strong suit,” he says, somewhere between weary and wry.

The earlier vision of precisely running clockwork feels distant now.

And if there is still grit? I ask. Who does he think will have more staying power – him or the grit?

He pauses for a very long time. “I don’t know,” he says. “I hope I don’t find out.”

Chapter 16: Crowd noise 8

Chapter Notes

I was genuinely not intending to do another Crowd Noise chapter here, but to leave it until after the next narrative chapter instead... but commenters seemed to like the idea and were keen to have some more behind the scenes info, so I've put one together for you!

It was my full intention to have the next narrative chapter up today, rather than a Crowd Noise chapter - so I'll turn my attention to editing that now too and I'll see if I can get it up with another quick update.

The Athletic @TheAthletic
Three Months. Seven Days. One Second. In an exclusive interview, Shane Hollander speaks publicly for the first time about the pressure inside the Montreal locker room, coming out to his team one week before the punch, and the moment that changed everything. [link]

@NHLRumourLog
As well as the article drop there was also an announcement today about the DPS hearings for Hollander and Comeau – these will be happening tomorrow!

@ChaosGoalie
SHANE HOLLANDER JUST CAME OUT??

@HockeyForAll
That’s the bravest thing I’ve read from an active player in years.

Hayden Pike ✔ @HaydenPike35
I meant what I said earlier this week and I mean it now. Shane is my captain and my friend. I’m proud of him for being honest about who he is and for everything he’s done for our team. Hockey’s better when people can be themselves.

@PrideInSport
No one should have to choose between privacy and safety at work.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
You can say the punch was wrong and still recognize that what led to it is bigger.

@RozanderWatch
He said he trusts Roz ‘more than most’ HELLO

Eric Bennet | Go Admirals! ✔ @Bennett_E
So much respect for the honesty in that interview. Wishing Hollander the best.

@saypuckit
That “I never planned to come out while active” line hurts.

@HollanderHive
If that’s what he’s been living under… no wonder?

Rose Landry 🌹 ✔ @roselandry
Proud of you, Shane, and grateful to have you as my friend. ❤️

@MontrealStandard
Timing this for one day before the DPS hearing? 🙄 Wow. Way to play the system.

@KaytlaTweets
An article like takes a couple of days – do you really think he controlled the publication date?

@NHLTea
And even if he did – it’s his right to come out whenever the hell he wants.

Cliff Marlow ✔ @hockeyslucky7
Takes guts to speak up like that. Respect to Hollander. Hockey is for everyone. Hope to see him back on the ice soon.
He’s Boston’s biggest problem though… so maybe I shouldn’t say that!

@PuckTalk
Three months. Seven days. One second.
That’s not a temper tantrum. That’s a breaking point.

@RealHockeyOnly
Hockey is getting too soft. Rivalry reform, locker room talk complaints, now this.

@saypuckit
So you read an article in which a gay man says people were making coded homophobic remarks by calling people soft, and you… decide to call him soft. What a choice.

@NHLTea
Generous of you to assume they read the article

JJ Boiziau ✔ @J_J_Boiziau
Room’s not the same without Hollander right now. Respect mon ami for speaking your truth
Hâte de te revoir avec nous, Capitaine!

@MetrosDefense
I hope the Metros are figuring out what went wrong.

Scott Hunter ✔ @scotthunterofficial
Reading Shane’s interview today, I’m reminded how much strength it takes to speak honestly about your experience — especially in our league.
Coming out is personal. It shouldn’t have to be strategic. I respect him for telling his story in his own words.

Ilya Rozanov (number 1 hockey player) ✔ @IlyaRozanov
People talking a lot about Hollander today.
Hollander is still the player to beat. Hockey is better when he’s on the ice.
Hockey is for everyone. Sometimes people need to be reminded.

@RaiderFaithful
This is the right response. Rivalry aside, the league needs players reinforcing this.

@RozanovApologist
Wow Rozanov the ally as well as Rozanov the menace? 🌈

@RaidersRiot
“Don’t start none, won’t be none” – Rozanov 😂

@RozyOwnsYou
“I will be the reminder if necessary” – Rozanov

Ottawa Centaurs @OttawaCentaurs
The Ottawa Centaurs believe every player deserves a locker room built on trust, respect, and accountability.
Respect in the room and on the ice is fundamental to our team culture. 🏒 🌈

@CensForever
Ottawa quietly reminding the league they have the best room in hockey.

@ChaosGoalie
They have to have SOMETHING going for them I guess #worstteamintheleague

@MetrosDefense
This feels like a shot at Montreal.

@FreeAgentTracker
If I’m a free agent I’m paying attention to this.

@GuardianGuardian
Ottawa recruiting via vibes now 🙄

@NHLRumourLog
Seems like a good time to remind everyone that Shane Hollander is an Unrestricted Free Agent on July 1^st 👀

@HockeyHotTakes
Let’s hear all your hot takes for who the ‘one person’ and ‘five people’ are! My top 5: Rose Landry, Hayden Pike, J.J. Boizeau, Scott Hunter, and his mom.

@PuckBunny94
Why his mom and not his dad?? Bit sexist.

@ThisRozFan
One of the five HAS to be Rozanov, right? Roz has been one of his biggest defenders.

@ShipItSideways
What if Rozanov was the ‘one person’?? 👀

@FilmGirlLA
The one person has got to be Rose. Look at the timing – they split up amicably 14 months ago because he tells her he’s gay – that means that ‘one year ago I had told one person’ works perfectly.

@HockeyForAll
The article talks about how painful the loss of privacy has been for him… and you all start speculating about the identity of people he trusted? This is invasive and disrespectful.

@TumblrRefugee
And people say *I* should take my shit back to tumblr… 🙄🤮

@CulturePlaybook
When “Soft” Isn’t Just About Hockey: The Intersection of Race, Masculinity, and the Hollander Story. Shane Hollander may be the most prominent Asian player in today’s NHL – we break down why that context matters for the language used about his character and his leadership. [link]

@CultureAndSport
Glad to see this conversation happening. Representation in hockey has always been complicated.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Worth reading. The language around Hollander over the last year didn’t come from nowhere.

@SticktotheSix
Sometimes soft just means soft.

@saypuckit
“Soft” can mean a hockey critique, a homophobic insult, and a racial stereotype all at the same time. That’s the point of the article.

@NHLTea
Has anyone noticed, no comment yet from the Metros? @MTLMetros anything to say about how you support your player’s choice to come out?

@saypuckit
Nothing from the league yet, either…

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Tbf to the league it might be kinda awkward to post a ‘congrats on the coming out’ post to someone who is still actively under investigation.

Shane Hollander ✔ @shanehollander24
Thank you to everyone who has reached out with support. I appreciate it more than I can say. I’m focused on tomorrow’s DPS hearing and won’t be commenting further right now.

Chapter End Notes

Translation notes:
mon ami - my friend
Hâte de te revoir avec nous, Capitaine! - Looking forward to seeing you with us again, Captain!

(Once again, google translate - please feel free to offer me corrections.)

Chapter 17: Stage 5: Matched Pair (part 1)

Chapter Notes

I have split this chapter into two sections - part 2 will go up tomorrow.
I'm eager to hear what you think of this one now that we're back to regular chapters!

Content warning:
Not as bad as chapter 13 - but there will be more institutional homophobia in this section! For detailed content notes (which contain spoilers) please see the end notes.

Stage 5: Call back the rookie ad

We can use your brands to do some of the work for us. I’ll talk to Rolex. But the real prize is CCM — a callback to the rookie ad. Eight years later, the same rivalry - but without the bloodlust. People get used to seeing you as a matched pair.

Mid March 2018

Fortunately, he mostly remembers the rest of the day after Ilya leaves as a haze.

A haze of amorphous panic, uncertainty, and shame, admittedly. But at least when he looks back on it, the moment when he started tearing up because of how difficult it was to know what to pack for a few days at his parents’ house, for example, blurs into all the other moments until it becomes almost a white noise.

Talking to Ilya from bed that night had been an island of comparative calm, though he’d been thankful it wasn’t a video call because his eyes kept filling up just from hearing Ilya’s voice.

The second day is better. He feels almost awake. He’s able to organise the clothes he brought with him without freezing up or having baffling bouts of tearfulness. He’s able to do some yoga until his body feels loose and tired instead of sore and tired. He’s able to join his mother at the dining room table and let her go through almost all of her pre-planning about the coming out article, and then he’s able to get all the way up to his room before he has a panic attack about the idea of it. 

The third day is the article. They’d set up the interview at a bland hotel meeting room right by the Ottawa airport. Shane stands by the window beforehand, fretting to Ilya on the phone as he watches the planes come in and out, fiercely wishing to get on one, fly to Boston, and crawl back into his arms. Ilya listens to him quietly, not teasing him out of his worries.

He gets through the interview without crying or having to excuse himself, and tells himself that it’s a win. In the evening he watches a Boston game on TV with his parents, and doesn’t know whether the ache he feels is longing for the ice or longing for Ilya.

The fourth day he tells himself he feels normal again. Normal enough to feel restless, even, rather than spent. He misses his workout room in Montreal, but makes do with more yoga.

Afterwards, he’s talking with his mother when she’s interrupted by a phone call; her face turns tired when she looks at the screen, but she puts on a fake, professional smile in order to change her voice into something corporate-brisk as she answers. Shane tries to busy himself in a book, but his mind skitters away when he hears her say “We understand your concern.” She sees him looking over, gives him an even faker smile, and walks into the next room. As she leaves, he can hear her saying “No, this is not a trajectory…”

Shane puts away his book and quietly goes to do body weight training until he stops feeling shaky.

Yuna studiously avoids speaking to him about the phone call, and he studiously avoids talking to her about the article draft she’s reading through that evening, and they each retreat early to their separate rooms. Ilya doesn’t have a game, so Shane videocalls him sitting up in bed. Ilya smiles to see him, and a tension around his eyes seems to ease off when he scans over Shane and when he asks about Shane’s day. He asks about Ilya’s day in turn – but his usual pithy, insulting, ridiculous comments about practise seem to come more slowly than usual.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks tentatively.

“Am okay. Tired,” Ilya says. Then, a beat, and his smile turns wicked. “If you have been reading boring sports biography, where are your glasses?” he asks.

“Ilya,” Shane sighs, with familiar fond exasperation.

“Glasses on, please.”

“Ilya, I am not having phone sex with you from my parents’ house!” It’s a pointless boundary, given that they’ve already had in-person sex at his parents’ house (prudishness having given way to proximity within twelve hours of them both being there for Christmas). But Shane can’t help the instinctive flare of embarrassment.

Ilya shrugs, still smirking. “So do not. Glasses on, shirt off, I will do all the work.” Shane tries to frown at him for the teasing, even as he tries to weigh up if Ilya is serious about this and if so is he going to let Ilya persuade him into it. “Yes, perfect, kotenok. Exactly that face,” Ilya says, and Shane can’t help laughing at him.

“Good night, Ilya,” he says, and Ilya’s expression softens back into fondness again.

“Boring,” he says, but he’s smiling. “Good night, Shane.”

The morning of the fifth day he realises that the article has dropped, and immediately switches his phone back off for most of the day. He goes for a brisk walk instead, letting the cool air slap him, and after he gets back he’s able to sit with Yuna and match her deliberately businesslike tone as she gives him a rundown of the article reactions online. He deletes any text messages from unknown numbers without checking them, deletes his missed calls, and gratefully accepts an offer from Rose to talk on the phone and not mention the article even once.

The call with his Players Association rep – the one he’s been trying to not think about all day, because it’s all about preparing him for the other phone call he’s been trying to think about all day – is reassuringly organised and matter-of-fact, but by the end of it he barely has time to call Ilya before he’s heading in for his game.

“You are okay?” Ilya asks.

“Yeah,” Shane sighs. “I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it.”

“It was good article,” Ilya says. There’s something a little strange in his voice, and Shane frowns, trying to place it.

“You read it?” Shane says.

“Yes. You did not?”

“I couldn’t,” Shane admits. “Mom said it was good for us. Careful.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees, with that strange tone again. “It made you look… determined.”

“Is that not… a good thing?” Shane asks, confused.

Whatever mood he’s in, Ilya seems to shake it off a bit at that. “I love you,” he says fondly, and switches to talking about the game.

Shane watches it with his parents again; Ilya plays hard, giving and taking checks that have Yuna wincing, and battering his way through into a decisive victory.

Afterwards, he texts Ilya:

Though he tries to stay awake, he falls asleep before the answer arrives.

The sixth day is his hearing with the Department of Player Safety.

Shane wakes up and almost immediately feels a slow, churning wave of nausea crawl through him. He swallows hard and breathes slowly until it recedes. During yoga he pulls himself back into focus over and over again. Bite by bite he methodically forces himself to eat breakfast. When it’s still far too long until the phone call, he does another round of bodyweight training and then stands in the shower for long enough that he feels guilty about the water waste, before finally getting out, dressing with unusual care, and going to sit with his mother at the dining table.

She’s calmer than he is, though less still; she fidgets a pen between her fingers all through his check in call with his PA rep, and only sets it deliberately down when the phone begins to ring on cue.

As his PA rep said, there aren’t any surprises. He can use the responses he practised the night before with her – yes, he struck Comeau; no, he didn’t intend injury; yes, he regrets handling it that way; yes, at the time he was reacting to what he saw as unmanaged escalation…

The prior run through even means he can listen to the list of things the department investigation has confirmed (…prior attempts by both Hollander and Pike to seek coaching intervention, muted slurs prior to this incident, a confirmed slur immediately preceding the punch…)  and hold onto composure (…a hostile pre-game environment encouraging escalation, a pattern of insinuation linking Captain Hollander and Captain Rozanov, sustained sexualized harassment in the locker room…) carefully counting out his breaths.

And then it’s over, and he’s done.

He hangs up the phone with deliberate care, and then for a horrible spinning moment feels utterly and totally blank once more.

Then his mother is squeezing his hand. “You did well,” Yuna says warmly. “You sounded very calm.”

“They said they’d tell me by the end of the day,” Shane says, trying to smile but feeling hollow.

He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Another round of yoga or body weight training feels excessive; he certainly couldn’t settle his frayed attention onto a book; it’s the wrong time of day for live hockey, and if he tries to watch game tape his mother will tell him off; it’s currently drizzling miserably, so a walk feels unappealing…

He’s still weighing it up listlessly when the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” Yuna tells him. Absently, he listens to her footsteps down the hall.

He needs to do something, he knows. He doesn’t like how worried his mother is for him – shifting her laptop to the dining table from her home office so she can keep an eye on him, making him tea and checking in about his sleep when she has work of her own to be getting on with  – work for Shane, no less, work that he’s made substantially more complicated. It’s just hard to think of what -

There’s the sound of the door opening, and suddenly he feels electrified. He’s out of his chair and rounding the corner of the hall before he even recognises what it is he’s reacting to. By the time he’s labelled the cadence of the voice Ilya’s already stepping through the foyer and into the hall, smiling tiredly at Yuna. Shane almost checks his mother out of the way in his rush to get to him – distantly registers her laughing – and then Ilya’s mouth is on his and for the first time in days he feels perfectly right.

He doesn’t question it, just lets himself get lost in it; Ilya’s arms around him, murmured greetings in between more kisses, the slow loosening of muscles he hadn’t realised were tense. They’ve naturally eased into a loose embrace, Shane just breathing against him, by the time Yuna politely clears her throat.

“Sorry to interrupt, boys,” she says, her pleased amusement clear. “But I figured Ilya would like coffee, and there’s some ready now.” Shane flushes a little, but only somewhat grudgingly steps back and allows Ilya to finish taking off his shoes and coat, to greet Yuna with a hug and accept the coffee she’s offering.

“How are you here?” Shane finally thinks to ask, following Yuna and Ilya through to the living room.

“There are things called airplanes,” Ilya tells him.

Shane is too pleased to call him a name, so he kicks him lightly in the ankle instead. Ilya shifts to hook their ankles together, trapping Shane’s foot against the couch.

“I assume Shane is asking, when did you decide to get on one and travel here, and how long are you staying?” Yuna says fondly, heading off Shane’s planned revenge.

“Last night,” Ilya says, sipping coffee. “Late,” he clarifies, when Shane is just about to point out that he’d texted last night and Ilya could have said something.

He does look tired, Shane’s registering now; Shane studies his circled eyes and the way he leans back into the cushions with weary sprawl rather than a lazy one. He can feel his forehead creasing.

Ilya catches him looking, and slightly straightens his shoulders. “What? Bad night’s sleep, I book a flight to see my boyfriend. Is romantic.”

“You have a game tomorrow,” Shane says, feeling a thread of worry.

“Toronto,” Ilya confirms. “I fly there tomorrow, arrive just after team. Coach knows my plan,” he adds after seeing Shane’s face. “Shane – is not like Montreal. I only miss an optional practise, no one is watching for me or wondering where I am.”

Shane nods, reassured, and a notch of tension seems to ease from Ilya – one he hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

“Yes,” Ilya says. “I guessed when you tackled me.”

“I didn’t tackle you,” Shane protests indignantly, and elbows Ilya.

Shortly afterwards, Yuna rescues Ilya’s half-empty coffee mug before it can spill, and tells them to come find her if they want to order in for lunch.

Wrestling playfully on the couch turns inevitably into making out on the couch; Shane eventually pushes Ilya back before it can either turn into him needing a cold shower, or Ilya convincing him to slip upstairs for a quickie that there’s no way his mother would fail to clock. From Ilya’s smirk, he knows exactly what’s going through Shane’s mind, and feels pretty confident in his persuasive abilities, should it come to it.

He’s probably right.

“Behave,” Shane says firmly, at least in part to himself. Ilya grins, but subsides, slumping down instead with his cheek on Shane’s chest. Shane runs his fingers through Ilya’s hair, and feels his sigh. “You’ve not been sleeping well?” Shane asks.

“One night,” Ilya says dismissively. “You will make sure I sleep tonight, yes?”

“You’re impossible,” Shane tells him.

“I am irresistible,” he confidently asserts.

They eventually manage to untangle themselves enough to have lunch with Yuna. Then, before Shane can start clockwatching too obsessively Ilya suggests a game of Spit. Shane agrees immediately, of course, but he’s been off enough lately that after he wins three rounds out of four he eyes Ilya with sharp suspicion.

“I would not let you win even if you were dying,” Ilya retorts to the unspoken question, and then beats Shane at the next two rounds in a row.

Greatly to Shane’s surprise, by the time his ringtone cuts through the room he’s forgotten to expect it.

His mother hurries out of her office and Ilya goes still and watchful as Shane picks up the phone.

“The decisions are back,” his PA rep says, kindly but briskly. “You got a two game suspension. Comeau got four.”

Shane feels his brain stuttering, trying to catch up. Comeau’s broken jaw will keep him out far longer than the four games, of course – but the disparity between the numbers still feels like a relief.

“It would have been more if they’d proven more than verbal threat,” she says, not unsympathetically. “But this is a hard slap for a slur. The decisions will be out online soon if you want to check the wording.” Then, finally, the words he’s been waiting for: “Your suspension has been served. You’re eligible to play from tonight.”

The Metros are playing tonight in Detroit. For a wild, instinctive moment Shane starts calculating flight times before he reels himself back and instead runs the practise timetable through his head.

There’s an afternoon practise tomorrow.

Shane freezes in place.

“...Shane?” the voice on the phone prompts me. “Are you with me?”

Recalled to himself, he lets out the breath that had briefly caught. “Yes - yes, thank you - I got all of that -” A couple of routine pleasantries later, he puts the phone down and looks at Ilya - poised - and his mother - practically vibrating. ”I got two,” he says. “Comeau got four.”

Yuna’s expression goes fierce with vindication. Ilya’s expression goes blank.

Ilya knows the Metros game timetable almost as well as he does. “When?” he asks.

“They’ll have to call me,” Shane finds himself hedging. “But… there’s a late practise tomorrow. If they want me back that soon.”

“Of course they will want you,” Ilya dismisses. “They’re barely scoring without you.”

“They were barely scoring with me,” Shane says bitterly. Ilya doesn't immediately launch into chirping him or trashing his teammates, and something hard feels like it's lodged in his stomach. “Ilya. What's the problem?”

Ilya hesitates. “You could take more time,” he says tightly.

The idea of taking more time makes Shane's stomach turn over strangely. “I want to be playing,” he says firmly, setting that aside. “I'm ready to go back.”

“Comeau is out for the season,” Yuna says, a thread of deep satisfaction running through her voice. “And there'll be more scrutiny on the org now.” By her, if no one else, the tone in her voice suggested.

Ilya pivots, paces away. The muscles of his neck and back are rigid and tense.

Shave tenses up in turn. “You don't want me to go back?” he asks. He feels jittery at the idea. He clenches his hands tight to chase away the strange feeling.

He watches Ilya's back, the sudden bunch of his muscles. Feels a swoop in his stomach - half nerves, half the familiar jump of readying for a competition. Waits for the explosion.

It doesn't come. The clenched moment ebbs away instead, and Ilya lifts a hand to rub at his face. “Does not matter,” he says resignedly. “Of course you are going back.”

Shane hesitates, then goes to him, puts a hand on his shoulder and mutely encourages him to turn. Ilya resists for a moment, then turns and lets Shane draw him close.

“I want to go back,” Shane says. “I'm okay. I'm ready.” Ilya leans into him. “Like Mom says. There'll be more scrutiny. And… I'll be careful, like you said. Travel with Hayden.”

Ilya makes a noise. Shane can’t quite name the emotion in it, just that it hurts a little to hear. “At least one of those things had better be true,” he says.

Ilya is unusually quiet for the rest of the afternoon. When the Metros management calls and confirms Shane's return for the next day, he slips away entirely rather than listen in. Shane assumes at first that he's gone out to smoke, but when he looks he finds that Ilya has taken his bag up to Shane's bedroom and is sitting on the edge of the bed.

Shane goes to him, nudges his knees wider and steps between them. Ilya lets his arms loosely circle Shane's thighs, lets Shane tilt his face up to study it. “Mom's going to drive me back in the morning, stay the night,” he says, watching Ilya's face. “I have meetings with management early, before call time for the other players. I've already texted Hayden - I'm going to get a car service in, and leave with him. I can call you after, talk to you about it.”

Ilya gives him a faint smile, but his eyes stay quiet. “Those are good things,” Ilya says.

“What else can I do, so you aren't worrying for me?” Shane asks. Ilya leans forward, rests his forehead on Shane's stomach. Shane keeps his hands in Ilya's hair, feeling shaky and uncertain about how to manage this.

“I'm just tired,” Ilya says, and presses a kiss onto Shane's abdomen through his shirt. Shifts to push the shirt up, presses another kiss onto skin.

Shane's shakiness is replaced by shivers. “You know you can talk to me, right?” he says, already calculating how long they have before his father comes home from the office and they'll be expected to show themselves for dinner.

Ilya makes a negating noise. “Not interested in talking right now,” he says against Shane's skin, and pushes the shirt up further.

“Fuck it,” Shane mutters, and takes it off.

When they do emerge, neither of Shane's parents comment. Ilya seems more relaxed again, at least, and he seems to enjoy it when David pauses in his cooking to hug Ilya warmly and rope him in as an assistant.

They've not had a family meal together since Christmas, so the hockey talk is seeded in amongst updates about their lives. Shane sits back, feeling his own shoulders slowly dropping with relief to have his own momentous updates receiving relatively less attention - and enjoying, too, Ilya's smiles as both David and Yuna shower him with as much attention and affection as he can tolerate.

After dinner Yuna announces her intention to trounce them at cards; after she wins the first two games it's late enough not to feel patronising when she declines a rematch and suggests winding down. Not to mention that the thought of sleeping next to Ilya is also an inducement to an early night.

In bed, Ilya plasters himself against Shane, and Shane thinks with a strange wistfulness of the years he'd spent being afraid of wanting this, and telling himself that he didn't.

“Will you sleep tonight?” Shane asks him.

“Yes, I think so,” Ilya says. Shane feels pleased at the way his voice and his body are both more relaxed, now.

“I'm glad you came here,” Shane murmurs. “For me, but also for you.”

“I want to see you all the time,” Ilya says, and Shane has to swallow hard and tell himself to focus on wanting things he has a chance of winning.

The morning passes more quickly than Shane would like.

Waking next to Ilya is always good, but he would have preferred to appreciate it with a mind that didn't keep slipping away to thoughts about the afternoon ahead. Ilya, too, seems abstracted - better rested, today, but still quiet. Shane suspects Ilya is worried for him, and works even harder to focus away from his anxious thoughts about the team practise.

At least the timing worked out alright with Ilya's flight to Toronto - in the end, when Yuna drops him at the airport before continuing on to Montreal with Shane, it's only slightly earlier than he needed to be there anyway. They'd already kissed goodbye before leaving the house, and Shane doesn't dare do it again where someone might have cameras, but Ilya squeezes his hand convulsively before slipping out of the car.

On the car journey back to his condo he backs away from any discussion of his worries about the team. After a couple of rebuffed attempts, Yuna squeezes his hand once and then switches to topics he feels more able to actually plan for, like some brand meetings she's looking into.

Shane notices some conspicuous absences in the update, compared to what she'd been working on before the punch. But since she clearly doesn't want him to worry he breathes through it instead of asking, trying to set aside his sick, guilty feelings; just like he tries to set aside the guilt that he's disrupting his parents’ lives because he was so much of a mess about his team that Ilya now can't switch off his vigilance about it.

His first day back with the team passes mostly in a blur.

He doesn’t feel like he’s quite tracking the words of the meeting with management, so much as hearing them wash over him in waves. We expect you to keep your composure… no more public escalation… you will take accountability… no formal planning about Comeau until the off-season but you have our word we’re taking this seriously… do not discuss internal specifics…

That one, at least, jerks a response out of him like a needle striking bone. “And will you be discussing ‘internal specifics’?” he says, flatly despite the acid he can feel bubbling up. “Because someone needs to.” 

The GM gives him a look that he can only describe as dislike. Coach Theriault barely suppresses a sigh. The HR manager says something banal about an internal review. The communications director quickly steps in with instructions for dealing with the media.

Afterwards, Shane has to subtly roll tension from out of his shoulders as he heads for the locker room.

We move forward, had been the overriding theme of the meeting. It should have felt hopeful – they want to move forward with him even after the publicity, even after the punch. Should be pleased that after the hearing, they’d finally confirmed that he’s keeping the C. It should have matched what Shane wants. He tries to set aside the cynical thought that it sounded more like we put this behind us than it did like we make progress.

It’s not yet reporting time for the players, but Hayden is leaning against a wall in the hallway outside the locker room. He straightens up with a smile to see Shane, shoves his phone back in his pocket, and beckons Shane in for a hug. Shane feels more of the tension fading at the hug, though he nearly rolls his eyes when Hayden gives him a concerned study afterwards.

“Not you, too,” Shane says. No one else is in the corridor, so he risks it and adds, “What, do the two of you and my mom have a group chat where you compare notes on the shadows under my eyes?”

“Yep,” says Hayden. “It’s called ‘Shane is a self-sacrificing dumbass,’ and Jackie’s in it, too.” He grips a hand on Shane’s shoulder and keeps it there for a long moment as they head into the locker room together. “I’m glad to have you back, buddy. Though I wouldn’t have blamed you if you told the team to go to hell.”

“Hayd! Of course I’m back,” Shane says fiercely, only aware of how sick he’d felt when a more settled feeling replaces it.

The vibe in the room is… odd. Shane’s thankful that they haven’t done something petty like move his stall, that he’s still set up next to Hayden, so they can quietly chat and he can pretend he’s not clocking the reactions of everyone who comes in. JJ comes over to him – slightly performative but still appreciated, with a clap on the back that is more meaningful than his slightly over-loud and over-enthusiastic greeting. The younger players mostly look relieved or pleased; a couple of them are bold enough to grin at him. But it’s the veterans he’s most worried about.

A few avoid his gaze, avoid even looking at him – Finley and Byrne among them. A couple of others manage embarrassed looks and quick nods. Miitka and Wilson both hesitate visibly, then come over to greet him with forced casualness so painfully awkward it makes Shane’s teeth hurt, for all his gratitude.

When Drapeau comes in, he pauses and looks at Shane before continuing, but the way he meets Shane’s eyes is more a glare than a greeting. “Captain,” he says before continuing to his stall, but something about his tone has Shane having to work to not clench his fists. 

Coach opens the team meeting in his usual blunt style, ordering everyone to shut it and sit; staying standing himself and commanding all eyes. “We’ve been on a losing streak,” he says in his harsh way. “And it’s not about talent. It’s about discipline.”

Shane makes his face carefully neutral. He doesn’t even disagree – him viewing that as a dig at him is more about his state of mind than anything else.

“What happened in the Boston game was unacceptable. The language was unacceptable. The response was unacceptable. We don’t embarrass this organization. Not on the ice. Not on camera.”

Neutral, Shane tells himself. Language and response both being unacceptable was no worse than what the DPS had said, and he’d swallowed that without choking.

“As for now - the league handled it. Management handled it. The rest stays in this room. This isn’t junior hockey. You’re professionals. If you’ve got a problem, you handle it. You don’t turn it into a spectacle.”

Shane can hear a strange ringing in his ears. He has to focus through it.

“Chirping happens. Tempers happen. That’s part of the game. Losing control is not. If you wear a letter in this room, you’re held to a higher standard. You don’t get baited. You don’t get dragged into something that hurts your game or hurts the team.”

Hayden lets out a breath in a slow, controlled stream. It’s almost silent, but when Shane glances sidelong he can see that Hayden has clenched his fists in his lap. It makes him realise that his own firsts are clenched, too; deliberately he loosens them.

“From this point on, no distractions. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to see it. We play hockey. We play it the right way. We play it together. Anything else is noise.” Theriault glares around the room, and nods in satisfaction at the array of quiet faces. “Now we get back to work.” He turns to Shane, gestures at him abruptly. “Hollander.”

It takes a moment for the buzzing in Shane’s ears to fade enough for him to speak.

He practised this to himself in the car on the way here, but it’s harder to say when looking around at his team, when in a room he’s not been able to enter in weeks without tightening up. Deliberately he takes a breath, and just as deliberately he stays seated even while projecting his voice out into the room.

“I lost control,” he begins simply. “That’s on me. It won’t happen again.” That part, at least, feels painful but easy. Shane takes another breath, and goes on. “If we’re going to win, I expect better from all of us. We know why we’ve not been scoring.” At least, they should; it’s obvious to anyone who watches back their games. “We’re not playing in layers. When I take it to the net, I’m alone below the goal line. When we shoot, there’s nobody there for second chances. That’s not how we win.” He looks around the room; some faces are darkening at his careful criticism, while others look embarrassed. “We’ve been watching each other play. That’s not us.” Hayden nods sharply in response to that, and a couple of the other veterans add more grudging little nods or acknowledgements. Shane takes heart from it, and continues. “We all know what’s happened the last few weeks. The Boston game was out of control. That’s on all of us. It can’t happen again.” More embarrassment. But also more nods. “That doesn’t change what needs to happen next,” Shaen says, as firmly as he can. “I’m not changing how I play. So you know where I’ll be.” Are you going to keep leaving me to collect bruises? “When we step on the ice, it’s five players connected. If one’s alone, we’ve already lost the shift.” Will you stop icing me out? “We fix that, we win.”

There’s a long beat of silence. Drapeau, across the room, stands slowly. Shane’s mouth goes dry as he starts to brace for some kind of backlash; but before anything can fracture, Hayden’s standing easily, snapping his helmet into place, JJ on his feet a second after. “Let’s go,” he says in a carrying tone.

There are a few other agreements, and the rookies seem to compete for who can stand fastest, and Shane files out onto the ice with the rest of the team.

The practise goes smoother after that than Shane had really dared hope; smoothly enough that the tension in his muscles eases into something loose and ready, rather than clenched. It’s drills, not conditioning; they manage to recapture some of their old smoothness, and even when it’s off it reads as awkwardness and not stiffness. The others seem to feel it, too, and by the end there’s more eye contact, more smiles, and Shane starts to feel hopeful about their next game.

Still nothing from Finley and Byrne. Drapeau pauses again before leaving the room after practise, and again just says “Captain,” with that faintest impression of a curled lip.

Shane looks at the door for a long moment after, until Hayden casually buffets him on the arm. “Ignore him,” Hayden advises. “He’s being an asshole, but he’ll have the sense to leave it there. Hey, after you’ve done media, do you want to come by and see the kids for a minute? Ruby and Jade would love to see their uncle Shane…”

Shane hesitates, then decides not to point out that if Hayden truly thought Drapeau had the sense to stop at being standoffish he wouldn’t be here waiting for Shane to do media before going home. Talking about his goddaughters is more pleasant than thinking about the media, anyway.

It’s one last hurdle, and then he’s free. There’s a series of firm directions from comms that boils down to don’t make us regret giving you another chance to prove that you can hold it together, and then he’s spat out in front of the scrum.

He… manages, he thinks. His collection of scripts has already been updated thanks to the drilling for the DPS hearing, so it’s almost automatic to put on his PR face and deliver them.

“I respect the DPS’s process and their decisions.”

“Provocation is not an excuse for violence. I lost control, and I regret the way I handled it. I accept the decision to suspend me.”

“I’ve served my suspension.”

“I’m not looking to relitigate the past.”

With the eyes of the PR manager on him, he manages to say “The team is doing some internal work. I’m not going to comment on an ongoing process,” and he thinks he even manages it without noticeable bitterness.

Half a dozen variations on, “I’m ready to move forward.”

Then, a question that actually catches his attention. “Rozanov spoke after the game about the need for accountability when it comes to unacceptable language. Do you agree with Rozanov on what that looks like?”

Shane keeps his PR polish in place, but something inside him unlocks a little when he says, “I think we hold ourselves to the same standard.”

Afterwards, the PR manager calls it closed, and he’s breathing easier as he goes to meet with Hayden.

It was only an afternoon, but it feels like a full day’s work. He lingers at Hayden’s only a short while – long enough to hug Ruby and Jade and listen to a highly excited though largely incomprehensible account of their recent adventures, hug Arthur and listen to a stream of babble, and hug Amber and receive a snot bubble, as well as having a longer hug with Jackie. “At least I won’t snot on you,” she promises, and lives up to it despite her damp eyes. “Comeau is a shit and I’m glad you hit him,” she tells him very quietly in the hug, and ignores Hayden’s teasing comment of “Swear jar!”

By the time he gets home he’s running on fumes, but he’s at least able to reassure his mother about the day - that no one was overtly hostile, that he coped – and mean it when he tells her to go home to Ottawa the next morning.

They order in for dinner, and eat it in front of the TV while they watch Boston play Toronto. It’s another heavy hitting game, but it’s working for the Raiders; Toronto tries to match the aggression but can’t match the stamina, and they start to collapse under the pressure. Ilya is playing legal – mostly – but partway through the game he starts piling the pressure onto Dallas Kent. A couple of big, clean hits; delivering smaller nasty hits that slide just under the radar of the refs – plus one that didn’t, earning him a minor for cross-checking. He’s rattling Kent, though – Kent takes two minors in the same time frame, and is benched for an extra shift while he cools down. The camera catches Ilya’s expression as he scores while Kent is sitting off, and Shane’s stomach flips a bit at the infuriating smirk paired with the glitter of rage in his eyes.

“I wonder what Kent did?” Yuna murmurs, her eyes intent on the screen.

Shane has a sick suspicion that he might know, and he sets the rest of his food aside. He supposes that with the mood Ilya’s been in it’s probably a remarkable sign of control that he hasn’t broken Kent’s nose for him a second time. Or worse - the Metros are playing Toronto next week, and a broken nose wouldn’t keep Kent off the ice that long.

It’s late in the third period that Kent loses it. A ref is following closely at that point, clearly waiting for the next penalty from one or the other of them, but Ilya is good at holding attention. The camera catches Ilya’s mouth moving the whole time as he grapples with Kent for the puck, and then passes smoothly; then catches the furious shove Kent gives him, the squaring up posture as Kent says something back… there’s a burst of indistinct words and then the commentators urgently breaking in over the top - then the controlled fury in the appraising look Ilya gives the ref over Kent’s shoulder.

The ref’s whistle cuts through the game.

The ref steps between them; Ilya lets him, though Shane can tell from the way he holds himself that even now he’s hoping for more, hoping Kent will lose it further and try to throw a punch, give him the excuse he’d love. Ilya hesitates for one moment longer when directed back to his bench, and Shane lets out an explosive breath of relief when he finally goes.

The officials confer while Shane tries to keep himself from clenching up; but the ref’s announcement – “ten minute misconduct for abusive language” – hits Shane like a fist.

He feels winded, a ringing back in his ears again around the scraps of commentary reaching him from the TV – “…clearly something said there the officials did not like… given what’s happened around the league recently… Rozanov’s been under a microscope since the Montreal incident, much like Hollander… Rozanov’s history with Kent…”

The camera cuts to Ilya’s expression on the bench – the smirk gone now that it no longer serves a purpose, just flatness over the glittering rage – and he feels sick.

He needs to move. He stands and strides away from the TV, keeping his back to it; his mother must mute it because the commentary that he’s been trying to ignore suddenly cuts dead. “Shane?” Yuna asks carefully.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Shane bursts out. “I don’t need him to protect me! Jesus Christ, I told him that last year when you sicced him on Kent. Kent’s just an open sewer. It’s not personal. I can handle it!”

Yuna doesn’t even blink at the confirmation that Shane knew about her putting a hit on Kent. “If Kent’s an open sewer, then he was bound to get caught eventually,” she points out pragmatically. “Why do you assume it’s about you?”

Shane turns to look at her incredulously. “Did we watch the same game?” he demands. “Something happened in the first period, Kent said some kind of shit, and ever since then Ilya was amping up the pressure on him. He probably didn’t care how Kent snapped, just got lucky that it was words rather than Kent trying to break his nose this time.”

“I think Ilya might have preferred the broken nose, actually,” Yuna says evenly, and something about her tone makes Shane subside. “Shane… you’re still assuming this is about you. Is Ilya not allowed to react for his own sake if someone’s being a bigot?”

Shane lets out his breath in an angry rush, but rubs his hands over his eyes and forces himself to consider it. Finally, feeling a little ashamed of himself, he comes back to the couch and settles back down. The last few minutes are on the clock, and on the screen Ilya’s still dealing big hits – if no longer such psychologically targeted ones.

“I still think it was about me,” he mutters to his mother after a very long pause. “But I maybe won’t yell at him about it.” Yuna pats his hand and turns the volume back up.

After the game, by tacit agreement they leave the TV on as the post-game analysis unfolds. There’s a statement that the league will be reviewing Kent’s penalty (Shane’s stomach jumps a bit), and finally they show a clip of Ilya in his undershirt, outside the locker room.

“What was it that Kent said on the ice tonight?” A reporter asks avidly. Shane had – eventually – been convinced to watch Ilya’s explosive interview segment prior to doing his article with The Athletic, so he supposes he can understand their eagerness for more headlines.

Ilya shrugs. “Penalty call was abusive language,” he says.

“You said last week that you ‘would have done worse’ than Captain Hollander if it had been you in his position – what does this mean about what was said today?”

“Situation was very different,” Ilya says, with a fair imitation of calm. “Kent is not on my team, not in my locker room. Was tempting to punch him, yes, but the refs handled it.”

“Both you and Hollander seem to be at the centre of conversations about language and accountability right now. Do you think the league is relying on players like you two to police wider issues?"

“The league has a role. Players have a role too. We have to know where the line is. Hollander and I have our own ways of responding, but I think we are aligned on that.”

Shane looks to Yuna, who is taking it in with pursed lips and a critically approving expression. “Very nice,” she concludes, and Shane sags a bit with relief.

By the time Ilya is back in his hotel room it’s late, and Shane is already in bed. The moment he gets Ilya’s text he still eagerly video calls (glasses off – while he’s not necessarily opposed to Ilya wanting stress relief after the game, he’s not entirely happy with him and there’s no point starting with a distraction).

Ilya looks drained compared to this morning, and Shane’s irritation falters. “Tough game?” he asks.

“Toronto is all talk,” Ilya shrugs, and Shane can’t help a grimace. “You were watching.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t really a question; he’d been at home with Yuna, of course they’d been watching. Shane studies the fatigue on Ilya’s face, wondering if his mother had been right, if Kent had managed to hit something in Ilya that wasn’t just about Shane. “Are you okay?”

Ilya’s face softens a bit. “Yes. Are you?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, letting himself sit back more heavily into his pillows, phone on his propped up knees. “It was… a long day. Nothing bad. Awkward. Tense.” That feels… honest, he tells himself, trying to ignore the jittery feeling in his stomach just from talking about it. He hesitates, then figures it will reassure Ilya more to hear it than not. “Management is pissed at me. Drapeau is too. Everyone else… it’s a mix.”

“I saw your media,” Ilya says. Shane winces in anticipation. “Internal review?”

Yep, there it was. “Don’t start, please,” Shane says tiredly.

“You know is bullshit.”

“Maybe. Probably,” Shane concedes, seeing Ilya’s scowl deepen. Definitely, mutters a cynical part of him that he pushes aside. “But I have to give them a chance.”

“You do not have to give them shit,” Ilya says immediately.

“I do if I don’t want to have any chance of fixing things,” Shane says.

Ilya grinds his jaw closed. After a moment he jerks a nod.

Perversely, Shane would have preferred the argument. “What was tonight about?” he asks instead.

Ilya shrugs. “Kent being Kent.”

“The league are investigating. If the ref heard a slur, Mom says that after Comeau they’ll have to suspend him.”

“Then they will suspend him,” Ilya says flatly.

It’s not a surprise. “Just in time for my game with Toronto next week?” Shane asks tightly.

Ilya doesn’t even pretend to misunderstand him. “You would prefer I boarded him? Broke his ribs?” he asks.

“I’d prefer you didn’t pick fights for me!” Shane retorts.

Ilya gives him a long look. “Maybe I stop picking them when you pick more,” he says evenly.

Shane rubs a hand over his face, trying to stop his jaw clenching. Trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach again. “I can’t afford to pick a fight with management right now,” he says.

Again, Ilya doesn’t argue – just shrugs impatiently. After a moment, he says, “I did not punch Kent. I did not mention you. I just made him mad.” Ilya’s voice is very tired. “Everyone knows Kent. Everyone knows how I play. No one is surprised by this.”

Ilya’s right, of course. Kent’s not sophisticated with his chirping, preferring to hit as broad a target as he can as messily as possible. He’d probably run through any name he could plausibly link to Ilya to see if he could land a hit, and this week Shane’s name would be top of the list. So, sure, some people might make the link and murmur about ‘protection’… but it hadn’t been overt enough to travel in more than whispers. “Yeah. Okay,” Shane concedes, and pointedly changes the subject.

Shane deliberately dives back into the season. There are only three weeks left, with the games coming fast; he tells himself it’s like on the ice, running out of the stumble to catch his balance, rather than hesitating and falling.

His first game back is a home game. He feels a weird flip of nerves going out onto the ice, one he hasn’t felt in a long time, but the crowd cheers for him; looking up into the stands he sees some pride flags alongside all of the Metros gear, and his eyes sting the tiniest bit. It’s strange – he’s seen pride flags in the stands before on every Pride night, but knowing that they’re there for him hits him harder than he’d ever thought it would.

They win the game, and Shane was almost never left alone on the ice; he leaves afterwards feeling lighter than he has for weeks.

The next day, he finds that his practise gloves are missing from his stall. He asks the equipment manager, who says it must be a mix up.

Ilya has another game that night; his second in a row. Shane had to catch up on the first one this morning, but the second he watches live. The Raiders win for the second game running, but Ilya looks a little faded – barely participates in the goal celebration. When he asks later that night how the game was, Ilya doesn’t have much to say; even Shane complimenting a particularly neat bit of stick handling in the third period seems to land a little flat.

“Are you okay?” Shane checks with him.

“Mm. Tired,” Ilya says. It feels like his default response, these days. “Road trip. Back-to-back games. You know.”

Shane does know. He also had thought that Ilya shrugged them off better than this, but… this is still only their first season where they’ve made an actual commitment to each other. The first where either of them dared want openly enough to have regular phone calls, let alone daily ones.

“You, uh, interested in relaxing before you go to sleep?” Shane offers.

That at least works; Ilya breaks into a smirk that lights Shane up even through the screen. “Mister Smooth,” Ilya says to him, voice slowing into that rich, teasing tone that always tends to ruffle up Shane’s feathers as well as draw him in.

“Shut up,” Shane says reflexively, annoyed at his own flush.

“Oh, so you do not want to hear my voice at all?” Ilya asks, his smirk heightening. “You do not want me to tell you what I think when I look at you? Do not want me to tell you how to touch yourself?”

Shane quickly concedes the point there.

The next day is another home game for the Metros. It’s another win, narrower this time but still good; there was a pride flag in the audience again, and Shane had support almost the whole time on the ice. But before the game he’d found that two of his sticks had the tape done all wrong – heel-to-toe instead of toe-to-heel. He didn’t understand it – he always taped his sticks himself. “Guys are always getting things mixed around,” says the equipment manager, when he asks.

Shane swallows his unease, re-tapes the sticks, and plays the game.

The day after that he sees Comeau in the arena.

It’s not a big deal. Of course Comeau has been allowed to use the facilities; he’s on Injury Reserve, he’s meant to be checking in with medical and staying in shape. Shane knows that. But… he’d not run into him so far, only seen him at a distance, so he’d just assumed they were scheduling him carefully. When he walks into the training room and sees Comeau, casually talking to an assistant coach, it feels more like a slap than it should.

He tells himself it was ridiculous to expect someone on injury recovery not to use the training room, and breathes through the jolt of it.

The next day, when he goes into the gym, Comeau’s already there. There are a few people using the room. He sees Finley and Byrne each wander by, chat for a moment. After a moment where Shane breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, Shane quietly leaves and goes to talk to HR.

“Comeau’s suspension was completed several days ago,” the HR manager says, calmly. “He’s fulfilled the league’s mandated inclusion training as well. Once discipline has been served, he returns to full team status. We don’t have grounds to restrict his access to team spaces beyond what the league imposed.”

Shane supposes it makes sense, but he can’t help feeling unsettled. When he thought of Comeau, he’d thought ‘out for the season’, not off the ice but in the room. “You didn’t tell me,” he says, trying to keep his tone even and observational.

The HR manager’s brows lift slightly. “Didn’t you know the suspension terms?” he asks, managing to sound slightly surprised.

Shane retreats from that room, too.

When he calls Ilya that night, Shane doesn’t know how to bring up Comeau; everything he wants to say sounds either whinging or alarmist. And, after all, what is there to say? Comeau still has a broken jaw, he’s unlikely to want to pick a fight. He’s not tried to approach Shane or speak to him, or even glared or smirked the way Drapeau still does every time Shane walks past him. Hayden doesn’t like it either, and they’re still carpooling together, but JJ just muttered some insults under his breath and then used the gym anyway. Maybe that’s what Shane should do?

His gloves were missing from practise again today. He doesn’t mention that to Ilya, either.

Instead he asks Ilya about the hit he took into the boards mid-game, that left him limping afterwards. “Just a bruise,” Ilya says shortly.

“You spoke to the trainers?” Shane asks.

“Is just a bruise, Shane. I have ice. I am fine.”

They don’t talk for much longer before they each go to sleep.

Shane leaves on a road trip the next day – a straightforward win against Toronto, and damn Ilya but it was a relief not to see Kent on the ice - and doesn’t get to see Ilya’s next game until the day after. So he doesn’t even get the vindication of texting Ilya about it in real time when he sees him skate all his regular shifts without fully extending that leg or using it for hard stops.

Shane loses the second road trip game.

Well, the Metros lose – but somehow Shane skates off the ice feeling like it was all on him. It hadn’t been a shitshow – not like the last few games before the punch – but by the end of a long, tied stretch they were lagging, and getting sharp with each other, and the fragile cohesion they’d been building wore through again. They didn’t even get to push it through to OT and at least claim back a point, with a goal being snatched under their noses at the last minute.

“So much for the come-back tour,” someone mutters in the locker room as he walks past. Stubbornly, he refuses to check who.

The day they get back to Montreal there’s an optional skate in the afternoon. Hayden groans when Shane says he wants to go in. “You don’t have to come with me,” Shane says sharply, and then there’s a moment where Hayden visibly considers it and Shane feels a deep flicker of uncertainty. He never fully saw the carpooling as necessary, but if Hayden stops now – does that mean Hayden doesn’t see it as necessary either? Shane feels sick at the thought, and it crashes into him suddenly that he doesn’t want to go in alone; he imagines seeing Comeau and Drapeau standing and chatting together in a corridor – not doing anything, not even saying anything - and imagining it is still enough to make his throat start to close up. And it hits him that if Hayden doesn’t think there’s any threat any more, if Hayden’s ready to think it was all an overreaction, what does that mean for this feeling now?

“I’m coming with you, buddy,” Hayden says, giving him a slightly odd look; Shane doesn’t know what expression must be on his face, so he just nods and tries to pull his composure back into place.

They’re not the first on the ice, but when Shane looks up he almost stumbles. Comeau is there, in a no contact jersey and a helmet with a cage, just finishing up a session with one of the assistant coaches. The rookies have hung back, waiting for a cue, but a few of the other players have skated on, casually greeting Comeau.

“Fucking shit,” Hayden whispers venomously. “Shane –”

“Injured skaters are allowed ice time as part of their rehab,” Shane says flatly. The words feel like they’re coming from a long way away as he watches Finley slap Comeau on the back, as he watches Wilson skate by and say a quick greeting.

He has to move; he has to. He forces himself into motion, and as he moves onto the ice he remembers skating near Comeau, feeling blank and cold like being underwater at night, watching Comeau’s face as he bit out words at Ilya.

“If you’re going to protect him, at least do it properly.”

Comeau sees him, in the here and now, looks at him. Shane feels as if the world is blurring at the edges.

“Because you’re not always going to be here.”

There’s a taut moment, and then Comeau raises his eyebrows in a measuring look. Slowly, nods.

“Or what — you the same as him now?”

Shane remembers punching him. Doesn’t remember the moment he decided to, but he remembers like a lightning flash the moment when he’d already decided, when he just wanted to shut Comeau up before he could finish that sentence and drag Ilya down with him – before Ilya could finish his lunge and make everything Comeau said into some horrible version of truth. Remembers the hot flash in his knuckles when they struck.

“Shane?” Hayden says from beside him, and he blinks and looks over.

“I’m fine,” Shane says automatically. He absently shakes his hands out one at a time, and as Comeau finally leaves the ice, he starts to skate.

The next day Comeau is in the lounge having coffee. That night, they play a home game that goes into a grinding overtime; the other players are struggling to keep up by the end, and it’s by sheer luck more than skill that Shane finally manages to evade the stacked defence and get one of his increasingly wild pucks into the net. Shane’s so exhausted he can’t bring himself to track who in his team congratulates him and slaps his shoulders, and who doesn’t.

The day after that, someone has mis-taped his sticks before morning skate again, and Comeau’s in the team meeting, sitting at the back. Shane has to focus the whole time on managing his breathing and his muscle tension, hardly able to make sense of the words. At the end, when everyone files out, he stalls Theriault, asks for a word.

“What is it, Hollander,” Theriault says impatiently.

“Coach, I’m concerned about the org’s reintegration of Comeau,” Shane says. He keeps his voice even and level. “I was told he was out for the season.”

“He is out, Hollander – you broke his damn jaw,” Theriault snaps back. “Don’t get into hysterics now about sitting in a room with him. Be a professional, for god’s sake.”

“Coach, I broke his jaw after he called me a slur,” Shane says. “I don’t think I’m being hysterical for not wanting to be in a meeting with him.”

“He called you a name, you punched him, he did the damn training on not to call people names,” Theriault says, even more impatiently. “What’s the point of the training if you don’t think it works? We’re not going to exclude a player from team activities. Be a leader and get past it.”

Shane turns and leaves, not even able to find anything to say.

That night, the Raiders lose. They’ve been on a hot streak lately, but Ilya seems to be feeling the strain; he takes two minor penalties, including a badly timed one in third, and they lose their one goal lead. They put Ilya on again to try to take the lead back, but his energy seems to be flagging and he’s just not quick enough – the goalie slaps it down.  Ilya’s not on shift when the winning goal is scored against them, but his face looks blank and bleak.

As the game finishes, Yuna texts him to ask if Ilya’s alright. All Shane can say is that Ilya keeps saying he’s tired. When he calls Ilya later, Ilya picks up on voice only, and tersely tells him that he doesn’t want to talk and just wants to sleep, so Shane just tells him he loves him and lets him go.

The next day, Comeau sits behind the bench at the home game.

Shane can barely unclench his jaw the whole game. They lose; Comeau says “Bad luck, Hollander,” and other members of the team look at Shane sideways when he can’t find the words in himself to answer. Afterwards, he does post-game media; it passes in a glassy haze. He can barely pick out one reporter from the next. He knows he’s gone from ‘PR mode’ to ‘robotic’ but he can’t seem to draw himself back, even when the PR handler frowns at him.

“What was it like seeing Comeau there?”

“He’s part of the organization. My focus was on the game.”

“Did you have to manage your emotions differently knowing he was behind you?”

“My job is to manage my emotions every night. That doesn’t change.”

“Has trust been rebuilt?”

“We’re doing the work we need to do.”

That one leaves him sick to his stomach; he doesn’t think he can handle another. He turns to the PR handler, a flat look that he nonetheless interprets as refusal; he waves Shane away.

He doesn’t think he manages a single word to Hayden the whole way home, focused on the phone he can feel buzzing in his pocket; when he get in, he’s already missed two calls from Ilya but he answers the third.

“Has trust been rebuilt, Shane?” Ilya snaps as soon as Shane answers, and the bottom falls out of his stomach.

“Please don’t,” Shane says dully.

“Motherfucker threatens you and then sits in the box behind you –“

“He’s served his suspension. He has full team status. They can’t exclude him from team activities,” Shane says flatly.

“Fuck that!” Ilya snarls. “They are protecting him! And you’re protecting them. Saying tonight ‘we are doing the work’ – who is doing it? What work?”

“I know!” Shane yells back. “I fucking know, okay? I don’t need you to tell me how shit they are, I already know. I’ve talked to HR, I’ve talked to Coach, I’m travelling in with Hayden like I said – what else can I do?” He can feel tears starting in his eyes; he’s glad Ilya’s chosen voice only for this call, so he can’t see them and worry.

“You call your PA rep and file a grievance,” Ilya says immediately.

The thought is like ice water in Shane’s face. “I – I can’t,” he says blankly. “They’ll force me out.”

“Forced out – Shane! You are a free agent in July!” Ilya’s voice is almost tight with desperation. “Fuck the Metros! You do not need them. They do not deserve you. File your grievance and leave.”

Shane feels frozen.

He’d never actually thought of leaving the Metros.

They’re the team that signed him. They’re his mother’s favourite team. He’s won them two cups. He wanted to win them a third, and a fourth, and more; wanted this to be the team he retired from. He knows he’s a free agent, but he told Farah ages ago that he’s not interested in moving; she’d told him early in the season not to sign anything until she’d shopped around a bit to push the price up; then, more recently, told him not to sign anything until things were more settled; but when she checked in after the punch, he’d just told her he wanted to make it work.

“I don’t… I’ve never…” Shane says, and trails off. He can’t even think past it; it’s like a blank wall.

“Ottawa asked about you,” Ilya says. “My agent passed on message from them. Right after your article – before DPS hearing even. Saying, they still want to talk to me in July, and saying, they know we are friends and they hope you are doing alright.” He can hear the shrug in Ilya’s voice. “My agent said, they are taking your temperature. Seeing if you want to leave. I said to pass it onto Farah…”

“You think I should go to Ottawa?” This conversation is moving too fast; he can’t process it.

“You thought I should go to Ottawa,” Ilya says flatly.

There’s danger in this conversation, Shane can feel it; it feels like walking across a frozen pond in winter, cracks sounding underneath his feet. But he can’t seem to quite track where the wrongness is. “Yes, but – that was different – that was so we can see each other – I don’t need to move for that –”

“So it is okay for me to move to shitty team for us, but you won’t move to shitty team for us?” Ilya says, flatness turning cold.

“That’s not – you wanted Canadian citizenship! And me moving wouldn’t be for us, it would be because you hate the Metros!”

“This is not about fucking hockey rivalry!” Ilya shouts. “This is about you, Shane. About you being safe, about you not being so stressed you turn into fucking robot who will lie to protect assholes.” It hits like a slap, and Shane feels his eyes filling with tears again, groping for composure and completely unable to find it.

“I can’t,” he says blankly. He can’t get his brain to work; can’t wrap his mind around what filing a grievance would even look like, what leaving would even look like. “I – I can’t do it.”

There is a horrible, empty silence on the line. “Call me when you figure out how,” Ilya says, cold like a lash, and the call drops.

Chapter End Notes

Detailed content warning:
Institutional homophobia includes: management and coaching repeatedly minimising / dismissing Shane's experience of harrassment and framing him as the problem; Shane being repeatedly put in the same space as Comeau; quiet, deniable harrassment/icing out continuing in the locker room and not being addressed.
There are no further slurs (yet), no openly homophobic jokes, and no physical violence or threats of physical violence.

Translation notes
kotenok - kitten

Chapter 18: Stage 5: Matched Pair (part 2)

Chapter Notes

Content warning:
Institutional homophobia / homophobia within workplace settings continues in this chapter! This includes one use of an uncensored slur.
Discussions of mental illness including allusions to suicide (canon typical).
Please see the end note for a detailed content warning (may include spoilers).

Stage 5: Call back the rookie ad

We can use your brands to do some of the work for us. I’ll talk to Rolex. But the real prize is CCM — a callback to the rookie ad. Eight years later, the same rivalry - but without the bloodlust. People get used to seeing you as a matched pair.

Late March 2018

That night, after the argument with Ilya, Shane feels cold and empty all the way down. It’s hard to tap into any other feeling – hard to want to, when he knows that among those feelings he’ll find panic and shame and a helpless fury - at Ilya, at the Metros, at himself.

He just wants to sleep.

He give in and heads to bed – but he finds himself lying awake, replaying the conversation over and over and feeling washes of hot and cold go through him. He reaches for his phone, and sends a text to Ilya.

He stares at his phone for a while, but there’s no response.

Then, before he can overthink it and talk himself out of it, he sends a text to both of his parents.

Somehow having written down the words makes it clearer, and he rolls on his side and lets himself ache with that one specific feeling until he goes to sleep.

The next day, when Shane gets into Hayden’s car, Hayden takes one look at him, blanches, and says “Oh, shit.”

“I don’t look that bad,” Shane says flatly.

“You have a fight with Rozanov?” Hayden asks. Shane gives him a surprised glare, and he shrugs. “That’s your ‘I fucked things up with Boston Lily’ face.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Shane says. Then, “No, wait. Do you still text with Cliff Marlow?”

Hayden gives him an odd look. “Sometimes? I mean, we’re not besties. Why, do you want me to text him?”

Shane chews on his lip in hesitation. What can he tell Marlow, really? He sees Ilya every day – surely he’s already seen it? “No. No, it’s fine.”

“If you’re worried about Rozanov…”

“It’s nothing,” Shane says firmly.

“Sure,” says Hayden. “This is definitely what ‘nothing’ looks like.”

At the team meeting first thing, Comeau offers some tactical suggestions based on the last night’s game. Shane can barely even remember last night’s game and stumbles through his own feedback. He tries to ignore the looks he gets from his team about it.

Then, when he kits up before practise, his gloves and stick are both fine but as he kits up he sees a piece of white tape stuck to the back of his stall. The word ‘faggot’ is written on it in black marker.

He must make some kind of noise because Hayden looks over, steps up next to him, and swears between gritted teeth. “You need to tell HR,” Hayden says.

“I will,” says Shane flatly. Some of the players are already leaving for the ice, not even looking around to see what’s caused him to freeze in place. He’s already mostly kitted up. He thinks about going now, and thinks about Theriault’s glare and what he’d say about distractions.

Hayden sees his face, swears tightly again, and then grabs his phone and shoves Shane out the way to take photos. “Just in case,” he says quietly.

Shane finishes kitting up and leaves, the tape feeling like it’s glaring back at him. When he gets back from practise, someone’s peeled it off and it’s gone.

He forces himself not to look around. Forces himself to not ask mental questions about who could have been in here this morning before he arrived; who could have been in here while they were on the ice. He sends an email from his phone to set up a meeting with HR, and uses the showers while staring at the floor so no one could possibly say he’s looking at them.

Hayden’s sent him the photos, and he lays his phone on the desk of the HR manager. “This was on the back of my stall before practice.”

The manager leans forward and studies the photos. There’s a close up of the tape, and one showing the stall with Shane’s nameplate above it. The manager doesn’t seem visibly shocked.

“When did you see it?” he asked.

“Right before we went out.” He works to keep his tone level and calm, trying to match the HR person. “Hayden saw it, too,” he adds.

“Alright. Thank you for documenting it.” Shane feels knocked off balance by how matter-of-fact it is. He doesn’t know what to say. After a moment, the HR manager seems to realise that more is needed, because he adds, “I’m sorry you experienced this. We take inappropriate language seriously.”

Shane tastes bile, but he just nods jerkily in acknowledgement of that. “What are you going to do?” he asks, instead of arguing.

“We’ll log the incident,” HR says. “We’ll review access to the locker room prior to practice — staff, early arrivals. If necessary, we’ll speak to individuals.”

“Will you be speaking to Comeau?” Shane says. His voice is sharpening, and he forces himself to take a slow, deep breath.

The HR manager doesn’t react. “Is there a reason you believe he was involved?”

“He’s called me this before,” Shane says. “In public. In the middle of a game.”

The HR manager doesn’t blink as he meets Shane’s glare. “We can’t make assumptions without evidence,” he says.

Shane’s hands clench into fists. He forces them to stay in his lap. Forces a breath in through his nose, out through his mouth. Then another.

“Fine,” Shane says, biting but even. “Then let’s talk about the review.” The HR manager gives him an enquiring look. “You told me there was an internal review underway. How does this factor into it?”

“The initial phase of the review has concluded,” the HR manager says matter-of-factly.

Shane blinks. It feels like a slap. “Concluded?”

“Yes,” is the brisk response. “We completed interviews with coaching staff, senior players, and hockey operations. We assessed whether there was substantiated evidence of systemic misconduct.”

It seems like they’re going to leave it there. “And?” Shane prompts, trying not to force the word through gritted teeth.

“We did not find grounds requiring additional formal action.” His tone is measured and final.

If the previous statement felt like a slap, this one feels like a box on the ears, leaving them ringing and leaving Shane feeling like the world is tilting around him. “When were you planning to tell me that?” he manages to say. When were you planning to interview me? he barely manages to keep behind his teeth.

The manager seems to be carefully selecting his words before he speaks. “The review was an internal process. We communicate outcomes where appropriate.”

“It concerns me,” Shane bites out. “I think that’s appropriate.”

A careful pause. “The review addressed the circumstances leading up to the league discipline.”

“And after it’s over someone tapes a slur to my stall.”

“We’ll assess that incident as a separate matter,” the HR manager says, in a tone of brisk reassurance. “At this stage, there’s no evidence linking it to ongoing conduct or to any specific individual.”

Shane feels sick. “You told me you were reviewing locker room culture. Does this not tell you something about it?”

There’s another little pause. “An anonymous act, while unacceptable, does not by itself establish systemic misconduct.” It’s said precisely, almost surgically. Shane would have preferred a shouting match.

“So the review stays closed,” Shane says sharply.

“The initial phase is complete. If new substantiated information emerges, we would reassess.”

Shane stares at him. Silently, he turns the phone back on, swipes to the photo with the close-up of the tape.

The HR manager barely glances at it. “I understand that this is difficult. But we have to operate on evidence, not inference. At this time, we don’t have evidence that this represents ongoing behaviour.”

“It doesn’t feel like inference when it’s written on my stall,” Shane says tightly.

“We’ll document it. If anything further occurs, you should report it immediately.”

The HR manager folds his hands on the desk and waits expectantly. Shane feels cold again all the way to his core as he slowly stands. “So that’s it?” he says.

“We’ll follow up if the review of access logs yields anything,” the HR manager assures him.

“Sure,” Shane says bitterly, and leaves before he can say, because I’ve seen how good you are at reviews.

That evening, his parents call him. He picks up only because he wants to know if they’ve heard from Ilya.

“A text,” Yuna says. “He said he was tired and not in the mood to talk.” It’s… not nothing, Shane tells himself. At least he’s not saying they’ve broken up and he doesn’t want to talk to them at all. “Honey, what happened?”

Shane doesn’t know where to start with that question. Doesn’t know whether to talk about Ilya no longer telling jokes on their calls and no longer badgering him for video calls and to see him with his glasses on; or whether to talk about the way his team look at him when he can’t bring himself to talk to Comeau; or whether to talk about the slur taped to his stall.

“It just blew up,” Shane says. It’s been brewing for weeks. “He’s stressed, I’m stressed… it’s not important.” It feels as if the ground he’s standing on is crumbling away under his feet.

“We saw Comeau behind the bench at the game,” his father comments quietly, and Shane can’t. He just can’t talk about this to his parents; to his mother who will want to immediately leap into action, to his father whose quiet concern is already bringing tears stinging into Shane’s eyes. He doesn’t want to cry about this when he has to go back in to the same locker room tomorrow.

“Please stop,” he blurts. “It fucking sucks, but I’m already doing everything I can. I don’t want to keep talking about it.”

He imagines them looking at each other, that silent communication they’ve mastered. He tries not to feel humiliated and exposed, as if the sheer admission that he can’t bear to talk about it might count as weakness.

It feels like a profound relief when his father’s steady voice says, “Okay, son. If you’re sure.”

“Can we visit you?” asks his mother in a rush. “I know you have a road trip. Can we visit you when you’re back?”

A few more days to let things play out with the Metros; a few more days to try to decide what to do. “Okay,” Shane agrees quietly.

By the time he goes to bed, Ilya still hasn’t texted him back.

The next day  in the car he tries not to anticipate the different things that might go wrong as they head in to practise. Will his gloves be missing again? His sticks taped wrong? Or will it be something new? When he walks into the locker room, who will greet him and who will turn their backs? Will conversations go silent?

In the end, he makes it all the way onto the ice before anything shows up. At practise, when he calls for a higher tempo, Finley and Byrne lag instead. It’s subtle enough that he wouldn’t even be sure of it, except that with no game yesterday they ought to be fresh enough – that, and he catches the split-second flash of a smirking look over at him. Before he can decide how to address it, the lagging pace spreads to the rookies; by the time he’s sorted them out, Coach Theriault has already taken over drilling the veterans, and their tempo is crisp and perfect. “Get them together, Hollander,” Theriault says to him impatiently as he skates past, and Shane tries not to burn with frustration and humiliation. 

He thinks tiredly that perhaps that will be the worst of it. He’s still thinking that when he walks out of the locker room and sees the travel board on the wall across from the door. It’s clearly just been updated for tomorrow’s road trip.

Comeau’s name is listed as Rehab – Travelling.

Shane freezes in place. A couple of the veterans are checking the board, too, Wilson and Stedlund. Stedlund catches sight of him, and his easy expression goes still. Without greeting Shane, he walks off to the lounge. Wilson starts to follow, and hesitates awkwardly.

“Cap… you have got to let it go with Comeau,” Wilson says. “I get it – but you’re putting us all in a really bad spot now.”

Shane stares at him for a long moment – at one of the men who ducked their heads when Comeau stood next to them and made jokes about them all being safe in the showers because he was too busy stalking Rozanov to make a move on any of them, and then says quietly, “If that’s what you think then you don’t actually get it,” and heads for the GM’s office.

The GM makes him cool his heels for a while before he’s free to meet, and when Theriault arrives he looks even more irritated and impatient than usual, as if he’s already decided this is a waste of his time.

“You wanted to talk about Comeau being on the road trip?” the GM says as soon as Shane’s sat down.

“Yes.” The time spent waiting had at least let Shane marshal his thoughts. “He’s not contact-cleared. He’s not playing. There’s no league requirement that he travel. So I’m trying to understand why that decision was made.”

“He’s progressing well,” says Theriault casually. “Trainers think it’s important he stays integrated with the group. It’s standard practise, for injured players who are close to full participation.”

“And is he close to full participation for this season?” Shane asks pointedly.

Theriault and the GM glance at each other. “We always want to think beyond just the current season,” the GM says smoothly.

Shane knows his mouth must have twisted from the bitter taste that fills it. So much for ‘we take this seriously’ and ‘we’ll think about chemistry in the off-season’, he thinks. But as much as he’d like to launch into a tirade, he has a priority here. He needs to think about the next two games, not the next year.

“Okay,” he says, jerking his focus back. “But it’s discretionary. Not a medical necessity. Not a requirement.”

The GM frowns at him “We can’t restrict someone who has served his suspension,” he says.

“I understand that,” Shane says, very evenly. “I’m not asking you to extend discipline. I’m asking why you made a discretionary decision about travel without talking to me first.”

The GM’s frown deepens. “We’re not required to consult the captain on travel decisions.”

“I’m not asking to consult as captain,” Shane bites out. “I’m saying I’m not comfortable being confined on a plane with someone who called me a slur and told another player that I wouldn’t always be protected.”

The GM tries to stare him down. “The league determined there was no imminent threat.”

“The league didn’t prove there was one. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t.”

The GM hesitates. “We can’t pull him from travel. That would be an additional restriction beyond what the league imposed.”

“You’re the ones who chose to have him travel! Travel is not mandated for injured players!” Shane can hear the flashpoint in his voice and white-knuckles down the building rage.

There’s a long, cool moment where the GM appraises him. Shane refuses to flush or back down, and meets him stare for stare. “We addressed the conduct,” the GM says at last. “We did the review. We can’t relitigate it every time we make an operational decision.”

“This isn’t just about what happened at the Boston game,” Shane says flatly. “My sticks have been mis-taped twice in the last ten days. My gloves have gone missing twice, too. I’ve raised it.”

“Equipment mix-ups happen,” Theriault says.

“That many times in ten days? To one player?” Shane asks.

A flat little silence. “We can’t assume intent,” the GM says.

“And the slur in my stall yesterday – can we assume intent there?” Shane’s tone is becoming more biting, but he can’t bring himself to stop.

The GM straightens, his voice becoming more serious rather than the increasing impatience he’d been just covering over. “We’re aware of that. Security and HR are looking into it.”

“What’s actually been done?” Shane asks tightly.

“We’ll address the room,” the GM says briskly. “We’ll reinforce the expectations for conduct and language.”

“Have you made progress towards figuring out who did it?” Shane pushes.

The GM fiddles briefly with a pen. “Not at this time,” he admits.

Shane lets the silence gather while he forces himself back from the edge of exploding. “So from my perspective we have the slur, the threat, and then the equipment tampering and another slur taped to my stall,” he lists. “And now I’m being told I have to get on a plane with someone who harassed me. A place with no ability to leave.”

“The league addressed the on-ice conduct, and our own internal review showed no systemic -”

“And at what point does it stop being coincidence?” Shane interrupts the GM, unable to bear hearing this again.

“We cannot take disciplinary action without evidence,” says the GM levelly.

“I’m not asking you to act without evidence,” Shane grits out. “I’m asking you to recognize a pattern. A pattern which leaves me feeling unsafe in my workplace.”

Theriault and the GM look at each other. Shane can feel sweat on the small of his back, can feel his muscles starting to burn with the tension he’s holding.

“If there are specific safety concerns on travel, we can look at logistics,” says the GM carefully. “Separate seating. Hotel rooms on different floors. Staggered scheduling.”

Shane just stares at him. “I’m telling you I don’t feel safe, and you’re talking about airplane seats and hotel rooms. For a trip Comeau has no medical or logistical reason to be going on.”

“We have to respect the league’s process, and our obligations under the CBA,” the GM says stiffly. “We are trying to balance everyone’s rights.”

“The league addressed one night,” Shane says tightly. “I am asking you to start addressing what is going on right now.”

The GM and Theriault exchange one last, long look. “We’ll be in touch about travel logistics,” the GM says firmly.

For a moment, Shane wavers on the brink of telling them not to bother; telling them he won’t get on a plane with Comeau on it.

He imagines losing the C; losing the room.

He can’t do it.

“I’d like written clarification of the organization’s position on this,” he says flatly instead. “And confirmation of what actions have been taken since the slur was taped to my stall yesterday.”

The GM nods, makes a note. “We’ll arrange that,” he says, almost as coldly. “In the meantime – travel stands.”

Shane walks out of the office with his jaw clamped so tight that it’s aching.

When he gets home, he makes a phone call to his PA rep.

On the trip to Philadelphia, his seat and Comeau’s are at opposite ends of the plane, and their hotel rooms are on different floors. Shane tells himself he’s perfectly safe, with a whole team of witnesses who might look away from sneering and jokes but would step in if anything more overt happened.

Well. He hopes they would.

Some of them would, for sure.

It doesn’t seem to convince his nervous system. He spends the whole flight feeling like he’s under the ice in a frozen lake, with everything cold and sharp and prickling. After seeing him twitch every time someone walks down the aisle, Hayden makes him switch seats; with Hayden between him and the rest of the plane he’s finally able to put on headphones and pretend that he’s listening to something, and try to block everyone out.

After all that, and the grey liminality of the hotel, getting to the arena is a relief. Comeau is behind the bench again, but Shane focuses solely and only on the ice and lets his body loosen with the movements for the first time since he woke up this morning.

The game is aggressive. Not the kind of bruising physicality of the Boston Raiders, but a sharp, edgy play that tended to irritate and set the Metros off their game. Usually Shane can set things like that aside – training on Ilya Rozanov makes any other opponent easy to ignore by comparison – but he can sense the lines starting to fracture again, his linemates not quite keeping up with his runs on the net, a half step behind where he needs them to be. The first period ends in a goal apiece, and Shane feels uneasy all intermission – but they come back stronger in the second period and take another goal early.

It’s as Shane’s making another drive up for the goal that he hears the chanting. At first it blurs into insensibility like all the crowd noise, but when the rookie he’s trying to pass to fumbles it and his gaze drifts to the stands, Shane tunes in.

They’re chanting a slur.

It’s not all the crowd, of course. Just one cluster, not too far from the Metros bench.

Seeing that they have his attention, the group seems to redouble their efforts, and Shane’s head goes underwater.

He mostly remembers the game in odd, sharp-edged moments after that.

The Philly winger who gives him an embarrassed look.

The defenseman who hits him into the boards and says “Do you hear your fans?”

Hayden asking Theriault to escalate it to security, and Theriault’s harsh response: “If that’s getting under your skin, you’re not ready for real hockey.”

The second bruising hit into the boards he takes on his next drive up towards the net.

In the intermission, Theriault tells them flatly that he doesn’t hear the chanting and they shouldn’t, either. Comeau comes and quietly sits in a corner of the locker room, and when he starts to feel sick Shane deliberately pulls himself back out of his body again.

By the third period there are empty seats in that section of the stands, but by then it’s easier to just play than it is to think. He barely hears the chirping from the defenseman any more, barely notices the half-beat of delay on some of the veterans standing as he scores his third goal of the evening.

He’ll just play, and play, and eventually the game will stop and maybe then he’ll be able to bear coming back up for air.

They pull him in front of the media, of course. Some of the questions he can answer – what was it like to score a hat trick, did the heavy hits fire him up. He’s sure his answers are flat and short, but he probably manages to say at least something relevant.

“There were audible chants in the second period. Security had to intervene. Did you hear them?”

“It got a little noisy. But my focus was on playing the game.” He can’t summon up any emotion to put into it.

“Comeau was behind the bench tonight. What was that dynamic like for you?”

“Like I said, my focus was on playing the game.”

“Do you feel supported by the organisation right now?”

Shane finds himself wavering on the edge – he feels almost too icy cold to hold himself to reason, too tired to care about what might happen if he doesn’t. In the end, it’s weariness that wins and that shows up most in his face and voice as he looks at that reporter. “I really think,” he says very evenly, “It’s better if we just talk about the game.”

The PR handler bundles him away after that, and he’s able to finish showering and let Hayden essentially push him onto the bus and off again at the other end. The team, thankfully, don’t ask anything of him, and in his current state their oddly muted reaction to his hat-trick falls as a relief and not a sting.

In the hotel room, Hayden goes into full dad mode, insisting that they order room service, bullying Shane into soft clothes, and then bullying him again into showing Hayden the growing bruise on his ribs.

“Shit, buddy, I think you ought to have one of the trainers look at this,” Hayden says dubiously.

“Tomorrow,” Shane says wearily. The thought of any more people trying to look at him or talk to him now makes him want to curl up into a ball and never unclench.

Hayden sighs, but doesn’t push. Instead he positions an ice pack on it for Shane and lets him pull his shirt back down, and retreats back to his own bed while Shane finds himself numbly checking his phone notifications over and over. The food arrives before too long and Shane makes himself eat and drink mechanically. He no longer feels absent, but he doesn’t feel settled enough for his body to actually feel any enthusiasm for the meal.

When his phone buzzes, it cuts through his exhaustion like a blade, and Shane almost spills his meal lunging for it – but he sags as soon as he sees who it’s from. Not that a warm text from Rose should be so disappointing, but…

“He hasn’t called?” Hayden asks, and the gentleness of the question has tears prickling Shane’s eyes.

Shane can’t even generate words; he just shakes his head, and sets down the remainder of his food - now finding it actively nauseating - and he carefully lies back down on his side, favouring his ribs.

“He will,” Hayden says confidently, and Shane just shrugs.

He’s so tired; he already texted his parents and begged off a phone call, and the team group chat is permanently muted on his phone. Rose has already texted, and Ilya’s not going to call… Shane gives into the fatigue and lets his eyes close.

“Oh, no, buddy,” Hayden tells him, and he opens them again. “Shane, you are much bigger than my kids, I can’t lift you up and put you to bed if you fall asleep on top of the covers.”

That at least wins a weak smile from Shane, and he winces his way through sitting upright and shifting. Hayden comes over and helps, pulling the covers down for him and dropping them over him again. “You are such a dad,” he murmurs fondly.

“I’m not going to give you a forehead kiss, but I will deal with your dishes,” Hayden promises.

He’s not so much sleepy as he is limp; while he doesn’t think he quite falls asleep, he’s something almost like it when he registers a distant buzzing, and then the noise of Hayden’s urgent murmur.

“You couldn’t have called earlier….? Asshole… he’s already asleep… Of course I’m going to wake him up!” Shane tries to swim back to consciousness. “One sec…” Then Hayden is gently shaking him the rest of the way awake, and into his wavering vision drops Shane’s phone, already plugged into his earbuds. “Lily calling,” Hayden says to him, and that’s enough to cut through the fog; Shane fumbles for the earbuds, distractedly acknowledging it as Hayden tells him he’s going to go for a walk, and plugs the earbuds in.

“Moy lyubimyy,” Ilya murmurs, and Shane feels himself start to cry.

“Sorry,” he chokes, trying to bring the tears back under control. “Sorry.” 

“You are not okay, then,” Ilya says quietly.

Shane laughs wetly. It feels like an understatement. “No. Fuck, no, I’m not okay today.” He rubs his hand over his face and squeezes his eyes closed to try to stem the flow. “Bad day,” he says. “Bad week.”

“Bad team,” suggests Ilya. There’s a bleak thread in his voice.

The bluntness feels like both a demand and an invitation. Shane hesitates for a long moment, remembering that moment in the media scrum where he thought about just dropping his guard and being honest. “Yeah,” he admits quietly, and his voice cracks on the word. “Yeah. Bad team.”

He hears Ilya’s quick intake of breath. “Shane -”

“I don’t have another fight in me tonight,” Shane interrupts him, hearing the tears trickling back into his voice. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, because if we argue I really don’t know if I can cope with it.”

Ilya’s breath comes out again in a sigh. “Okay,” he says. The line goes very quiet, enough that he can hear the sound of Ilya moving. It sounds like he might be in bed, too, so Shane lets himself picture it – Ilya’s face in the dim light, mouth pulled thin with all he’s trying not to say. “I do not want to argue either,” he admits.

It’s a relief, that admission. Shane breathes into it for a moment. “How are you?” he asks eventually. Then quickly adds, “Please don’t say tired.”

There’s a long pause, before Ilya says softly. “Not good, I think.”

Somehow the words feel like a desperate relief; some tension Shane had been carrying fades away. “Is it something we can talk about without arguing?” Shane asks after a moment.

“Probably no,” Ilya admits. After a long moment, he says, “I was very angry at the fans.”

Shane says, very quietly, “I stopped hearing them. After I first heard the chant, it… went away.” Ilya makes a little noise like Shane’s punched him. “It’s not as bad as before,” he says quickly. “Not good, but not as bad.”

There’s a careful moment, then Ilya asks, “Will you tell me what your body is doing now?”

Shane ruefully supposes he can’t protest it, given what he’s just admitted. “Big bruise on my ribs,” he says. “Some smaller ones, but the ribs is the only major one. I’ve iced it. Muscles sore. Not looking forward to playing tomorrow, but nothing bad there. Hayden made me eat.”

“You are safe?” Ilya asks.

“Yeah,” he affirms immediately. “Hayden’s stuck to me like glue. And no one’s doing anything… physical.”

There’s a long, unhappy pause at that before Ilya finally says, “Okay.”

“And what about you?” Shane asks quietly. “What’s your body doing right now?”

Ilya hesitates for long enough that Shane has an anxious moment where he wonders if Ilya will refuse to reciprocate. Then, “Bruises,” Ilya says drily. “Lots. None bad, but – lots. Fucking tired. Not just sleep, but – tired in my muscles.”

“Fatigue,” Shane supplies softly.

“Yes, that. Fucking hate it,” Ilya says. Shane wonders if he’s done, but finally he says, “Everything seems fucking pointless.”

Shane slowly sist up in bed. “Ilya,” he says, not even know where he’s going next.

“I know is not true,” Ilya says dismissively. “I still do things. I go to the practises and games and team shit, is not a big deal. I am just… so fucking bored.”

Shane lets that land inside him. He wants to ask about a dozen questions; he wants to call Ilya’s doctor for him. But… they’ve agreed to no arguments tonight, and Shane isn’t going to be the one to break the rules of this truce.

So he gives himself only one question; the biggest, most awful one, that seems to be sticking to the inside of his rib cage. “Are you safe?” he asks, keeping his voice very quiet.

It only takes a moment, and then Ilya is scrambling to answer. “Blyat. Fuck. Yes, Shane. Yes.”

“Okay,” Shane says, his breath coming easier again.

“I would not – I am not my mother,” Ilya says tightly. “I would not do that.”

“Okay,” Shane says again. “I believe you.”

The silence pools between them for a while, before there’s a brief tap on the door and the hotel door opens a crack. “It’s fucking cold out there, so I hope you’re already done,” Hayden says.

“It’s fine,” Shane calls to him, hastily rubbing his cheeks as Hayden sidles in. Hayden discreetly steps into the bathroom and starts making a slightly performative noise about brushing his teeth. Shane murmurs to Ilya, “Hayden’s back.”

Ilya sighs. “You will not tell Pike to take another walk, turn video on for me?” he asks wistfully. 

Shane can’t help the little laugh; it’s as much relief as true amusement. “I don’t think either of us would manage that tonight,” he points out. Not only can already feel the weariness weighing him down, but he suspects Ilya actually seeing the tear marks on his face might not put him in the right mood. “I love you. Good luck for your game tomorrow.”

“Ya tebya lyublyu. And, same,” Ilya says. Then, after a moment of hesitation, “I hope you will call me soon,” he says.

Shane swallows down a congealed knot of feelings. “I think I probably will,” he says, and hangs up.

It’s not as late as he’d thought – he must not have been out very long when Ilya called. So at least Shane doesn’t feel too guilty about Hayden having had to go find some kind of lounge room to sit in for a bit.

When Hayden comes back from the bathroom, Shane finally notices the fuzziness of his own mouth and gets up to brush his teeth and wash his face, before gratefully sliding back into bed.

“You two okay?” Hayden ventures.

Shane thinks about it. “Moving in the right direction, I think,” he says quietly. Then, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, bud,” Hayden says.

The next day, Shane wakes and feels honestly better than he thought he would. He still feels sore and tired, and the bruise – though trainer cleared – is still painful, but by the time he heads to the team’s breakfast room his emotions feel dampened but not gone.

It’s not the painful effort he worried it might be to be quietly polite to the other team-members he sees. Finley and Byrne ignore him like he doesn’t exist. Comeau and Drapeau he thankfully doesn’t see at breakfast at all. Quite a few players awkwardly congratulate him on the hat-trick – including Wilson. A couple of the rookies say something about how the game must have been a lot. JJ throws himself down in a chair next to him and Hayden and says bluntly, “Those fans were fucked up. I’m glad you showed them.”

Apart from Hayden and JJ, none of the veterans mention the chant.

Shane has the same spike of anxiety about getting back on the plane to New York, but it’s a little quieter this time; he watches a movie on his tablet and takes in perhaps half the plot.

When they finally get to the ice, he’s glad to move, glad to stretch. He somewhat self-consciously sets up near the red line, and he’s not surprised when Scott Hunter drifts over.

“How are you holding up?” Hunter asks quietly.

“Could be worse,” Shane says. He allows himself the faintest grimace. “Could definitely be better.”

Hunter nods, as if he doesn’t need any further explanation than that. “How’s Montreal?” he asks, even more quietly.

Shane gives a one-sided shrug. Looks down at the ice so his mouth will be harder to see on camera. “Ilya wants me to escalate,” he says.

When he looks up again, Hunter looks serious but unsurprised. “Will you?” he asks.

Shane smiles bleakly. “Seems likely.”

Hunter blows out a breath. “Well,” he says. “At least you won’t have a repeat of Philly tonight.” Shane knits his brows at the subject change, and Hunter grins. “Different building, Hollander,” he says, and nods at the stands.

Shane looks up and sees… pride flags. Not the whole arena – but scattered around. As many of them as there had been at that first Montreal game after he came back, even. And he’d have thought that it was just them showing support for Hunter, but there’s a sign with ‘24’ on a rainbow background, and when they see him looking two fans holding a flag between them jump to their feet and wave, and he has to swallow hard.

“Have a good game, Hollander,” Hunter says, taps gloves with him, and skates back to his bench.

When he skates back to the Metros, a couple of the rookies look quietly pleased and Hayden gives him a smile. Shane nods back to him.

“You two looked cozy,” Wilson says with a little grin, and Shane suddenly feels stiffer and more tired than he did a moment ago.

He leans close to Wilson. “You want that to end up on Twitter?” he says coldly, and Wilson’s smile fades.

Shane shakes it off and finishes out warmups, but in the tunnel Wilson comes up to him again. “Cap, I didn’t mean anything by it–” he says.

And the hell of it is, Shane knows that. He knows that Wilson ‘didn’t mean anything by it’ when he kept his head down as Comeau and Drapeau sneered at him, and knows that Wilson didn’t laugh at the jokes – at least not when Shane was around - and he knows that Wilson calls him ‘Cap’ and talks to him in the locker room now, even if half the time he treats it like he’s going to be graded on it afterwards. But he just… doesn’t get it.

“Then try using your head,” Shane tells him, voice flat over the frustration.

Wilson goes stiff. “I guess we really can’t talk now, then,” he says sullenly.

“Save it,” says Shane tiredly. “I don’t want to hear it.”

They have a game to play.

When they skate back out before puck drop, the crowds cheer. The increasing crowds brought more pride flags with them; Shane’s shoulders loosen as he looks at them, and he can’t help but smile.

“Guess you’ve got home ice advantage tonight, Cap,” says one of his sophomores, Dubois, with an easy grin.

Shane can feel his own smile dimming just a little.

The game is good, but it’s hard. The Admirals are a strong team, they know how to play well together; Bennett is experienced and quick in the goal. It’s tough to score on them.

The Metros are also playing well. They’re playing together, which is still a relief to Shane every game.  They’re just not… quite as good.

They’re tired, but it’s more than that. Coach Theriault is a perfectionist, and he doesn’t spend as much time drilling them about how to compensate when perfection goes wrong. The clockwork precision that’s characterised their best seasons in the past has turned just a little jerky. Cogs missing spokes, and not quite catching well.

The come in for the first intermission with the Admirals one goal up, and Shane’s line having blown a good chance at equalising in their last shift on. Shane’s trying not to kick himself too hard about it – Theriault can do that all by himself – but as the quick meeting breaks up he hears Stedlund say,  “Cap had his eyes on the flags and not the puck,” with a little snort.

It hits. But what can he say? He ignores it.

They play on.

In the second intermission, the score is 3-1 to the Admirals. One of his rookies says “It must be sort of nice having Hunter around.” The kid looks so earnest; the rookies were so intimidated by the locker room shit for half the season that they barely felt able to say a word to Shane. This is a big step, probably, and it’s not the kid’s fault. “You two are kinda making history, huh?”

Shane manages to summon a smile so he doesn’t frighten the kid back into his shell. “Not how I really wanted to make hockey history,” he says dryly.

The rookie’s returning smile is a little uncertain, and he moves on.

Early in the third period, the Admirals get another goal, bringing the score to 4-1. “Maybe we should tell the fans, drop the flags, bring the chant back,” Shane hears someone murmur sharply on the bench during a stoppage. “Light a fire under Cap like yesterday.”

A couple of people chuckle uncomfortably. Shane keeps his face rigidly pointed at the ice. He doesn’t want to know who it was.

Shane eventually scores late in the third – a tricky goal that he can’t help feeling pleased about, for all they’re still behind. A lot of the crowd cheers for him, which is a great feeling as a away player. As he gets back to the bench, someone says “This whole place is like your fan club, huh?”

Shane just smiles weakly and sits on the bench with men can’t seem to stop seeing his identity as some kind of story he’s telling. He tries to think, if not them, what exactly he still has with the Metros that is worth protecting.

Shane wakes up late after the flight home from New York, and wakes to an email from Metros HR about the slur taped to his stall.

Without much hope, he opens it and skims it.

…records were assessed… relevant staff were consulted… we have not identified conclusive evidence linking the incident to a specific individual…

Then, he reaches it; the line he’s been looking for. “Based on the information currently available, we do not believe this locker room incident provides new evidence warranting reopening our internal review.”

Shane closes his eyes. It’s not a gut punch, really – it’s more of a sharp little pinch to someone who they think won’t walk away or fight back.

There are five days left of the season.

Three more games.

He’s done the playoff math, and they’re out; just as he’s seen the playoff math for Ilya, and knows that the Raiders are in.

The org haven’t stood by him.

His teammates haven’t stood up for him.

His hands don’t shake as he calls his agent, as he adds the latest email to his folder of documentation and sends it off to his PA rep with the instruction to file.

And then it’s done. Simple, bloodless, the press of a key – when it should have felt like coughing up a clotted mass or ripping out a tumour with his fingers. He ought to feel something, but mostly he just feels hollow. He’d expected to be a Metro until he retired; had dreamed of them raising his banner to the rafters. And now, although July 1^st is still a long time away, he has already with one keystroke made the decision that he is a Metro for only five more days.

He wants to text Ilya. Wants to tell him that he’s filed, that he’s decided to leave. But then he imagines Ilya feeling angry at the latest in the series of humiliating little slaps that Shane’s endured – when right now, he’s still too tired for that. Or maybe – it occurs to Shane that perhaps Ilya will be relieved that Shane’s leaving, and the thought makes the hollow place inside him start to fill with a horrible grief. Makes him hurt that what it took to figure out how to leave was the slow erosion of his willingness to trust, and that Ilya might still feel relieved.

He flinches hard away from the thought, turns his phone face down on the table to let the sting fade again.

Shane sits there for a long time before his phone buzzes - Hayden, asking if Shane still wants to go in for the optional skate.

He sends Hayden back a text saying that he does not, and makes himself climb to his feet.

A day off feels like something he’s stolen, to the point where he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. During the season he outsources so much of the practicalities of his life – laundry sent out, cleaning service coming in, most of his meals delivered – that he doesn’t have much left to do, and now he feels empty-handed and not quite sure if he knows himself. In the end he does a long session of yoga – gently on his aching ribs – and spends time catching up on a half-dozen tiny tasks; properly unpacking his away bag, putting his cleaned laundry neatly away in drawers, finding anything and everything he can to re-order or set to rights.

His house is very quiet.

When his latest task fizzles into emptiness, he finds himself thinking of Ilya again. It hurts a little less this time, and he imagines calling him. Imagines Ilya knowing as soon as he saw Shane’s number what decision he’d made, imagines that knowledge derailing everything else that Ilya has on his mind that day.

He checks the time and lets out a breath, letting himself imagine Ilya’s schedule. On a plane, perhaps watching a film or listening to music or maybe (hopefully) napping; on a bus; in a hotel; preparing for the game…

His house feels too quiet, and a part of him still wants to call, to selfishly grab Ilya out of his own life and into Shane’s, even if only through a phone line. He resolutely puts his phone away again. He’ll call after the game.

His parents have agreed to come over early - his father, fortunately, is not one of the members of the family allergic to taking a couple of hours personal time at the end of a workday. When he realises they’re arriving soon, the relief of having an actual task means Shane sets himself to the task of cooking dinner with focused, methodical attention.

When the doorbell finally rings he’s somehow not quite expecting it; the quiet sound of it seems to push through the room like a slow, deep current, and Shane has to pause for a moment to breathe before he walks to the door and lets his parents in.

It feels like they bring the world back in with them; as if he’s stepped outside of the climate-controlled arena and been shocked at the air outside. His father hugs him first, and then his mother; and then before stepping back she looks at him deeply and with such concern in her face that his eyes start to burn.

She hugs him for a second time, and he leans into her for a moment and blinks rapidly before drawing back.

“You look better than I expected,” Yuna says judiciously.

Shane isn’t quite sure whether to laugh at that or cry, and instead when he opens his mouth he blurts, “I filed a grievance today.”

His parents both stare at him, and Shane realises that they’re still in the hallway and the salmon and vegetables are waiting to go into the oven and that he hasn’t offered them a drink. “Um. Sorry. Let’s go through. I put some wine in the fridge earlier –“

“Shane!” Yuna says in shock. “You – what? I don’t care about wine right now!”

“I, however, care very much about wine right now,” David says firmly. "Go, sit. I’ll get it.”

Shane just about catches the significant look he gives Yuna, and it clearly lands enough that she keeps quiet as she follows Shane through to his living area, and waits for David. He comes back with not only two but three glasses; despite the game tomorrow, Shane hesitates only a moment before accepting his.

“So. A grievance?” David asks.

Shane briefly wonders if he ought to ask them when they want dinner, and be ready to put it on, but then he realises that his father no doubt saw the covered dishes waiting on the counter and if he was concerned about it, he would have said.

“Yes. Workplace safety,” he says, fidgeting with his wine glass. “Failure to prevent discriminatory harassment, mostly. Some procedural stuff.” He gives a strained smile. “My PA rep says arbitration isn’t certain. But if it went that far it would definitely be… uncomfortable for them.”

His mother is… very quiet. Shane isn’t sure what to make of that; he’d expected her to immediately come up with an itemised list of next steps for if the grievance does or doesn’t reach the next stage, how to pressure the league… He keeps his eyes on the coffee table, so he doesn’t have to see what’s on her face.

“There was more harassment, then?” his father says quietly after a moment.

Shane just nods. His mother makes a small sound and he finally looks up, to see her with her knuckles pressed to her mouth and her eyes fierce and spilling over with tears. “Mom – I’m so sorry,” he tells her tightly. “I know how much the Metros mean to you, too. But I can’t do it. I can’t stay with them.”

“You’re sorry?” she says, sounding choked. “Shane! Honey, if you waited even one moment before filing because of me – if I ever made you think I would want that from you –” She pauses; Shane can see the effort of will she applies to take a breath and slow her tumbling words.  “Then I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Shane can feel his hands shaking now, and he sets down his untouched wine before it can spill. “I know how much work you do for me,” he says tightly. “Managing my sponsors and the brand contracts… and then I punch someone and get suspended and you have to do damage control, and now with the grievance – and then when I move in July –” He can feel himself tangling, and like his mother had a moment ago he forces himself to breathe. “I already know we lost the CCM ad,” he says tightly. “I thought – maybe if they were spooked by the punch they’d come back after things settled with the Metros, but that won’t happen now, will it?”

Yuna stares at him blankly. “Shane – what are you worrying about?” she asks. “Your brand contracts are tied to you, not to a team.  Yes, CCM backed off – but Rolex and Reebok are steady again now. And there’s been a ton of new interest in you.”

Shane stares back at her, just as blankly. “You said CCM was important,” he says. “For Ilya and me. That we could call back the rookie ad. Use it to tell a story about the rivalry. Have us be seen as a matched pair.”

The confusion on her face slowly collapses into a kind of grief-stricken guilt, and she covers her face with both hands. David reaches an arm around her, strokes her back. “Shane… I said that ten months ago,” she says, muffled and devastated. “Things aren’t the same now.”

Shane feels so tired of nothing working out. “Ilya and I really messed with your plan, huh,” he says quietly.

“My plan was wrong!” Yuna cries, her hands jerking away from her face. “Shane, we don’t need my plan! You and Ilya don’t need it.” Shane stares at her in bafflement. “I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it at all. I wanted you to look more in balance with each other, so I told Ilya to be more restrained… and I didn’t really ask myself what it would cost him, because I never asked what it cost you.” She impatiently shoves tears away from her eyes. “Then you punched that fucking scumbag and I realised.” She meets his eyes again. “I’m so sorry, Shane. I am so sorry that I have been telling you to rise above it your whole life.”

The world feels like it’s tilting around him. Shane doesn’t know what to do with his mother’s guilt and grief and the tears on her face. “I’m not blaming you,” he protests.

“I can take it, if you do,” she tells him resolutely. Then, when he doesn’t know how to respond to that either, she continues more quietly. “It changed how people saw you. Not in a bad way,” she adds quickly when he winces. “It’s just… people can see the effort now. So maybe you don’t have to pretend it isn’t there.” 

Shane’s eyes fill with that before he can hold it back once again. He hastily takes a belated mouthful of his wine to try to give himself something to focus on other than the tears and his mother’s impossible-to-process declarations.  “And me and Ilya?” he asks quietly, after his voice is somewhat level again.

“Most people already see you as allies, as friends,” Yuna shrugs. “And fuck whatever any of the rest of them think. You’re already a matched pair.”

Eventually, of course, the dinner needs to be made.

Shane had already set the rice cooker before he heard the doorbell, and the salmon and vegetables are glazed and ready for the oven, so he feels no qualms about his father taking charge of the last steps for him, while he and his mother each retreat to a bathroom to wash the tear tracks off their faces.

They eat. Shane doesn’t let his parents top up his wine glass. He mostly serves wine for his mother’s sake, anyway, and having more than a glass when he’s feeling so raw seems like a poor decision.

Even with only one, by the time they’re halfway through the meal he’s blurring with fatigue. The rhythm of conversation is easier to follow than the actual words, and he has to deflect when his mother gently asks about what had been happening with the team, and then again when she asks him about playing in New York under the pride flags – the topics feel too big to get through his throat right now.

At some point they relocate to the couch to watch Boston play; to watch Ilya play. Shane finds his eyes tracking the movement of the skaters without much tracking the game - a true sign of his weariness. The thought comes to him that he should push through, lean forward, work harder to focus; but instead he leans back onto the couch and lets his eyes just follow Ilya, filling his eyes with him even as he wishes he could crawl through the screen to be with him in person. Watching his skating - even again, so the bruise on his hip must have faded; his face on the bench still, like it never is, until Cliff Marlow leans over to him and he pulls a smirk out from somewhere for the sake of his team; the intense flare in his eyes and the faint curve of his lips as he scores a goal neat enough to cut through his current flatness.

The game horn blows, and Shane blinks himself back into the present to find Boston having won by a point, and his parents readying to leave so they can sleep in their own beds tonight.

As Shane drifts around his house and as quietly readies himself for bed he tracks what Ilya might be doing. As he loads the dinner plates into the dishwasher and cleans the counters, he imagines Ilya being pulled to do media – but they won’t keep him too long tonight. Shane showers, does another stretching routine, and imagines Ilya leaving the locker room, getting on the bus. By the time he imagines Ilya arriving at the hotel he’s brushing his teeth, changing for bed. He sits in bed, imagines Ilya walking into the hotel room, kicking his shoes haphazardly into a corner.

Shane raises the phone and calls.

“Lyubimyy?” Ilya’s voice replies almost immediately.

“I figured out how,” Shane says.

Chapter End Notes

Detailed content warning:
Institutional homophobia / workplace homophobia includes-
-Management and coaching minimising and dismissing Shane's experiences
-Shane continuing to be repeatedly put in the same space as Comeau
-Deniable harrassment / icing out in the locker room
-Microaggressions
-Verbal aggression that is not 'micro' but is also not slurs / sexualised humour.
-A crowd chanting a slur (slur does not get printed)
-Shane finding a note on his locker with the f-slur written on it. (This happens very early on in the chapter; after the first team meeting Shane attends this chapter. The 'warning' line is "Shane can barely even remember last night’s game and stumbles through his own feedback. He tries to ignore the looks he gets from his team about it." The re-entry line will be: " “You need to tell HR,” Hayden says. "
-There is no physical violence or threats of physical violence.

Discussions of mental illness including allusions to suicide - Shane and Ilya have a brief and tentative conversation about Ilya's mental health; this includes Shane asking if Ilya is 'safe'. Ilya reassures him that he is not actively suicidal. This conversation stays relatively surface with no deeper discussion of suicidal ideation or self-harm.

 

Translation notes:
Ya tebya lyublyu - I love you
Blyat - Fuck
Moy lyubimyy - My beloved

Chapter 19: Crowd Noise 9

Chapter Notes

Thanks for all your incredible comments! Sorry not sorry for how tense the last chapters have been.
I hope you enjoy all the reactions to recent events.

NHL Department of Player Safety @NHL_DPS
NHL DEPARTMENT OF PLAYER SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT

Shane Hollander – Montreal Metros

Montreal Metros forward Shane Hollander has been suspended for two (2) games for unsportsmanlike conduct in the game on 14 March 2018 against the Boston Raiders.

At 12:14 of the second period, following a stoppage in play, Hollander delivered a punch to the head of a player on his own team. While the Department acknowledges that this action occurred in the context of escalating on-ice and off-ice exchanges, including verbal provocation, retaliatory physical force is not permitted under NHL rules.

The Department reviewed all available evidence, including video footage, on-ice audio, and testimony from players and officials. While mitigating factors were considered, the action itself warrants supplemental discipline.

Hollander will also forfeit a sum in salary.

NHL Department of Player Safety @NHL_DPS
NHL DEPARTMENT OF PLAYER SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT

Gilbert Comeau – Montreal Metros

Montreal Metros defenseman Gilbert Comeau has been suspended for four (4) games for inappropriate language during the game on 14 March 2018 against the Boston Raiders

At 11:41 of the second period, following a stoppage in play, Comeau engaged in repeated verbal taunting directed at opposing players and at his own team’s player. The Department’s investigation determined that this conduct included the use of discriminatory language, which materially contributed to the escalation of the incident.

The NHL does not tolerate language or behavior that undermines respect, inclusion, or player safety. Comeau’s actions violated these standards and warrant significant supplemental discipline. He will also be required to undertake diversity and inclusion training.

Comeau will also forfeit a sum in salary. The suspension will be served concurrently with any injury-related absence.

@StickToTheSix
Only two games for breaking a jaw? Light.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Honestly this feels like accountability on both sides?

@saypuckit
The league actually used the word discriminatory. That’s a big deal.

@RozanovApologist
Ahhh the sweet smell of vindication

@HockeyForAll
This is important. Four games isn’t enough but it sends a message about the league taking discriminatory language seriously.

@HollanderHive
We get our Cap back!!

@MontrealStandard
The league really threw the room under the bus, though. The optics of this are brutal.

@HollanderHive
I think fucking Comeau is the one who threw the room under the bus frankly

@MetrosDefense
It’s over. Move forward.

Montreal Metros @MTLMetros
We are pleased that Shane Hollander will return to the lineup following the completion of his suspension. Shane remains our Captain and we look forward to his leadership on and off the ice.

SportsNet @Sportsnet
Hollander returned from suspension. Hollander struck a measured tone in his first media appearance since serving a two-game suspension, taking responsibility for the punch and emphasizing accountability. [link]

@CaptaincyMatters
That’s leadership. Took responsibility. Didn’t make excuses.

@NHLTea
That ‘internal work’ line was doing a LOT of work.

@saypuckit
What work? Who’s doing it?

@KaytlaTweets
He sounds tired already 😟

@MontralStandard
He said what he needed to say. Now play hockey.

@NHLRumourLog
Who else is watching the Toronto-Boston game? Any guesses on what the ‘abusive language’ call on Kent might have been for? 👀

@RaiderFaithful
Rozanov could’ve thrown hands and didn’t

@RozanovApologist
Rozy not throwing hands AND still owning him all game? Elite.

@KentStan
If he’s so aligned with Hollander, maybe both of them are the problem.

@GuardianGuardian
Rozanov clearly has it out for Kent – he broke his nose last season, remember?

@RealHockeyOnly
The league is hypersensitive post-Montreal. 🙄

@TumblrRefugee
100% Roz was trying to get Kent suspended before Montreal plays them.

@RozanderWatch
[Video description: clip of Ilya Rozanov saying “Hollander and I have our own ways of responding, but we are aligned.”]
[Video description: clip of Shane Hollander saying “We hold ourselves to the same standard.”]
My beautiful moral babies 😭

SportsNet @Sportsnet
Strong support for Shane Hollander in his first game back. [Video description: a brief broadcast clip from the Bell Centre shows cheering crowds and visible pride flags as the Metros skate out]

@HollanderHive
MTL doesn’t abandon its captain.

@MetrosDefense
Nice work Montreal!

@HockeyForAll
Pride flags in a random March game — not Pride Night. That matters.

@RealHockeyOnly
🙄 Keep politics out of hockey.

@NHLRumourLog
Is that COMEAU behind the bench at the Montreal game??

@NHLRumourLog
🚨 Commentators confirmed! – Comeau is behind the bench at the Montreal game this evening 🚨

@NHLTea
Already?? They couldn’t keep him in the press box a bit longer?

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Imagine being Shane Hollander. Someone calls you a slur, then you have to do your job with them standing right behind you.

@MontrealStandard
Comeau served his suspension. It’s time to move on. Hollander’s a professional.

@NHLRumourLog
[Clip of Shane Hollander staring straight ahead. Slow-motion. Zoomed.]
I’m not sure this is a guy who feels like it’s time to move on.

@NHLRumourLog
Oh man, I thought Hollander had a 1000 yard stare in the game but his media is something else!

@NHLTea
Yeah he sounded like a hostage reading from cue cards.

@ChaosGoalie
“We’re doing the work we need to do” – said by a man who has had all emotion surgically removed from him.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
It really feels like the org is rushing reintegration. That media scrum was uncomfortable.

@RozanderWatch
Rozanov come back. Save him.

@NHLRumourLog
🚨 The Philly-Montreal game has a group of the audience chanting AUDIBLE SLURS 🚨

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
After everything that’s happened this month, how do people still think this is funny?

@PhillyPhan
It was like 20 drunk people, they got kicked out. It doesn’t represent us.

@NHLRumourLog
Also – Comeau behind the bench again – visible in the second period bench pan, 5min21sec.

@NHLTea
In an away game??

@MetrosDefense
Three goals while getting chirped by a whole section is legendary. Hollander’s mental toughness is insane.

@NHLTea
Okay but he didn’t look legendary afterwards? He looked pretty unwell actually. Have you seen his post-game media clips?

@MontrealStandard
Or maybe he’s just tired and doesn’t want to turn every game into a culture seminar.

@saypuckit
He scored a hat trick and looked like he’d just come out of a dentist appointment.

@TumblrRefugee
This whole thing is making ME feel sick and I wasn’t even there. Holy shit this is horrible.

@NHLTea
So what work is it that the Metros are actually DOING?

@HollanderHive
Enquiring minds would like to know…

@HockeyForAll
[Screenshot from the Admirals-Metros game – showing the Hunter-Hollander glove tap, with Pride flags visible in the audience]. That’s what solidarity looks like.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
Cool moment between captains.

@HollanderHive
Hollander’s scoring but they’re losing. 😟

@NHLTea
He’s doing everything he can. At this point the loss isn’t on him.

@TheStatsGuy
4-2 to the New York Admirals. I think it’s clear at this point in the season that the Admirals are a stronger team than the Metros – more breakdown below. 1/?

@PuckTalk
At the beginning of the season, both the Raiders and the Metros were dominating. Now, while Rozanov is ready to fight the whole league. Hollander seems like he’s having to fight his own bench.

Chapter 20: Stage 6: Take A Breath

Chapter Notes

Hopefully this helps some readers feel calmer!

By the off-season, if we get it right, we get to take a breath. We get to spend time together, in public, and nobody panics. And then…. we see what happens next.

Mid April 2018

Ilya wishes he felt happier about winning.

Not the game – the game was fine. He wishes he felt happier about winning the argument.

He’d known he would since two nights ago, when Shane tried not to cry down the phone, half-drunk with exhaustion, and admitted that his team was the cause of his bad day (bad week, bad month, bad season). Had known he had, when Shane’s name came up on the phone for the first time since Ilya had issued his ultimatum.

He knows, too, that he’s won more than just that one argument. Though they haven’t talked about it yet, Ilya knows Shane’s stubborn loyalty. As long as Shane was loyal to the Metros, he would never file – and if he was no longer able to be loyal, he wouldn’t stay.

So he has won a chance. A possibility of building something new with Shane.

And he still can’t be happy, because he won the race while Shane was skating on cracking ice.

He wishes Shane was here with him – or, better, that he was there with Shane. He wishes he could teleport them both five days into the future, to the end of the season, when Shane would never have to put on that fucking jersey again and play for a team he doesn’t trust.

Ilya rolls over and presses his face into the pillow, willing himself to feel relieved and hopeful instead of lonely.

Finally he gives up, sits up in bed, and texts Marly.

Eight years of sneaking occasional cigarettes where coaches and trainers won’t catch him means that Ilya can make an educated guess about which maintenance doors the hotel staff are likely to leave unlocked for their own stolen smoke breaks. He texts Marlow again when he’s proven correct, and steps out into the thin, cool air.

It’s not cold enough, not really, but it will have to do. It’s dark, and quiet, and a little of his restlessness fades as he stares out onto the anonymous lights of the city.

The swing of the maintenance door announces Marlow, who walks over to hand him an already open beer bottle. Ilya takes it, drinks. “We’ve not done this in a while,” Marlow observes after a moment. Gives him a sidelong look. “You good?”

“Just could not sleep,” Ilya says. Marlow’s expression stays sceptical, and he scowls. “Jesus Christ. No big crisis, no big drama. I talked to Shane, he had a hard fucking day, now I want a beer.”

“Okay,” Marlow says, and looks around. “Does your grand rooftop plan involve chairs?”

There aren’t any chairs, so he and Marlow end up sitting on the ground leaning against a wall like teenagers, with the beers between them.

“Hollander doing okay?” Marlow asks eventually.

“Better,” Ilya says. “Up and down.”

“Something new happen?”

“He says, nothing physical,” Ilya says bleakly.

Marlow pauses reflectively. “Fuck, well. That leaves a lot of options.”

“He’s going to leave the Metros,” Ilya says. It still doesn’t feel like a win, but he wonders maybe if he says it enough, and gets used to it, it won’t need to be a victory. It could just be… the next play, the one that sets something up.

“Yeah?” Marlow doesn’t sound surprised. Ilya supposes most people won’t be. “He got ideas of where?” Ilya shrugs. Marlow’s tone sharpens. “You think he’d ever come to Boston?”

Ilya’s thought about it, of course. “Do you think is good idea?” he asks seriously.

“Hollander’s fucking incredible. If we could get the cap space, of course it’s a good idea.”

“Not on the ice,” Ilya says. “In the room. For him. You think is good idea?”

Marlow goes quiet for a long time, longer than Ilya likes, and then he slumps back against the wall. “Fuck.”

“Yes,” agrees Ilya. He’d more or less expected that.

“We’re not as bad as the Metros,” Marlow says immediately.

“Fucking hope not,” Ilya says bleakly.

“But… yeah. We’d have to trade to get space. Then the guys would be awkward about the whole thing…” Marlow looks sidelong at Ilya, to see if he’s going to object to this assessment, but Ilya is a realist. He just nods an acknowledgement. “Then you’d act like a bear with one cub about him.” Ilya doesn’t bother to deny that, either, just takes another pull from his beer. “Fuck. Fuck! So which fucking lucky team is going to get you both?”

Ilya shrugs. “Not sure,” he says. “He is going to come to visit. After the season.” Three more games; they’ve waited out longer stretches before. Surely they can both tolerate three more games. “We can talk then.”

Marlow gives him another sidelong look. “I guess you’ll each have quite a bit to talk about,” he says.

Ilya just shrugs again, and doesn’t bother to ask Marlow what he means. After a moment Marlow changes the subject and starts talking about his plans to hijack the aux at the next game so they don’t have to listen to Carmichael’s terrible music again. Ilya listens without saying much, and feels himself relaxing slowly into the cold concrete, until their bottles are empty.

Six more days of the season. Two more away games. One last home game in Boston. Four more nights in hotels. Some number of optional skates and morning skates that Ilya can’t be bothered to count out, because it all now feels like marking time. They already have their playoff spot; it’s harder, now, to keep his rhythm up.

Still, he drags himself out of bed for the optional skate. He finds encouraging things to say the rookies. He’s no more than usually avoidant of the trainers. He watches tape of his potential round 1 opponents. When that grows unbearably boring, he asks Svetlana and Yuna each what they think about it; the fact that they’ll occasionally offer him playful insults along with their game analysis helps him stay focused longer.

He paces up and down the beige hotel hallways, as he finds himself constantly checking for the next call, the next text, the next social media explosion.

The messages he gets from Shane are jarring; more vivid than anything else in his day, but also oddly abstract. Like papers in a bottle from a far off sea.

Late that night, while he’s on the phone with Shane, his phone starts lighting up with notifications; Shane’s face goes resigned on the screen as the same happens at his end.

“Your side or theirs?” Ilya asks quietly.

“Mine, I think,” Shane says. “Farah was planning to leak it tonight.” He smiles wanly. “So they can’t bench me or pull the C.”

Ilya just nods. He wishes futilely that he could be there in person; push Shane down on the bed and make him forget his own name, much less the shit his team was putting him through. But video calls are harder; too much chance that Shane will side-step into self-consciousness or anxiety, not letting himself be overwhelmed. Harder for Ilya, too, to find the energy to distract and tease until Shane’s focus is only on him.

In the end, he lets it go, and counts off another night.

Five days. That morning Marlow makes a point of being awake on time for breakfast for once, sits beside Ilya looking unflappable as a few of the team swing by to ask if Ilya’s heard about Montreal, to quietly dig. There’s a casual brutality to the raised eyebrows, the curiosity, the predictions of mess, that itches at him.

“How’s Hollander doing, anyway?” Marlow asks him as his answers get shorter and tenser. “He holding up okay?”

Ilya shrugs. “Tired. Pissed off. Not telling me even half the shit that actually went down,” he responds flatly, too irritated to be discreet. It seems to stem the trickle of questions from the team, at any rate, and Ilya gives Marlow a suspicious look. “You managing me, Marly?” he says more quietly.

“Nah,” Marlow says easily. “I’m the meatshield for the rest of the team. You’ve got a vile temper when you lose it, Cap.”

That eases up Ilya’s irritation a half notch. “Will try to save it for the media,” he suggests.

Unlike Marlow, the PR handler is unimpressed by his suggestions of what he might say to the media. He listens to her lecture with half an ear as he puts his gear on for morning skate. “I hear you,” he says at the end, when she asks him if he’s been paying attention. “Do not throw mud at Montreal, even though they deserve it. Do not say they deserve it. Do not drag myself or Raiders into legal mess.”

“It won’t help your pal Hollander if you do,” she warns him.

“I know. Is lucky situation for Raiders, yes?” he says with a shrug, not backing down from her glare, and she lets him go.

In the end, she hovers next to him by the post-practise media, but he stays inside the lines.

“Do you support Captain Hollander filing a grievance?”

“I support players using the mechanisms available to them.” True. Easy enough.

“That’s the procedural side — but personally, do you support Shane?”

“Hollander is someone I like and respect. I want whatever is best for him.” True. If an understatement.

“Do you think the public understands the full picture here?”

The PR handler tenses very slightly, and Ilya gives her a faintly ironic look. “Is not my locker room, and is not my story.”

She relaxes again, and gives Ilya a grudging nod as she shoos the media out again.

By afternoon, it’s clear that Shane survived his own media scrum intact – clips are already circulating online. It’s a strange relief, to see Shane being sincerely sad rather than parroting the team’s fucking lines about ‘doing the work’. No matter how tired he looks.

Another afternoon alternating plane and hotel, texting Shane and trying to watch game tape.

Another game, with LeClaire’s familiar pre-playoffs spiel. Nothing to prove. Play our game. Stay out of the box. No fights. No stupid penalties. No injuries.

Boring.

The Raiders get a two goal lead in the first period and hold it all the way through. An opposing centre starts chirping about Shane and most of it’s laughable but then he says “You miss your boyfriend? You sleeping okay without him?” and Ilya wants to put him through the boards.

Instead he wins the faceoff clean, drives the net, and scores. On his way back past says to him “Still talking?”

The chagrin is good, but the hit would have felt better.

When the game finishes he feels tired and restless at the same time. He video calls Shane but as soon as he sees him he knows tonight isn’t the night for trying anything. Shane looks not just tired but drained.

“They take it badly?” Ilya asks.

“Colder in the room than on the ice,” Shane confirms with a grimace, then sighs. “That’s not fair. That’s not all of them.”

“Second and third least awful Metros still on your side?” Ilya asks.

Shane rolls his eyes at the nicknames, but doesn’t object. “Yeah. Then there’s also the group who are too awkward to look at me,” he says tightly.

Ilya imagines being there. Imagines Shane lying on his lap as he said it, so he could press his fingers into the tension in his neck, behind his jaw, where his headaches always build from. “At least you are no longer most awkward person on the team,” Ilya says instead.

Shane glares, but only manages to maintain it for a moment before the fatigue takes over. “I saw your game,” he says, settling back into his pillows. “You played well.”

“I played boring,” Ilya corrects.

“You had a nice goal.”

“Too easy.” Ilya can hear the flatness of his own voice, and winces internally as he can see from Shane’s eyes that he hears it too. Restlessly clenches and unclenches his hands. “Sorry. Bad mood.”

Shane accepts it. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone will punch you next game?” he suggests drily.

“I am more hoping for getting lucky after the home game,” Ilya says, and Shane’s smile warms.

“Four days,” he promises.

Four days. Another day of hotel and travel. Another set of beige hallways.

Ilya watches a movie that is mostly explosions, so he doesn’t have to think too much. He gives up on it halfway through.

He’s tired of asking Yuna and Svetlana about game play clips separately, so he drops them into a group chat together. After a sharply polite moment, he throws in some clips and lets them go. Svetlana brutally alternates between mercilessly analysing Ilya’s shooting style and highlighting goaltender tells, and Yuna suggests which players he might be able to rattle, while also pointing out that his net rush last night had looked good but had only worked because the defense was sloppy, so he shouldn’t count on it again.

In the evening, Marlow bangs on his door.

“Some of the team were talking about putting the Montreal game on tonight,” he says. “You in?”

Ilya hesitates visibly, and Marlow rolls his eyes. “Come on, man. I know you’re watching. You want to do that alone or with the guys?”

“Perhaps is private time,” Ilya says, deliberately obnoxious.

Marlow just laughs. “You’re a sick man, Rozy. You can jerk off over the highlight reel later. Come hang.”

So he lets himself be herded down to the hotel lounge. The players already there look startled and guilty when he walks in, like they’re kids being caught with a dirty movie, and Ilya rolls his eyes. “Am here to watch as well,” he tells them, and they settle. He casually grips a few of their shoulders and pats backs as he makes his way to a free sofa, and they relax further.

It’s unexpectedly nice, he realises, listening to their casual chat as they wait for puck drop. When St-Simon walks in as well and hands him and Marly each a beer, he raises his eyebrows at the two of them and gets back unrepentant shrugs, and that’s unexpectedly nice as well.

It’s less nice when Shane goes out for the puck drop and is met by scattered boos under the applause.

“Jesus,” someone mutters disgustedly. Ilya’s hand tightens on the bottle, but he doesn’t let himself react. On the screen, nor does Shane – though at least it’s not that horrible blankness, just his usual controlled PR mask.

A couple of the guys sneak glances at Ilya. “Tough crowd,” Marlow observes calmly.   

When Shane wins the face off someone says with satisfaction, “That’s it,” and Ilya lets himself smile and relax properly and just watch.

Tough bench, too; every camera pan shows a line of serious faces, not much chat or chirping. One shows the area behind the bench as well, and Ilya leans forward for a moment without meaning to. “See something?” Marlow asks.

“See nothing,” Ilya says. Then, at the curious look, “Comeau. Fuckers had him behind the bench the last four games. Now is not there.”

There is an array of little winces at that. Then, “Good,” Marly says flatly.

It burns a little in Ilya’s stomach; shame as well as anger, as he remembers the way he’d yelled at Shane after the first game they’d had Comeau back for, after Shane’s horrible, frozen media scrum. “Has trust been rebuilt, Shane?”

He swallows it down with another mouthful of beer, and then swallows it down further with the pleased ripple that goes through the room as Shane scores his first goal of the game.

After, he lingers for a moment with Marlow and St-Simon. “Very weird to see a Boston room cheering Montreal,” St-Simon comments.

“Your guy played great,” Marlow tells Ilya, clapping him on the back.

Ilya imagines how impossible this moment would have felt even six months ago, and finds himself smiling painfully before he goes upstairs to call Shane.

Three days. One more away game. One more night in a hotel.

Ilya moves through the day on autopilot. Drags himself to the breakfast room so he can be approachable. Goes to morning skate. Watches game tape.

Last night, on the phone, Shane hadn’t wanted to talk about the boos, the blank faces on the bench. He’d sounded more resigned than sad or angry. Ilya had told him about the Raiders in the lounge, watching his game over beers and supporting him, and Shane had gone very quiet. “Well, we did set out to change the rivalry,” he’d said eventually with a sigh.

“I think it shows, there will be people who support you. Wherever we go,” Ilya had responded.

“We,” Shane had repeated, and smiled like a candle flame. “Three days.”

At the game that evening, no one punches him, but he does take some hard checks which feel almost as good. Their opponents are still tussling over a wildcard spot, fighting hard for points; Coach doesn’t want them coasting, but doesn’t want them to strain themselves either, so he keeps rolling through the lines evenly. Ilya chafes at how much time he spends on the bench rather than on the ice, but he tells himself it could be worse. When it goes to OT, Coach at least lets him out to play sudden death, and his body wakes up enough that he gives a vicious grin as he sinks the goal.

He calls Shane; talks hockey, talks about Shane’s game tomorrow. For once feels able to go to sleep after without staring at the ceiling.

Two days. They fly home to Boston and when he walks into his own home it feels alien to him at first, and echoingly empty.

His cleaning service has been through and his fridge is stocked, and he feels bone-weary and wired from the plane all at the same time. He throws his away bag in a corner, blows off the optional skate in favour of heading into his home gym, and then drops onto his sofa and closes his eyes for a while.

When he opens them, it’s because Svetlana has unceremoniously let herself in and hurled a cushion at him.

“Get up, Ilyukha, we’re watching the game,” she tells him.

“I do not remember making this plan,” he says from his back on the sofa.

“You’re also buying me dinner,” she adds.

He rolls his eyes, but he gets up. He orders delivery for them both and when it comes she leans against his side on the couch as they eat and watch Shane play his final game.

“How is he?” Sveta asks seriously. “He has gone very quiet.”

“Tired,” Ilya says. “Looking forward to being done.”

“I think Ottawa will work,” she muses. “Both take below market. Leave plenty of cap space for a better goalie. Their defense is not too bad. The wingers might be trainable. Stanley Cup in two years.”

“Sveta, we still need to talk about it ourselves first,” Ilya says firmly. She just shrugs unrepentantly. “And what about this year?” he asks her. “Who will win?”

She gives him a grin. “Don’t you want a second ring like his?”

At least Shane’s final game with the Metros is a good one. Whoever’s in charge of the broadcast seems to have picked up on some hints; no one says it’s a final game, but the commentators say things like ‘final game of this season’ and ‘speculation about the future’ and ‘has meant so much to this franchise’. They linger on a shot of Yuna and David in the stands, both in their Hollander jerseys – linger on shots of Pride flags – try to quickly pan past the sections of the crowd who are booing again – capture footage of Pike and Boiziau hugging Shane after the horn – and when Shane is given first star they linger on his lap of the ice.

Ilya texts him after.

Ilya traces his fingers over the words on the screen.

One more day.

No one pushes it at morning skate.

The whole day feels like waiting in line for a roller coaster Ilya secretly suspects won’t be all it’s cracked up to be. It’s good to finish in their own house, but they’re playing home ice against a team that’s already out of the playoffs – the kind of slanted game it’s hard to feel excited about.

Ilya’s more invested in Shane – in the brief text updates that show Shane counting down his own to-do lists. Medical done. Exit interview done – I let the PA rep do most of the talking. Headed to the airport. Boarding now. More invested in knowing that when he goes home after the game Shane will be there waiting for him.

The thought carries him through warmups, and gives him enough of a lift that he sounds like he’s joking rather than serious when he says “Just get through this and we get a few days off, yes?” as his sole locker room speech.

On the bench, trying not to count up the minutes, Marlow shoves into his shoulder. “Hey Rozy, you got fans in,” he says lightly.

Ilya looks up absently, wondering what sign or outfit might have caught Marly’s attention – but he’s nodding not to the bowl, but to the suites. To a particular suite with the lights on bright, where Shane Hollander is sitting, eyes locked on him, grinning shyly.

Something in Ilya steadies and slows down. Yuna sits next to Shane and waves to him; David lifts a hand in salute; Sveta is smirking…

Ilya pulls his gaze away; LeClaire is calling for him. “You with us, Rozanov?” he asks.

“Yes Coach,” he says. “Ready to play.”

Chapter 21: Crowd Noise 10

Chapter Notes

So close to being done!
Last crowd noise chapter today, final prose chapter up tomorrow (you will just have to imagine the reactions to the final chapter).

Sportsnet @Sportsnet
Sources confirm Montreal captain Shane Hollander filed a grievance with the NHLPA yesterday regarding workplace safety concerns and the club’s handling of recent events.
A representative said Hollander “took every step internally before pursuing the grievance.”

Scott Hunter ✔ @scotthunterofficial
The PA exists to protect players. Making use of the protections under the CBA is something all players in the NHL have a right to. Workplace safety is not and should not be optional.

@PuckTalk
It’s not a rumour, everyone. This is as confirmed as confirmed can be.

Video description of a post-practise media scrum for the Montreal Metros game, April 2018.

Captain Shane Hollander stands by his stall in the locker room.

Hollander: I’ve filed a grievance through the appropriate channels. I’m not going to speak on it while that process is ongoing.

Reporter: Do you expect to share a locker room with Comeau during this process?

Hollander: (in a flat tone) I’ve already been sharing a locker room with him. That decision wasn’t mine.

Reporter: Did you raise concerns about him being in the room?

Hollander: I’ve raised concerns about a number of things over the past few weeks.

Reporter: Did you feel you had no other option than to file a grievance?

Hollander: I felt that there was more work to be done than internal options were allowing for.

Reporter: Are you saying you feel unsafe in your own locker room?

Hollander: (flat, slightly tired) I’ve filed a grievance about workplace safety. I think that speaks for itself.

Reporter: Has this taken a toll on you?

Hollander: It’s fair to say the season’s been a challenging one. I’m still looking forward to finishing our last two games as strongly as we can.

Reporter: Does filing this make it harder to lead?

Hollander: I believe that workplace safety is an issue that affects whole teams, not just individuals. I believe filing was a responsible decision, as a leader.

Reporter: Does filing this allow you to move forward?

Hollander: I hope very much that filing this allows the whole organisation to move forward. That’s why I filed.

Reporter: Do you still want to be captain during this process?

Hollander: I am absolutely committed to this team and to having the strongest finish to the season we can. Yes, I still want to be Captain for the final two games of this season.

Reporter: What about beyond this season?

Hollander: (clear, firm, slightly sad) I’m committed to these next two games. I’m not discussing my future today.

 

@NHLRumourLog
Let’s get onto real rumours. Hollander is UFA on July 1^st and there is no way he’s re-signing with Montreal after this… right?

@RaiderFaithful
Boston had better start clearing cap space…

@RozanderWatch
YES

@MetrosDefense
During the season though?? Way to screw your team on the way out the door

@TheStatsGuy
Reminder: Montreal is mathematically out of playoffs.

@saypuckit
Also note the line in the leak “Hollander took every step internally before pursuing the grievance.” That’s not a line you use unless the team’s screwed you first.

@HollanderHive
If your captain says it wasn’t his decision to have him share a room with someone who called him a slur, you have a problem.

@MontrealStandard
Comeau’s a player under contract. They couldn’t just exile him forever.

@NHLTea
“I’ve filed a grievance about workplace safety. I think that speaks for itself.” That is ICY COLD. 🥶

@ChaosGoalie
Yes Hollander take them out 🔪 🔪 🔪

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
He’s being incredibly calm. He’s not ranting. He’s not blaming. He’s stating facts.

@HockeyHotTakes
Rozanov was asked about Hollander’s grievance today – his response “Not my locker room, not my story” definitely suggests to us that he knows some of the dirt on Montreal… 👀

@RaiderFaithful
Rozanov was very measured. It tells you something, that he’s taking it really seriously.

@RozanderWatch
The bit where he said “Hollander is someone I like and respect. I want whatever is best for him.” 😭😭😭

@LipReaderGal
I don’t follow hockey closely, but after the Hollander–Comeau clip I’ve been sent a bench clip from the Admirals-Metros game.
As always: not a forensic expert, and this is from one angle only. That said, the mouth visibility is relatively clear.
The phrase appears to be: “drop the flags, bring the chant back, light a fire under Cap like yesterday.”
I’ll break down which words I’m most and least confident about below.
[video]

@NHLRumourLog
Scooped by @LipReaderGal! But let’s also check out bench reactions during the video:
Hollander is staring straight ahead at the ice
Coach is not reacting
At least two teammates appear to be laughing

@HockeyForAll
This happened one day after Hollander had slurs chanted at him. At a game where fans spontaneously brought flags to show that it wouldn’t happen in their building. And instead it happens on his bench. This is heartbreaking.

@bringback1987
We’re doing lip-reading investigations now? From one camera angle?

@NHLTea
I guess we know what ‘workplace safety’ means…

@MontrealStandard
Obviously this is shocking and I’m not defending it. But we don’t actually know the full story or context. It could have been meant as a joke.

@MetrosDefense
You don’t joke about slur chants. You just don’t.

@HollanderHive
I don’t want this to be real either. But if it is, we need to acknowledge – the room is rotten.

@PrideInSports
Normalising the idea of slurs as motivation is incredibly disturbing.

@NeutralZoneEnjoyer
So one day before Hollander files a workplace safety grievance, a teammate appears to joke about “bringing the chant back.” Yeah. I’d file too.

SportsNet @Sportnet
Shane Hollander takes the ice tonight amid ongoing grievance proceedings and speculation about his future in Montreal. Could this be his final game for the Metros?

@MontrealStandard
Why are they’re filming Hollander like this is a retirement game? There’s been no statement about him leaving.

@HollanderHive
🙄 How can you possibly be surprised by the idea that he’s finished with the team? Frankly I will be more concerned if he stays at this point.

@MetrosDefense
If he’s gone because management fumbled this I’m so done.

@RaiderFaithful
This is either a goodbye or the most dramatic regular season finale ever.

@pucktalk
The NHL scriptwriters are wild this year 😂

@NHLTea
The booing 😬 Not a good look, Montreal

@MetrosDefense
God that’s embarrassing

@ChaosGoalie
Booing your own captain in this context is just nasty

@BlueCollarMetro
He filed a grievance against the team, what do you expect?

@HollanderHive
You don’t boo a guy who brought you two cups! You DEFINITELY don’t boo a guy for being harassed out of his own locker room by homophobes!

@MetrosDefense
Okay, some boos but some pride flags. I’m very slightly less embarrassed of the fans.

@NHLTea
Honestly I’m kind of loving the lingering camera shots on the flags and the quick panning past the boos? Production team have been given a VERY clear brief 😂

@RealHockeyOnly
Why is hockey all politics these days??

@HollanderHive
Commentator says “Final game of the season”… the slow lap… End of an era, for sure 🥺 #ThankYou24

@MetrosDefence
#ThankYou24 You’ve done so much for the Metros!

@MontrealStandard
Oh, fuck, he’s really going, isn’t he

@pucktalk
[still image of Hollander hugging Pike and Boiziau] Let’s talk about the collapse of the Metros locker room this season – the factions and the fallout. Thread 1/?

@MontrealInTheMorning
Metros Captain’s Future is Uncertain After Emotional Finale: What’s next for Shane Hollander? Tune in as our panel weighs in on where he might be looking to in July – and what the Metros might need to do to hold onto him.

@NHLRumourLog
🚨 Shane Hollander spotted at Boston Raiders game!!🚨 [still image of Hollander in a suite at T D Garden]

@NHLRumourLog
Is Hollander thinking about Boston in July??

@RaiderRiot
Oh hell fucking yes do we get Hollzy??

@RozanderWatch
THE EYE CONTACT
THE SMILE
I WILL DIE HAPPY

@MontrealStandard
Questionable optics??

@HollanderHive
The only thing to question is how the Metros fucked up so badly that Hollander looks happier in T D Garden than he did in the Bell Centre

@NHLTea
Is that… Hollander’s mother? Waving to Rozanov?

@CaptaincyMatters
The mutual respect between these two really is something to look up to in this sport.

@ChaosGoalie
I definitely hop on a plane  less than 24 hours after concluding a horrible season at work, and bring my parents along to watch the final season game of someone I ‘respect’, while smiling LIKE THAT

@TumblrRefugee
Get you a partner who ‘respects’ you like that 👀 😂

Chapter 22: What Happens Next

Chapter Notes

Last one!

On the first post-season morning, they wake up together in Ilya’s bed in Boston. No practises, no games, no flights to catch, and Shane can barely speak with the relief of it.

Ilya draws him close and kisses him, and Shane feels half-drunk on it.

“I want this every day,” Ilya says quietly. “I do not care which city, which team, as long as they will be safe for us. I do not need people to know we are together, if you are not ready. But I want us to wake up together every day.”

Shane imagines it; imagines a house together. He imagines their new teammates raising eyebrows about them coming in for practises together, and tabloids posting sly little insinuations about them being roommates and about their ‘bachelor pad’. Then he imagines him and Ilya having fights about Ilya dropping his laundry on the floor and about what to have for dinner; imagines Ilya trying to convince him to adopt a dog and him trying to convince Ilya how bad of an idea it was. Imagines brushing his teeth next to Ilya every night, and grumbling at Ilya about cleaning the toothpaste residue away. “Yes,” he blurts. “Fuck it. Yes. Let’s live together.”

On the first post-season afternoon, they have an argument. Not a big one; Ilya sees the way Shane was bracing, and suspects he was expecting it to be bigger than it is. But when Shane hesitantly says that he wants Ilya to talk to a doctor about how he’s been feeling lately, it’s hard to muster up much surprise.

He tells Shane he’s fine, of course (he is). He tells Shane he’s always been moody sometimes (he has.) But when Shane straddles his lap and kisses him and tells him seriously that it isn’t normal or good to feel like his life is pointless, any resistance he could have put up folds before him. So he lets Shane share the research he’s been carrying out on private Boston psychiatric clinics, fights down how embarrassed and irritated he feels to have been so transparent, and how guilty he feels to have caused Shane worry while he was also fighting with his own room, and reluctantly makes an appointment.

The appointment is irritating on multiple levels. The psychiatrist sympathetically translates everything into ideas like ‘practise’ and ‘skill-building’. He uses the metaphor of physiotherapy three times. He talks about sleep and neurochemicals rather than about attachment and trauma, and definitely not about being lazy or careless or weak. Ilya can’t help feeling suspicious that he’s being baited into a trap.

He leaves with the warning that his depression might well lift slightly during playoffs and then hit much harder afterwards, a prescription for a micro-dose of anti-depressants to get his body used to them without any side-effects, a plan for an aggressive course of therapy with a psychologist to help him manage sleep and mood, and a feeling of profound resentment towards the psychiatrist for being so reasonable that he has no excuse to not go back.

But Shane is waiting for him afterwards, so he lets himself focus on him instead.

Shane’s there a lot, in fact. Ilya is convinced that getting to fuck Shane into satiation and then tuck himself around him each night that he’s in Boston is far more effective at helping him sleep than the various odd mental focus exercises he’s being taught by his new psychologist, but he resignedly practises them when he’s on the road. Similarly, the lift he gets from starting the playoffs – the push of the training schedule and the rush of the teeth-out competition - makes even the travel seem bearable. Enough to make the exercises about ‘connecting emotionally to off-ice experiences’ seem needless, really. He tells his psychologist so, and likes her rather more when she first debates with him about it and then suggests he carry out an experiment, gather evidence, and prove her wrong.

That takes him through round 1, knocking out Florida. By the time he’s halfway through round 2, he’s grudgingly accepted the relevance of her strategies for sleep, with fewer nights feeling itchy and pacing the corridors, and he starts making reluctantly more effort with her other suggestions.

At home, it’s easy. He invites Marlow and St-Simon over to play video games with him and Shane (Shane’s awkwardness over meeting another of Ilya’s friends quickly fading when he has a structure within which he can try to kick said friend’s ass). Svetlana comes over for dinner and tells them dagger-sharp anecdotes about her work until they all give up trying not to talk about hockey and watch some tape of the New York Admirals.

On the road, it’s harder. The psychologist’s suggestion of deliberately spending time with different teammates seems like good enough captaincy practise that he does it without arguing, but a planned regular ‘non-hockey’ activity is less straightforward. In the end, he decides on a watch through of some of Rose’s back-catalogue of terrible B-movies, since he can at least make rude comments about them in his group chat with her.

By the time they knock out Tampa Bay and move onto round 3, Svetlana and Shane have started occasionally joining in on watching the movies. He strongly suspects Sveta of playing both sides, though, given the very specific chirps Rose starts firing back about his game performance in response to their teasing. When he goes on to knock the Admirals out in game 7 he tells her to save her insults for the NHL’s resident dinosaur instead, and feels fairly satisfied with the whole situation.

In the handshake line, said dinosaur had said quietly, “Going to follow in my footsteps when you take the cup?”

Ilya gave a little shrug, and remembers what Sveta said. “In two more years, maybe,” he suggests.

It’s not such a long time.

Boston don’t have home ice advantage for round 4 against Nashville, but when they win three out of the first five games bets start being laid about game 6 at TD garden, and Ilya and Shane have a serious conversation.

“I’m not ready for us to be the next Scott Hunter and Kip Grady,” Shane says tightly. After the last few months, the thought of it makes his breathing start to seize up, and he has to forcibly relax his body again.

“I know,” Ilya says steadily, kissing the corner of his jaw.

“I know you would like to…”

Ilya shrugs. “If you wanted to, I would kiss you at centre ice any day of any week. Would show Hunter what a real kiss looks like. Do not need to wait for playoffs to do that.”

Ilya’s eyes are soft and his smile is wicked, and Shane wonders if he’ll ever be able to catch up. Wonders at the same time, if Ilya was to smile at him like that at centre ice and hold out his hand, would he be able to resist? Should he, even, when it’s Ilya who has more to lose than he does?

Shane can’t hold back a vaguely guilty noise, and Ilya pulls back and angles Shane’s face to his. “I am ready. That is not the same as impatient. I have you. That is what I need.”

Shane melts. “I love you,” he murmurs, “You absolute sap.” Ilya smirks, and turns his attention to the apparently more important business of stripping Shane of his clothes and working kisses down his body. Shane grips Ilya’s shoulders to steady himself and adds slightly more breathlessly, “Seriously? Are you not even a little worried about fucking me the day before game six?”

“Fucking you the day before game six is very important,” Ilya says seriously from where he’s kneeling. “One day we will be on playoffs team together. Need to prove now that we can fuck and still win.”

Shane’s response quickly becomes somewhat incoherent. Ilya has apparently become very committed to the idea of gathering evidence.

Fortunately for their future selves, Ilya’s team play resoundingly well the next day. Shane sits with Svetlana and Rose in glass-side seats and watches with his heart aching and soaring as Ilya and the team press through to another victory and to the cup.

He does not, despite Ilya’s teasing, wear a Boston jersey. Sveta and Rose both do.

Afterwards, when Ilya skates his lap with the cup, Shane steps forward and touches his fingertips lightly to the glass. Ilya is skating wide, close to the boards; sweat-soaked and running on adrenalin, wide grin that turns electric as his eyes catch on Shane’s. He thumps the side of his fist into the glass as he passes, and even as the vibration reaches Shane he’s gone again.

Rose pulls him back between them, wraps an arm tight around his shoulders. “You could still go onto the ice,” she murmurs, and Shane realises that his eyes are starting to prickle.

He shakes his head. Svetlana slips her arm through his, and squeezes. “You’ll be there with him soon enough anyway,” she predicts firmly. “Two years. I mean it.”

Shane doesn’t want to watch the families flood the ice, thinking about who belonged there. Not just him – thinking of how much his mom and dad would have liked to step onto the ice and hug Ilya, as they had with Shane’s own Stanley Cup wins; thinking of that baffled, pleased look Ilya so often gets with Shane’s parents.

Instead, Shane hugs them both again and says his goodbyes. He shows his pass to security (though they might have let him through on recognition alone) and steadily works his way through the access corridors towards the player lounge. 

The noise of the locker room is a dull roar from down the hall, punctuated with occasional explosions of laughter or music as people enter or leave. Shane remembers what it’s like, and for a moment he’s tempted to walk down the hall, walk in. No one would stop him; Marly and St-Simone would probably hug him and pull him in, drunk on victory and champagne. But this is Ilya’s moment, and his team’s. Though he knows Ilya would welcome him, it’s better to wait rather than drag extra stories and speculation into the room with him.

The player lounge is starting to fill up with family members who don’t want to brave the champagne spray and chaos of the locker room. Shane grabs a beer from a cooler, takes a seat off to one side, texts Ilya, and waits.

The players are starting to pile in and the chaos level is ramping up by the time he sees Ilya come in, hair still wet and t-shirt sticking to him in patches, too impatient to dry himself fully. He’s immediately grabbed and hugged again by any teammate who sees him – automatically takes and drinks from the beer bottle that’s shoved in his hand – but scans the crowd until his eyes finally make it to Shane, and then he relaxes and smiles.

It takes Ilya a while, but Shane knows how to be patient, too. He waits for Ilya to work his way free of the scrum, and then laughs and squeezes back when Ilya folds him into a crushing hug. Takes advantage of the moment to cup his hand around the back of Ilya’s neck, the same grounding grip Ilya so often offers to him.

“You are here,” Ilya murmurs.

Shane wonders if Ilya feels the same in that moment as he so often does; that sense of glorious, easy rightness, of coming home into his arms. “Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he murmurs back.

“Are you still in?” Ilya asks Shane. He curves his hand possessively over Shane’s ankle where it rests in his lap, then absently tickles the sole of his foot. Just as absently, Shane thumps his heel into Ilya’s thigh.

“Yes,” Shane says firmly. “Of all the teams I spoke to, they were the best on culture stuff.”

“Tell Hunter he needs to step up his game,” Ilya suggests.

“The Admirals didn’t have cap space for us both,” Shane reminds him.

“Grandpa Hunter should retire, then we could move to New York instead of boring Ottawa,” he sighs.

Shane looks up at him. “Are you still in?” he asks. “I know we’re leaving money on the table with Ottawa. We can look back over the others again. Tampa Bay seemed pretty good, or Vancouver if you’re still thinking about Canadian citizenship…”

Ilya tickles Shane’s foot again, warmth swelling in him at Shane’s seriousness. “I love boring,” he says with conviction. “And contract is only four years. By then Hunter will be needing to stop for double hip replacement, we can go to New York if we want.” Shane smiles at him, and Ilya thinks that he’d move anywhere in the world that could make Shane happy to walk into a locker room again, and count himself lucky. “Also, Montreal will fucking hate it when you accept less than they offered,” Ilya says with vicious satisfaction, and Shane’s smile turns sharp-edged, too.

Shane had settled his grievance with the Metros earlier in the week. Ilya had quite liked the idea of Shane letting it drag on to arbitration. Fuck arbitration, frankly; he’d have liked Shane to leak everything to the press and firebomb the locker room while he was at it. Shane, however, had set annoyingly modest goals of external review, internal policy changes, and not being stuck behind a gag order for any more than a year.

Even that hadn’t been easy to get, since the Metros kept on ramping up financial offers instead, frantically trying to buy back the trust they’d squandered. In the end, Shane had lost patience with the back-and-forth, and instructed his agent and PA rep to politely translate the message that he was walking; that no sum of money in the world would be enough to make him stay or drop the grievance for less than his goals; and that the Metros could either settle now and have him walk after, and maybe spin that narrative, or have him walk with the grievance open and look like the assholes they were.

They’d ungraciously folded at that point. Shane was relieved to no longer have it hanging over his head, and Ilya was grudgingly trying to be content with that.

“Boston didn’t come back with a better offer?” Shane jabs, like he doesn’t already know. All competitions have rules, and they’d tacitly agreed not to troll their former teams into higher and higher offers that they knew they weren’t going to accept… but nonetheless Ilya had been a little chagrined that Montreal bid higher in their fruitless attempt to keep Shane than Boston had to keep him.

“Montreal make bad leadership decisions,” Ilya shrugs, and Shane sits up to glare at him.

“Are you saying I’m not worth twelve million?” he asks indignantly.

Ilya pretends to mull it over. “Backhand does need work…” he says.

He’s interrupted when Shane tackles him.

Somewhat later, Ilya lies with his head on Shane’s shoulder, and he checks in again. “You are sure about the C?” he asks.

Shane’s hand falters a little in its light trails over Ilya’s back. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “You’re better at people. I’m better at analysis. It makes sense.” It does, but Ilya also knows that’s not why, not truly. The worry about the real reason is hard not to prod at, like a broken tooth. “Unless – if you want a break too, I would get it,” Shane offers softly, lightly tugging at Ilya’s hair.

Ilya grimaces a bit. As he’d been warned, he’d been on an absolute high for days after winning the playoffs, then had crashed into one of the harder pits of low mood he can remember encountering since he was a teenager. Harder than last time he’d won– but then again, he thinks doesn’t think he fully sobered up for two weeks following his last playoff win, and he remembers feeling hungover for weeks after that. His psychiatrist and his psychologist had both insisted on contingency planning for exactly this situation. The pre-emptive increase in his medication and sticking to a carefully calibrated routine – not to mention Shane’s presence - means he’s already starting to feel somewhat steadier on his feet again, but was still fighting a certain sullen embarrassment to have been so predictable.

“I do not need a break,” he says stubbornly. Then, feeling the subtle tension in Shane, lets out a breath, considers, and tries again. “I don’t think having a break would help anything. I think… I do better when I am captain,” he admits ruefully, and Shane softens again.

“Okay,” Shane says. “Okay. Ottawa.”

Chapter End Notes

Oh my gosh this has been a journey, I am genuinely quite sad to have come to the end (and a little relieved, this fic really took over my life for a while!) I am so very happy to know that this fic has also taken over the lives of other people, I'm so glad you've enjoyed it / been stressed out by it!

I'm sorry to say that at this point I don't have a specific plan in mind for a sequel story. I am very much 'No plot just vibes' about their time in Ottawa. I'm continuing to poke at those vibes and possibly something will come together, but I'm not actively working on anything right now.
(Obviously one of those vibes is, Shane absolutely needs therapy himself but is not acknowledging this yet. Another vibe is probably be, coping skills for depression symptoms do not actually resolve underlying trauma [shocked pikachu face]. But if my only plot point is 'the boys need therapy' it will probably be a much heavier story than I want to write right now!)
What I do have is a bunch of notes for post-Ottawa media scrums, rough transcripts for Ilya and Hayden's DoPS interviews, notes for follow up articles from The Athletic, and the like. Some of those I might hoard for a bit just in case I can turn them into a fic, but if people would be interested in reading a random selection of more social media / mixed media type bits, tell me in the comments what would be your favourite thing to see! No promises, because I'm not kidding when I say that this fic took over my whole life for a while and I should probably actually focus on other things for a bit, but next time I get a writing urge I may well add another part to this series to hold a collection of oddments.

Thank you all so so much for reading and for your lovely comments along the way. Come and chat to me in the comments - I will be happy to answer questions or just talk about the story with you!