Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Carter Vaughn, Kip Grady, Gilbert Comeau, Patrice Drapeau

Additional Tags:

POV Outsider, 5+1 Things, WAG Ilya Rozanov, Figure Skater Ilya Rozanov, FTM Ilya Rozanov, Trans Male Character, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Coming Out, unintentional misgendering, Gender Identity, An Outside POV on Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov's Voyage of Queer Identity Exploration, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Misogyny, Homophobic Language

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of the drugs are cursed (and boys will be girls)

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-19 Completed: 2026-04-03 Words: 13,309 Chapters: 6/6

boys will be girls

Summary

Shane Hollander’s life revolves around hockey to an almost concerning degree. The assumption by pretty much everyone who knows him is that Shane therefore has no time for love. Then they meet Liliya Rozanova, Russia’s darling figure skater and Hollander’s apparently long-time girlfriend. There’s something about this situation that isn’t quite right.

or - five times Shane introduces people his girlfriend, Liliya Rozanova, and the one time that everybody is introduced to Ilya Rozanov, his long-term boyfriend.

Notes

FTM Ilya Rozanov is living rent free in my head right now.

Fair warning, Ilya is misgendered throughout - this isn't out of malice but because he isn't out in the POVs of everyone who interacts with him in the first five chapters. Whilst this is somewhat modelled on my experiences of exploring gender and sexuality, everybody's experience is different and I hope that I have portrayed this sensitively enough. <3 <3

Chapter 1: J.J. Boiziau, 2011

Shane Hollander in the club was the funny sort of image that J.J. was going to be thinking about for a very long time. It was very clear that Hollzy had not given much thought to the club before, and he seemed very much like a fish out of water, standing awkwardly off to one side with a ginger ale in one hand - a white knuckled death grip - and wearing a Montréal fleece like it was not sweaty and boiling in the pulsing confines of the club. J.J. would have felt bad for the guy if it wasn’t such an amusing sight.

“Is Pike gone?” J.J. asked, gesturing to the empty space where Hayden Pike, Hollzy’s right hand man, had been standing pretty much all night, even if Hayden himself seemed like the kind of man who enjoyed a good night out.

Hollzy pointed across the club floor and to the exit. There was Hayden, sneaking out, with a cute blonde in tow, her hand firmly in his and the height difference between them pretty comical. She was attractive, and definitely up for a good fuck by the looks of it, but there was something in the way that Hayden was looking at her, like she could tell him to walk off the edge of a cliff, and he would do it for her, without question. Hopeless, J.J. thought, and settled against the wall beside Hollzy with another thought of hopeless.

J.J. wouldn’t abandon Shane in the clubs, of course, because he wasn’t a dick, but any chance he’d had of getting laid tonight had hinged on Hayden staying beside Hollzy, which clearly was not happening anymore. It was a shame; there was a brunette at the bar who had been given him a luck. But alas, the rules of going out meant either only of them or all of them would get laid, and Hollander was the sort of guy who probably had wet dreams about hockey statistics. They guys had asked Hollzy about his love life once - they had needed chirp material - and Hollzy had said he’d had a girl through juniors, but she’d broken up with him. He didn’t seem too broken up about it.

“You want to head back?” he asked, knocking his elbow against Hollander’s. The club was not Hollander’s scene - and all jokes aside, J.J. liked the guy’s company. He was odd and intense, but the guy was funny when you listened to what he was saying, and the sort of friend J.J. had never considered wanting but was rapidly beginning to think was a better friend than pretty much all the friends he had had before in his life. “We can have a nightcap in the room.”

“Head back?” said a voice to his left. “But the night is so young. Are Canadians really as boring as this?”

The hottest woman that J.J. had ever seen was stood beside him, having materialised from nowhere that he could see. And fuck, J.J. had never hated Hayden Pike for bailing out to get laid more than he did now. She was gorgeous, with long, lean legs for days and an ass hugged by the tiny leather skirt that she was wearing. J.J. looked her up and down, eyes trawling over the sheer vest that she was wearing and thought about what it might be like to take it off, to run his hands through the blond hair that she had slicked back with gel, though the ends tumbled loose and free down her back. There was a sultry come hither look on her face, accentuated by her pouty lips and the smoky eye make-up that she was wearing. And that accent - European, somewhere.

“Hey, darling,” he drawled. Flirtation wouldn’t hurt, surely - or maybe Hollander would understand? But those were the thoughts of a bad friend and J.J. was not trying to be a bad friend.

The woman scowled at him. “What do you want? Pity fuck?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said what do you want,” she enunciated, dragging out the words to a painstaking and mocking drawl. “Nothing? Cat has tongue, as you fuckers say? Da? I do not want to talk to you.” Then she levelled a beckoning finger at Hollzy, who had straightened to attention besides J.J. with a look of panic on his face. “Hello, pretty boy. You come here often?” she purred. “You down to fuck?”

J.J. spluttered incoherently, eyes darting between this strange woman and Shane.

He had never seen this look on Hollander’s face before, never seen this tumult of feelings rear their head to play across his expression. And he didn’t think that Hollander had experienced whatever the fuck he was feeling before either, because the look on his face was the look he got in tape review when passes weren’t connecting and he couldn’t understand why. Namely, this meant that Shane kind of looked like he was going to murder this woman and wear her skin, or something equally deranged, though J.J. was pretty sure that Hollzy was actually turned on and didn’t know what to do with it. But fuck, this girl was going to get the wrong idea and Hollzy was going to scare her away -

“I’m with my friend, thanks,” said Shane, a clear refusal.

J.J. was very tempted to smack some sense into him.

“I am more interesting than your friend,” the woman said. “Is promise. You will have fun. I will make it worth your time.”

“Hollzy,” J.J. whispered urgently to his friend. “Shane, a beautiful woman is asking you to go home with her. You go home with the beautiful woman.”

“Is hotel room,” said the woman. “But I make up for it.”

Shane wrinkled his nose, and the woman said, “I will take offence, if that is how you look when you think of fucking me.”

“I don’t even know your name,” Shane protested.

“Liliya,” she said. “Liliya Rozanova. I am big fan of yours.”

“The Voyageurs have been good so far,” Shane said, because he was always thinking about the Voyageurs.

Liliya Rozanova wrinkled her nose. “Voyageurs are stupid team. I only support good hockey - like Boston. Or you, Shane Hollander. And I would like you to come home so that I can fuck you, because you are very good to watch on ice and I like only to have the best.”

“The Voyageurs are not stupid,” argued Shane, and he looked actually offended by it, like he was going to throw gloves with some random chick in a club over the honour of their team.

“I want to fuck you,” Liliya Rozanova repeated. “Maybe you tell me then why Voyageurs are not worst team in the NHL, except for Buffalo and the dinosaur Scott Hunter’s team. Is pillow talk. Very romantic.”

Shane eyed her up. He looked intrigued, despite himself.  “You’re Liliya Rozanova. The figure skater. You’re very good.”

“I’m the best,” she corrected.

J.J. wondered if maybe Hollander’s love of hockey was hiding a competency kink or something, because he looked more receptive to Liliya Rozanova’s (and now the name felt somewhat familiar) advances when she was talking about how good she was on the ice than when she was talking about what J.J. was enviously considering to be probably the most mind-blowing sex Hollander could ever be offered.

“Fucking get laid, man,” J.J. hissed, nudging Hollzy closer to Liliya Rozanova. “I’m going to…” He gestured vaguely at the bar; the brunette was still sat there, still glancing over at him periodically. He would buy her two drinks, he decided, and then invite her back to his apartment, and if she wanted to fuck, he would make sure that it was the best time of her life.

He did not see Hollzy leave the bar with Liliya Rozanova, but he did see the hickeys that she had left on him the day after in the locker room. It was an impressive array of red and purpling skin, and when Shane turned so that his back was to J.J., he hated neat scratch marks scored down his skin. No one else noticed, because they did not look for these things from Shane. J.J. waited until Shane had his gear on to whistle.

“I wouldn’t be getting changed in front of the guys if you want to keep this on the down low,” J.J. muttered to him.

“What?” said Shane. He was bright red.

“Your girl has left some serious damage on you, Hollzy. Good time?”

Shane shrugged, but his brow furrowed like he was thinking about. For Shane Hollander, who never thought about anything else when he was on the ice or ready for the ice, the expression spoke volumes. The furrow stayed all of practice; the thought, it seemed, was sticking around for a while.

Chapter 2: Yuna Hollander, 2011

The first thing that Yuna Hollander heard about her boy inviting someone else to join them at the NHL awards was the morning of, when they stood in a Vegas hotel room making sure that his suit fit properly and he was comfortable. She’d been straightening his tie, hands deft and sure as she fussed with his collar, and David had been sat at the desk in the corner, buffing Shane’s dress shoes until they shone. They were determined to make a good impression; this was the culmination of all Shane’s hard years of effort, the recognition of the fact that he was maybe a once in a generational talent and it was all down to him. Yuna was not one for tears, but she was proud enough in that moment that they burned at the back of her throat and behind her eyes, where a pressure was rapidly building. She had thought it was just a headache, until David had pointed out the way she had been picking at the skin of her cuticles.

Shane was on his phone, texting. Hayden Pike, she’d assumed. Then Shane said, “hey, is it okay if my girlfriend stops by the room? She thinks that she left her makeup bag here last night.”

Yuna had not known that Shane’s girlfriend was in Vegas, or that she had stayed over in his hotel room long enough to leave a makeup bag in the room. Yuna had not even known that Shane had a girlfriend. Usually, he told her about these things. Yuna had met all his girlfriends (all two of them) and was chill enough (she hoped) that it had never been a thing, having Shane introduce his girlfriends to the parents. At the desk, David’s hands paused their polishing briefly before resuming. He was glancing up at Shane from the corner of his eyes though - keeping his distance, because both of them springing their attention to Shane was a sure fire way to overwhelm him, but patiently waiting for the point where he would be able to involve himself.

Her hands still on Shane’s tie, Yuna had free rein to examine her son. On the surface, he seemed calm, like this was something that he had just casually dropped into conversation because it was not such a big deal for him. His face was placid, calm, in the way that it often was when he was not having to force smiles for sponsors and team partners. But Yuna knew her boy, and she saw the way that his eyes seemed especially restless, the way that his breathing was just a little too calm, too regulated, as if he was practicing it.

This meant something to him. She just didn’t know what yet.

“Of course,” she said, brushing away an imaginary piece of lint from his shoulders so that she had an excuse to keep touching him. Shane hated to admit that it helped, but physical contact was grounding, she knew. Not always, but she took a punt that it would be now. He didn’t brush her away. “Is she, er, staying in the hotel as well?”

Shane sent away a text. Letting her know that she could collect her makeup bag? “Yeah,” he said. “A couple of floors down.” He paused. “I wanted you guys to meet her. It’s, yeah. I wanted you to meet her.”

“What’s her name?” asked David, because he knew the right way to ask questions without sounding accusatory. Yuna did not. She was fighting to bite her tongue.

“Liliya Rozanova,” replied Shane. “Most people over here just call her Lily though.”

“The figure skater?” asked Yuna, her tone maybe somewhat sharper than she intended.

But she knew that name - Liliya Rozanova. She’d seen her skate before. She was good. Very good. Record breaking in Russia, and now emerging promisingly onto an international stage. She’d placed fourth at the Winter Olympics last year in her short programme, and won bronze in her free skate. There had been some people who had said that Rozanova should have gotten the gold in the first - that had been before the judges that hit her with a penalty for illegal components in her routine. The backflip she had executed half way through her routine had been perfect - maybe not as impressive as Bonaly in ‘98, but the ground had gone electric. Yuna, David and Shane had been in attendance, she remembered, since the games were being held in Vancouver. Shane had watched as Liliya Rozanova spiralled across the ice and Yuna had watched as he had drunk in every moment of the routine. It had been, Yuna had thought, a very professional sort of appreciation, because Shane loved the ice just as much as he loved hockey, and Liliya Rozanova had seemed to be the queen of it.

Now, she was wondering if she had understated the admiration her son had felt for her.

Shane nodded. “Yeah. We met in a club in Montréal earlier this year and we’ve been, er, hanging out.”

“Hanging out?” David observed wryly. “Is that what the cool kids are calling dating these days?”

Shane flushed red. “I mean, it’s not serious. We have really busy schedules. She splits her time between Boston, Moscow and wherever her next competition is. It’s just - we’re seeing each other. Casually.”

“Are you being safe?” Yuna asked.

“Mom,” groaned Shane. His hands went up to cover his face.

“Look,” she said, but Shane was spared whatever it was she was about to say (and really, Yuna was not sure herself, because she had never really thought about being in this situation with Shane) by a knock on the door.

Shane was scrambling to answer it before she could say anything else.

And then he was leading Liliya Rozanova in by the hand, and Yuna didn’t really know what she had been expecting from the Russian figure skater but it was not this. Liliya Rozanova, who was brash and sharp and cold enough to cut in her interviews, seemed shy as Shane drew her in, not quite able to hide behind him because she was taller than he was but certainly trying her best to. She looked almost uncertain in her skin, like she was uncomfortable and on edge and waiting to bolt the moment that anybody made any sudden movements; she looked young, in a pair of leggings and an overlarge Boston Bears tee shirt that engulfed her completely.

Then she saw that Yuna was watching her, and her spine straightened, her expression rearranging itself into something cocksure and confident and, at least Yuna was pretty certain this was the case, a front meant to make her look more comfortable than she was.

“Hello,” she said. Her English was thick and heavy.

“This is Liliya,” said Shane. “Liliya, this my mom and dad.”

“Most people call me Lily,” said Liliya. “Is more American.”

“What do you want to be called?” asked Yuna, and watched as Liliya froze.

“I left makeup bag in…” She gestured vaguely at Shane’s bathroom and made a break for it in a way that made Yuna feel as though she was beating a retreat. The door shut behind her, which Yuna did not think was necessary for finding a bag.

Shane watched her go. “She’s nervous, I think,” he said, looking after Liliya like he was curious about her, trying to catalogue all the ways she responded to him and to them. “She doesn’t talk about her family.”

“Is she attending the awards tonight?” asked David, which was a good question.

Shane nodded. “Yeah. I was actually wondering whether you guys could sit with her? I don’t think she knows many people.”

Yuna wanted to understand what Shane was thinking, more in this moment than she ever had before. Did he love her? Was it to early for that? Did they want to be serious? Were they exclusive? It seemed like such a massive thing, inviting Liliya to an event that would define the trajectory of his career from here on out - either he would be recognised as the rising talent he was, or he wouldn’t be, and that snub would follow him for years after tonight.

“Of course,” said David. “We’ll take good care of her.”

The bathroom door swung open, and Liliya was stood there, clutching a little bag to her chest. She seemed a lot more collected now, much closer to the Liliya Rozanova that was portrayed in interviews, and she met Yuna’s eyes a ot more confidently.

Shane reached out to her, brushing his fingers carefully over the skin of her hip when she drew close enough.

“Hollander speaks often of you,” she said. Then, almost correctively, “Shane. Shane speaks often of you.”

Shane’s lips twitched, amused.

“I’ve seen you skate before,” said Yuna. “You were very good.”

As if second nature, Liliya replied, “someone has to perform in this relationship.”

“Hey!” said Shane. “I can skate. I think I’m faster, actually.”

“When you perform triple lutz, then we talk. Until then, shush.”

David laughed. “I think we should be glad you chose figure skating. You’d be a menace at chirping if they let you play hockey.”

Liliya grinned, the expression sharp and wicked. “Is why the coaches in Russia banned me. No, Liliya, they say, you make our boys into crybabies. Is not good for morale. They make me do single event so that I do not this. Is no one who can keep up with me. They do not even try.”

“Do you need help getting ready?” asked Yuna. “I can come with you to your room and help, if you need.”

Face twisting a little, Liliya paused. She was watching Yuna very carefully, her eyes assessing. Yuna didn’t entirely know what it was that she saw, but she made sure to keep her expression as open as she could manage, her shoulders loose and all the tension that she was feeling absent from her posture. She didn’t know what to make of Liliya Rozanova yet - she had only just met her, had not really thought of Shane as being involved with someone - but she wanted to get to know her, wanted to see what this hidden part of Shane’s life was like.

“I maybe need help with the, er.” Liliya clicked her fingers together.

“Zipper?” offered Shane.

“Da. Zipper. Is impossible.”

The smile on Shane’s face widened into something a little more genuine. Yuna felt as if she had done something right, passed some sort of test that she did not wholly understand. But Shane was smiling at her, and Liliya - somewhat more hesitantly - was smiling at her also. Yuna wondered in that moment about Liliya’s own mother - Shane had said that she did not speak much about her family, but did that mean that Shane would not meet Liliya’s mother, or her father? Yuna could not imagine being in a place where her own child could not come to her - but she could imagine being the child herself. She did not speak much to her parents anymore. She could count the number of times that they had met David on one hand. She had one photo of them with Shane, who had been a babe in arms at the time. It was a hard feeling to swallow still.

“I can help with that,” she said. “Come. We’ll leave the boys to finish and we can start getting ready. Maybe we can order some lunch.”

The look on Liliya’s face was disbelieving. She half-turned to Shane as if she wanted to ask him whether Yuna was pulling her leg, and then turned back to Yuna to take the arm that Yuna proffered her. They linked arms, and Yuna gave her hand a careful squeeze. In her chest, she felt it - just as she had when she had held Shane in her arms for the very first time, small and tiny and precious and hers. She did not know if Liliya had a mother who loved her, or a family to take care of her, and so she would simply have to take on the job herself.

Yuna Hollander dared the world to just try and stop her.

Chapter 3: Hayden Pike, 2012

Hayden wanted to bless whatever God had smiled down on him the day the universe had decided to make him and Shane Hollander teammates together for their rookie season. Maybe some people would call Hayden dramatic, but he really didn’t think that he would have survived that very first season at Montreal if it wasn’t for the fact that he had Shane beside him - in the locker room, as a roommate in the hotels they stayed at on roadies, over at Hayden’s for dinner probably far more often than was healthy. They’d been accused of being codependent (J.J.) before and being gay for each other (Drapeau), but all Hayden really knew was that he fucking loved the guy. Shane was like the little brother he’d never gotten to have but had always wanted. He was a life saver, honestly.

Case in point: Shane and Hayden were sat cross-legged on the living room floor of the Pike apartment, with Jackie’s fuck-off massive seating chart stretched out between them, so big that Hayden could not lie on top of it and stretch out his arms and reach both sides with even the very tips of his fingers. Jackie has a big family, and though Hayden’s mom wasn’t really a factor, his dad had a lot of siblings and Hayden had a lot of cousins, and then there was a whole mess of hockey people that are being invited…

Hayden had just wanted to take one thing off Jackie’s plate. He hadn’t realised that seating charts were so intense. The call he had made to Shane had been a last minute Hail Mary; he was selfishly glad that Shane wasn’t better friends with a lot of the other guys off the ice, because it meant that Shane had nothing that he needed to drop before hurrying over to help out Hayden.

“We could sit your cousin there,” Shane suggested, bumping a slip of paper over to the round table labelled with a 3.

Hayden scrutinised the placement, then hissed out a breath between his teeth. “Fuuuuck no. Bethany fucking hates Jackie’s Auntie Linda. They’ll kill each other before we have time to have the starters. Stick her on five.”

“But then she’s next to Henry,” Shane objected. “Didn’t he steal her boyfriend?”

“Oh, yeah. Taylor. We need to add him as a plus one.” Hayden scrubbed a hand over his face. “How’d you remember my own family better than me?”

Shane simply shrugged. They both knew that his memory was insane; Hayden wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Are there more plus ones up for grabs?” Shane asked, conversationally.

“Why? You got a special someone?” Hayden waggled his eyebrows. He couldn’t imagine Shane with someone - the guy lived and breathed hockey - though he hoped it would happen for his friend one day. He’d never been happier than he was with Jackie.

But Shane replied, “yeah, actually,” and Hayden nearly choked on his own spit.

“Sorry?”

“If there’s a plus one option,” explained Shane, patiently, like he hadn’t just blown Hayden’s mind, “I’d like to bring one.”

“Who is she?” Hayden asked, scrambling to pick from the sudden deluge of questions that had made themselves suddenly known to him. He couldn’t tell in that moment which ones he wanted an answer to the most. “Do I know her? Is she real? What’s her name? How long have you been seeing her?”

“Hayd,” said Shane. “Take a breath, man.”

Hayden took a deep breath. Then another. Then several other, because he honestly felt like he might be hyperventilating. “Okay, but I want answers. How do I not know about her?”

“It isn’t a secret or anything,” Shane replied, and shrugged. “Just hasn’t come up.”

“Hasn’t - Hasn’t come up!” Hayden made an incredulous noise at the back of his throat. “Answers, Hollander. Start talking.”

“Er, her name is Liliya, but she goes by Lily, mostly. You haven’t met her. She is real. I met her, like, A year ago. Rookie season.”

“A year ago,” Hayden repeated. “That’s around the same time that me and Jackie met.”

“Yeah, same night.”

“What?”

Hayden Pike maybe thought that he didn’t deserve to be called a hockey player anymore, but he was clearly very fucking blind. A year? The same night he and Jackie had met? Jackie, who was about to be his wife? And it hadn’t come up? More importantly, how had Hayden not noticed that his best friend had a long-term partner?

Shane Hollander was the sort of guy who was single out of choice, because it didn’t seem like he had time for anything that was not hockey. There were some times that Hayden was convinced that he could see Shane running plays in his head even when he and Hayden were talking about something entirely unrelated. When Shane was older and steadier, when he made time for something that was not hockey in his life - that was when Hayden was convinced that his best friend would find love. He had not considered that this time would be now - not when Shane was still so hockey oriented. What would they even talk about? She must be a hockey fan, surely, otherwise there was no way that they’d have had anything to talk about at first.

“Anyway,” said Shane, as if he had not just dropped the most earth-shattering revelation of Hayden’s life, “we sit Bethany on table four?”

Hayden blinked, trying to redirect himself, and scanned the seating chart. “Yeah. Sure, yeah, that works.”

Shane didn’t say anything more about his special someone. Hayden gave him a day, and then a week, because Shane was kind of like the stray cats that you found in back alleyways. You had to wait for them to come you. All you could do was sit still with a can of tuna held in your outstretched hand. It had worked with Shane before - Hayden was a pro at handling Shane Hollander’s social hang-ups - and Hayden ranted about it with Jackie in the meantime. She was mostly amused, but Hayden knew that she was also curious.

But Shane didn’t come to Hayden this time.

Two weeks in, Hayden asked, “do I get to meet this girl?”

Shane, who was taking a water break after tearing up the ice in drills, paused, like this had not occurred to him. “You’re meeting here. At the wedding?” He said the last part like a question, like he thought that Hayden was about to revoke her invite.

“Yeah, but before?”

“She travels a lot for work,” replied Shane.

So, that was clearly a no go. Hayden had tried to press Shane for any extra information, but that had been a dead end. Theriault had called them back to practice, and then Shane had somehow engineered a system to avoid all of Hayden’s inquisitions. Like everything Shane did, it was annoyingly effective. Hayden complained about this to Jackie and, when she laughed at him, complained about it to J.J. as well.

“Ah, Cap’s girl,” said J.J., grinning. “She’s fit. Out of his league.”

“You’ve met her?”

“I saw her. I was at the club when she lured him away. You’d left by then.”

J.J., because J.J. liked having something to lord over Hayden, had refused to say anymore on the matter.

So Hayden waited. Hayden could be patient. Hayden felt like he had the potentially to be a very patient man.

Hayden was getting married.

It was certainly a shift of priorities. Questions about Shane’s love life seemed immaterial when Hayden was about to commit to the best woman to have ever been created on the face of the planet. He was going to get to spend the rest of his life with Jackie, and wasn’t that the best gift that he could have been given? They were going to be a family, him and Jackie and the life that they were going to build together. He was in love with it already.

“Don’t cry,” said Shane, stepping back. His hand stayed resting on Hayden’s shoulder. “You don’t want to be red and puffy when Jackie sees you down the aisle, yeah?”

“I love you, man,” said Hayden, tearfully.

He was glad to have Shane with him, in this moment. Hayden’s dad had wanted to be in the room with him, but he was getting older and his mobility wasn’t as good, and the idea of making his dad stand around and walk with him had been a cruel one. One of Hayden’s uncles had wheeled his dad to the reception instead, and without a mom and not being very close with his other family members, Hayden had had to confront the idea of being alone before his wedding. He’d asked Shane to be his best man, but Shane got overwhelmed at social functions easily and Hayden had wanted to give him enough time with Mr. and Mrs. Hollander before the service to gather himself…

But Shane had come to get ready with him. And Hayden was not alone - he had his best friend, his brother. Whoever had locked Shane Hollander down was a lucky woman.

There were tears in Shane’s eyes as well, though he was blinking rapidly to dispel them. “Let’s get you married,” he said, voice curiously taut with emotion.

They went. Hayden got married - got married to Jackie! And it was probably the best ay of his life. He wanted to tell the world about it. The ceremony was a bit of blur, really - he couldn’t see past Jackie, radiant in her dress and smiling so sweetly over at him, tears clinging to her eyelashes. He brushed them away. He didn’t want her makeup to run - she had done it herself and he knew a lot of effort had gone into it. He had no such compunctions. He wept, and he did not stop weeping. They did personalised vows, and he barely made it through his. But he did. And he was married.

The reception was a mess as well, greeting people and hugging family members he hadn’t seen in years and recycling the same handful of comments, pretending that he didn’t want to find somewhere just to be alone with Jackie, to take in the simple fact that she was his wife now. He got to call her that. He dropped it into every conversation. He wanted to leave, but -

“Hayd!” Shane’s hug was more enthusiastic than any Hayden had ever gotten from him before, and he returned it gratefully.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “Again.”

Shane pulled back. “Don’t. It’s what - what brothers are for, right?”

Fuck, Hayden was going to cry again.

“Anyway,” said Shane. “This is Liliya.”

And then Shane Hollander reached behind him and tugged his date forward.

“Hello,” said Liliya - Liliya Rosanova! - as she offered a hand for Jackie to shake, completely ignoring Hayden. “Congratulations on marriage to mediocre hockey player.”

Hayden choked on his tongue.

“Lily,” chided Shane.

“Congratulations on marriage to hockey player,” Liliya amended.

“Thank you,” said Jackie, her eyes sparkling. “It’s lovely to meet you. Any friend of Shane’s is a friend of ours.”

“Not in same way, I hope,” replied Liliya. “He does not call me friend when I am -”

Shane elbowed her. His smile was strained. Hayden felt a swell of pity for his friend, who was clearly uncomfortable with this line of conversation, and a slight sting of annoyance at Liliya Rozanova for dragging him into it. That was what brothers were for, wasn’t it? Being protective?

Liliya Rozanova was not at all what Hayden expected from a partner of Shane Hollander’s. She was taller than him, for one, and not just because of the truly lethal heels that she was wearing - and Hayden knew, of course, that women could be taller than their partners, obviously, but it was a strange sight anyway, mostly because Liliya Rozanova was, in fact, absolutely fucking terrifying. She had a sharp face, cut through with sharp amusement and an even sharper like of scrutiny. The deluge of golden curls that framed her face did not soften any of her features in the slightest; they resembled a lion’s mane and any second, Hayden expected her to open her mouth like a bloody maw and reveal a row of dagger-like teeth. He did, however, have to admit that the suit she had chosen was very well tailored. Hayden had an appreciation for good suits, and the pants made her look taller whilst the blazer (no shirt) made her shoulder appear broader. She worked out, definitely. A golden cross, unlike any that Hayden had seen before, glittered around her neck.

“I think,” said Jackie, “that we’re going to get on.”

Liliya shot her a look. “You are Canadian?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you are boring Canadian, like boring Shane Hollander and boring Hayden Pike,” Liliya considered, head tilted like she was sizing Jackie up for a snack. “But I think maybe you are interesting. We will see. I do not like boring people.”

Then she swept forward, linking arms with Jackie and leading her away. Stealing Hayden’s wife right from under his very nose. He felt a little like he had been bludgeoned repeatedly around the head, and - from the look on Shane’s face as he drifted to stand at Hayden’s shoulder - he felt similarly.

“Where’s she from?” he asked.

“Moscow, originally. Boston now,” replied Shane.

Hayden wrinkled his nose. “There were no nice girls in Montreal?”

“I don’t know, man,” replied Shane, and his eyes were heavy on Liliya’s back as she swanned away.

Chapter 4: Scott Hunter, 2014

Chapter Notes

If someone had asked Scott Hunter, gun to his head and finger on the trigger, what his opinion of Shane Hollander was, Scott would have to be honest and say that he didn’t quite know what to make of the young Canadian rookie outside of the fact he was fucking terrifying to face across the ice. Off the ice, Shane Hollander was quiet. He was polite. He was every inch the Canadian golden boy that the media claimed that he was and the worst part about it was that Scott got the decided impression that this was not a mask that Hollander deployed to charm the masses nor any strong devotion to media training. No, he was pretty sure that Hollander was just like that, which sometimes made trying to converse with him feel like trying to get blood from a stone - unless, of course, you brought up hockey. Then Hollander came alive, which was nice, except that Scott was at the stage of his career where he liked to pretend he had a life outside of the sport, regardless of whether or not it was true.

This was the only reason that he resented Carter dragging him into a coffeeshop when he spied Shane sat at one of the tables, staring at the screen of his phone like it held the answers to the universe. Because he was tired, and he was trying to lead the US hockey team to a gold medal, and being in Russia made him feel helplessly on edge with the irrational sort of fear that someone would take one look at him and see all the secrets he was hiding and -

And what? Really, Scott didn’t think he wanted to know what happened to guys like him in Russia. Mostly, he didn’t want to be in Sochi at all, and he certainly didn’t want to be expending what was left on his energy on a conversation that he was pretty certain that Hollander didn’t want to engage in either, if the way that he was sneaking little glances at his phone screen was any indication.

God bless Carter Vaughn, who carried the conversation on his back, nattering on and on like they were all the best of friends whilst Scott and Hollander made only the occasional, awkward interjections to break the heavy silence that had mutually enveloped the two of them.

“You got any plans for the rest of the day, Hollzy?” Carter asked, and Scott swore to God that he saw the rest of his life flashing before his eyes.

“Going to catch my buddy Joe's figure skating programme,” said Hollander. “He’s good. You guys can come along, if you want?”

There was no polite way to extricate himself from this situation. Oh fuck, Scott was going to end up watching figure skating with Shane Hollander, wasn’t he?

“Yeah,” replied Carter, far too enthusiastically. “Man, he must be so brave coming here to compete. I have nothing but respect for him.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hollander, brow furrowed.

Scott felt as though someone had reached down his throat and wrapped a hand around his windpipe. He and Carter had never had this conversation, but Scott had never expected to be so viscerally confronted by everything that he was trying so hard to ignore, especially here and in this manner and with Hollander watching him. If anyone could read anything past the mask that Scott had spent years perfecting, it was probably Hollzy, who seemed as though he was able to catalogue every infinitesimal weakness any opponent dared to show in front of it. Would this be something that Hollander would exploit on ice? It didn’t seem in character for him, but then again, Scott didn’t know him and he definitely couldn’t trust him. It was a fight to regain his composure, to paste the blankest and driest expression onto his face, desperate not to give anything away.

“You know,” said Carter, lowering his voice almost theatrically, though Scott was certain he was probably trying to be as discrete as he could be, “because of the whole gay thing. Dangerous here. So, yeah, brave guy.”

Hollander looked a little like he’d been smacked over the head, like he hadn’t had to consider this before. Probably he hadn’t. Scott wondered briefly if Hollander was secretly homophobic. It wouldn’t be a surprise for an NHL player with the sort of culture that was fostered in rooms across the country, but he somehow doubted that Hollander had many feelings for things that weren’t hockey. He didn’t seem like the type; he had that sort of ruthless, one-track determination that Scott had seen both on and off the ice.

Carter leaned back in his chair. “Your girl figure skates as well, doesn’t she?”

Hollander has a girlfriend?

For a moment, Scott thought that he might have to do a reverse on his previous thoughts about Hollander having no thoughts other than hockey, but then the other man seemed to have a visceral, full body reaction of discomfort to the insinuation that he had someone in his life, brows furrowing and nose scrunching up like a rabbit’s. He leaned back in his chair, as if to distance himself from the suggestion, and then rocked forward again like the intensity of the suggestion was too much to let him relax at all.

Scott was pretty much bewildered when he replied, “yeah, yeah, my - er, my girl’s a figure skater. She’ll probably watch the men’s with us.”

Carter turned to Scott and said, winking at Hollander, “Hollzy’s girl is Liliya Rozanova.”

“The figure skater?” asked Scott, who had definitely heard of Rozanova.

She was said to be a prodigy, the best figure skater in a generation. She was the darling of Russia. Guys who Scott had spoken to and didn’t particularly like called her a frigid bitch from the depths of Hell. Scott had watched an interview she had done once, some promotional thing with the Boston Bears where she’d had them doing salchows and spins and they’d had her shooting goals and charging down players. The Bears had been entertainingly uncoordinated. Rozanova had been… distant, sharp. She’d chirped like it came second nature to her, but there was an undercurrent to it all that had made Scott uncomfortably, even as he watched from the comfort of his apartment.

He couldn’t see her with polite, awkward, and mostly sweet Shane Hollander.

It was probably then, he thought, that he decided he needed to go on this excursion with Hollander and Carter. Any social fatigue he’d been feeling previously - Well, it hadn’t vanished exactly, and Scott felt exactly as paranoid and twitchy as he had before, but it had been replaced by the keen edge of curiosity. It would probably be like seeing a wolf and a deer interact, if the wolf was ravenous and the deer was being unsuspectingly led out to it’s demise. The thought was uncharitable, but Scott couldn’t quite convince himself that he didn’t mean it.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’d love to see the skating.”

There were a few hours before the event, so he and Carter, and Hollander went their separate ways with plans to meet later. Scott spent most of this time anticipating meeting Liliya Rozanova in person, which was ridiculous because he really had not reason to be so involved in Hollander’s life at all, considering that they weren’t really friends, but he kind of felt as though he could offload his problems from his own romantic inclinations onto Hollander’s. It made him feel marginally better.

But Hollander it seemed, when Scott and Carter met him outside the US accommodation at the Olympic Village, seemed the exact opposite. He seemed shifty, in fact, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop - what shoe that was, Scott had very little idea, but it made him tense in turn.

“Liliya’s meeting us at the rink,” said Hollander, as they began the short walk to the rink. Everything seemed close together at Sochi, convenient.

Scott was glad of that, because it seemed that Hollander would explode if they spent any longer than they had to walking. He was tapping his fingers idly on his hip as they walked, which Scott would assume was just fidgeting if not for the way they gradually picked up speed and the way that Hollander’s eyes were darting all over the place. It was as though he expected somebody to jump him. It did nothing to soothe away Scott’s worries, and it all reached a peak the moment that they made it to the rink.

Scott’s eyes picked out Liliya Rozanova almost immediately.

There weren’t many people around but even if the facilities had been heaving, Scott kind of felt like he would be able to pick her out in a crowd almost immediately. There was just something about her - magnetic, in the way that the metal of a knife edge was just as magnetised as a spoon, sharp and caustic and overwhelmingly something. Scott kind of thought that he might be a little terrified of her, and he noticed from the corner of his eyes that even Carter was looking uncertain.

Hollander looked a little he was walking over to the gallows, and Scott was really fucking confused about the whole situation.

“Hollander,” Rozanova drawled. There was pretty much no feeling in her voice. Her shoulders were stiff, her spine steely, and there was a blankness to her face that felt almost predatory.

Hollander, maybe picking up on these cues, replied, “Rozanova.”

The only hint of any softness he might feel towards her was the way that he stretched out a hand, reaching for where hers fell at her side, like he might twine their fingers together. It was more contact than Scott had ever saw Hollander make with anyone who wasn’t Pike or some player being checked against the boards, and the sight of it felt almost like a revelation, like oh, shit, maybe Holly does have thoughts beyond hockey.

Then Rozanova crossed her arms, hands tucked underneath her armpits, and said, “not here.”

Scott didn’t think he was imagining the look of hurt that passed fleetingly across Hollander’s face, or the way that he flexed his hand like he had been stung at his side.

Rozanova noticed also. Something shifted on her face - it didn’t make her kinder, but it did make her changed in some intangible way. “Will you not make introductions, Hollander?” she said. Her accent was never more apparent than the way that she said Hollander’s name, dragging it out, letting the weight of the syllables linger a moment longer.

“You know who they are.”

“Ah!” said Rozanova, and now she seemed delighted to see the mulish obstinance kindling on Hollander’s face. “Is polite to make introductions though. Do I tell Canadian press that Mr Golden Boy Shane Hollander, Mr Very Polite, is not so polite after all? I tell them actually he is very rude boy who does not make introductions?”

“This is Scott and Carter,” said Hollander, clearly aggrieved, as he made a sweeping gesture over at them.

Rozanova cooed, “ah! Carter Vaughn and fossil Soctt Hunter! Is this best US hockey could manage?”

“What?” said Shane irritably. “Like Russia are going to so much better.”

Shaking her head, Rozanova snorted. “We will not make it anywhere near medals. Is bad team - bad, ah, what do you call it?”

“Chemistry,” said Shane, so promptly that it felt almost as though he had been waiting to supply the word.

“Chemistry,” Rozanova repeated, snapping her fingers. “No chemistry with team. They choose best players but have no thought of making them work together. Everybody wishes to be big star and win glory for Mother Russia. They forget they play team sport.”

“I’ll tell them you said that when we send you guys home crying,” Scott interjected tersely. He couldn’t help it; he felt as though all his hackles had been raised.

Rozanova grinned, all teeth. “Is fine. Old man Hunter will forget by then anyway.”

“Oh, fuck off,” said Scott.

Carter laid a hand on Scott’s shoulder, heavy with warning. “We should probably head in.”

“Da,” said Rozanova, at the same time as Hollander said, “me and Liliya will join you guys in a second. Head in without us.”

Scott felt a little reluctant to leave them outside together. He had gotten the impression that they were daybed planning on committing murder the second that they were alone together, and he didn’t particularly want to explain to the world at large why Shane Hollander would no longer be playing generation defining hockey, nor why there would be no more golds for Russia ice skating prodigy. But Rozanova nodded, tense all over again, and Carter and Scott were left with no choice but to abandon Hollander, cutting towards the entrance of the ice rink facilities. But even as Scott left Hollander and Rozanova to linger outside a moment, he couldn’t help but overhear the last dregs of their conversation.

“You know it doesn’t bother me,” said Hollander, voice soft, like he was speaking to a spooked cat and still slightly awkward about it.

“What?”

“I don’t think you’re a disappointment,” he clarified, the words straightforward and brutal and the sort of thing that Scott pictured as being like going straight for the jugular.

There was a weighty pause, and then Rozanova replied, quiet enough that Scott had to strain to hear it, “my routine is shit. Coach is shit. They want me to do so many things and it is not - it feels wrong. I cannot perform like this. My father should be ashamed to have a daughter like me.”

“Your father should be a lot of things,” said Hollander. “Disappointed in you is not one of them.”

Scott twisted around as he was going through the doors, searching for one last fruitless glance of the pair of them, and for the first time since he had learned that Hollander and Rozanova were apparently a thing, he thought that he might understand, because all the tension and petty meanness that had crackled between them had drained wholly away. They were left standing there, out in the cold, and they simply looked like any other couple. Rozanova still had not surrendered her hand for Hollander to hold, but there was something on her face and in the way that she seemed almost to list towards him, like a sunflower to the first break of morning, that was far more open than Scott had yet seen of her. And Hollander… Hollander looked settled, looked steady, looked as focus as he was on the ice, except that all his attention was bent towards Rozanova.

It was a radically different picture to the one that they had put on in front of Scott and Carter, but this one made a queer sort of sense.

“Hollander and Rozanova,” muttered Carter to Scott, as the door closed behind them. “What a fucking nightmare, man. Jesus fucking Christ.”

Chapter End Notes

This chapter was one of my favourites to write, and also the first part of this fic that I wrote. I love watching the Olympics (and especially the Winter Olympics) every time that they are on, so I was really excited to think about this version of Shane and Ilya experiencing the games. That being said, this chapter being posted two days after the Olympics have announced their ruling on whether or not transgender athletes should get to compete - which is, that they should not. It seemed wrong to post this without acknowledging this and without affirming that transgender athletes do belong in sports. They deserve, like other athletes, a space on the international stage and they do not deserve to be forced back out of the public eye. This decision is not about caring for women's sports - many of the people with an opinion about this don't watch women's sports, nor see it at the same fierce and competitive level of performance as men's sport - nor is it about fairness - it has been proven that transgender athletes who have transitioned, through means of hormones, have no competitive advantage. Yes, this is fic is a silly and fun thing that I have been writing for people to enjoy - but I felt that it must be acknowledged that it does take place in a culture of sports, which is often exclusive and prejudiced. Transphobia should have no place in this culture, and we can't ignore its presence.

Chapter 5: Gilbert Comeau, 2015

Chapter Notes

Originally, I intended this fifth chapter to be from Rose Landry's POV. However, in re-editing this to be posted, it was clearer and clearer that Rose's POV didn't fit the course of the story. Gilbert Comeau, as nasty as he is, did fit - so, blanket warnings for the Montreal Voyageurs, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and a generally detestable person. If anyone noticed the tags changing, this is why. Rose Landry's POV has been retained but incorporated into another fic I've partially written for this AU - for everyone wondering about how Ilya and Shane are exploring and discussing their gender/sexuality in the comments, that is the fic is the one that deals more in depth with that from their perspective. On a different note, thank you for all the love and support that this work has gotten! It means so much to hear everybody's thoughts and feelings <3

There was probably no better feeling in the world than this; Gilbert Comeau felt it in his bones as the game’s final conclusion was announced at last and Montreal brought home their first Stanley Cup since their mid-2000’s slump. If there was one, Gil had never experienced it before, had never felt anything near the sheer elation that rushed through him. The world seemed to warp and narrow to this moment, all the air leaving the Bell Centre in a rush of crescendoing cheers, the fans on their feet and screaming and yelling and stomping their feet, trinkets and tokens raining down onto the ice.

Gil dropped his gloves and then his helmet, and there was Patrice Drapeau, who was screaming also, and he grabbed Gil by the shoulders, shaking him at the same time at Gil grabbed at his face, hollering.

“CHAMPIONS!” Pat yelled. “WE’RE THE MOTHERFUCKING CHAMPIONS!”

“Champions!” Gil said, and he was laughing as it sunk in. Had he ever doubted it? No, not with the run of form that they had had recently, but before that, in the slump where making play-offs had seemed almost an impossible dream. What a difference five years made! And here was Gil at the centre of it.

His glee was shared - Pat was still with him, but Boiziua and Mitty and Pike, and all his other teammates began piling in, a huddle of thick protective pads and bulky hockey gear ignored in favour of trying to share as much of their victory as they could. It was a scrum of hands and touching, of standing in the middle of his team and knowing what they had just achieved made them brothers in their triumph. Gil had played a lot of hockey - often he was on teams full of pussies who didn’t have what it took to make it big. He’d had his doubts about some of the Voyageurs (Pike, who was too gone for his wife to ever be ruthless and dominant enough, or the Captain, who was quiet and didn’t take up much room, who couldn’t stand ordinary shit like touching and eye contact and most normal-people things) but they’d proved him wrong in this moment. They’d played like men, and Gil was so, so glad to be a part of it.

Hollzy was beside him, and his eyes, for once, were alight and burning with a quick, intense fire. Gil had rarely seen him like this - on the ice, yes, for sure, but usually the implacable mask was back in place as soon as match was over. That was not the case now. His eyes were burning, and there was sweat dripping down his face, and his hair was in state of disarray, stuck up every which way, and when he smiled, it was a proper smile - all teeth. He was yelling something; Gil couldn’t make out the words over the rest of the tumult but he felt them in his bones, and grabbed at Hollzy’s shoulder, hand fisting in his shirt.

“Jackie!” yelled Pike, and Gil half turned to see where they ushering family onto the ice, so that they could take the moment to celebrate with loved ones.

Pike was at his wife’s side immediately, colliding with her so forcefully that Gil almost expected to see the short blonde prone on the floor. Pike, however, managed to sweep her up in his arms, whirling her around with a flourish. His arms were around her waist, and her legs came up around his as she twined her arms around his neck and buried her face there. Though Pike’s face was dry, his shoulders shook as if he was about to cry; not for the first time, Gil wondered if Pike was really that soft, to be reduced so immediately into his feelings by his woman.

There were other loved ones streaming onto ice - there was Gagnon’s wife and his two daughters, and Andropov’s sister, and Olsson’s mother.

Hollzy pulled away from him. Gil looked over, expecting to see his parents, because Hollzy was the type of guy who took them everywhere he could with him, never really having been independent enough to fly the nest, apparently, but Yuna and David Hollander (though he had seen them at the game) were not stood there. Gil didn’t recognise the woman who was, but she was smoking hot - unrealistically so, almost. And Hollzy - Saint Hollzy, Hollzy who was too good for all their team outings at clubs and bars where they picked up chicks, Hollzy, the celibate hockey Jesus - was skating right over to her.

There was a moment when he reached her where he came to a stop and simply stared. Gil half expected the captain to try and move past her with a polite “excuse me” and reveal that, actually, he didn’t know her - which is what Gil expected. She wasn’t the kind of girl that Hollzy was supposed to know. The woman was staring back, the expression on her face inscrutable.

Something on it - something small, that Gil couldn’t quite discern - shifted, and Hollzy crumpled into her arms between one breath and the next. It seemed almost like she, standing strong against the sudden onslaught of hockey player, was the only reason that he didn’t hit the ice, and she held him up like that as Hollzy pulled her closer and tighter to him, like he was terrified that she might vanish between one moment and the next. She held him back just as fiercely, and she pressed kiss after kiss into his sweaty hair, seemingly unbothered. Her hands moved to grab his face, and she leaned down, whispering something to him, something intense that had Hollzy nodding like a bobblehead.

“Cap has a girl?” asked Pat, incredulous at his side. “I thought he was, you know.” He made a see-sawing motion with his hand.

“A cocksucker,” Gil said succinctly. Hollzy was a good enough hockey player that he had never really considered it seriously, but he had considered it. It was nice to be proved wrong, and to have the evidence that Cap was a guy just like the rest of them. “I’m going to go meet this girl.”

Pat clapped him on the shoulder. “You gotta find out what’s so attractive about Hollzy for her to to stake her claim to him. Could have anyone, looking like that.”

“He’s making bank,” Gil observed wisely. “You don’t want to join me?”

“Nah. Gotta go get Stace from the side of the ice.” Pat nodded at where his girl, who he had spoken about with Gil for the past couple of months, was clinging to the side of the rink.

“Shit. It’s that serious?”

Pat shrugged. “It is if I want her to put out tonight. Least I deserve for today, I think.”

“Too right,” Gil laughed. Probably he would hit up a club and see if he could pick up from there.

He skated across the ice to where Hollzy and his girl were stood. They’d pulled away slightly, though Hollzy was still holding her loosely by the waist. Now that he was closer, he swore that she was familiar in some way, like he’d maybe seen her before. Gil had never paid much attention to his captain’s sex life (what sex life was there to pay attention to?) but now he was thinking that he must have seen something about it in passing. Something about her niggled at the back of his head.

“Hollzy!” he called. “You going to make introductions?”

Hollzy’s smile dropped - back again to the strange, emotionless captain, with that pinched, superior look of sourness around his eyes and mouth, like he was looking at Gil and judging him as inferior. He turned at face Gil as he approached, one hand resting on the small of his girl’s back. Her expression was not much friendly - her eyes reminded him suddenly of sharks in those nature documentaries, when there was blood in the water, and their eyes went cold and dead, predatory and unsettling.

“Gilbert Comeau,” she said, in a foreign accent. “I am Lily Rozanova. Congratulations on your victory.”

The praise was true, and factual, and said without any inflection of any kind; Gil felt, somehow, as if she was almost laughing at him, something insincere in the way that she regarded him. She was tough, Hollzy’s girlfriend. He bet that she was domineering in bed. Probably, Hollzy let her peg him or some shit. It was clear who the man of the relationship was, and - shamefully - it was not Gil’s captain.

“You enjoyed the game?”

“I like to see my Shane do well,” she said.

He snorted. “Someone” - here, he aimed a playful elbow at Hollzy’s ribs - “is getting lucky tonight.”

“Lucky tonight?” asked Lily, her expression wide and guileless. “I do not know this phrase. Lucky in what?”

“Like, putting out,” Gil explained. Hollzy was getting tenser and tenser at his side, never able to take a joke.

“I do not understand,” Lily said again. There was something flinty in her eyes.

“He thinks,” said Hollzy, and the words were drawn and hard, like he was watching a particularly brutish and illegal check unfolding instead of normal banter, “that you should fuck me because we won.”

“And he wants to watch you with your cock out?” asked Lily, like it was an idle curiosity. She arched an eyebrow. “Is very good cock but I did not realise that I had competition.”

Hollzy’s skin mottled bright red. “I don’t expect anything from her,” he said, firmly, “and I don’t require anything. Maybe you should try and be a little more respectful of the women in your life, Gil, before it comes back to bite you.”

Gil could feel himself getting more and more irate. This was what he got for trying to include Hollander in the easy friendship that he and the other guys shared. “It’s a fucking joke, man. I’m happy for you, Jesus. We’ve won the motherfucking Stanley Cup and you have a hot chick to give you head or to fuck or whatever! Honestly, some of the guys and I were starting to worry that you were, like, gay or something.”

“Worry?” Lily’s eyes sharpened. “You worry he is gay?”

“Obviously,” he assured her, “that’s not true. You don’t have anything to be concerned about. Your boyfriend’s not gay.”

“What is wrong with gay?” asked Lily, soft.

“Nothing wrong. Just, you know, unusual. Easier, isn’t it, that he’s straight and with a woman. We love Cap. We want his life to be as easy as possible.”

“I am bisexual,” she replied, her voice still soft. It felt dangerous. “Am I not normal? I am unusual?”

Hollzy’s arm tightened around her waist.

“Not you,” Gil said. He felt like the ice was sliding beneath his feet, more than usual. “Just - you know. Not you. Probably, it’s hotter if you’re bisexual for Hollzy. You know, to watch.”

Gil knew what a woman looked like before she struck someone. He had, of course, been hit by a woman before. It was the risk you ran when you were putting yourself out there - Gil himself thought that he was pretty successful, but he struck out (spectacularly struck out) at least once for every fifth woman he managed to successfully pick up. So, he recognised the way that Lily’s nostrils flared, and the spark that lit briefly in her eyes, and the tensing of her posture as she pulled herself around to lash out. Who fucking knew that Hollzy’s girl would be so tetchy and emotional?

He didn’t expect the hit to come from the side of him.

Gil saw stars when it landed - literal fucking stars, wheeling across his vision - and the ice went sideways out from under him as he was laid out across it. His head glanced dully off, the hit reverberating through his skull with no helmet to protect him. Who the fuck, after all, expected to be hit after the game? He tasted blood in his mouth, across his tongue. There was a buzzing in his ears; all the sounds of celebration were lost to him in a white out of shock.

He looked up; Hollander loomed above him, shaking out his hand. His knuckles were already red, livid and angry. Lily Rozanova stood behind him, an intense expression on her face as she stared at the back of him; she looked a little like Gil felt - like he was seeing Hollander for the first time ever. Unlike Gil, she looked like she liked this.

“Next time,” Hollander said, leaning closer to Gil, “you keep my partner’s name out of your fucking mouth.”

If Hollander was going to say anything else, he didn’t have the time. There were players and officials forcing themselves between them, hands pulling Hollander away and hands checking on Gil as he struggled up onto his elbows. Hollander shot himself one last, vitriolic look, and let himself being led away; he reached out for Lily Rozanova’s hand as he did so and she took it firmly.

Chapter 6: Enter: Ilya Rozanov, Stage Left, 2017

Chapter Notes

Kip Grady was thankful for a lot of things in life. A lot of things were the sort of things that you expected to be grateful for, like good friends and family and the opportunity to go after that one grad school opportunity that you really loved; they were the sort of things that little Kip Grady might have written about in school writing projects, under the title what I want to be when I grow up! The stuff of New Year resolutions, and years of blown out candles on birthday cakes. Other things were less expected. Other things, little Kip Grady would look at and probably say something like, no fucking way - except likely politer, because little Kip Grady would have been a child, and Kip had not sworn as a child. His mother had raised him better.

Here was one of the unexpected things: Kip Grady was in a gay strip club (which was normal), in the arms of the man he loved (which was becoming normal), surrounded by a bunch of burly, six-foot-tall-or-taller NHL players (this was not normal).

But he was thankful, because he had watched his boyfriend (Scott Hunter, his boyfriend) win the Stanley Cup after years of effort and graft and skill, and he’d gotten to introduce his boyfriend to his friends and to his parents as the man that he was pretty certain he was going to spend the rest of his life with, and his boyfriend had brought him out on to centre ice and kissed him in front of the whole world like he was also certain that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Kip as well. And Kip knew that it was very soon to be making such declarations - because, really, they had not been dating for very long at all - but he knew, without hesitation, that Scott Hunter was it for him.

“Hey,” he said, pushing himself up onto his tippy toes to peer over Scott’s shoulder. “I think Carter’s getting a selfie with a drag queen who’s come dressed as you.”

Scott buried his head into the crook of Kip’s neck. He made a vaguely pained noise. Kip patted him consolingly on the head, taking the moment to run his fingers through Scott’s hair, taken aback by the simple fact that he was allowed to do that now, that Scott would not push him away and there would be no more hiding. Their museum trip was a thing of the past; now, they simply got to be.

“Not used to having your own themed night yet,” commiserated Kip, even though he was pretty sure that he would literally die if someone announced a Kip Grady Night at a strip club. It sounded pretty fucking cool, actually.

“When I came out,” said Scott, voice muffled, “I thought it would be a lot of making statements and doing photoshoots and donating to charities. I thought the change was being open, not - not strip clubs with hockey players.”

“You invited them,” Kip pointed out.

“Winner’s high.”

Not many players had taken Scott up on his offer of attending a gay strip club. The handful of Admirals who had been attending the awards were there, and there were one or two other jacked guys who were either hockey players that Kip didn’t recognise or really dedicated body builders. It was more than they had expected. They’d spoken, of course, in theory, about the kind of response that Scott’s announcement would get, that they would get, simply daring to exist in hockey as an open and out gay couple. Now, they were living it. There’d been teammates who’d gone quiet, and competitors who had reached out in support but contempt, and there’d been the looks that they’d felt on them all night as Scott dared accept the just awards of his labours.

Kip had worried once that this would be the sort of thing that sent Scott scurrying back into the closet, where it was safe. He wouldn’t have been able to blame Scott if it had been, though it would have been difficult. Hockey had been everything to Scott, and now he was risking it for Kip. Still risking it for Kip.

He didn’t think that he’d ever been prouder.

Kip had asked, after Scott’s speech, where the offer of the strip club had come from. Was it a joke? A challenge? A reminder that Scott was doing it on his terms and his alone? An invitation, Scott had said, like anything else had not crossed his mind.

“I was so alone,” he had told Kip, “and maybe if someone had stood on a stage like that - a stage facing the entire hockey world - and told me that there were communities waiting, and places I could be myself, I would have felt less alone. I don’t even think they need to turn up. I just hope that they know the invitation is there.”

So, yeah, Kip was proud. Proud to love this man - his trailblazing, thoughtful, brave man - and proud that the world would get to see how much he loved this man, and proud that Scott was standing on the precipice of something new and great. He was the first, but Kip very much doubted that he would be the last.

“I’m going to get drinks,” said Scott. “Probably rescue Carter.”

Carter Vaughn was stood in a huddle of drag queens now. He was covered in glitter and there were lipstick marks on his cheeks. He looked delighted, and not at all like he needed rescuing. He also had two glasses of something fluorescent held half-finished in each hand. A check up was probably required from Scott at this point, as part of his captainly duties.

“Get me something fun,” Kip requested, and watched as Scott began to navigate his way through the crowd. The view of Scott’s ass as he walked away… Kip was never going to complain about that.

There was something electric about the crowd in the club tonight, and the sort of electric that Kip didn’t think he had ever experienced before, and he knew that it had all to do with Scott Hunter. Someday, people would be talking about what Scott Hunter had done for them, and Kip would have all the evidence that he was loved, that this was - in part - for him.

Kip was still watching over where Scott had been swallowed by the crowd, when Shane Hollander appeared beside him.

Kip, of course, recognised Shane Hollander because he did not think that anyone who had ever watched a single game of hockey in their life could be unaware of the existence of Shane Hollander, even if he was not the ice. He was bound inextricably into the fabric of the sport, so that hockey and Hollander could never be mentioned without the other. It didn’t hurt that his face was on most North American billboards and magazines, always in connection with some probably insanely lucrative brand deal, like Rolex or Calvin Klein. Kip had recognised Hollander as the cute guy on the subway stations walls before he had recognised him as a hockey player. Being with Scott had certainly shifted his perspectives on some things.

Not that Hollander was less attractive as a hockey player, mind - just that he was hot, instead of cute. And that Scott had spoken at length about Shane Hollander, who seemed to baffle Scott just as much as his skills on ice amazed him. Apparently, Canada’s golden boy was awkward and slightly neurotic in person; Scott had speculated that Hollander was in fact a robot whose programming needed updating beyond hockey, and then had pulled a face as if he had remembered something especially pertinent, but refused to elaborate when Kip pressed him on it. Scott had also refused to elaborate on the fight that he and Hollander had gotten into - a fight that had taken place after the final whistle.

But Kip knew enough to recognise that Hollander likely wasn’t one for clubs, nor for gay clubs, with all the extra scrutiny that would be entailed. He straightened in spite of himself.

“Kip Grady, isn’t it?” Shane asked, staring straight at Kip. In the dim lights of the club, the stare was somewhat unnerving, not actually meeting Kip’s returning gaze but staring slightly, almost unnoticeably just over his shoulder. “I’m Shane.”

“Shane,” Kip repeated. “Yeah, hi, I know who you are.”

It was hard to tell, but Kip was certain that Shane’s face flushed a deep, mottled red.

“Right,” he said, head bobbing. His gaze was shifty as he glanced around the club, like he was making sure there were no witnesses. Was Kip about to get hate-crimed, in a gay club, or something? He didn’t think Hollander seemed the type, but then again, Hollander was looking like he was expecting to be jumped at any second. “Sorry,” he apologised, after a moment, “this isn’t really my scene. I just, just wanted to congratulate you and Hunter on what you did, after the cup. It was really brave. Really important for the league.”

“So you aren’t going to take another swing at my boyfriend?” Kip asked wryly.

Hollander looked vaguely panicked. “I didn’t know he was gay when we threw gloves!”

“Jesus, Hollander.” And for the first time, Kip noticed that Shane was not alone; another man had stepped up to his shoulder, resting his hand atop it. It was a very attractive man, with a crop of blond curls and the sort of face that people might study in museums, the muse of classical artists for their statues. There was a look of almost doting exasperation on this face, all his focus on Shane Hollander. “I thought you said you’d done this before,” he said.

“Well, that was to Hayden, and my parents,” Shane said defensively. “It’s different.”

“Not really,” dismissed the man, and then stuck his hand out towards Kip with a shit-eating grin on his face. “I am big fan of yours. Ilya Rozanov. Hollander will not fight your fossil of a boyfriend otherwise he will be hypocrite.”

“Ilya,” Shane hissed.

The man - Ilya - blinked innocently. The expression did not work on his face. “What? You are, like, super gay, and you want people to know, and one people is old man Hunter. I am helping you achieve dreams.”

“My boyfriend is not old,” Kip objected, feeling honour bound to defend Scott. Except that it didn’t seem the most pressing part of the conversation; his eyes darted between Shane and Ilya, adding new context to the way that Ilya was resting his hand on Shane’s shoulder, and the way that Shane was leaning into the touch.

Scott wasn’t alone.

“I can set you up with many attractive men,” Ilya confided, leaning towards Kip like they were old friends. “If you like hockey players, I find young, attractive hockey player for you.”

“I’m happy where I am, thanks,” said Kip. “And I take it you are as well?”

Shane shrugged Ilya’s hand from his shoulder. For a moment, when a flash of what could only be described as hurt rushed across Ilya’s face, Kip thought that he had put his foot in it. But Shane merely was moving the hand so that he could hold it, twining their fingers together and pulling Ilya closer into his side. Ilya’s face opened like the blossoming of the sun.

“I’m happy,” Shane said firmly. He was looking Kip square in the eyes now, just as intense. “I just wanted - Well, I was going to email but then I thought this was something you and Scott should hear in person, because what you guys did was important. For me. For us. And I don’t - I don’t know if we’d get to have this without you guys. It was touch and go, for a minute.”

“Touch and go?” Ilya asked.

“Uncertain,” clarified Shane.

Ilya nodded. “Hollander had big feelings about something that was not hockey. Big, scary, gay feelings. He did not think it could be done until Hunter decided to suck face on centre ice.”

“Ilya.”

“I’m glad that we helped,” Kip replied. He saw Scott through the ground, making this way back, and was gladder. He felt like this was something that his boyfriend needed to hear.

“I didn’t need help loving Ilya,” Shane said, as if this needed clarifying. “I’ve always loved him. It was just everything else.”

“It was the gay thing,” said Ilya.

“Yeah,” said Shane. “It was a bit of a new thing.”

“It’s always been a little gay,” said Ilya.

“I know that now.”

Kip would be lying if he said he wasn’t confused.

“Here’s Scott,” he said, grateful for the reprieve and chance to regroup as his boyfriend finally made it to his side, offering up the drink that he had procured Kip.

Then Scott froze, and a very peculiar expression crossed over his face at the sight of Ilya Rozanov. “You,” he said, tone heavy with dread.

Ilya looked delighted. “Old Man Scott! We are meeting your boyfriend. Very nice man. Very attractive.”

“Hunter,” said Shane, a lot more polite. “This is Ilya, my boyfriend,” he said, something that Kip supposed was probably nerves adding emphasis in weird places.

“Ilya,” repeated Scott. “Boyfriend. Right. Okay.”

“He has missed me,” Ilya confided. “But I am taken man, and young and too beautiful for Scott Hunter, who is also taken but not very young.”

“Wait,” said Scott. “Are you guys coming out? To me?”

“Yeah,” said Shane. Then he laughed, a little nervously. “To everyone, I guess. I mean, people already know that Ilya and I are together. They just don’t know Ilya Rozanov.”

Kip was definitely very confused.

Scott held out his hand to Ilya and said, “it’s nice to meet you, Ilya Rozanov,” in spite of the fact that Kip was pretty certain that they had met already.

But Ilya had paused, looking at Scott’s hand with an inscrutable look on his face, and the weight of the moment pressed down on Kip even though he didn’t understand the full significance of it. There was something there, something unspoken, that meant something. All the bravado had sloughed away from Ilya and he looked startlingly young now.

“It is nice to meet you too, Scott Hunter,” Ilya replied quietly, taking the hand that was offered. “Thank you.”

“We should maybe make the rounds,” said Shane. He looked determined, resolute, as he stared around the room.

“Sweetheart,” said Ilya, “is a lot. We don’t have to do this tonight.”

But Shane shook his head, squared his shoulders. “I want the world to know you, Ilyusha,” he said. “The way that you want to be known.”

“So, you’re out?” Scott asked. “Your team?”

“Ottawa is very nice this time of the year,” Ilya remarked. He was smiling again, but softer. “I imagine it will be just as nice this time next year.”

Shane elbowed Ilya in the ribs. “Rozanov.”

“Ohh,” said Ilya. “I am in trouble.”

Shane glowered but didn’t say anything else. Instead, he produced a scrap of paper that he passed to Scott. “I realised I don’t have your number,” he said. “I thought you should have, in case you need anything.”

“The same goes for you, Rook. I’ll text you so you have mine. Anytime.”

Shane nodded, then he smiled, a strange and nervous spasm of a thing, and he took Ilya by the hand and began to lead him through the crowd.

“What was that about?” Kip asked, leaning back against Scott as his boyfriend wrapped his arms around Kip’s waist. “Do you know them?”

“We’ve been introduced,” said Scott, vaguely.

“But you didn’t know they were dating?”

“I did.”

Kip frowned. “I thought you said that there were no gay NHL players that you knew of.”

Scott cleared his throat. “I wasn’t introduced to Ilya Rozanov - or, I was? But I didn’t know it was Ilya Rozanov. He wasn’t Shane boyfriend then.”

The penny dropped.

“Oh,” said Kip, softly.

He could still see Ilya and Shane in the crowd. Shane was talking to Carter Vaughn now, earnest and nervous and stupidly, visibly in love with the beautiful man who was stood at his side. And Ilya was there - not whatever version of the man that Shane had had to introduce to people all the years of their relationship. Ilya, there, as himself. And he looked happy. He looked confident. Kip didn’t know him, but he thought that Ilya looked like someone who had been in the dark for a very long time and was being shown the break of morning for the very first time, after years of having what the sun was like described for him in terms that paled to the actual experience.

He looked very much like someone who was greeting the world for the very first time, and was seizing every opportunity with open arms and the man that he loved besides him.

Chapter End Notes

And, at last, we have reached the end :(

I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has read and interacted with this - all of your comments and thoughts have meant the world to me, and I have loved seeing what everyone thinks of this little story. I can't believe how many people have read this already!

I do have plans to continue this - I have a few partially written spin-offs and continuations that I'm hoping to get out soon, if this is something that people will be interested in. The next one is likely going to be from Shane's POV and delve further into ideas around sexuality and gender within his and Ilya's relationship. I have a multi-chapter standalone that I think I'm going to be posting next (Hayden Pike and Ilya Rozanov focused), but the next part of this series should be up not long after that.

Once again, thank you all for reading - have fun, stay safe, and I'll (hopefully) see you all in the next part :)

UPDATE (15/4/26): The response to this fic has been beyond what I could have ever imagined! I'm genuinely taken aback by all the love and have really enjoyed getting to talk to you all about this. I also have a side blog on Tumblr @freddysteadygo, which I plan to devote to this funky gay hockey show, if anyone would like to talk about these losers further <3