Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

Gen

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander & Scott Hunter, Scott Hunter & Carter Vaughn

Characters:

Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Carter Vaughn, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Chirping, Apologies, Shane Hollander and Scott Hunter's Fight in Episode: s01e03 Hunter, Scott Hunter Knows About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Good Friend Carter Vaughn, Anxious Shane Hollander, Good Friend Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Mentioned Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Chirps

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Incremental Gains

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-11 Words: 2,420 Chapters: 2/2

Apologies

Summary

After a pair of bad losses, Scott said something he shouldn't have. Now, he needs to figure out how to apologize for a secret he's not supposed to know.

Episode 3 what-happened-after fic.

Notes

Thanks to ladyamesindy for the beta :)

Chapter 1: Hunter

The sweat ran down the back of his neck, a reminder of how hard he’d been trying.  And how little it had mattered.

“We’re six games into this season.  A season he - he called - “need to win”.  Those are his words.”

Sports pundits ran off at the mouth every day.  He wasn’t sure why that one interview had stayed with him for weeks now.  Maybe because it had been a bad start to what turned into a great day.  The kind of day a guy didn’t forget.

“I am…very sorry about that.”  The man smiled, trying to hide his concern that he’d upset a new customer.  It was a beautiful smile.  “How may I help you?”

Collapsing onto the bench in the locker room, Scott yanked off his helmet and tilted his head back, trying to remember how to breathe.  How to think.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Fuck.

“Yo, Hunter, what the fuck?”  Dropping on to the bench next to him, Carter was staring at him, wide eyed.  “What happened out there?”

The sharp sound of skates on ice as Hollander came to a stop a few feet away.  “Hope next time we play you decide to show up.”

Swallowing around his calming emotions, Scott stared at the ceiling.  “Nothing.  Kid got under my skin.”

Carter laughed.  “Uh…yeah.  Hollander gets under everyone’s skin.  His team has an obnoxious habit of winning.”

They did, but their captain didn’t usually chirp about it afterwards.  That was someone else’s calling card.

“Hey, Hunter!”  He could hear the cheeky grin in Rozanov’s voice.  “Too bad you can’t play at home every night, right?  Is better for you, huh?”

And that had been the thing.  It wasn’t what Hollander had said; it was that he said it on the heels of losing to a guy Scott would have expected such a chirp from.  Salt in the wound, even if he’d started to suspect Rozanov wasn’t the asshole he’d spent so many years carefully convincing everyone he was.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

Fuck.

“Kid got under my skin,” Scott repeated.  He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as the rest of the team filed into the locker room.  Frustration and confusion and “better luck next time”s filling the space as the guys started their post-game rituals and packing their gear.

For all that Carter Vaughn gave the impression of a man who was too cheerful to be clever, he was remarkably good at reading his own team.  Sensing that this wasn’t laundry Scott wanted aired, he leaned in, speaking under the general noise.  “That really all this is?”

Scott glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and said nothing.

“Because the Scotty I know can take a loss,” Carter went on.  “Not always graciously - none of us can - but fighting the other team’s captain?  Fighting Hollander?”  Carter raised his eyebrows.  “Kinda rude to hit a guy for saying ‘good game’.”

“He didn’t say good game,” Scott muttered.

Carter’s eyebrows rose a little higher.  “No shit?  Goody-two-shoes Hollander chirped at you?  After a win like that?”

Losing 5-1 put most players in a bad mood.

Scott spat on the ground between his feet, ignoring the look of reprimand from Demeter for doing so in the locker room, and nodded.  “And I wasn’t in the mood to be sportsmanlike about it.”

Sitting up, Carter laughed.  Loudly enough to pull attention, except it was Carter, and he was always laughing.  “Good for him!”  He slapped Scott on the back with a grin.  “I mean, not when it pisses the other guy off so badly he starts a fight after the game ends, but damn.  I didn’t think Hollander had it in him.”  A smaller laugh, almost a shrug of the shoulders.  “That’s such a fucking Rozanov move, man!”

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

“Yeah,” Scott agreed softly.  Almost more to himself.

Beside him, Carter rolled his eyes in an unnecessarily dramatic fashion.  “Oh, is that what this is?”  Too clever for his own good.  “Rozanov beat us last night, and his dear sweet frenemy beat us even worse tonight?”

God, it sucked to have his pride prodded like this.

But it was Carter, and he was a friend, even as he leaned over to knock his shoulder against Scott’s.  “Scotty, you can’t let those two tag team you.  They’re enough trouble on their own.”

Seeing the opening for what it was, Scott dropped his head in defeat.  His third in two days, the mean voice in the back of his head whispered.  But this was a loss that didn’t sting nearly as much.  Not when Carter wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true and was grinning like an idiot while he said it.

Grinning like an idiot and confirming that what had been obvious to Scott was not obvious to everyone else.  At least, not in the same way.

And that was a good thing.

Whatever those two had going on, it shouldn’t be public knowledge unless they wanted it to be.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

Though they could maybe be a little more subtle about it sometimes.  Chirps on the ice weren’t the first time in the last few years Scott had clocked them.  There was that change in how Rozanov flicked the puck.  The way Hollander tied his skates these days.  Nevermind the face offs that had the wrong kind of tension or the smiles when the other was mentioned that didn’t quite make sense for a rival they wanted to pummel into the ground.

But whatever they had, and however much losing had pissed him off this weekend in particular, Scott had crossed a line out there.  It hadn’t been on purpose; the words had popped out before he knew what he was saying.  But doubling down on them - that had been his temper getting the better of him, and he was better than that.  Nobody made captain without being better than that.

He’d have to find a way to make it right.  To let Hollander know in some small way that while Scott knew something, what he really knew was how to keep his mouth shut.

He’d been doing it for years, after all.

Just not tonight.

Carter shoulder-checked him again, a little harder this time.  “Come on.  Let’s get showered and packed up.  Those consolation beers aren’t gonna drink themselves.”

Scott allowed himself a grin as he nodded.  “No, they’re not.”  And as Carter celebrated his second victory of the night, Scott sat up and started pulling off his jersey.  They didn’t play the Metros again for a few weeks - that gave Scott enough time to come up with something subtle but sincere.  Something that would, inevitably, confirm what Hollander certainly didn’t want him to know, but make it clear that it didn’t matter.

And it never would.

Chapter 2: Hollander

Pulling his jersey up to rub the sweat off his face, Shane looked up as Hunter skated to a stop next to him.  Shane nodded at him, his voice breathy from exertion.  “Good game.”

Hunter nodded back, that famously intense gaze roaming over their teammates as he spoke.  “Yeah, well…last time you told me you hoped next time we played I’d show up.”  Brown eyes cut down to his face as Hunter’s lips twitched in a smile.  “Brutal enough loss for ya?”

It was a lighthearted comment, but Hunter had chosen his words on purpose.  Like maybe he had last time.

Straightening up, Shane felt the adrenaline of a game hard lost start to turn to a different kind of energy.  He gripped his stick, hoping he wasn’t about to toss it aside.  “We both said things before that fight.”

He’d made his voice hard, because Hunter had never done anything to make Shane think he was an asshole.  Never said the kinds of things most guys did when they didn’t know how else to chirp.  But that didn’t mean there wasn’t an asshole behind that professional mask.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

But Hunter didn’t hit back tonight.  Holding Shane’s gaze long enough for it to mean something, Hunter lowered his head in a nod.  Conceding.  “I crossed a line.  I’m sorry.”

The words were vague, but somehow they still felt like a blow to the chest.  “Look, I don’t know what you think you know -”

“I don’t know anything.”  Hunter’s voice was clear but quiet.  Mindful that the shouts from the fans and the noise of hockey teams clearing the ice didn’t cover everything.  He cleared his throat before he went on.  “And if I did, it wouldn’t be any of my business.”

It had kept Shane up that night.  Pacing his bedroom until the texture of the rug against his feet had really started to bother him and he’d found his way to pacing the laminate flooring of his kitchen.  And even then, when the three am panic started to settle in - because no one makes good choices at three in the morning - Shane hadn’t called him.  Hadn’t even fished his phone out of his pocket to answer the texts from “Lily” about how they’d pounded the Admirals into the ground and what a certain someone was planning to do about it the next time they met up.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

Those few little words had haunted Shane because how could Hunter have known?

But after the sun came up and he’d made his usual breakfast smoothie and Hayden had sent his morning ritual of exhausted parent texts, another conversation with Hunter had floated back to him.  Another handful of words that had nibbled away at him until Shane forgot them.

“Lucky me.”  Hunter didn’t sound like he meant it.  “I’m in the room next door to him at the hotel.”

It had been years ago.  Rozanov had immediately brushed any possible concern away when Shane had asked him about it in said hotel room, nervously darting glances at the connecting wall.  But nothing had come of it and Shane had honestly forgotten all about the awkward encounter in the player’s box.

But if they’d been wrong and Hunter had understood what Rozanov was saying, then…

Then he’d known about them for years.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

And never said anything before Shane chirped at him after a particularly brutal loss.  A loss on the heels of losing to the Boston Raiders the night before…

Hunter was watching him, intense gaze catching who knew what details from Shane’s expression or body language.  An older player - an older person - who’d always been good about socializing and reading a room.  A skill set Shane had found himself envying more than once.

Licking his lips, Shane looked Hunter in the eyes.  “I’m sorry, too.  I don’t usually chirp…after a game.”  He tried for a small smile of his own.  “Definitely not after a game I just won.”  Throwing out the only olive branch he could think of, still fighting with the panic that was realizing somebody knew.

But it must have been the right thing to say because Hunter laughed.  “Yeah, well…on a different night, I wouldn’t have snapped like that.”  Then the other man was back to being serious.  “It won’t happen again, Hollander.  I promise.”

Shane watched Hunter for a moment before nodding, accepting the sincerity in the older man’s voice.  Wondering what other secrets someone like Scott Hunter kept.  “OK.”

But something in his voice or his stance didn’t convince the captain of the Admirals.  Hunter watched him, brows furrowed as he thought about…something…and Shane felt his nerves start to kick up again.  Because they could talk for a couple of minutes, maybe, but there were cameras and fans and other players and -

Under the guise of friendly aggression, Hunter reached over and punched him in the shoulder, jostling Shane gently on his skates.  His thoughtful expression had changed into a wide grin, the kind most players wore when they’d said something teasing and hopefully clever.

If anyone was looking, they’d think Hunter was heckling him, but not too badly.

But when he spoke, Hunter’s voice was almost gentle.  An olive branch in return, if a strange one.  “Another thing I don’t know, kid - sometimes, he’s started to sound like you.”

Shane stayed where he was, watching Hunter skate off toward his own team.  Seamlessly slipping back into the roll of boisterous and victorious teammate, catching Carter Vaughn around the shoulders and half dragging his teammate to the ground with the unexpected move.

Hunter didn’t glance back once after he’d turned away.

“He’s started to sound like you.”

It should terrify him.  It did terrify him.  If he and Rozanov were so much involved in each other’s lives that an outsider could see their influence on each other, then that meant they weren’t keeping their secret very well.  That meant someone else could see.  That meant someone else could know -

“Lucky me.  I’m in the room next door to him at the hotel.”

Hunter had known about them since almost the beginning.  He’d said nothing, to anyone, because this kind of relationship would have burned both their careers before they’d ever gotten started.  Rozanov might have been dragged all the way back to Russia over it.  But if Hunter had known, even if he’d never said anything, he still…would have known.  He would have seen a hundred little moments that meant nothing to anyone and…known.

“He’s started to sound like you.”

It should terrify him, but as Hayden skated past and thumped him on the shoulder, Shane felt something deep inside his chest start to grow warm.  Something that usually he pretended wasn’t there, because this thing he and Rozanov had - it was casual.  Easy.

Rozanov was giving him that look again.  Eyebrow cocked, mouth turned down in a frustrated frown.  “Is just sex, Hollander.”

Except when the three am panic set in this time, Shane knew it wouldn’t be about a handful of words Scott Hunter had said to him on the ice after a game.  And he was pretty sure he still wouldn’t text Rozanov about it this time, either.

Because it had terrified him a few weeks ago to think they’d been found out.  But now, knowing…what he knew now…what Hunter knew…maybe he didn’t hate it.  That he’d started to sound like someone else.

Someone, of course, that Hunter knew nothing about.