Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Troy Barrett, Luca Haas, Gilbert Comeau, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Brandon Wiebe, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Theriault (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Mentioned Grigori Rozanov, Mentioned Irina Rozanova, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros (Game Changers), Ottawa Centaurs (Game Changers), Established Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Slurs, POV Alternating, POV Shane Hollander, POV Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Gay Shane Hollander, Hurt Shane Hollander, Anxious Shane Hollander, Autistic Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Protective Ilya Rozanov, Protective Hayden Pike, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Supportive Ottawa Centaurs (Game Changers), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, small mention of ilya's dad mistreating him, mentioned past animal death (hunting), vague contamination issues i'm projecting onto shane, (tags being added as chapters are added), POV Hayden Pike, semi-gratuitous swearing, Mentioned Jackie Pike, Minor Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike, Fist Fights, POV Scott Hunter (Game Changers), scott hunter is an ottawa centaur, Mentioned Kip Grady, Minor Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, Troy Barrett Needs a Hug, Troy Barrett loves Harris Drover, Mentioned Harris Drover, Mentioned Past Cheating, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Protective Yuna Hollander, POV Yuna Hollander, Momager Yuna Hollander, David Hollander and Yuna Hollander Love Ilya Rozanov, Mentioned Racism, mentioned sexism, mentioned ableism, Anxiety

Language:

English

Collections:

Subs

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-20 Updated: 2026-08-02 Words: 11,536 Chapters: 6/?

jambette

Summary

It occurs to Shane, distantly, that he’ll have to wear the defaced jersey and his sweaty uniform pants if he wants to leave the locker room. He really, really wants to leave the locker room.

His feet won’t move, though, like the bottom half of his body is suddenly made of lead, while the rest of him twists uncontrollably in the wind. His head feels like it’s floating off into outer space.

Traitor.

Things get worse for Shane after he and Ilya get outed to the world. Ilya and the Centaurs help soften the blow.

Notes

here's my imagination running wild about the whole "you get outed and your team hates you" classic sports scenario. just absolutely making shit up 100%. tire-toi une bûche et enjoy stp

mind the tags as per usual

Chapter 1: pov shane dearest

Chapter Notes

Shane gets off the ice as fast as he can after the handshake lineup, a heavy buzz filling the space between his ears and drowning out the ambient noise of the arena. He chews frustratedly on his mouth guard, clamping down hard enough with his teeth on each bite that everything starts to go numb. Good.

The game was complete and total fucking mess. A resounding loss to the Centaurs by the Metros: despite having home-ice advantage, they were only able to score a single point the entire time. They’d fumbled shot after shot, not passing well, and getting way too aggressive with the other players on the floor. More penalties were handed out to his guys than any other game so far this season. He’d even been checked into the boards by one of his own teammates in a move that had left Shane blindingly furious and humiliated, but unable to do anything about it during play besides ignore the downwards draw of Rozanov’s mouth from across the rink and keep skating until the burning in his legs reached a fever-pitch.

The loss of synergy amongst Shane’s team was more obvious than it had ever been, since he came out – no, was outed. He had expected the reaction of the guys to be catastrophic, sure, but he’d also always imagined that they’d be able to put everything aside when they went out on the ice. Why should anything but hockey matter during the game? Hayden being a dad didn’t make him better or worse at playing left wing. J.J. dating women didn’t suddenly change his defense abilities.

Shane flies through his dress down, pre-shower routine, folding his uniform faster than he’s ever done before and shoving everything haphazardly into his duffel bag. He wants to get the sweat and stress of this game off his skin, gone from his underarms, out from underneath his fingernails.

He breathes heavily through his nose all the way through his post-game shower, squeezing his eyes shut under the harsh spray of water and trying to keep his head screwed right on his shoulders. The press was going to eat him alive, later – Shane’s heartrate picks up and his frenzied scrubbing slows down as the thought percolates heavily in his brain.

What was he supposed to say?

What happened out there? Well, my team’s collapsing because I kissed my boyfriend without being super, extra careful and it ended up on TMZ. I’m pretty sure that family members I’ve never even met on the other side of the world have seen it. My coach looks at me every day like he wants to strangle me, and my teammates look at me like I’m the dirt on the bottom of their shoes. Or like I broke all their sticks, on purpose, right before a big game.

Shane shuts off the shower stream and wraps his towel around himself. The tighter he pulls it, the less he has to focus on the chaos rolling around inside his head. He wraps and rewraps it with stiff hands, doing it over until his hands stay white even after he releases his grip.

He walks back out into the main space of the locker room, and that’s when everything goes from really, really horrible, to what Shane might call rock bottom, in a moment of greater sanity and control.

Shane stares at his locker, and it’s like time has come to a crawling stop. His mouth is suddenly dry, like some kind of double-sided gritty sandpaper got taped to his tongue and gums. There’s ringing in his ears – it’s way louder than the buzzing was, earlier. He didn’t think he hit his head during the game, but he did get checked into the boards. Did he hit his head? He feels dizzy. He has to lock his knees to stay upright, because it feels like his joints have been liquefied.

There’s red paint everywhere. Bright, awful, red paint, all over his cubby space and the surface of his locker.

Va chier traitor fif!

Fuck off traitor fag!

There’s a crude drawing of a penis next to the words. Shane thinks it looks like a third grader drew it, but there’s no third graders in this room, or on his team.

His jersey’s pushed up against the corner of the cubby, sat up just enough for Shane to see FIF scrawled across the shoulders in the same still-drying red paint as the rest of the mess. It looks garish and jarring against the blue backing of the jersey. The colours are hurting Shane’s eyes.

His duffel bag sits next to the jersey. It’s been opened, the contents poured out messily onto the bench and the moist surface of the locker room floor. He spots pieces from his off-the-rink change of clothes – a black compression shirt, his favourite pair of Ilya’s sweatpants, even Shane’s socks – ripped, cut, torn to shreds. It occurs to Shane, distantly, that he’ll have to wear the defaced jersey and his sweaty uniform pants if he wants to leave the locker room. He really, really wants to leave the locker room.

His feet won’t move, though, like the bottom half of his body is suddenly made of lead, while the rest of him twists uncontrollably in the wind. His head feels like it’s floating off into outer space.

Traitor.

Shane brought the team, this team, these guys, to three cups, to countless wins. But now, he’s a traitor? Being gay, being out and in love with Ilya, makes Shane a traitor to the empire he built with his own hands, his own sacrifices, his blood, sweat and tears?

Shane gags like he might throw up, and the ringing in his ears lessens just enough to let him to hear the sound of cruel laughter taking over the room. The guys are practically howling at his reaction; they’ve made him a laughingstock – their own captain, and Shane still isn’t good enough to ever fit in. No matter how hard he works, no matter how good, how talented he is, he’ll never be more than what they see him as.

To the left of his locker, he sees Hayden, still in a towel from his own shower, looking nearly as horrified as Shane feels. Hayden snaps out of his – his trance, his shock – faster than Shane does, though, grabbing the ruined jersey, Shane’s uniform pants, and a pair of Hayden’s own slides in a white-knuckled fist and pushing them against Shane’s chest. Shane’s arms come up to cradle the items on instinct, but he can barely feel their textures rubbing on his skin, just another buzz adding to the cacophony of horror screaming between his ears.

“Go to Rozanov,” Hayden breathes out, too close to Shane’s ear, “I’ll handle this, Holly – just – go to him, he’ll take care of you,” Hayden finishes in a rush, gripping the sides of Shane’s arms and pushing him towards the door of the locker room.

Go to Rozanov. Go to Ilya.

Shane’s body moves on autopilot, barely flinching when the sound of Hayden yelling at the top of his lungs reaches Shane’s ears as he bustles down the hallway. He’s still in his towel, the tainted uniform held close in his arms. One of Hayden’s shoes falls on the floor. Shane doesn’t stop moving.

Right, left, right, right, down this hall, down the next – Shane relies on his ingrained knowledge of the arena’s layout to get him to the Centaurs’ locker room. Of course he knows where it is, this rink is practically his second home, where he grew up, where he was drafted, where he –

Traitor fag!

Shane stops thinking. He needs to find Ilya, that’s what matters right now; finding Ilya is what’s important. He needs to find Ilya.

His head is pounding, tears welling up along his lower eyelashes, his nose getting itchy as it starts to run. Shane breaks into a jog, compartmentalizing the terrible feeling of his bare feet against the much-travelled-upon ground of the rink’s hallways, because he can’t stop now. He has to get there – Hayden told him to go to Ilya, so he has to make it before his mind catches up with his feelings and lets his body completely collapse.

Shane turns the next corner and sees the door to the guest team locker room. It’s twenty paces away, and he runs the whole distance, one hand gripping onto his jersey and the other holding his towel together. He doesn’t know where his uniform pants or Hayden’s second shoe went – they probably fell when he was jogging, and won’t his team get a kick out of seeing them once they’re all finished changing in the home team locker room and are walking out to leave, together, as a team, without him, and –

Shane’s at the Centaurs’ door.

Should he knock? His mom would want him to knock, that would be the polite thing to do, but his hands are full. He can’t knock and hold his jersey and keep his towel up. Shane’s breathing picks up and takes an overwhelmed, trembling step backwards –

– just in time for the door to swing open anyway, and then he’s staring right into Scott Hunter’s wide eyes. Oh, no.

Shane likes Scott. Well, mostly, he’s still a little mad that Scott and Kip stole the moment Shane had been imagining for himself and Ilya for years, in a world where they were braver. But other than that, Shane likes Scott! He’s a nice guy.

Scott right now, though, looks…well, Shane doesn’t really know, he never knows, but he’s guessing…angry? Maybe sad? Everything feels like it’s happening underwater, like he’d been skating on the Rideau Canal in the dead of winter, and the ice had cracked and he’d fallen through. Shane pictures himself, trapped under the ice, body frozen completely and wholly solid. It’s almost too easy to imagine. Shane wants to throw up. Maybe just getting this feeling, this horror, out of his body, will make him better.

“Hollander?” Scott says the name like a question – right, that’s Shane’s name. He should say something.

He tries to respond, but then Scott steps towards him and Shane scrambles backwards so fast that he falls flat on his ass. The friction of the floor against his spine above the towel hurts. His tailbone hurts. His heart hurts.

Scott looks at him for a second longer, hands outstretched like he wants to grab Shane and shake him, or something. Shane doesn’t want to be touched – can’t be touched – by anyone right now. Well, maybe by Ilya, but even then Shane’s not sure because his brain and body and skin are on fire –

Scott turns his body halfway back into the locker room and shouts.

“Rozanov!”

Chapter End Notes

the urge to write this just took ahold of my body. I don't even have an excuse idk

Chapter 2: pov ilya dearest

Chapter Summary

“Fif?” Barrett reads, face blank, visibly processing, and then his features get taken over by something closer to horror and rage.

Shane flinches away from Barrett. Ilya scowls. Stupid Troy.

“What do you say to him? What is ff-ee-f?” Ilya barks, trying hard to pronounce the mystery word Barrett said. The sounds don’t roll off of Ilya’s teeth and lips right, and it only makes him frown harder in frustration.

Ilya does his best to make things better.

Chapter Notes

part 2 part 2 part 2. please forgive the attempts at russian

Ilya is enjoying a blissfully hot shower, having gotten under the water before everything warm could get wasted, when he hears Hunter calling his name. He dries off quickly, giving a passing fist bump to a few of his teammates as he walks by them. He’s on a high from winning – winning against the Metros, against Hollander. Being number one!

Ilya tugs his pants up his legs in an energized rush and speeds over to the doorway of the locker room where he heard his name get called. He’s pulling his shirt over his head when everything stops. Ilya stops, too, and just blinks. His brain is whirring, processing fruitlessly.

Hollander is here. Shane is here.

His Shanezhka is on the floor of the hallway right outside the locker room. He looks like a wounded animal, the kind that Ilya’s father would have made him shoot ‘out of mercy’ when they went hunting together. Ilya always doubted that particular claim of motivation – it was far more likely that Grigori just enjoyed the taking of another being’s life. He was good at that.

Ilya hated those hunting trips. They never made him more of a man, or whatever the old men at the cop bar Grigori used to frequent would promise him. All those trips did was fill him with bone-deep terror; what if his father decided Ilya needed to be put down, too, just like all of those deer he was forced to shoot?

Ilya isn’t holding a heavy, gleaming hunting rifle now, though, and Shane isn’t looking at him like prey looks at a predator. He’s looking through Ilya, like neither of them are really here right now. Shane’s holding his Metros jersey, his fingers pale and tight around the fabric, but there’s something red on it, and Ilya feels panic flood him.

“Are you hurt? Injury?” he says, forcing his body to move, stepping around Hunter to get through the doorway and to Shane. His Shane.

“Roz?” Shane mumbles. He sounds terrified and lost and looks maybe six seconds away from crying. Ilya looks around and sees a security camera at the end of the hallway. He needs to get Shane out of the hallway now, now, now. His boyfriend wouldn’t want to risk footage of this moment getting out and going viral.

Ilya gets low to the ground and keeps his body language open, relaxed. “Is me, my Shanya. Are you hurt?” he asks, trying to trick his own brain into believing that he’s not scared to find out the answer. Please be okay.

“I don’t know,” Shane answers honestly, his voice sounding far, far away, like Ilya’s mother used to sound when she was stuck in the depths of her own mind. Ilya clings to the honesty, the openness of Shane’s statement, though. Shane is always honest – it’s one of the things Ilya loves about him. They can figure this out.

“Maybe come into shower room and I check?” Ilya asks, the nuance of English names escaping him amidst the cold, unforgiving grip of fear choking off the oxygen to his brain and his heart.

“‘Locker room’,” Shane corrects automatically, before his body appears to tense up again from where it was starting to relax a little bit. Shane’s hands are shaking and he drops the jersey as Ilya watches him get worked up again, feeling helpless.

“No, no, no – no locker ro-om, please, they’ll kill me, no,” Shane rambles, the words rushing out faster than Ilya can keep up with.

“Kill you?” Hunter chokes out behind them, and when Ilya twists around to look back at him, the man looks – like he might faint, maybe.

“I – I – I need clothes,” Shane whines, his voice waning at the end of his plea, and Ilya’s heart breaks in two as he turns to look at his beautiful, terrified boyfriend again.

“Okay, moy lyubimiy, I have clothes for you. Please let me help you,” Ilya asks, begs, his hands hovering as he waits for Shane’s permission to put hands on him. Sometimes touch makes it worse, Shane had told him before, but sometimes it’s okay.

“Help,” Shane says, his voice cracking in the middle, making the word sound so small. The tears that have been shining between his eyelashes finally start running down his face and he reaches his arms out to Ilya, and that’s all Ilya needs. He scoops Shane up and helps him stand, putting an arm around Shane’s waist to stabilize him. Shane leans into him, rubbing his face against Ilya’s neck and shoulder, trying to hide away.

Oh, solnyshko.

Hunter walks with them, even though he’s clearly dressed and ready to leave the rink. Ilya appreciates the support – Scott Hunter is a good man at the end of everything, even though he is incredibly easy to bait on the ice.

The chatter of the locker room has long since stopped, having been quenched out when Shane first appeared at the door in shambles, but the silence breaks when Troy Barrett spots Shane’s jersey, held limp in his arms. Shane must have grabbed it when Ilya helped him up.

“Fif?” Barrett reads, face blank, visibly processing, and then his features get taken over by something closer to horror and rage.

Shane flinches away from Barrett. Ilya scowls. Stupid Troy.

“What do you say to him? What is ff-ee-f?” Ilya barks, trying hard to pronounce the mystery word Barrett said. The sounds don’t roll off of Ilya’s teeth and lips right, and it only makes him frown harder in frustration.

Barrett blanches. “Hollander…” he trails off, looking at Shane, who’s looking resolutely at a spot on the ground in front of them where they’ve stopped moving.

Shane chews his lip, the pull of delicate skin looking borderline-painful. “Faggot,” he mumbles, “it means faggot, um, fag, in French,” he finishes, quiet as a mouse, but the words land like a bomb going off in the silence of the locker room.

From all around them, sound explodes: Holy shit, it’s on his jersey?, who wrote it, Jesus Christ, what the fuck. Shane separates from his place against Ilya’s side, hunching over and clapping his hands over his ears in distress. Ilya puts his own hands over Shane’s, trying somehow to protect him more, and shouts for everyone to shut up!

Silence takes over the room again, and Shane’s hands slowly come off his ears and push against Ilya’s.

“Come to my locker,” Ilya says, keeping his voice low and quiet. He moves a hand down to Shane’s lower back and guides him over to the bench. The team watches on, barely moving, some of the guys paused halfway through changing, like time itself has been put on pause.

Ilya sits Shane on the bench in front of his cubby and locker. Shane won’t look at him – will only look down at the marred jersey in his hands. Ilya can’t look at the jersey. He can’t look, or he might go over to the Metros’ locker room and do something he really would not regret. But Shane needs him more, right now.

Ilya stares at the freckles he loves so much, on this man he loves so much, and takes a deep breath, hoping Shane will instinctually copy him and relax a little.

“They called me a traitor,” Shane says wetly, a sob choking his words. Ilya wipes at the tears falling down Shane’s face with as much gentleness as he can, smoothing his thumbs over those lovely, lovely freckles.

Some of the guys quietly return to changing, turning away from the scene the two of them are making. Ilya is grateful for it, if it gives Shane even a little bit of comfort and privacy right now.

“I got them three cups,” Shane hiccups, his voice rising, “I got them win after fucking win, but they called me a fucking traitor for loving you! I would never throw a game for you, you know that, and I thought they knew that, but – but they–” Shane cuts off with a keening sob.

Ilya eases himself down to his knees in front of Shane, between his legs, pulling him into an embrace and pressing Shane’s face into his neck.

“They don’t deserve you,” Ilya says quietly, and a few of the guys around them make rough affirmative noises. When Ilya glances up, Barrett is still stuck in place. He looks gutted. Hunter looks embarrassed, maybe – no, mortified, is the right word, and very angry. Luca Haas is facing his locker at the end of the bench, but his shoulders are pulled up to his ears with tension.

“They ripped my clothes. I came out from the shower and everything was ruined, Ilya, even my socks, and – and they got paint all over your sweatpants too,” the words rush out of Shane, coming up like he’s forcing them out. The sounds run together and it takes Ilya a second to translate – even my socks.

“Oh, Shanya,” Ilya breathes, carding his fingers through the damp hair at the top of Shane’s head.

“I – I ran here with no shoes on,” Shane says, his voice squeezing high and tight with panic. “Hayden gave me his slides but I think I dropped them on the way here! I fucking dropped them, Ilya, how am I going to leave the rink with no socks and no shoes?”

Shane’s starting to hyperventilate. Ilya moves Shane’s head so that their foreheads are touching, his hands splaying on either side of his Shane’s gorgeous and devastated face.

“Breath, moy lyub, I’ll help you get clean, and I have extra socks for you,” Ilya soothes, and he relaxes a bit when he feels Shane nod once, twice, three times against him.

“Shoes?” Shane asks, and his voice sounds so small that Ilya wants to break down on the floor and cry.

“Hunter and Barrett can find,” Ilya says, speaking louder and looking up to make sure Hunter gets it. He nods and puts a hand on Barrett’s frozen shoulder, steering him forcefully out of the locker room to go and find the missing slides.

Ilya starts to move away from Shane, but Shane panics again and grips onto Ilya’s bare shoulders. The imprints of Shane’s blunt nails hurt, but Ilya really doesn’t care right now. It means they’re both still here, both still feeling.

“No, no, where’re’you going,” Shane cries out, his words slurring together with the stress of change, and Ilya takes a deep, slow breath. He doesn’t want to separate from his Shanezkha – ever, but least of all right now – but there are things he needs to deal with. At the very least, he has to go talk to Coach and needs to get someone to take pictures of the defaced jersey for evidence; only then can he help Shane get cleaned up so they can leave and go home.

“Is okay, moy khoroshiy, Haas will stay with you and keep you company. I need to talk to Wiebe and my guys, yes? Will just be a few minutes, I promise,” Ilya says, using his most reassuring tone and words to hopefully placate his boyfriend.

He turns to Haas, who looks startled and a little teary-eyed. He’s still just a kid, compared to the rest of the team. It makes Ilya’s heart throb painfully for a beat, the rhythm existing only in a distant, nearly-forgotten part of him.

Come here, Ilya mouths at Haas exaggeratedly, hoping he’s able to be understood this way. Haas shuffles over in their direction, coming to sit gingerly next to Shane on the bench. Shane acknowledges the move, just barely with a small tilt of his head. Good.

“Just a few minutes?” Shane asks Ilya. His hands move to grip the curls at the base of Ilya’s neck.

“Promise,” Ilya says, his voice low and creaky and raw. I love you, I love you, I love you. He presses a quick kiss to Shane’s forehead before gently detaching Shane’s hands, kissing the tops of them too, and then getting up off the floor.

“Thank you,” Shane breathes, and Ilya can’t help himself – he swoops back down for one more kiss, on Shane’s lips, this time.

“Always,” Ilya vows.

Chapter End Notes

don't worry, I'll be plenty embarrassed about this when I finally watch & read the source material. thumbs up forever

Chapter 3: pov hayden is a good friend

Chapter Summary

Hayden takes a grounding breath, trying to remember the anger management techniques he was taught by his dad during his teen years, when he really needed help reigning it in. He thinks this might be the angriest he’s been in years. His hands are balled into fists. They’re shaking.

Hayden Pike is the nicest of (real) nice guys.

Chapter Notes

there literally wasn't going to be more of this story. it was completely finished. now look at me, caving to the social pressures of the day...(thank you all for the lovely comments)

advance apologies about the gratuitous use of brackets. dumb when I literally went out of my way to not use them in the first two chapters, but Hayden just has too many thoughts ig. he has big feelings TO ME okay

Hayden likes to think of himself a nice guy. Wait, no – not a ‘nice guy’, in the creepy where’s my hug at kind of way – but as in an actual good guy.

A polite person: someone who holds the door open for old ladies (and old men, too, he doesn’t discriminate), who gifts his mom a thoughtful and newly-arranged bouquet every Mother’s Day (he’s running out of fun flower combinations), and who apologizes when he’s in the wrong (usually with his wife, who’s always in the right). He used to be much rowdier and raunchier as a teenager, but those days have been long gone for a while, and Hayden can’t really find it in himself to mind the gradual change that he’s gone through.

He’s become a real man. An ever-growing father, a loving husband, and a kind friend.

Being nice was one of the biggest things that helped Hayden gain Shane’s friendship, back when they first met. They’d both been so green, crazy-wicked-nervous about their chances of being drafted into the professional league. Hayden remembers Shane looking pale, dizzy, and terrified, and thinking that his own face probably looked the exact damn same.

But the kid was, is, a hockey genius, and Hayden never had any doubts about Shane’s draft outcomes. Shane was meant to be a star, and Hayden was just happy for the chance to come along for the ride and to get to do what he loves every single day.

Hayden had knocked into Shane’s shoulder as they’d waited for the team announcements, trying to shake out the nerves for the both of them.

“Don’t worry, Hollander. You’re gonna be great,” Hayden had said. He really meant it.

Shane had shared a small, private-looking smile with him and told him the same thing right back.

So, Hayden is proud to be Shane’s best friend, especially now, after everything that’s happened. Shane and Rozanov were gracious enough to forgive Hayden for the outing mishap (more like gay catastrophe, Jackie had said, and was right, as per usual). Hayden was glad that Shane seemed happy with Rozanov, no matter how much the guy grinded Hayden’s gears, on and off the ice. None of it could ever change the brotherly, familial love he has for Shane – because Hayden’s a nice guy!

He doesn’t feel so nice right now, though. He’s looking between Shane and the defaced locker, feeling the creeping chill of horror and blind rage sweep over his shoulders, up his neck, and into his ears. Steam could be coming out of them right now, for all he knows. It feels like his bell just got rung – teeth clenched, ear drums humming, a red, throbbing sensation blooming deep under his skin.

Hayden’s a proud man, and a nine-times-out-of-ten team patriot, but all he can feel right now is anger and disgust for these people that are supposed to be his teammates. Shane’s teammates. His guys. Shane is their captain, for God’s sake! But the crude graffiti is calling him a traitor, a faggot –

Hayden grabs as many of Shane’s in-tact belongings as he can out of the wreckage, plus his own slides, and shoves them all into Shane’s frozen arms. Tells him to go to Rozanov; hustles him out of the locker room as fast as he can manage. You don’t need to see this, you don’t need to be here for this, go somewhere you’ll be safe, he tries to say through his gestures, with his hands and his face, knowing Shane probably won’t understand him anyway. It’s always worth a try.

The door clicks shut.

Hayden takes a grounding breath, trying to remember the anger management techniques he was taught by his dad during his teen years, when he really needed help reigning it in. He thinks this might be the angriest he’s been in years. His hands are balled into fists. They’re shaking.

The guys are still laughing when Hayden turns around to face them, and it makes his stomach roil with hate. What is wrong with them? This isn’t what a team is supposed to be – it’s not what hockey is supposed to be. They’re all here because they love this sport, apparently, but this doesn’t seem like love.

Hayden understands love. He feels it for his parents, for Jackie, for his kids. And yeah, he may not get why Rozanov makes Shane so happy, so complete, but never in his wildest dreams would Hayden ever imagine doing something like this to someone over love of a fucking game.

Gilbert Comeau says something that Hayden doesn’t catch, but he can tell by the way the laughter in the room rachets up nearly a goddamn decibel that it was more than likely some disgusting dig at Shane. Like how he takes it up the ass for the enemy, or that he’s not fit to be captain because his true calling is being a bedwarmer, or something else equally awful. The exact kind of things the team has been saying all season, since the outing (gay catastrophe), scoffing and muttering just loud enough for Shane to know they’re shit-talking him, but still quiet enough to stop him from making a stink about it to anyone that would care.

Hayden feels something in him crack, and shatter into about a million fucking pieces. No more breathing or grounding or whatever the hell he was trying to do a minute ago.

“Will you shut the fuck up!” he hollers angrily, trying to stop the gross chatter and guffawing in the room from keeping on.

Comeau smirks. Some of the other guys go quiet, at least having the brains to look a little nervous, because nice, polite, kind, real-man Hayden fucking Pike doesn’t ever lose his shit like this. Not anymore.

“Why? Is capitaine getting it from you, too?” Comeau jeers, because he clearly has some kind of death wish. The comment gets a wolf-whistle from someone in Hayden’s peripheral. He doesn’t give a fuck – his target’s been acquired. Jackie’s gonna be pissed at him later, if this goes where Hayden thinks it’s probably going, but it’ll be worth it.

“Shut your fucking mouth, Comeau! He’s a better player than anyone on this goddamn team, and you all know it,” Hayden shouts, “you’re just being a bunch of insecure assholes about it!”

Comeau tips his head back and barks out a haughty laugh. Hayden wants to strangle him.

“Ayoye, Hollander es ton chum aussi? Ton esti de plotte à puck? What a slut,” Comeau hisses happily, tauntingly, with a big, wide-mouthed smile.

Damn, Hollander is your boyfriend too? Your fucking puck bunny?

His grin shows off two rows of teeth, crooked and imperfect from years of playing on the ice. They’re on full display. Hayden can’t stop looking at them, suddenly feeling laser-focused.

He takes a step forward. Comeau takes a step forward too, and so do a few other players. One or two guys try to pretend like they’re not watching what’s about to go down.

“Call him that again,” Hayden says, his voice coming out low and dangerous, his restraint and decorum and every other positive, mature trait he’s tried so hard to cultivate in his adult life balancing on a very thin razor’s edge.

Comeau smiles, all teeth, again. His face looks like a giant bullseye, with his big, bullshit-spouting mouth right at the centre of the target.

“He’s a fucking loose faggot slut,” Comeau spits, and then Hayden’s swinging as hard as he can.

His fist connects perfectly with the lower half of Comeau’s face, pain rushing through Hayden’s knuckles and forearm from the sheer force of the impact. Comeau staggers back, swiping a hand over his now-bleeding mouth, before rushing back in to try and grapple with Hayden. They get their hands on each other, pushing and clawing, before J.J. jumps in and rips them apart, putting himself between them and forcing them to stop.

“Okay, let’s just take a breath, yeah? Jesus Christ!” J.J. placates loudly. Hayden’s chest is heaving as he inhales, then exhales deeply, trying with every bit of mental strength he has left to calm himself down. These fucks absolutely deserve Hayden’s rage, sure, but his wife and kids also need him to keep his day job.

Hayden steps back and scans the room. Comeau looks like a wild dog, his shoulders tense and posture guarded. There’s a sluggish trail of blood dripping down his chin from his mouth. His still-crooked teeth bared in aggression. J.J. looks uncomfortable, and kind of guilty. Drapeau, Mitty, and Berkes are just staring at the scene that’s unfolded in front of them. Wilson and Gagnon are holding back more of that awful laughter from before, as if watching their teammates seriously try to beat the shit out of each other is somehow funny. Everyone else just looks pissed, or tired, or both.

“I don’t apologize to bigots. I won’t,” Hayden grinds out, his jaw clenching. None of these guys are worth Hayden’s forgiveness, anyway.

“Yeah, whatever, man, just get out of here before coach comes to get you,” J.J. rushes out, his voice wavering, keeping his words tight and clipped. The tenseness in the air makes Hayden’s skin feel raw, wind-whipped. Got it, getting.

Comeau spits some blood on the ground, clearly aiming for Hayden’s feet as he passes by to get to his locker. “Coward,” the dog slurs, tongue probably getting fat in his now-fucked up mouth, and Hayden can’t even find it in himself to offer up a visible expression of disgust in response. Comeau, J.J., Wilson, Gagnon, all the rest of his so-called teammates – they’re worth nothing. Less than dirt.

Hayden grabs his bag and hikes it up onto his shoulder. He heads for the door, but just before he leaves, he turns his head back to face the guys.

“If I’m a coward, then what the hell does that make all of you?” Hayden asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer, and feels nothing but a growing sense of exhaustion and emptiness as the door swings closed behind him.

Chapter End Notes

can't believe I did another one. don't tempt me further I might cave again and again

et pour tous mes lecteurs québécois: je m'excuse pour le français médiocre - j'suis tellement rouillé lol

Chapter 4: pov scott is a centaur

Chapter Summary

It’s not that Scott doesn’t want to be there to support Hollander, and Rozanov, too, but the whole thing is – painfully raw, almost too raw for him to look at, to be a part of. Scott feels like he’s been touching hot coals with his whole body; every exposed part of him rendered wickedly tender, sizzling, steaming.

Scott has thoughts - lots of them. Troy shares a secret.

Chapter Notes

hi so Scott is a centaur in this fic and he's married to Kip. kinda shitty gay mentor & centaurs player Scott Hunter is real to ME...it’s my sandpit and I'll build whatever castles I want

this is the ultimate run-on sentence chapter

Scott’s unspeakably relieved to be able to get out of the locker room, so much so that the overwhelming swirl of emotions clogging up his head and heart loop right back around to him feeling guilty and miserable, like he did when he was still stuck looking at Hollander curled up around his destroyed jersey.

It’s not that Scott doesn’t want to be there to support Hollander, and Rozanov, too, but the whole thing is – painfully raw, almost too raw for him to look at, to be a part of. Scott feels like he’s been touching hot coals with his whole body; every exposed part of him rendered wickedly tender, sizzling, steaming.

He’s not oblivious, even though he often wishes he was. Sometimes his perceptiveness and oversized capacity for empathy is a gift, but most of the time, it’s more like a twisted curse that keeps him stuck inside his own head for days or even weeks at a time. Being ignorant of everything and everyone around him would probably be leaps and bounds easier. Maybe he would be happier, more at peace.

He’d expressed that thought to Kip once, at the end of a long and soul-crushing day where Scott had wanted nothing more than for his brain to just turn off and stop thinking, stop seeing. I wish I was made differently, sometimes, he’d said.

Kip had, of course, replied with the perfect thing: If you’re talking about your anxiety, I get that. We’ll keep figuring that out together. But if you’re talking about your personality, then I’m sorry, but no – if you were made differently, you wouldn’t be you, and I love you, not whoever you think you’re supposed to be.

So, Scott kept on with being himself. It’s just that – well, today, the idea of being himself, of being vulnerable, makes him feel a little sick.

The vision in his head is so clear: what happened to Hollander could have happened to Scott. In another life, on another team, at any point in his past, he could have so easily been caught exactly where Hollander is right now. Crushed. Betrayed. Hate-crimed. It could still happen, at any time.

Coming out later in his career was hard. Waiting for so long to be seen, to get to kiss his husband in front of his team, to be himself, had been unquestionably tough. Brutal, even. But Scott knows now, with absolute and complete certainty, that he was right to wait.

Right to wait until he got traded to an accepting, almost progressive team; the Centaurs were so very different to every other team he’d been contracted to before. The same ridiculous macho antics were there, sure – it was still hockey, after all – but there was more team bonding, less dangerous rookie hazing, more genuine colleagueship. It didn’t hurt, either, that the coach managed to balance a difficult duality of toughness and support that made the entire roster shine on the ice.

Scott was right to wait until he was in a secure, stable relationship, too. He can only imagine the kind of pressure being outed has put on Hollander and Rozanov, especially considering their actual relationship is pretty fresh, as Scott understands it. He’s not judging! But – years of being friends with benefits just isn’t the same as having actually been together for that long. Making decisions together, standing in front of the world together.

Scott’s confident that those two will make it past all of this, though. They’re attached at the hip more than any couple Scott’s ever met, including himself and Kip. Hollander and Rozanov always seem to be orbiting each other unconsciously, getting pulled together again and again by some invisible force, no matter how far one tries to travel away from the other. ‘Meant-to-be’ isn’t something Scott really believes in, but looking at those two, he can understand why some people subscribe to the idea of fate.

It’s an uplifting thought, for sure, but it’s not enough to offset the guilt that weighs heavily on Scott’s shoulders. If he hadn’t come out so publicly, would Hollander and Rozanov still have decided to stay so visible after being outed? Could this horrible thing that’s been done to Hollander have been prevented? Maybe staying hidden was better – it was safer, if nothing else. But no, they’d all been waiting for so long to be out, to be proud, so it had to be worth it, right?

He remembers being twenty-something and lost, trying to figure out how to be himself in a world that didn’t want that, didn’t want him. It makes him feel so much for these young guys trying to navigate that same storm, the one that Scott still struggles with, even now.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to shake off the feelings he’s drowning in like a man trying to swim in a rising tide. He needs to focus on something concrete; they’re out here to try and find Hollander’s lost shoes.

Scott slowly forces himself to tune back into the world around him. He clenches his fists, hard, then relaxes them and relishes the feeling of blood rushing back to his fingertips. Troy Barrett is walking next to him. Scott focuses on the overlapping sounds of their footsteps against the floor and the hum of the rink’s harsh overhead lighting. After a few minutes, he notices that Barrett’s breathing sounds a little weird, shallow, maybe, and before Scott can say anything, the kid speaks up.

“I need to – can we stop, for a second?” Barrett asks, his steps faltering, falling behind Scott’s pace before stopping completely and stumbling over to the nearest empty spot of wall space.

Barrett slides with his back against the wall all the way down to the ground, his knees bunching up in front of him. His hands go to his hair, tugging at it, playing with the short strands, keeping himself busy.

Scott pauses, stock-still with indecision, before he moves quietly to stand next to Barrett, slouching a bit against the hard surface of the plastered bricks. He tries to project some kind of casual, calm air that’ll let the kid relax a little.

They exist in silence for several minutes, before Barrett – Troy – clears his throat to speak.

“Uh, I haven’t really told anyone before – but–” Troy chokes up before he can finish, and Scott puts a tentative hand on the kid’s hunched upper back, hoping it’ll help ground him a bit.

“Take a deep breath, Barrett,” Scott murmurs, “you don’t have to tell me, if you’re not comfortable.”

Troy breathes in and out, once, twice, a few more times, but his face stays pinched. “No, no, I – I need to tell someone,” he stresses, the desperation in his voice bleeding out everywhere.

“Okay. Okay, then, I’m here when you’re ready,” Scott assures him, and Troy bobs his head up and down in a jerky, repetitive nod, before stilling. He swallows audibly.

And then: “I think I’m in love with our social media guy,” Troy confesses, the words rushing out of him all at once, and it takes Scott a second to process the information he’s just been presented with. Troy is panicking and is interested in a man – is in love with a man. A man who happens to work with them. Okay, that’s fine. Scott can be a gay sherpa if that’s what his teammate needs that from him right now.

Actually, Troy’s reveal makes a lot of sense. Scott had been watching Troy watch Harris for weeks, now. He’d been wondering if Troy had some unnamable vendetta against the man, but it seemed pretty unlikely, considering Harris was perfectly pleasant all the time. Kip had suggested that maybe the two of them had a secret, scandalous shared past. Scott was going to owe his husband five bucks for being partially right. Damn.

Scott takes a moment to digest, to consider, and then goes for the bold question: “Do you think he’s in love with you?”

Troy inhales so hard that the breath gets audibly stuck somewhere in his windpipe and he coughs to clear it. “Oh, God, I…I really hope so, yeah, that’d be great,” he admits, rubbing his hands against his reddening face.

“I think he is,” Scott says, genuinely. Now with more context, it’s easy to think about Harris’ curious newbie-gaze and enthusiastic interest in Troy – a player around his age – as romantic interest. On second and third thought, yeah, he’s sure that’s what it is. He really has to text Kip about this.

Troy looks restless, now, so Scott barrels on, trying to dig deeper. “Is this the first guy you’ve been interested in?” Scott asks.

“Um, well, actually,” Troy breathes in, “I was in a pretty serious relationship before I got traded here. He, uh, cheated on me, though,” he finishes quietly, his head drooping down to lay on his knees.

Man, this kid. It feels like Scott’s looking in a mirror at his younger, even more unsure self. “Yeah, that happens sometimes, with some guys. But you know you deserve better, right?” Scott offers, trying to conjure up the kind of advice he could have used himself back then.

Troy turns his face back out from his knees to look up at Scott. “Yeah. I know that now,” he mumbles quietly, after a second.

Scott quirks his lips up in a small smile, and offers Troy a hand to get up off of the floor.

“Good. Now, let’s go find those shoes.”

Chapter End Notes

okay this is getting ridiculous why am I adding b-plots to this. Troy crashing out over his crush on Harris? sure, what the hell why not

this chapter took longer to write than I wanted it to because I was busy ragequitting about the gold match and couldn’t think a single thought until minimum 24 hours had past I'm not even joking lad

j'adorerais une traduction française de cette fanfiction, mais ça fait pas de sens parce que je traduis déjà les phrases français pour les lecteurs anglophones :/

Chapter 5: pov ilya dearest 2

Chapter Summary

Yuna answers on the second ring. “Ilya? What’s going on? I was watching the game, is Shane okay? Are you okay? Shane’s coach won’t answer my calls,” she asks, speaking rapidly, forcing Ilya’s brain to whirr and process translations as fast as it can manage.

Ilya takes too much on. Coach Wiebe and Yuna help.

Chapter Notes

#myIlya is sad and wanting and yearning and scared and misses his mom big time. Yuna is a queen forever. these are the facts

also...your comments have kept me running on this hamster wheel that I put myself in <3 thank you everyone (genuinely)

Coach Wiebe is furious when Ilya tells him what happened.

Ilya can relate: anger is bubbling up to the surface, but it makes him so uncomfortable, all the same. He doesn’t want to be like his father. It’s a mantra he keeps having to repeat to himself, in Russian, in English, in the barest French he knows from Shane.

Pas père. Not father. I am not my father.

He will not be violent about this. At least, not off the ice. During a game, violence is just part of playing – a fundamental tenant of hockey that he wouldn’t try to change. He enjoys giving a good elbow here, getting in a sneaky high stick there, and doing a few nearly-illegal board checks every season. Knocking out an opponent’s tooth makes him grin. Brawling on the ice livens up the game. Playing and fighting are one in the same to Ilya when his skates are laced up and a hockey stick is in his gloved-up hands.

But in his normal, everyday life – his perfect, boring life with his perfect, boring boyfriend – it’s just not what he does, not who he wants to be. Rage, hurt, and frustration simmer underneath his skin, making him feel itchy and uncomfortable. He wants to be back with his Shanezhka right now, but there are still things that need to be done.

Ilya feels the weight of responsibility and caretaking blanketing heavily over his back, seizing up his lungs with stress. It’s an old ache, one borne from trying desperately to take care of his mother at her lowest. Trying and failing, the dark part of his mind whispers, begging to be believed. Shane’s voice would help drown that thought out, if Ilya could be with him right now, but Shane needs calmness and reassurance, not whatever hateful thing is brewing in Ilya’s gut, curdling in his stomach, choking off the oxygen in his throat.

He wants to hurt the Metros’ players, and it’s an urge that scares him deeply. He wants to barge into their locker room and start swinging; let the static filling his brain take over the rest of his body and control his actions for a minute or two. He wants to break down. He wants to scream and cry and sob for his sweet and kind boyfriend, for himself, for the fact that this thing they love so much – hockey – will always hurt them because of who they are.

Ilya tries to take in desperately needed air, but chokes on it mid-inhale. Coach Wiebe puts a warm, rough hand on Ilya’s upper back, claps down once, twice. It keeps Ilya tethered to his own body, still able to see, hear, and feel through the fog he’s wandering in. The edge of Wiebe’s desk digs into the back of his thighs, and Ilya savours the small bite of pain that it offers, letting gravity take more of his body weight so the wood will cut in harder.

Wiebe, ever-perceptive, notices the move. “Let’s move to the couch,” he prompts, using his hand to guide Ilya onto the cracked leather surface of the old two-seater that’s been in this office at least as long as Ilya’s been on the team. It’s probably been here for twenty, thirty years longer than that. It’s a comforting thought.

Ilya is suddenly so grateful for his coach, for this man who could easily use his position of power to be needlessly cruel and tear Ilya down in this awful, vulnerable moment. Instead, he stays and provides comfort. Thank God for the Centaurs.

Ilya swallows, his throat feeling inhumanly dry. “Phone,” he rasps to Wiebe, “please, can I use your phone?”

Coach stands up and grabs the phone from the cradle on his desk wordlessly, stretching out the coiled cord to get it to cross the distance to the couch.

Ilya dials Yuna’s phone number from memory. She needs to know, before this situation with Shane gets out to the media somehow and gets completely out of Ilya’s control. He tries not to think about how it’s already so far out of his control that it might as well be in hundreds of pieces, shattered and laid out in front of him on the floor.

His breathing picks up. Coach looks away, trying to give Ilya some privacy.

Yuna answers on the second ring. “Ilya? What’s going on? I was watching the game, is Shane okay? Are you okay? Shane’s coach won’t answer my calls,” she asks, speaking rapidly, forcing Ilya’s brain to whirr and process translations as fast as it can manage.

“Am okay, Yuna, but Shane is…very not. He…” Ilya trails off, the words he wants to say getting jammed up between his vocal cords as his vision blurs. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t protect him, this happened because he loves me.

How do you tell your boyfriend’s mother that he got hurt because of you? What can Ilya possibly say that would exonerate him from what he already knows to be true: that he’s bad, rotten to the core, a cancerous thing that slowly infects everything good around him?

“Ilya. Ilya! Take a deep breath, please,” Yuna’s voice cuts through the haze that’s taken over Ilya’s vision, his mind. He realizes he’s been breathing hard into the phone’s receiver and cringes, moving it away from his face.

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath in, holding it and trying to collect his thoughts. He brings the phone back to his ear.

“Sorry. I am here. Shane is safe, with Luca Haas in the locker room. Coach Wiebe is here and I have told him all that happened–” Ilya tries to explain, stress and anxiety making the English words he needs slip from his tongue’s grasp, before Yuna cuts him off, kindly.

“Okay, Ilya, sweetheart, can you hand the phone to Coach Wiebe? He’ll explain and then give it back to you after so we can talk. It’s going to be okay, I promise,” she says, her words almost an echo of what Ilya had told Shane before coming in here. There aren’t a lot of people left in the world that Ilya loves, but he thinks that this woman is surely one of them. She’s good, at her centre.

Ilya passes the phone over to Wiebe, mumbling a quick Is Shane’s mother and sits back, putting the pendant of his necklace between his lips and worrying it in a desperate attempt to distract himself.

He tunes out the hushed phone conversation that’s now happening next to him, sinking back into the couch. He picks at a flaky piece of leather on the arm, tugging at it until it rips free. Damaging property that isn’t his to break – just one more thing that makes Ilya bad. He glances over at Coach, but the man doesn’t say anything to Ilya about it, despite him clearly tracking the picking movement with his eyes as he speaks to Yuna over the phone.

Minutes pass, and Ilya stays silent, continuing to shift and fidget restlessly. He goes pole-straight and drops the cross from his mouth when Wiebe gestures to him and puts the phone back into his hands.

Ilya takes a big, shaky breath in. Yuna won’t be mad. She doesn’t hate you, he tries to reassure himself, but the voice in his head sounds less like his own and more like Shane’s. My mom kinda used to hate you, yeah, but that was only when I was pretending to hate you. She loves you now, I promise. I love you.

“Yuna?” he whispers into the phone.

“Ilya, you’re okay,” Yuna soothes, and Ilya has to scrunch his face up to stop his eyes from watering. He’s not supposed to cry. Not now, not ever.

“I love you, Shane loves you, and you’re not alone,” Yuna continues, “David and I are going to help you both handle it. Coach Wiebe is going to help, and your team will, too. We’re making a plan. You’re not alone,” she says, and a dry sob comes up from Ilya’s throat.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, I am sorry, so, so sorry,” the words tumble out messily, hurriedly, Ilya trying to plead for some kind of intangible salvation. His lower lip wobbles, and he sucks it between his teeth to make it sit still.

“No sorries, Ilya. I just need you to do one thing for me, okay, honey?” Yuna asks, her voice going soft, open. It makes Ilya miss his own mother so badly that it feels like his heart is being torn in two.

“Will do anything, Mrs. Hollander, Yuna, anything,” he babbles down the line, nodding his head even though Yuna can’t see it. It’s a habit Ilya’s picked up from his Shanya, he’s sure.

He hears Yuna’s breath hitch, the sound getting muffled through the static of the call. After a terrifying second of silence, she speaks. “Just hold him for me, okay? I can’t be there right now to hold my baby, so I need you to do that for me, please,” and Ilya sags into the couch as the fight leaves his body completely.

“Yes, of course, I will hold him forever, I promise,” Ilya affirms, knowing that nothing else he’ll ever say will be more true than the words he’s speaking, promising, right now.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Yuna laughs, the sound wavering and wet with emotion. Ilya loves her. He loves her Shane. Shanya. Ilya wants to be back with his boyfriend, now.

He perches on the edge of the couch’s right cushion, finally feeling ready and safe to move, to go do something. “I will go now, okay? Love you, mom Yuna, and tell David I say love you too,” Ilya rushes, wanting to stay on the phone with her but so needing to go. He often feels like an elastic connects him and Shane – Ilya can’t go far for long before he gets pulled back. He goes willingly, every time. So, he needs to go.

“Talk to you soon, Ilya. We love you,” Yuna murmurs. They both sit, breathing into their receivers, sharing the same space in the universe for a moment despite being miles apart. One of them finally presses the ‘end call’ button and the line disconnects.

Ilya exhales, trying to sort out the cloud of complicated emotions that’s still floating around in his mind, fogging up any clear view of logical thought.

Coach Wiebe pipes up from his spot on the opposite couch arm. Ilya doesn’t jump. “No wonder Hollander is like that,” Wiebe comments, seeming thoughtful.

“Like what?” Ilya bristles momentarily, before remembering who he’s talking to. Coach likes Shane – seems to like him as a person, sure, but also likes and respects him as good competition on the ice.

Wiebe’s posture goes passive, placating. “I mean…he’s focused. Efficient. Kind. Has a good heart, underneath that stoic captain’s persona of his.”

Ilya gives the man a small, honest smile. “Hollander is very good, always,” he says, and then admits, “the stoic is not just per-sona.” His mind and mouth drag over semi-unfamiliar words. Stoic, but not unfeeling, not inhuman. His Shane is the most painfully human person that Ilya knows. It’s one small part of what makes him so loveable.

“And that mother – uh, Yuna – wow,” Coach says, a laugh curling his words upwards. He sounds surprised, maybe shocked. Ilya can relate. Yuna often surprises him, too.

We love you, Ilya.

“She says we are making plan?” Ilya asks. His future mother-in-law is nothing if not prepared, professional, and when she needs to be, ferociously protective.

“Oh yes, she had a twenty-step revenge strategy already laid out and ready to go,” Coach chuckles, but the sound isn’t mean or condescending. He seems to be genuinely considering whatever Yuna told him over the phone.

Ilya grins, all teeth. “I can get on board with that,” he says.

Coach puts a hand back on Ilya’s back. “Hey, keep it civil off the ice – and on it, too, at least for now, okay? We have to get through at least ten of those steps before physical retaliation comes into play,” he half-jokes.

“Yes, Coach,” Ilya parrots his usual response. Sounds like a very good plan.

Chapter End Notes

first name Coach, last name Wiebe

Crosby post-gold interview hurt me so bad I came here to commit terrible acts of torture and emotional acceptance

Chapter 6: pov yuna is a queen

Chapter Summary

Theriault makes an affirming noise. “There was a little prank, I think. I’m sure it was harmless – just players ribbing each other. Classic hockey stuff. Honestly, madame, if Hollander can’t handle it, then he might not belong in our locker room,” and then he ties a crooked, ugly bow on his little spiel with what sounds like a laugh.

A laugh. At her son’s expense.

Yuna takes a call and makes a call. David is a supportive partner.

Chapter Notes

she will burn down the streets of montreal...canada WATCH OUT [said in love actually voice]

hello lovely readers. I have NOT abandoned you, I just live a very busy life and have been mostly off-the-digital-grid as of late. trust and believe

Yuna’s at the desk in her home office when she gets the call.

She doesn’t consider herself a particularly anxious woman – ‘prepared’ is a much better word for the feelings of tension and overwork that tend to rule her life – but the game had given her every reason to panic.

The Metros had performed terribly. It’s not something she likes to admit, being a longtime Montreal fan, but the team’s playing today was measurably bad. So bad, in fact, that her favourite son (Shane – because while Ilya was quickly becoming a close second, he could never take the number one spot) had seemingly skipped out on his mandatory post-game interviews. Shane never did that. Yuna could only imagine what else was going on that would lead her son to make such a negative branding decision like that. After such a resounding loss, he really could have used the interviews to bring his image, and the team’s image, back up again, and leave the game on a better note than they had left the rink on.

Yuna knows that Shane knows better than to pass up a press opportunity like that – which is what really escalates her worry. Something is wrong.

And then Ilya calls her, and everything goes hazy around the edges.

This is what she had been afraid of, ever since Shane and Ilya had first come out to her and David. This exact scenario, or something even worse, with Shane at the centre of it. A primarily white NHL league and a nearly completely straight one almost guaranteed that her son would be the target of whatever hate got whipped around.

Because he’s different. Because he’s half-Japanese. Because he’s gay, now. Because he’s always struggled to make friends, to talk to his teammates, to say the ‘right’ thing or stand the ‘right’ way (even though Yuna still thinks he’s perfect, just like he was when he was first born) and when he wears suits, the construction of the shoulders always bothers him until he’s visibly fidgeting around, and –

By the time Yuna hangs up, her blood is boiling, and she’s grinding her back molars together. She’s staying externally calm and composed, maintaining her professional front even in the sanctuary of her own home office, but it feels like a volcano has taken up residence inside her body.

Her child. Her only child, her most favourite son, a man who tries so hard every day and has worked for years to be perfect for the league, who never complains about the unfair treatment he receives, whose discipline could crush his competitors in every aspect of his life, and then – his teammates chose to do something so awful, so heinous to him.

Yuna has a twenty-step plan. She’s had a twenty-step plan since she and David found out about Shane and Ilya being together. The plan covers contingencies; it covers worst-case scenarios, just like the one that’s happening right now. There are subheadings, follow-up tasks, backups on backups on backups. But suddenly, it’s like she can’t see anything before the last few bullet points. Destruction, fire, burning everything down.

Call the lawyer, she texts David, and waits to hear the notification from across the house. When the little ding sounds, Yuna makes her move.

She searches for Coach Theriault’s number in her contacts and presses ‘dial’, again, and again, and again, until he finally picks up.

“Allo?” Theriault answers. His gruff, unhurried tone makes Yuna want to throttle him with her bare hands.

“Mr. Theriault, this is Yuna Hollander, Shane Hollander’s manager,” she says, trying to keep her tone somewhat light, at least to begin with. She won’t, however, dignify this man by calling him ‘Coach’. He doesn’t deserve the title.

“Ah, yes, Mrs. Hollander, what do you need?” He asks casually, airily.

Yuna grits her teeth. The nerve of this man! “What do I need? What do I need? Do you know what happened to my son today?”

Theriault makes an affirming noise. “There was a little prank, I think. I’m sure it was harmless – just players ribbing each other. Classic hockey stuff. Honestly, madame, if Hollander can’t handle it, then he might not belong in our locker room,” and then he ties a crooked, ugly bow on his little spiel with what sounds like a laugh.

A laugh. At her son’s expense.

Yuna mutes herself.

“Fuck! Mangeur de marde! Fucking pissou! Fuck! Fucking fuck!”

She swears a few more times, in every other language that she knows.

David pokes his head into the office room. What’s going on, he mouths. All Yuna can do is shake her head and clench her fists.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath and unmutes herself.

“I could understand if you felt that he just wasn’t gelling with the team, but he’s the captain, and has been for a while, now, as you know. So, I’ll have to assume when you say ‘might not belong’, you’re referring to his sexuality? Or is it his heritage? I think my family’s lawyer, who has worked closely with a number of international hockey leagues on discrimination-based cases, would be very interested to hear about exactly what makes Shane not belong,” she hisses, channeling every bit of venom rising up in her body into her tone.

David comes over to massage her shoulders. Lovely man. The touch grounds Yuna, enough to keep her breathing level and the frustrated tears at bay.

Theriault’s voice comes through the phone’s top speaker, sounding far-away and tinny. “Well, that’s…” he trails off.

“That’s what? Please, say more,” Yuna spits angrily, wetly. One of David’s hands moves up to stroke her hair with feather-light motions.

The air coming through the line buzzes for almost a full minute, before Theriault’s horrible, grating voice returns to fill the empty space. “That’s something I cannot comment on, madame, and – the team’s communications manager will be in contact to you. Goodbye,” he rushes out, before evidently ending the call with a click.

“Hold on, don’t you dare–” Yuna rips the phone away from her ear as the dial tone rings out loudly. “Oh, you’re kidding me!”

“Just take a breath,” David says, and Yuna’s frustration crests before calming again as she processes the advice. It’s rational, logical. She breathes in, then out.

After a few quiet moments, David speaks up. “Who was that?”

“Theriault, Shane’s…well, the team’s coach,” Yuna replies, correcting her own words as she says them out loud. God knows he won’t be the team’s coach, or even a league-level coach much longer, not after I’m done with him, she thinks, prays.

“Not Shane’s coach?” David asks, his hand in Yuna’s hair slowing to a stop and dropping back down to her shoulders.

“Not anymore, I don’t think,” Yuna says, turning around to move into her husband’s arms.

David nuzzles his chin against the top of Yuna’s head. “What are you thinking? Tell me what’s on your mind,” he prompts.

“We need to get Shane traded, right away,” Yuna whispers. The thought of her son not being on the Metros, even after everything that’s just happened, hurts. A chapter of Shane’s life has just closed, whether he knows it yet or not. Whatever comes next will unquestionably be a significant and difficult adjustment for him.

Selfishly, though, Yuna wants to mourn this loss for herself. Just for a minute, she wants to be allowed to consider what she’s losing, too.

The thought makes Yuna want to curl up in shame. This is about Shane. About her flesh and blood, her hardworking, perfect son. But –

It’s also about her.

She’s loved this team for as long as she can remember. It was the team she watched together with her dad, trying to bond with him as she was maturing into a young woman and growing into her own agency during her early twenties. Yearning for connection, for a warmth that was always flickering but never truly comfortably alight between them.

Yuna hadn’t been expecting to like hockey, nor the Montreal Metros, when she’d started watching. Hockey was never ‘for girls’ or ‘for women’, and certainly not for women like her. Sports were for boys, and hockey was for white boys – rich white boys. The expectations set out for Yuna were clear: stay focused, work hard, cultivate a successful career, and then step back to focus on family.

But then she’d fallen in love with hockey. With the high of watching a winning game, with the head-spinning speed of the players, with the raw passion and fire they showed on the ice. It ignited something in Yuna, a twin flame that burned and licked at her fingertips until she paid it attention; until she fostered it, fed it, allowed it to grow.

And grow, it did: big enough to drive and define the biggest parts of her life. Yuna had transferred out of her law program at Concordia (much to her family’s dismay) and into McGill’s Faculty of Management shortly after coming to the realization that she wanted to be involved in the game in any way she could. She met David during that first year when he was playing for the university’s team, and they dated steadily for almost a decade before finally getting married.

When they had a son, Yuna insisted that they put him in skating and hockey programs from the minute he could walk. And when Shane had shown a real interest in – and raw talent for – ice hockey, Yuna had quickly focused in on becoming the best possible advocate and manager for her son. She spent every hour of every day using her education, skills, and connections to set Shane up with everything he could possibly need for a long and successful career.

It felt like all of Yuna’s hard work had finally paid off in kind when Shane was drafted as the second overall pick in the first round, and to the Metros, no less.

And now, Yuna was going to need to put all of her energy into getting Shane traded.

The familiar sound of her husband’s voice breaks through the fog, and just like that, her minute is up. “It’s that bad?” David presses.

An involuntary shudder rolls through Yuna. “It’s – it’s worse, David, it’s so much worse. The things they did to him…ruining his clothes, his uniform, god, probably more, too, I only know what Ilya’s coach told me,” she chokes out.

David pulls back from their embrace to look down at Yuna. “Ilya called you?” he asks, his voice easily betraying his surprise. Yuna knows David feels protective over Ilya – his second son, too.

“He could barely speak, I mean, he was just panicking,” Yuna tries to explain, but words just aren’t enough. How can she possibly convey all of the frustration, the defeat, the fear that Ilya’s voice had held? He’d barely spoken on the phone call, but those precious few sentences had been more than enough to show Yuna exactly how Ilya was feeling.

David sighs, a long, tired-sounding sigh. After a moment, though, his chest puffs up and comes back to life. “Should we go to the rink?” he suggests, helpfully, quietly, hopefully.

Yuna chews her lower lip – a bad habit she never quite got rid of from teenagehood – before releasing a bubbled-up breath. Anxiety keeps rolling through her, though, buzzing at her fingertips and travelling in jagged lines right down to her toes.

“It’s not the worst idea, but – I don’t want to encroach, you know,” Yuna offers up. She’s been trying to give Shane and Ilya a little space as a couple. It’s not an easy thing for her, but she’s been trying.

“I think, if there was ever a time to encroach, this is it,” David says, sagely. He sounds determined, but Yuna needs – she just needs a second.

And so, she takes a quiet moment just to breathe and adjust to the idea. It’s fine. This is fine, and it’s going to be fine.

“You’re right. It’s a good idea. Let’s go,” Yuna says, breaking away from David’s embrace and reaching for her discarded phone. She works it into the back pocket of her jeans as she pads quickly towards the front of the house. Phone, wallet, keys.

Yuna grabs her purse from the entranceway table with gusto, moving with a part-calm, part-frantic sense of momentum. She slips the closest pair of her shoes on, bending and flattening the squeaky leather underneath her heels. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but it can be fixed in the car – phone, yes, wallet, yes, keys next.

She fishes around in the key bowl for her set with such urgency that the ceramic rattles against the table underneath it from the force, startling her. Everything comes to an abrupt stop as her body locks up and refuses to go any further, stress and panic and grief overwhelming her in a huge, formless wave.

The sharp metal of the keys dig into the palm of her clenched hand. I’m sweating, she realizes distantly. What if my hands are too sweaty to hold onto the steering wheel? What if I crash and never make it to the rink? Shane needs me, I have to get there, no one else can fix this.

David comes up to her. “Let me,” he says, gently coaxing the keys from Yuna’s grip.

“I can do it,” she protests weakly. She can. She can do this!

“I know you can. But please, let me do this anyways,” David replies, and suddenly Yuna can breathe again, big, beautiful lungfulls of air.

She doesn’t have to do this alone. She’s never really been doing any of this alone, not since she met her best friend and partner. The world has been steadfastly telling her for decades that her role as a woman, a wife, and a mother is to bear the burden of responsibility squarely on her own shoulders and never let it spill off onto anyone else’s back, but somewhere in that Sisyphean uphill crawl, David grew to become her anchor point and a much-needed lifeline. Lovely, perfect man.

“I love you,” Yuna breathes.

Her husband smiles, the rare kind of soft smile that David reserves just for her. “I love you too,” David says. “Come on, let’s go get our boy.”

Chapter End Notes

Shane got his swearing from somewhere (yes, hockey) (but maybe also Yuna)

important thing...apparently we now consider em dashes to be an AI thing? that makes me so sad because I obviously love em dashes…I feel like they can really add a lot to the pacing of narration and dialogue and so forth. SO, LET IT BE KNOWN: this is NOT written by AI, nor made with the use of AI in any way. I don't need a robot to make up lore about Yuna Hollander when I can literally just do that for fun with my own mind