Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

Gen

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Hayden Pike, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

POV Outsider, Episode: s01e04 Rose (Heated Rivalry), Autistic Shane Hollander, Canon Compliant

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of if we collect all the pieces, maybe we can make a quilt

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-21 Words: 725 Chapters: 1/1

growing pains

Summary

This is what loyalty looks like.

Notes

To say that Shane is Hayden’s best friend because Hayden’s then-captain pulled him aside after practise one day and all but demanded it would be an oversimplification, but not untrue. 

“Look out for each other,” Cap had said, and Hayden took that to heart. Hayden might not be a generational talent, but he’s sure as shit coachable.

It was tough sledding for a while. The scouting reports were right. Shane wasn’t a very sociable guy. Not in, like, a bad way or anything. It just wasn’t one of his strengths. Which, thank God, because a guy can only have so many of those before things start to get unfair. And it was okay, because Hayden was sociable enough for the both of them in those early days. Shane was rigid, inflexible. Hayden wasn’t. Hayden bent and gave in ways that Shane just couldn’t, and that was alright, because they were friends, and Shane was single-handedly doubling Hayden’s point production. So Hayden invited Shane over for dinner and made sure that the food Jackie ordered from that meal prep service worked with whatever fuckass performance diet Shane was on and that the TV was playing so Shane could hear it from the dining room. Shane hated to miss a game.

They grew, and there were growing pains, but they grew all the same, and soon Hayden was feeling deeper than he’d felt about a teammate than he’d felt in a long time—this wasn’t just his teammate, this was his liney, his friend. A few years later, his captain. One of the greatest honours of Hayden’s life is spraying Shane with champagne after their second Cup win, laughing as Shane shielded his phone from the foam with a forearm.

Kids these days. Always on their damn phones.

It’s a joke, but Shane always is on his damn phone. Texting Lily from Boston.

“Couldn’t have picked someone a little closer to home?” Hayden chirps him, and Shane goes beet red and insists that he doesn’t have a girlfriend, really, he’s not texting anyone, and Hayden laughs and snaps him with a towel—not hard, he’s not a monster—and asks him who he thinks he’s fooling.

They’re in a hotel room in Boston when Shane smiles at his phone like a lovestruck idiot and announces that he’s going out to meet a friend.

“Oh, so Lily’s just a buddy, then?”

Shane’s smile slips. It’s the first time Hayden’s said her name. It feels like it’d be cruel, almost, to say something like that in the locker room in front of everyone. Not that Shane’s been subtle about his Boston hookup or anything. Hayden can’t be the only one who’s noticed.

Shane looks so uncomfortable that Hayden starts to feel bad, a little. He knows Shane’s a little emotionally illiterate and that he doesn’t do well with change: it makes sense that something like this would be overwhelming. 

“Chill out, man, I know you text some girl named Lily,” Hayden says, picking through his suitcase. He’s not really looking for something so much as he’s looking for something to occupy his hands. 

“I don’t,” Shane says, which is a blatant and obvious lie.

Hayden laughs. “Go get laid, weirdo.”

Shane looks like he wants to argue.

“Or don’t, I don’t care,” Hayden says, a lie of his own. He’s not, like, obsessed with Shane’s sex life or anything, but he’s concerned about it; mainly, concerned that Shane doesn’t really seem to have one, outside of these Boston meetups. Hayden’s not a sex freak or anything, but he doesn’t think he could go as long between hookups as Shane appears to. Hayden thinks a good fuck every now and then is healthy. More than healthy. Especially with someone wound as tightly as Shane. Hayden reevaluates his earlier statement. “Actually, I hope you do get laid. You always play better after.”

Which is true. Ironically, some of Shane’s best hockey is played in Boston. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Shane says, but there’s very little fight in it.

“Oh, I plan to. Probably more than once.” Hayden grins. It’s probably more like a leer. There’s something about a hotel room that just makes you want to jerk off. A specific sort of masturbatory siren song as irresistible as it is unknowable.

Shane winces. “Gross.”

Hayden looks pointedly at Shane and waves. “Bye!”

Works inspired by this one

[podfic of] growing pains by kbirb pods (kbirb)