Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

Gen, M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Shane Hollander, Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), no outing, ish, Light Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, Secret Relationship, Relationship Reveal, Coming Out

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-01 Updated: 2026-09-30 Words: 24,854 Chapters: 3/?

Homecoming (Homebound)

Summary

“Who was it?”

Comeau’s words fell over the room like a blanket. They were pointed, no soft curiosity, a demand for Hayden to reveal what he already knew.

Who would Hayden have a video of? What two men kissing would make Hayden flip like he did?

If it was two strangers he wouldn’t have freaked out.

Or

The FanMail video gets refunded to Hayden in the middle of the Metro’s locker room. No viral post, nothing about Ilya, but Shane gets exposed for being in a relationship. Ilya is safe, but everything crumbles around Shane. They get the chance to do things a little bit different, a little bit better.

Notes

I'm a little scared to post because it's been a long time since I started (intentionally) posting something multichapter that was unfinished but I'm 40k words deep and want to post something so here we are

Picks up the morning of the FanMail video, everything up til that is book canon except Svetlana but I do mention that in the fic, just wanted to clarify that upfront. There is only one other big change I made that isn't a result of the change to the FanMail incident but I'll mention it later. It make no difference overall but it's something that confuses me from the books

Tags and stuff might be updated later when I have more thoughts but I literally couldn't figure out how to tag this for some unknown reason, I'm open to suggestions if there's something egregiously wrong

Chapter 1: 4 Months

March

Ilya was halfway back to Ottawa by now. They had crammed as much perfect as they could into one morning with the playoffs staring them down from just a couple weeks away. They woke up together and Ilya only complained a little when Shane made breakfast for them. They took Anya for a walk after that.

He knew the routine for saying goodbye to Ilya like he knew his pregame stretches. How long they could hug, how many extra kisses they would steal even after saying the one who needed to drive away definitely had to go. It was as familiar as seeing him again after a period apart. It had hollowed him out today.

It was just the stress of the end of the season, knowing he would be seeing even less of Ilya over the next month, maybe longer, than they could now.

He was in his car, parked in the lightly dotted parking lot of the training rink. All the other vehicles were empty. He hesitated between shutting off his car and opening the door. His text thread to Ilya was staring back at him from his phone, no new messages since the day before when Ilya drove down in the morning with Anya.

Shane could text him, not that Ilya would respond until he arrived in Ottawa. Probably even later, his turn around time from getting to the city, taking Anya to her hotel, and stopping at his house before heading to the airport didn’t account for a single second off plan. He could text him anyway but Ilya didn’t need the distraction and Shane needed to shake off whatever mood he was in.

Ottawa was in a good place. They were looking good for a relatively non-disputed wild card spot in two weeks and Shane wanted that for Ilya, wanted him to get to keep playing good hockey and having fun with his team.

Texting him wouldn’t help Shane with whatever he had going on, he would push himself on the ice until it went away and if that didn’t work he’d double up his exercises in his gym until they did. Ilya didn’t need to see that kind of message in a few hours either, or worse, now because he still occasionally checked his phone when he was driving regardless of how many times Shane lectured him on road safety. He tried, once, to joke that Anya was checking his messages but no matter how good of a copilot she might be, she was still a dog.

They were at the end of March, the end of the season was fast approaching and the only team close to them in points was Colorado and they were trailing by five. The peak hockey time of the year was right around the corner, it was thrumming under his skin, yet he couldn’t get himself to go into the rink.

Ilya was flying out to Pennsylvania with his team in a few hours. The next time they had a shared day off while they were both home wasn’t for more than a week and Shane would be spending the first half of it flying back from Florida. Then there would be a day or two between the end of the season and the start of the first round that they were likely both going to be playing in.

He would be lucky to see Ilya in person before one or both of their teams were eliminated.

He missed him and there was nothing he could do about that.

Shane pushed himself in practice until his limbs burned and his hands cramped too much to shoot anymore. Until every thought in his head was drowned out by hockey, hockey, hockey.

It all came back as he showered.

Ilya had sent him a picture of Anya from outside her hotel with her tongue hanging and tail blurred from wagging too fast for the camera. Someone is excited to tell all of her doggy friends about her play date with the little Pikes yesterday.

His heart clenched. He bit back a smile. It was perfect and so Ilya and it hurt.

Hayden tried to start up a conversation about the phone-free mornings he and Jackie were trying to have. It almost sounded like a real thing but it was also just not something that needed to be a thing, it shouldn’t be weird for people to just not go on their phones if they didn’t need or want to. Still, Shane nodded along at all the right places as Hayden spoke and no one else was paying any attention to the two of them.

The extra push Shane had been giving everyone to not slack off on tiny details during practice had earned him a few sighs and eye rolls but nothing that bled off the ice. Everyone else was talking to each other like they normally did so at least one part of his day was proceeding as expected.

“The girls did not like the screenless morning,” Hayden said, he was always one of the slower ones getting dressed after showers and he was lagging behind compared to the guys who were left in the room, “but we stayed strong.”

It was Friday. Shane mentally tracked down the date in his head until he was certain he was right about that as he double checked that he had everything packed and ready to leave. “Didn’t they have school today?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are they even on their iPads on school mornings? Aren’t you always complaining that you can barely drag them out of bed early enough to get ready and eat before leaving?”

Hayden was finally gathering his things until he was holding his jacket, the other half of the Tim’s bagel he tried to convince Shane to eat before practice, and his phone in one hand while fishing around in the jacket for his keys with the other.

“I dunno man,” Hayden unlocked his phone before Shane could offer to hold anything for him. “I’m weak when it comes to complaining before noon,” he continued, the words were slow and almost absentmindedly spoken as Hayden’s eyes narrowed at whatever was on his phone while he was still flipping through pockets.

Hayden precariously clicked something on his screen, leaving everything to carefully balance while his thumb wasn’t pressed down. The phone wasn’t facing Shane so he couldn’t see anything even if he tried but he tended to avoid looking at people’s phones out of courtesy.

“So you got yourself into this-“

“Jesus fuck.”

In an instant Hayden tried to pull his right hand out of his jacket to grab his phone but only managed to pull on it enough to upend the balance. His phone tipped forward, accelerated by the combination of motions, and neither Shane nor Hayden were able to grab it.

It landed at Drapeau’s feet, nearly crushed underfoot as he was leaving the room. “Can’t even score on me off the ice, Pike,” he jeered.

He reached down for the phone as Hayden shouted, “no!”

“The fuck?”

Like dominos falling, every eye in the room landed on them. Half the guys had already made their way out, but the attention from the rest was nearly crushing.

“Hayd-“ Shane started before Hayden lunged at the ground. Drapeau got to the phone first. Comeau was at his side, leaning in eagerly.

Drapeau had the phone up to his face for a second before Hayden snatched it away from him and shut it off. He clutched it to his chest. Neither Drapeau nor Comeau moved, they stared forward like the phone was still in front of them.

The room was silent the way an arena was when a goal or penalty was being reviewed.

“Why were you looking at that shit in public?” Drapeau demanded once he blinked himself back online.

“I obviously didn’t mean to, did you miss the part where I was so shocked I tried to throw my phone across the room?”

J.J. was creeping closer on Shane’s left. No one else had moved since Hayden reclaimed his phone. Shane didn't know what Drapeau, and maybe Comeau, had seen, but Hayden hadn’t meant to have it open in the middle of the locker room, let alone have anyone else see it. Or have the whole room eagerly awaiting whatever embarrassing thing Hayden wasn’t saying. He had opened enough unprompted sexts from Ilya in his life to know how easily something inappropriate could be right there if anyone were to grab his phone.

He kind of hoped it was porn. Better that then either Drapeau or Comeau seeing something Jackie said or took a photo of.

“You still had it on your phone. Keep that shit away from me.”

“What shit are we talking about, exactly?” J.J. asked. He was probably the least bad option to ask the question written on everyone’s faces but Shane just wanted this whole ordeal to be over and it wasn’t even about him. He couldn’t imagine what Hayden was feeling in that moment.

Drapeau’s face contorted. “Pike was watching gay porn.”

The noise level in the room shot up. Sneers, gags, and jeers came from every side. The odd one out was one of their rookies who was just squinting at Hayden with his head tilted.

Brostadten had his face shriveled up in disgust while his eyes flicked back and forth between Hayden and Shane. Like Hayden’s misconduct was Shane’s fault. Like Hayden being friends with Shane meant he caught the gay from him, like a disease.

“Christ- it was two guys kissing while fully clothed. Hallmark is more risqué than that. It really wasn't that big of a deal.”

“Who was it?”

Comeau’s words fell over the room like a blanket. They were pointed, no soft curiosity, a demand for Hayden to reveal what he already knew.

Who would Hayden have a video of? What two men kissing would make Hayden flip like he did?

If it was two strangers he wouldn’t have freaked out.

Hayden was shifting his weight from side to side. Shane couldn’t look his way, couldn’t allow himself to meet his eyes and risk confirming what he was certain happened.

There were half- less than compared to games with media, coaching staff, and whoever else worked their way in for one reason or another- the bodies a locker room about this size usually had, but Shane had never felt so closed in. Hayden and J.J. were on either side of him, blocking him from everyone else. Even if J.J. didn’t know it was Shane who needed to be blocked. Comeau and Drapeau were in front of him, Kyles was hovering near the door with Mendelev. Others were slowly drifting in closer.

“No one. I was just surprised the video came up. I think I clicked on a stupid thing in my email last week, probably just a virus.”

“No.” It was one word, two tiny letters, and Comeau confirmed that he held Shane’s fate in his hands.

If it was him, it was okay. Not good, terrible even, but manageable in the loosest sense of the word.

If they could see Ilya in it, there were too many ways everything could go wrong.

Shane had no idea how he would live if this cost him hockey, if one of the guys in the room found the right ear to complain into about Shane messing up the team synergy, about them not respecting him as a captain and a teammate anymore, until someone decided that he wasn’t worth the cap hit to sign his extension. If he ended up needing to play elsewhere, someone would sign Shane Hollander, but they might not sign the gay guy who already lost the backing of the team he’d been on for his whole professional career.

He could end up on the other side of the continent from Ilya and ruin their entire trajectory towards getting to be out. He was supposed to have his deal signed before they came out. Their bases were supposed to be covered to not risk what little they have already been able to claw out for themselves.

Ilya might have the backing of his team for being queer since they already were doing that with Barrett, but they might not want to deal with the guy leading their team being involved with an opposing team’s captain without any heads up. Things weren’t supposed to happen like this. They were supposed to get through the end of the season, sit down with an immigration lawyer for Ilya, and give a handful of people in each of their organizations the heads up before everything went live.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Their ducks were supposed to be in a row. The ducks were everywhere and one was being strangled in Comeau’s clenched fist. They were going to get to announce this, celebrate their love and let everyone else deal. It wasn’t meant to come out in front of half of his team with no safety net for him to fall into because of some video on Hayden’s phone.

Why the fuck did Hayden have a video of them on his phone?

“Yes,” Hayden insisted.

“No. That was fucking Hollander and some guy sucking face-“ was everyone in this room twelve years old?- “he bitched at us all practice for not trying but apparently he was just projecting onto us because he’s been distracted lately being gay with some guy.”

Despite the vile words and near physical glares being sent his way by some of his teammates, Shane relaxed. Not much, barely at all, but still.

‘Some guy’ wasn’t a person Comeau recognized. ‘Some guy’ wasn’t the most hated hockey player in Montréal. ‘Some guy’ wasn’t Ilya.

Everything else registered a moment later. It was too much to sort through, too much bullshit to deal with while his whole team was staring at him, waiting for an explanation. Like anyone else on the team had ever needed to explain getting a girlfriend, getting engaged or married. None of them had ever needed to explain anything.

Hayden was silent. J.J. was silent. The entire fucking room was silent.

His teammates wanted something from him that he couldn’t give. That he wouldn’t give like this.

“So?”

Comeau stared back at him. “‘So?’ That’s all you have to say for yourself.”

“You’ve known that I’m gay for years.” His words didn’t feel like they were coming from him. “So I’m dating someone, really not a big deal.”

J.J. huffed. Everyone was watching him, Comeau and Drapeau, or flipping between the three of them.

Shane was done sitting in the hot seat.

“I’ll see you all at morning skate.”

There were protests as he left the locker room. He would see them all tomorrow. Tomorrow they would go back to hockey, just like he did every time he stepped inside a rink. They would deal with it like he dealt with everything they did that bothered him. That was the unspoken agreement that came with being teammates.

They didn’t have to like each other, they just had to work together.

He wasn’t sure how much of any of that he really believed, but that was the best he could hope for. If the team couldn’t leave this alone, if he couldn’t show them for the thousandth time that he was the fucking best at what he did no matter what box he kicked his way out of-

“-ane, Shane.”

Hayden was behind him. Shane turned and pressed his back against his car.

“I’m so sorry. My trophy room has like a big mirror on one of the walls and a window. I do my FanMail videos in there because of the lighting and the trophies and shit. I did that one yesterday, the birthday one and you and…” Hayden glanced around, his eyes were wide and his hair was distinctly messier than it had been after he dried it earlier, “him were outside and you guys could be seen in the reflection.

“The person who bought it refunded the purchase before sending it to the guy it was for and the app doesn’t let you screenshot the videos or anything until you accept it. They didn’t share it and they can’t have a copy and the guys really didn’t see who it was, I’m not honestly certain that they could actually tell it was you because I had to stare at it for a bit and I recognized my own driveway. They just saw someone who… could have been you and made the mental jump.”

Someone who looked like they could be Asian. And Shane was The Asian Guy on the team. He was also standing directly in front of them when they saw the video, but it stung nonetheless.

That didn’t change the fact that Hayden had tried his best to stop it once he realized what was on his phone. “It was an accident.”

Hayden jolted. “I- uh- I mean I know that but like, it’s totally fine if you hate me. I kind of hate me, all I had to do was not be an idiot and none of this would be happening right now.”

“It wasn’t Ilya so it isn’t the end of the world.” Then, again, “it wasn’t Ilya so it isn’t the end of the world.”

If he said that enough he might end up convincing himself.

The team felt betrayed by him. Betrayed that he would dare go out and be gay and jeopardize everything they worked for together. Jeopardize the thing he spent his entire life working for.

Ilya was safe for now. He needed to focus on that.

“Okay.” Hayden wasn’t looking at Shane and Shane wasn’t looking at him. “If you need anything-“

“I just want to go home.”

He was slowly falling from the peak he had been pushed to as everything unfolded. If he went to Hayden’s it would be nice and Jackie would make them something Shane could eat while asking again if someone knowledgeable was assisting in his dietary regiment. The two of them would distract the kids from him if he needed the quiet and he could crash there if it got too late. It would be far from the first time he had done that.

The Pikes’ house was his home away from home in Montréal, they welcomed him openly from the day Jackie demanded Hayden invite him for dinner. A lot of his adult life was spent in their home, even more so the last few seasons when he and Ilya aren’t able to see each other for long stretches.

“Okay, buddy, let me know when you get home safe.”

Shane navigated through Ilya’s house by memory and the faint traces of daylight clinging to the sky. He locked the door behind him and answered Hayden’s cluster of texts that bypassed his Do Not Disturb settings to just say, Home.

Ilya’s bed was partially made when Shane crawled into it. Shane habitually made his bed every morning when he slept alone, pulling the covers up and returning the decorative pillows to their places and repeating when he cleaned his sheets. It wasn’t quite the same when Ilya was in the bed with him and he knew Ilya didn’t care whether his bed got made in the mornings so he didn’t make the bed as religiously at his house for a while until Ilya questioned him on it and said he would make the bed when Shane was there if he liked it.

Time passed in a blur. He was oblivious to it other than a fleeting thought when the last of the day’s brightness left the sky and he was left in the dark other than a dim plug in light Ilya kept in his hallway.

His phone buzzed meekly from where it was buried in a pile of haphazardly removed clothes and a throw blanket at the foot of the bed. There were any number of things waiting for him there that he would have to deal with eventually. Each new alert only a fraction of the amount reaching his phone silently and the burden of picking it up grew larger and larger.

Hayden was definitely responsible for at least a few of the notifications. Checking in on how Shane was getting along after everything.

He knew Shane well, knew that this should have caused him to spiral out in panic until he self-destructed or someone broke him out. The only person who had the ability to do that consistently was Ilya. That wasn’t what happened. Shane didn’t spiral as he drove up to Ottawa, he didn’t need to come up with every worst case scenario because he already knew them all and several of them had already started. He sunk, with every passing kilometer, until he dragged himself into Ilya’s house and fell into bed.

Coming out to them a few years ago was precedent for how they would act this time around. They were more openly disturbed at the knowledge that he was actively gay rather than that just being a fact they could ignore to the best of their abilities. He had appreciated their restraint, letting the hockey come first, but this time they weren’t quite as forgiving. He had meticulously planned out telling them last time, they were on a win streak nearing the end of the season, he was giving everything he possibly could in those weeks leading up to it and everyone could tell he was on fire. He did it at a restaurant the team went to together, everyone was there and, most, pleasantly buzzed. Neutral territory. They were coming to the end of the evening when he made his announcement and slipped out immediately after.

He had a meeting with Coach Theriault before the next practice about distractions and the commitment he made to the team. Management had contacted Farah but she didn’t let it get any further than that. He finished out the end of the season with a performance that commentators couldn’t shut up about. They hypothesized that he was playing so well to make up for not being able to play the year before.

The team was already a lower seed into the post season that year and had a rocky season. They made a hard push into the second round but ultimately came up short. No one could blame any of it on Shane. He wouldn’t let them have anything to find him lacking on this time around either.

A buzzing started from the depth of the cloth pile. He uncurled himself from the center of Ilya’s giant mattress. A phone call this late at night was something he needed to at least look at. His stomach groaned along with the buzzed ringing.

“Shane?” Ilya asked. The call connected before Shane had been able to find any words. “Shane, you are there?”

“I am.”

Shuffling sounded across the line, the telltale squeak of a hotel mattress. “What is wrong?”

So many things. Nothing Shane wouldn’t have been dealing with after they came out this summer anyway. This was a free trial without all of the features if anything.

“The- um-“ they were already planning to come out and Shane wanted to, this should be difficult- “my team knows that I’m dating someone. Hayden caught us in the background of his FanMail yesterday and whoever it was returned the video. He saw it after practice and panicked. They don’t know it was you with me so you’re safe.”

Shane wanted to crawl back inside the covers until he disappeared into them and beg Ilya to talk about nothing until he felt like he was inside of his body again. He couldn’t avoid this conversation, it wasn’t fair to Ilya.

“I didn’t have any warning that it was coming,” he swallowed, “but it’s fine. Nothing that I wasn’t already expecting over the summer. This might even make things a bit better in the long run.”

It was giving them time to stew on Shane’s behaviour and play while knowing he was in a gay relationship. He could prove to them that this wouldn’t change who he was as a player or person, that could soften the blow. As much as it was possible to do when he was in love with Montréal’s most hated.

“Shane-“

“I’m fine, I promise. We’re coming out this summer and I’m excited to do that with you.” It was everything else that he was less excited for.

“Okay.”

“Hayden was super apologetic.”

“Okay.”

“Can you say anything that isn’t ’okay’?”

His ‘okay’s didn’t sound mad. They didn’t sound like anything at all. Not like he was upset that Shane was upset by this, not that he was planning Hayden’s murder for being so careless. Just nothing, careful nothing.

“Hayden has been a good friend. He kept our secret for a very long time.”

“Yeah…” the unread messages his phone was probably full of made it burn in his hand. “It was an accident.”

“Have you eaten anything?”

Shane jolted. “Uh.”

“You have not.”

“I- I ate before practice. This morning.”

He had had his usual breakfast smoothie and two bites of pancake that Ilya insisted he have when they pulled themselves out of bed. Ilya needed to leave before he would have had his lunch so he ate it early so they could eat together in shared peace. His evening meal was sitting back in Montréal, untouched in his fridge.

“With me,” Ilya inferred. “That was- you are home? You need to eat something.”

“Not home.”

Ilya was silent across the line except for the telltale squeak of a hotel mattress. “Where are you? Pike would have fed you.”

“I’m at yours.”

“In Ottawa? You have morning skate and a game tomorrow.” Shane did, and Ilya knew that. He knew Shane’s schedule the way Shane knew his, tracking every moment they could steal together. Ilya sighed. “I do not have any of your meals prepped, but your smoothie stuff is in the kitchen. In the cabinet you keep your protein powder in and the bottom drawer of the fridge.”

Shane waited for the dig about his diet to come, for Ilya to tease him for caring so much about his health and longevity in hockey. Tell him to fucking relax. It didn’t come.

“I can make one later. I want to talk to you right now.”

There was no way he could make a smoothie that would properly match the intended nutritional value of his scheduled meal. He would have to sort out the missed meal but there was nothing he could do about it now. Ilya had a kitchen scale identical to his, that would get him close enough with whatever ingredients he kept here for Shane. He was going to have to get creative, he enjoyed adapting the meals his team’s nutritionist came up with for him but working from scratch was annoying.

“No,” Ilya’s voice was faint, his disagreement was firm even in its soft delivery. “I need to hear you make it.”

Shane dragged himself out of Ilya’s bed, leaving the covers arranged around the ghost of his body. He navigated to Ilya’s closet by the dim light emitting from his phone screen. The light chill of Ilya’s air conditioning settings was creeping along his skin now that he was exposed to it. Shane usually ran hot, while Ilya seemed entirely unaffected by temperature as a concept most of the time.

“Can we talk about anything else while I do?” He already made a mess of his meal plan and the team, if he got Ilya talking about something then he could listen and not fuck something else up today.

He grabbed one of Ilya’s hoodies and a pair of sweatpants from his side of the closet. It wasn’t quite half, but he kept a healthy seasonal selection of clothing at Ilya’s house so he didn’t have to worry as much about packing every time he was able to visit and they could take extra time together if the opportunity presented itself without hesitation. Things that got to spend more of their inanimate lives with Ilya in a year than Shane did. They also had a selection of clothing that they tended to share between them, mostly pyjamas and other unbranded comfort clothes.

“Bood spent most of the flight trying to convince Haas to work with him on one of those super realistic cakes for Cassie’s birthday.” Baking wasn’t as off topic as Shane would have liked, but he had watched one of those realistic cake shows with Ilya two summers ago so it was easy enough to disconnect the art from everything else. “He thinks he can make the cake because he has transferable cooking skills, Hayes thinks he has no idea how complicated baking cakes is.”

Shane flicked on the light in Ilya’s dining room, letting it flood into the kitchen ahead of him. He moved on instinct from drawer to cabinet to fridge while letting Ilya regale him with stories about his team bonding over anything and everything. Ilya gave up a lot career wise to move to Ottawa, but he did happen upon a very unique team in hockey, let alone in the MLH.

Shane arrived at the training facility a few minutes after he usually did for morning skate. Still early, being a good example for the kind of dedicated and timely player a team leader needed to be. He was intercepted by one of their equipment managers telling him Coach Theriault needed to talk to him.

Coach Theriault was muttering to himself at his desk when Shane knocked on his office door after detouring to drop off his stuff in the locker room. “Hi, Coach, Ryan said you wanted to talk to me?”

The office wasn’t small, but every flat surface was coated in Metros or sponsors’ iconography. Photographs of the team over the years, miniature replicas of all the cups during Theriault’s tenure, and some of his personal accolades.

“Sit. And shut the door behind you.” Shane sat. He had spent a fair bit of time in solo conversations with his coach and other members of their coaching staff since, and even before, he was given his captaincy. There was only one other time he had seen Theriault this aggravated to be talking to him.

“Word has made it to me from several different sources that there are some worries about your focus from our guys.” Theriault wasn’t looking at Shane, but he also wasn’t not looking at him. “The playoffs start in just a couple of weeks and we need everyone to be giving it their all.”

“I know, I agree.” Shane had been a coach's prime example of focus for his entire hockey career. He knew how much sacrifice and energy was required to make a proper cup run.

“Great. I knew that you would understand, you’ve kept your priorities in order up until now but I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page. We all want the same thing here, so keep your head down and everyone can get back to proving that our back to back cups weren’t a fluke.”

There were a few guys in the locker room when Shane made his way back. Hayden wasn’t there yet, Shane hadn’t spoken to him since the day before. He read most of his and Jackie’s- on Hayden’s behalf- apologetic messages that he didn’t have it in him to write a decent response to. Ilya messaged one of them while they were still on the phone the night before when Shane was trying to convince himself to start working through the day’s messages.

No one looked at him for more than a second, keeping on with their conversations that he walked into the middle of on the way to his cubby. Liez checked his watch when Shane silently crossed in front of him.

They were sloppy on the ice. Passes were halfassed and most of the team was a little too interested in talking to each other instead of listening to Coach Theriault, Shane, or anyone else. Theriault demanded they all get their shit together before game time that night. The only ones he looked at during the lecture were Shane and Hayden.

They scraped out a win in the dying seconds of overtime against the Scouts that night and flew down to Brooklyn the next day for a slightly more decisive 3-1 victory. The shots heavily favoured Brooklyn in both games and the powerplays they kept getting were their only saving grace.

Commentators were calling it strategic restraint. Avoiding equal penalties from retaliating for illegal hits to gain the advantage.

It wasn’t a strategy, but it was working, even if it was only against Brooklyn who were already out of playoff contention. Shane could take the hits.

Nelly, their physiotherapist, wrapped half of his torso in KT tape and demanded he not do anything strenuous and unnecessary before their game on Wednesday. It was a good enough excuse to get Hayden to go out with the team while he hung back in their hotel room alone to watch the last period of Ilya’s game against Carolina.

They were down by two when Shane turned the game on. Barrett scored off of a pass from Ilya to bring them back within one and Hayes was pulled with a little under two minutes to go.

Ilya was on fire, their whole team was in sync like nothing else mattered other than playing the best hockey they could. Plays were flowing and opportunities were being taken but Janseva blocked everything they threw at him.

The Centaurs bumped shoulders as they rounded up after the buzzer went. Some looked bummed but no one was glaring at anyone and a wide shot of the ice caught Ilya laughing at something in the bottom right of the screen. They played well, even with the loss, but it was close. Carolina has spent most of the season fighting the Admirals for top of their division and the Centaurs were still climbing their way up after a massive invigoration following their near plane crash. The loss wasn’t ideal, but that wasn’t slowing them down.

He pulled out his phone to text Ilya. Caught the end of your game, you guys played really well. Philly doesn’t stand a chance. They won against Pittsburg already and they beat Philadelphia back in January. They were working their way into an almost guaranteed wild card slot unless something detrimental happened in their last five games.

The Metros were already in. Seeding wasn’t guaranteed but Detroit was seven points behind them and they were still managing to eke out victories while the team was adjusting. The rest of his team had time to figure out that Shane was exactly the same player he always was before the first round started, he would regain their trust and the atmosphere in the room would return to what it always was.

I love you, he added for no reason more than he wanted to.

He had earbuds in with nothing playing. They didn’t do much to drown out any announcements played over the speaker system, but it dulled the hushed voices of his teammates from beyond the no man’s land they had erected around him. Airports weren’t Shane’s favourite place, but they were far from the worst aspect that came along with getting to play hockey.

“I did my best,” Hayden said, dropping into the seat beside Shane, “but they were out of those protein drink things you asked for.”

Hayden dumped a small mountain of food onto Shane’s lap, some of which was definitely not his. “So you supplemented with Skittles?”

“Those are mine, asshole. Unless you want some?”

A Skittle was the last thing he needed.

“A little sugar won’t hurt you, might even make you feel a little bit better.” Hayden raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, fine, you win. You definitely deserve a treat or something though.”

“This is treat enough for me,” he said, plucking the yogurt out of the pile. It was unflavoured, finding them for this brand was difficult on their side of the border.

“Whatever you say, man.”

He powered off his television when the knocking started. Hockey players watched hockey games all the time, there shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary about him spending a night off this late in the season watching a game their likely first round opponent was playing, but this was safer.

J.J. slipped into his house without a word when Shane opened the door. They hadn’t spoken outside of playmaking and muttered ‘good jobs’ after goals since Shane’s relationship status was revealed to the team.

There were only a few times that J.J. had come over to this house since Shane bought it shortly after Ilya moved to Ottawa. He didn’t host the team often and, if J.J. wasn’t dragging him and Hayden out, the three of them were usually at Hayden’s. Shane trailed after him back to the living room like J.J. knew his house like the back of his hand anyway.

“I’ve been trying not to be pissed at you for the last few days.”

Shane nodded. He hadn’t pushed the issue with J.J., they were closer than Shane was with most of the team and anger was easier to deal with than the poorly disguised disgust he was getting from most of the rest.

“You told Hayden about this mystery man. He’s been to Hayden’s fucking house, but I didn’t know he existed.”

“Hayden guessed-“

“I’ve been trying to set you up to help you get over your Rozanov-“ he spit out Ilya’s name like it was rotten- “thing like an idiot and you’ve been out here dating someone.”

J.J. was trying to be a good friend at the end of the day, a bit too pushy and unwilling to accept that Shane didn’t want his help but his heart was always in the right place.

“I’m sorry. I just- I couldn’t tell anyone. No one was supposed to know. And I have asked you to stop trying to set me up more than once.”

Not often enough. He played along a little, it was easier to straddle the line between disinterested and too busy than to shut J.J. down firmly and risk follow-up questions. It wasn’t fair to Ilya. It wasn’t fair to him, but Ilya was the one he was slighting by letting J.J. show him some guy for a minute before Shane brushed him off.

“It’s different.” J.J. hadn’t looked at Shane once since he came in. “Look, I’m glad you’re doing something to get over Rozanov. I’m not mad that you’re dating someone, just that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

“It wasn’t about trust.”

“Feels like it was from where I’m sitting.”

“J.J.- some people know, yes, but they were never supposed to. No one was supposed to know. I was going to tell you after the season, before we went public so you could come to our wedding.”

J.J. flinched, he whipped his head to the side to gape at Shane. “Wedding? How long have you been seeing this guy? You were hung up on Rozanov-“

“It’s him.” Shane hadn’t meant to say it, barely even thought the words before they were out of his mouth. He just needed J.J. to stop talking about Shane getting over his ‘crush’ like he recovered from an illness.

“What?”

“The guy. My boyfriend-“ he needed to get better at changing from that title, but Ilya wasn’t any better, they’d both be saying husband soon anyway- “my fiancé. It’s Ilya. Rozanov.”

“Chalice, Shane.” J.J. flopped against the back of Shane’s couch and covered half his face with both hands. “Jesus. Rozanov, really?”

Of anyone, Rose had given the best reaction to Shane. Farah too, but she had enough information to get there herself and already knew Ilya personally. Rose only knew him by reputation and a handful of things Shane had told her after substantial prying about their friendship. She had basically known since the night they switched from dating to friends that there was a guy, just not who.

She accepted his partner not being out and didn’t needle Shane for his identity, but she did ask random questions. If he was a dog or cat guy, if he bit into ice cream or was ‘actually sane’, what his favorite book from childhood was. The kind of innocuous questions she insisted someone should know about their friend’s partner.

When Shane invited her over to meet his boyfriend and boyfriend’s best friend, she had been shocked but the first words out of her mouth were, “oh my God, Shane, he’s like stupid hot, and he matches your hockey freak.”

“I love him,” Shane told J.J.. “And he loves me.”

“This is insane.”

Shane stared at his TV until the end of the game and the post match analysis blurred together. He missed a goal and an assist by Ilya between J.J. showing up and him turning the game back on.

Haas scored the go ahead goal off of Ilya’s assist on a power play. Ilya hugged him tight enough that Shane was worried he’d bruise.

“Hey,” he said when the call connected.

“Shane.” Ilya’s voice didn’t match the aggressively excited mannerisms of his replaying self on Shane’s screen, but wasn’t entirely devoid of it. “Shane?”

The music coming from Ilya’s side of the call was slowly fading. He was walking away from it, walking away from his team’s celebration after essentially securing their spot in the playoffs. This win and Tampa’s loss put a significant gap between them and anyone not quite grasping a wild card spot. Not enough to cinch, but enough to raise hopes.

And Shane was dragging Ilya away from it all because he couldn’t just keep his mouth shut.

“I fucked up.”

“Oh?”

Shane flicked the TV off, he couldn’t look at happy Ilya right then. “J.J. came over to talk-“ Ilya made a sound that could have been a word but not one clear enough for him to make out beyond the annoyed nature of it- “about the boyfriend stuff. He said he was pissed and I get that-“

“There is nothing for him to be pissed about.”

“- he’s my friend and Hayden knew even if I didn’t tell him. I’m not happy that he’s mad but mad is a better option. Then he started talking about how he was doing so much to try and help me get over my crush on- on you and I just couldn’t stand hearing him talk about me and some mystery guy he made up in his mind like anything could be better for me than you. Like anyone could ever compare. I blurted it out, I’m sorry.”

The music was practically nonexistent now. All sound from Ilya’s side was absent except the odd laugh or shout from one of his teammates that carried to wherever Ilya was hiding out.

“You were going to tell him soon.”

“I told him that, he didn’t seem super pleased. He’ll get over it, he just needs some time to readjust his perception of me or something.”

No one ever seemed to need to come to terms with Ilya being in love with Shane. Though, in all fairness, that was a smaller sample size. Svetlana, Farah, and most recently Cliff were the ones who knew Ilya to any degree when they found out.

Svetlana figured it out on her own. Actually, fully determined what was happening unlike Hayden’s poor excuse for detective work, he had asked Shane almost to dissuade the fleeting thought he had rather than confirming anything. She broke the news to Ilya slowly, hindered by the years where their friendship was stretched thin due to their separation and mutually heavy schedules. They were making more of an effort lately, seemingly unprompted, to keep in touch even when they were apart, on top of the rare instances where she would come to visit them or Ilya would go see her when he had extra time in Boston.

Ilya had invited Cliff out after the Raiders were playing Ottawa a few weeks ago and told him. He deserved to have more people in his corner and Shane had been happy even if the thought of more people knowing made his whole body itch.

“Your teammates do not like me very much.” There was a hint of teasing in Ilya’s voice but it was drowned out by something darker. “Are too loyal to you, think they are fighting against me with you.”

“None of that should matter.” Shane wished it didn’t matter, that he could simply tell everyone that Ilya was his boyfriend and they would nod along pleasantly and maybe congratulate him on finding someone who made him happy.

There were a lot of things he wished for. More time with Ilya, a world where who he loved wouldn’t lose him his career when they came out.

He could wish all day long, but nothing ever came of it. There were things he wasn’t allowed to have, things everyone else selfishly got. They didn’t have to pick, didn’t have to choose between the person they loved most and the thing they dedicated their entire lives to.

He just wanted to want. To have. Once it comes down to it- he had accepted this summer as the start of the end, but his countdown might be speeding up now- he’ll choose Ilya. If that means sticking things out in Montréal or-

He wasn’t moving away from Ilya. He wasn’t backtracking on their plan.

“I’m sorry for telling him without running it by you.”

“You don’t have to ask my permission for this. I want people…” Ilya was silent for long enough for Shane to check that the call was still connected. “I want us to be able to tell the people that we trust.”

That wasn’t their plan. Their plan was to tell everyone. They would be telling everyone in the summer.

“You should get back to your team,” Shane said before Ilya could say anything more. “You deserve to celebrate with them.”

“I was already celebrating-“ Shane winced- “now I can go back to my room and talk to you.”

“I didn’t mean to take you away from that.”

“Shane-“

“We have plenty of time to talk when I’m not pulling you away from something good.”

Something better than Shane dragging Ilya down with him.

“Okay. Goodnight, I love you.”

“I love you too.” He ended the call before something desperate crawled up his throat to take it all back and beg Ilya to just talk to him about anything until his body unwound enough to sleep.

He dragged himself down to his gym and ran on his treadmill until he barely had the energy to make it into bed after rinsing off. He showered earlier after another practice where only Hayden seemed to remember he was on the ice or care about the letter on his chest. This shower didn’t rinse away all of the bullshit any better.

Chapter 2: 3 Months

Chapter Notes

This fic is the second thing I've written in the past year that is over 50k... third thing ever. July was over 10k, I'm only in August, I might be doomed.

Anyway, welcome back to sad Shane hour.

April

For a fleeting few moments, Shane thought that things were turning around. Coach Theriault had started practice the day before with his usual new month, ‘leave the bad shit there’ and ‘keep playing our game’ style speech. Especially apt after closing out March the night before with a grueling OT loss to New Jersey.

There was an added piece this time about manning up and not getting bogged down by little problems that would work themselves out in the off season. Shane wasn’t big on that added piece, but plays started flowing almost as seamlessly as they used to and people other than Hayden made an effort to at least look like they wanted to be on the ice with him when Shane opened scoring against Tampa late in the first.

They went into the locker room up by one and the hum of team synergy was palpable.

His second shift in the second was spent almost entirely in their defensive end. Hayden tapped it out after one too many close calls and Shane flipped into offensive mode.

Hayden passed it back to Comeau once he got closed in on by Tampa players, just a second after reaching the puck.

Comeau carried it up the ice. Shane curled in, centering himself on the neutral zone with an open lane between him and Comeau.

They had done this a thousand times. Comeau looked at him, just for a second but Shane clocked it, then he looked away. Hayden was veering into open space but wouldn’t be clear until too late with Mahar closing in Comeau. Shane turned on his edge to reopen the lane in front of him with Pinnock as the only defender on him.

Comeau looked around a second time. Mahar intercepted before he could finish the pass to Shane.

Mahar was back across the blue line before Comeau turned around, he had overextended too far into the neutral zone without proper coverage. Shane sped by him but there was nothing he could do to stop Mahar from deking Drapeau and scoring.

“Not your fault,” Shane told him once he reached the net, the Tampa guys on the ice were still in a clump in the corner.

“I know.”

Comeau glared at Shane when they crossed by each other.

Tampa scored again a couple minutes later and the Metros couldn’t answer by the end of the period. The buzzer went to end the game after a scoreless third and Tampa remained in playoff contention by the skin of their teeth.

“Shane, do you have any comment on the hesitation before a pass was sent your way in the second period that ultimately led to a turnover and goal? There seems to be a trend in the last few games with possession lost by the Metros in the neutral zone.”

There were several mics in his face and lights scorching his eyes as he tried to look the reporter’s way when answering his question. “Hockey is a team sport, we have always pushed to use the whole ice and every player on it to open up opportunities. We haven’t been connecting as much as we would like too lately, but we will all be working towards amending that as the season comes to a close so that we can put our best foot forward into the post season and make our fans proud.”

In general, they were a full ice team, but most plays still funneled towards the best player in each situation. The fastest at moving up the ice when breaking out of their zone, the best shot between multiple open players. Comeau shouldn’t have hesitated, the team shouldn’t be hesitating enough that they start getting questioned on it. Shane could handle the questions, but he didn’t know what Comeau or anyone else would end up saying if a reporter asked the wrong thing when they were moody after a loss.

He would just have to make sure they had nothing to ask about. Cover for turnovers because of hesitation by getting the puck back before anything came of it, minimize other players’ chances to check him.

Three games left in the regular season. Four guaranteed in the first round.

Whatever he had to do to make it to the other side of the playoffs and re-sign with Montréal to stay near Ilya.

The season came to a close in front of an apathetic home game crowd. Even Montréal fans lacked the enthusiasm to maintain high spirits during a game like that.

After two weeks of them stumbling through game after game instead of dominating the end of the season as they should have.

He dropped into the back of his Dad’s SUV and put his head in his hands before anyone could say anything. He needed a break between the reporters, their coaching staff, and the team and hearing the same questions and critiques from his parents. Even his Dad’s usual congratulations on his play that he gave regardless of Shane’s performance was too much.

An overtime win was still a win, but they still haven’t properly recovered. They stumbled through the end of the regular season with nothing but the preexisting buffer keeping them a few points ahead of Detroit in the standings.

Houston was locked into third in Central even without beating them tonight, just barely escaping the bloodbath wild card race that five teams were still involved in with a day and a bit left to go. The Metros had walked all over them in February, but Shane wasn’t playing with the same team he was back then.

Or, at least, they weren’t playing the same way with him.

He shook his head when his mom offered to get him a snack when they got to his apartment, opting to sit at the table while they made themselves something.

“- Tampa lost, Rodrics had the overtime winner for San Jose.” His mother’s contributions to cooking usually got side tracked by hockey, this time of year especially.

“I’m playing Ilya,” Shane said, despondent. That was practically a given since the beginning of the month but Tampa had still had a scenario if they won tonight and the Centaurs lost their last game in regulation.

The prospect of getting to play against Ilya was always invigorating. Even before they had been together officially. The only time he had felt anything close to dread about facing him was when he was with Rose and the undercurrent of the possibility of good hockey still made itself known. Not that either of them had played all that good of hockey that game.

This was different. More. The team was still weird about his friendship with Ilya, half of them thought it was a PR stunt and rarely let him hear the end of it when they played Ottawa and the other half were openly betrayed by him befriending the enemy like everyone else didn’t have friends scattered across the league. None of them were handed a rival before they even entered the MLH, but the fact remained that a few of them have been on different teams than their ‘closest friends’ far longer than they were ever on the same one.

“Well, we’ll get to see all of the games pretty easily. Make it a good series for us, will you?” His dad asked.

Shane blinked at them when silence fell across the room. He realized what was asked a moment later.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Are you sure everything is alright?” His mom sat down across from him. “I know you don’t want us talking about whatever is going on with the team-“

“Nothing’s going on. It’s fine.”

“-okay.” His parents shared a look. He needed to talk to his mom about hockey again. He did enjoy it, the same way he always enjoyed hockey except when it was like this. “We’re here for you, whenever and whatever you need.”

“I know. You’re going to Ilya’s game tomorrow, right?”

Svetlana hadn’t been able to come to a game of Ilya’s outside of Boston for a while because of her job and Ilya, from what little Shane knew of the situation, was always quick to tell her that there would be other games. He deserved to have people who loved him attend his games.

In another world Shane would drive up there with his parents in the morning and attend his game as just another face in the crowd. He would be able to go home with him afterward and no one would care for more than a passing second.

“We don’t have to,” his mother rarely voluntarily missed hockey, not one of his games for his entire life and not one of Ilya’s for the last few years, “if you want us to stick around.”

“No, you guys and him are excited. He likes putting on a show for you.”

“Okay, honey.”

Shane woke up to two new emails. The first was a lengthy notice from the team’s PT that read more like blackmail to keep him from doing anything even remotely strenuous than anything else. They all got them, their medical staff has spent the last few weeks documenting each of them from head to toe for everything as minor as a paper cut to ensure that they were in tip top shape heading into the post season.

They sat a few people each game once their slot was essentially secured to rest injuries. Heading into their first series, sitting out wasn’t an option.

Ottawa was not a team most of the league worried about playing. Ilya was the first stepping stone to changing that and they were certainly a more formidable opponent than anyone- his team especially- was giving them credit for. They might lack playoff experience, but they had talent and heart.

The second email was from Farah. She wanted to talk to him sometime soon about her communications regarding his contract. She had never brought that up like this before, at most she would send him an update of where each side was standing. Simple, impersonal. Not something that required a dialogue to just keep him up to date on what was happening.

He emailed back to ask for an hour and a bit, rounded to the nearest hour mark, to get into his day.

He ran for the first part of his allotted time, the distance was cut short by the restraint but he would go again in the evening and do the full length. He needed to up his daily running anyway. He did stretches and weights for twenty minutes after that before showering and putting together a new smoothie. The original was from a list provided by his team's nutritionist, he liked her, she was very knowledgeable in her field. He was getting better at adapting the recipes she sent.

Ilya had a tendency to answer Farah’s calls wherever and whenever. Shane had debated trying to mimic that before deciding to set up at his kitchen table with a flat wall behind him to reduce glare.

“Hi, Shane. It’s been a minute since we’ve touched base. I’m glad you were able to find the time today.”

“No problem.” There wasn’t much for him to do, but it was also in his best interest to be available whenever Farah needed him. She has been a constant in his hockey career and took the curveball he and Ilya threw at her gracefully.

“So,” Farah glanced down at whatever was on her desk, “as you know, I’ve been going back and forth with your team about your contract for a while. It isn’t completely unusual to have a player of your caliber not sign immediately and negotiations have been reasonable so I wasn’t worried about that…”

Shane resigning with the Metros was a given. There had been some confusion back in July when it hadn’t happened but Farah’s agency let the word spread to the right people that Shane and the team were just taking a little extra time to get the deal that was best for everyone involved fleshed out before his inevitable signing.

It had been inevitable.

“Until now,” she finished. “I got an update a few days ago that their camp will be backing off from negotiations until after the playoffs. I’ve had this happen before, it’s a busy time and it can be an unnecessary worry for players…” Farah had seen it all as an agent, it was one of the reasons she was suggested to him way back when. She was nearly unphasable. “So I emailed back, said that we were fine to pause things for a few weeks, hopefully until after you’ve won another Cup, and to say that our latest offer would stay valid until then. Just to let them know that the ball was in their court.

“I don’t- there wasn’t anything specific about it, but the response I got was almost dismissive? I can forward you the email if you would also like to figure it out but I’ve never received something like this from the Metros. There have been a couple of times where I was in early stages of negotiations when a player was involved in something stupid and whichever team’s camp was weighing their worth against the publicity side of things backed off. Not this late, not with a player of your caliber and clean record-“

He hadn’t told anyone since Ilya that first night, not about what happened. “The team found out that I’m dating someone.” Farah’s eyes widened, just the slightest amount. “Not about Ilya, just me.”

“We dealt with their concerns last time you signed, after coming out to them. I thought that everything has been fine since?”

“Mostly.” He let out a sound, something dark resembling a laugh. As long as they didn’t have to live with the knowledge that he was out in the world actually being gay. “The team dynamic has been impacted, I’ve been in to see Theriault more times in the last couple weeks than I ever have in a month or even two.”

“They can’t back off signing you for just being in a relationship. There are a few lawyers on retainer here that are itching to get to hit someone in this league with a discrimination suit.”

Shane smiled, it fell after a moment. “I don’t want to sue, I just want to do what I did last time and show them that I am still the player they have put their faith in for the last decade.”

“I can’t talk to anyone directly until free agency starts but-“

“It’s fine.” Shane chewed on the inside of his mouth. He still had a chance to keep hockey and have Ilya. Slim, but a chance if he did well enough. “I’ll do what I can in the playoffs and we can talk about how favourable they are to still signing me after.”

Shane was back outside as soon as his call with Farah ended. He passed his house three times instead of turning back after he hit his kilometer goal.

He paced through his gym until he could stop moving without his legs cramping and he dropped onto the nearest machine and started from there. When his shoulder started to twinge from a bad hit a few games ago, he did a couple more reps before stressing another area of his body like the PT’s demanded.

Ilya’s game started at seven. The day blurred by until then, until he was sitting on his couch and the muted TV screen flashed between the Sports on Air talking heads and live warm ups footage. His parents texted him from the arena when they made it to Ilya’s seats and Hayden asked him if he wanted to come over for dinner and watch the game together.

He declined the offer. Hayden promised a diet friendly meal and to let Shane gush over Ilya as much as he wanted without complaint- possibly to be egged on or joined by Jackie. All of those things were good and not entirely likely for Hayden to be able to provide unless he taped his own mouth shut, but he didn’t have it in him to be around people that night.

Ilya played hockey like the game was made for him. His energy radiated through the screen. It bounced around all of the Cens like a plinko ball. They had been steadily rising through the ranks this whole season and all of the preexisting talent on the team was meshing perfectly with the new talent brought in over the past few years. Not perfect yet, but the kind of team hockey fans, Canadian ones especially, could believe in.

They were dominating the ice. Houston’s power play goal was more of an unfortunate bounce than anything, but meant the scoreboard was a poor representation for the game being played.

Shane dragged himself into his kitchen during the first intermission.

He had taken out this evening’s preweighed container of brown rice and put it beside his rice cooker the night before. It stared at him from across the counter. There was a portion of cod in the fridge to go with it. It would be easy to get for himself, just getting his rice in water and cooking while he frying the fish, same as every other night this week.

Only he had also missed his lunch. The meticulously proportioned ingredients for his egg salad lined the lower drawer of the fridge and second highest shelf on the cabinet to the right of it. All dated and marked with nutritional overviews . Not eating that would be an unaccounted for deviation from his meal plan. He either had to skip one of his meals, push back the last couple days of this week’s meal prep into next week and have an incorrect alignment of meals on the first day, or eat both meals now. There was no turning back the clock to have his necessary intake in the early afternoon and his regiment was thrown out of whack. He needed to be more careful, mistakes like this shouldn’t happen this close to playoffs.

Splitting the salad was the best way to go. It would mess with his totals for today and the next day, but it wouldn’t have any long term effects on his weekly meal plan. Eating two full meals in one sitting this late in the day wasn’t ideal either. He had trained his body to know exactly how much food to anticipate at every meal of the day, so he had to minimize impact on that.

He put on his rice and set a pan on the stovetop to heat up while he pulled out his kitchen scale to re-portion his salad components.

The second period started before he made it back. He missed about a minute of play and a penalty for each side, they were full strength on the ice so there was some kind of mutual scuffle.

He didn’t want to miss a second of play. This wasn’t just any hockey game, it was Ilya’s and Shane loved to watch him play. It would be less strange for Shane to go to one of Ilya’s games than the reverse, given he grew up a Centaurs fan and his parents were frequently spotted supporting their local team, but it was too much of a risk. Especially now; Hayden had figured out there was someone and it only took a couple weeks of Shane traveling more often to Ottawa to jump to the Ilya conclusion, there was no way at least one person from the team wouldn’t make the same leap if Shane deviated from his usual routine to travel all the way to another city to watch someone else’s hockey game. Something he almost never did in person, not even for playoff competition. It was too obvious.

Obvious to anyone who knew him, at least.

Being in the same building as Ilya and unable to go near him was like dipping himself in boiling water.

He felt it in every fiber of his being. He was dreading heading onto the ice across from him despite doing everything in his power over the last few days to be ready to do just that.

For the first time in his life, he almost hated hockey. He hated being in a rink, being in the dressing room for one of the biggest franchises in the sport. Hated being anywhere except in Ilya’s orbit where he didn’t have to be anything he wasn’t or give anything he couldn’t.

Warm ups were soothingly predictable. His whole team had started playing with a level of professionalism that bordered on clinical. Plays happened to the letter in practice, no one spoke on the bench or ice unless it was strictly necessary. It was the kind of hockey that he had tried to drive them to for years with minimal success. They just had to do all of that in a real game.

There was an unspoken agreement in the room to ignore Shane and all of his problems for the duration of playoffs.

Hayden had tried to convince him to say something because what they were doing was fucked up. It was. Shane wasn’t stupid, he just knew how to put his head down and work with it when there was nothing he could do to change anything.

Ilya watched him too obviously from his side of the ice. They hadn’t been able to talk much in the last couple days and Shane couldn’t be trusted to meet him at center ice without the weight of the game keeping him in check.

“Hayden,” Shane warned, just loud enough to cross the short distance between them. He was watching Shane almost as obviously as Ilya.

“You guys are being weird.”

“We’re being cautious.”

The nerves had caught up to him during O’ Canada. The Montréal crowd was loud enough to feel like a physical presence on the ice beside him, standing over his shoulder and watching his every move.

Ilya wasn’t smirking or even smiling when they leaned down across the dot from each other.

“Good luck,” Shane said. It was too much and not enough, but all he could get himself to say as the ref closed in.

Their game was far from textbook. Plays unfolded with hostile reluctance under Theriault’s watchful eye. They happened, but they weren’t right. Passes went long forcing Shane to battle to get control of the puck instead of it being sent into workable space and more than once a puck Shane passed to someone sailed right by their stick because they wouldn’t look at him, even if he had the puck.

The Centaurs adapted fast. Their excess coverage of Shane loosened across the first period, not enough to leave him open but to stop leaving someone else partially open by doubling up on Shane.

Another team would have capitalized on the still spotty retaliation for any excess physicality against Shane. Other teams had capitalized on that. Ottawa wasn’t that kind of team, they weren’t shy about being physical but they were smart, they could be restrained without sacrificing any control.

Barrett put Ottawa on the board first and Shane’s team elected to actually play decent hockey for long enough to tie and then pull ahead. Beyond that the Cens had them back on their heels until Theriault was demanding they get back out there and play real Metros hockey in the third.

The crowd was audible from the room and hit like a wave when the door opened to let them back into the tunnel. The intensity of the playoffs was undeniable, it radiated off of everyone and everything. It bounced between them like they were statically charged, even across the chasm that separated him from everyone else on his team.

He did this almost every year he’d been in the MLH. They played twenty five playoff games last year and won the whole thing. He never felt it this strongly before.

The team wanted to win. He needed to win.

He met Ilya at the face off dot in the Cens’ end. They were running out of time to even the score and determination was written across Ilya’s face.

It was enough to tempt Shane to go back on their yearly agreement to focus on the playoffs until they were both out for the season.

He smiled despite himself. The first time he had that whole game, probably the whole day. It eased something inside of him but he had to tilt his head away from Ilya before he sank too far into it. The brief reprieve was enough to allow him to power through the rest of the game.

And to win the face off.

Rose texted him to congratulate him from her set in Vancouver. It was a brief stint on some straight to streaming show that blew up a few years ago. She wasn’t allowed to say anything about her character or the storyline, at least not as of a few weeks ago when Shane last properly talked to her.

He hearted her message but didn’t directly respond. There was no conversation he could have with her that didn’t have him immediately crumbling and admitting that she was entirely right about needing a plan B.

Shane worked well with a plan. A defined direction to be heading in and a layout for what he was supposed to say, how he was meant to act. Multiple plans would just make a mess of each other, even if that was the smart way to go. He knew at the time that they should have a backup plan but he was already committed to their retirement plan, then to their summer wedding plan.

The plan can change. He didn’t love changing often, but he could make it work.

His team finding out blew the whole plan up.

There was no plan B that would have prevented this.

Ilya’s contact took over his screen, replacing his messages with Rose that had been staring back at him. The Centaurs couldn’t have been back to their hotel for long. They might not have as much to celebrate as the majority of Shane’s team that was out right then but Ilya had told him that they gathered for their wins and to process some of the loss the rest of the time. They were a close bunch.

“Hey,” he said. He had been planning to wait until Ilya was back in his room alone before FaceTiming him. “You guys played well.”

Ilya grinned. “We did. Not as good as your team but comeback victory will be even sweeter than just flattening you.”

“Okay.” For a second he let himself be guided back over to the good side of the intersection of hockey and Ilya in his life. “One of us has a point in this series though, and it isn’t you.”

A point that they hardly deserved, but the rest of them would be cleaner, a display of the good Montréal hockey they all knew how to play just the month before.

“There it is,” Ilya looked exceedingly proud of himself, Shane both hated and fucking loved that look, “the asshole has come out to play.”

“That’s just a fact! We’re not getting cocky about one game.” Shane was never one to get caught up in small victories, not really. There wasn’t truly anything to pat themselves on the back for besting another team until the series was won. A sigh of relief that the first game was done and some congratulations were fine, but most of his teammates went out for drinks like that was their fourth win and not their first from what Hayden overheard on their way out of the arena. “Well,” he grimaced, “I’m not getting cocky about one game.”

Shane tried to run his hand through his hair but he had it pulled back. He wasn’t used to having it tied up. This was the longest it had been in his life but he didn’t hate it.

Ilya was watching him without blinking. “Good,” his voice sounded entirely detached, “we like to be underestimated.”

He considered the merits of teasing him for the word, it was far from the most difficult word Ilya had pulled out of nowhere and Shane at least knew what this one meant, but it was a very familiar back and forth to instigate. Instead, he grabbed his glasses and waited until Ilya came back online so they could both take their minds off tonight’s game.

The Cens won the second game to take the series back to Ottawa tied.

They had been selling out their arena for months now. Knowing that didn’t prepare Shane for skating onto the ice for game three. The Censplex was the first MLH arena he had ever stepped foot in as a kid and it was full. And loud. They easily rivaled the Montréal crowd.

The him of twenty years ago was giddy over it, his hometown team finally getting into the playoffs and selling out the rink. The him of today was giddy because it was Ilya who was at the center of so much of this. It was Ilya who was on the other side of the ice even if Shane had to keep his distance.

Good hockey was still happening in the league, just up the way in Ottawa where Ilya and his parents were.

They lose the first game in Ottawa but Shane gets his first couple goals of the series. He was scraping by on only a few points from assists, almost exclusively to Hayden. It wasn’t enough to secure the win but it kept them close and they would take the next one.

Ilya texted him after to gloat and check on him in equal measures. Shane sidelined that with a picture of himself, a plea to be taken out of his head. He rarely sent photos and when Ilya sent him any he deleted them after taking the necessary time to commit it to memory.

Ilya answered his FaceTime chest first and Shane only registered that after he broke away from seeing his ring and Ilya’s crucifix swaying on their chain. His mind started wandering in too many directions to count. He was talking, responding to whatever Ilya was saying but it was all drowned out by the thunderous rumblings of the various trains of thought racing through his mind.

Talking to Ilya, seeing him, quieted things a little, but not nearly as much as being with him did. Shane should be there, in Ilya’s house. They agreed forever ago to limit their time together during the playoffs and especially with the possibility that they were going to be playing each other. That was before. He was never the most sociable guy on any team he’d played on, but when the pressure rose he always ended up closer to the fold since the only things anyone cared about in the fold were hockey and he was good with that.

Only that wasn’t the only thing happening. Everyone else got to focus on hockey most of the time, almost all of it this time of year, and go home to their family, meet up with their girlfriend, or find a hookup. That was something that helped them decompress and when they needed to take a moment in the locker room they could talk about those things, tell someone else what they were planning to do to celebrate the Cup with their wife or whoever else it may be. Shane had to sneak away to meet Ilya and saw him a fraction of the time that even a couple of the guys who had long distance relationships saw their partners.

If he was with Ilya in person he could pull him in until there was no space left between their bodies and just be there. He could angle his chest until Ilya’s chain left an impression on his skin so he could have something lasting, even if it was only for a short time. He couldn’t do any of that over the phone.

Shane crawled back into his hotel bed after cleaning up and Ilya was waiting, staring at Shane through their call.

“Your team is still being weird.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s fine.” Shane stared at the edge of the pillow he had his phone propped up on. “I’m fine.”

“No.”

Of course he was fine, he had to be. People had all kinds of things happen to them at work, some better than others, and it was hardly ever a big deal. They even made entire TV shows about people working boring office jobs. This was nothing that he hadn’t basically dealt with before and he was already handling it.

He didn’t need to worry Ilya over something neither of them could fix anyway.

“It’s just playoff stress.” A lot of it was. The new season wouldn’t be as grating on him as things were now. That was, if Montréal still wanted him.

“Okay.” Ilya didn’t believe him, it was written all over his face.

They had done this before, just in the reverse. Shane trying to lean into a conversation about how Ilya was doing and Ilya shutting him down and insisting everything was fine. It was hardly the same, if Ilya wanted to talk to him about what was going on Shane might be able to help, or to at least be there for him. Ilya was already there for Shane, at a distance like Shane insisted they maintain so much of the time so that nothing went horribly wrong, but there. Shane loved him for it. There was just nothing Ilya could do to single-handedly change how hockey culture worked and Shane had long since come to peace with that. Ilya was less at peace, so Shane maintained the distance between Ilya and his problems so that his fiance wasn’t burdened by them.

Shane was being watched. He was used to having eyes on him, it had been constant since his name started gracing headlines before his first IPC. This was a different kind of watching, a specific kind he hadn’t experienced since before he was drafted.

Scouting. Not to see if he was all he was proclaimed to be, but watching every move he made on the ice in practice or in a game, in the locker room, and they pulled aside any teammate who spent more than a minute within arm’s reach of him.

They were evaluating his worth against his refusal to adhere to what hockey was supposed to be. Determining the risk he posed to their optics, the optics they’d achieved off of his face, name, and skill since he joined the team. They were trailing by one in the series and he was being biopsied like a tumor they found in their otherwise perfect team.

It didn’t matter that Shane scored twice the night before or that Comeau spending half the third period in the box cost them their lead. It didn’t matter that Shane went and scored their only three goals in the fourth game to tie them once again in the series. Nothing he did mattered to them.

He didn’t give a shit about that. Couldn’t give a shit about a team that collectively decided he didn’t have any worth to them because he chose to be happy outside of hockey for once while still keeping it a secret to protect their delicate sensibilities. It was pathetic. They were paid to play together, he would do that and they could too or they could sit back and he would win the fucking games anyway.

He took an extra few seconds to put on one final thing before he walked to the center of the room and waited until everyone got the hint and shut themselves up.

“This has not been a good series for us so far.” Most of the team wouldn’t meet his eye when he spun around, from shame or something else, he didn’t know and didn’t care. He just needed better from them. “The team I played with last April, last June, would laugh us off the ice for how we’ve been playing. We know how to play hockey. Most of us won this thing together last year and if you weren’t there you were brought in for a reason. We’re the Montreal fucking Metros, hockey is our game.

“I don’t care what you think of Ottawa, what you think or feel about anything, the only thing I care about is winning another Cup. So if you want to keep playing like you don’t care about that, go ahead. But if you want to remind everyone who we are, that we play the best hockey in this league no matter what, let’s go win tonight.”

They hit the ice wide open and had Ottawa trailing by three in just one period. They were up 4-0 by the end of second and Shane felt like he was being supercharged by every cheer and scream in the arena.

On a technical level he wasn’t playing any different. The few plays he rewatched on the bench looked almost indistinguishable from any other game. He was where he was supposed to be, passing or shooting when and how he should. It felt different though, like the rope of an anchor was cut away from his ankle.

He was no longer inhibited by trying to maintain the paper thin peace with his team, by appeasing the right members of upper management to ensure his long tenure with the team. It was delightful, it was the first time since March he looked forward to getting back out on the ice after each intermission.

“This is not going great for you,” Shane said when he met Ilya at center ice. Hayden had scored during their last shift to pull their lead to five goals.

“You did something.”

Shane tipped his head, considering. “I reminded them that it’s stupid to play bad hockey.”

Ilya started to say something else, he no doubt noticed the unnoticeable difference in Shane on the ice. He froze when Shane turned his head slightly further. “You have a chain.”

Shane hadn’t given Ilya any heads up for his purchase. “For my ring.” He hadn’t told Ilya about that either. “After this summer.”

He flicked his eyes to Ilya for a second before the linesman pivoted to start skating toward them. Ilya was wide eyed and Shane smirked as the whistle blew.

A second later he snapped the puck away before Ilya could react.

Ilya managed to score with three minutes left on the clock, but Shane matched it with a breakaway goal a minute later.

He was able to do more than robotically move through the end of game script for the first time in the series. He exchanged a few brief words with some of the Cens and caught Ilya staring at him from the door his team was leaving the ice through.

Hayden skated directly in front of him, cutting off his line of sight to Ilya.

“Hey,” he complained.

“You know, I actually kind of feel bad because this is the first time you’ve actually seemed like yourself this month but, like, you two were just hardcore staring at each other. Very obviously.”

“Today felt okay,” he said as Hayden nudged him to start skating off.

They were alone in the tunnel once they let everyone else off the ice before them, Shane being the very last.

“I can work with okay.” Hayden spun his stick around the tip of the blade, making no effort to move them anymore. “But if it starts to be not okay again, you can tell me. I’m here for you, man. And I’ve been worried. Jackie too.”

“I know.” He didn’t, not for sure, but it wasn’t the easiest thing to act perfectly normal with the people who know you the best. He would do better, Hayden and Jackie had much more important things to do with their time than to be concerned about him.

“You’ll talk to someone once the playoffs are done, right?”

He would do something after the playoffs were done. What that was, he would also figure out then. Right then was for hockey. “Sure.”

“Shane.”

“It’s fine.”

“We’re having this conversation again in June, just so you know. And I’m bringing Jackie, you can’t get anything by her.”

Hayden was right about that, Jackie could see through anyone’s bullshit if she had the time and desire to. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Okay,” Hayden said after a pause. “Make sure to factor yourself into whatever plan you come to.”

Shane didn’t want to think about a plan, he didn’t want to think about anything at all. He had to get through media- he could probably do that unconscious at this point- and deal with the locker room, then he could go home.

Alternatively, he could send Ilya a picture of his new chain and then he had something to look forward to for getting through the next hour.

The Cens’ arena was somehow more packed and louder for game six. The energy rivaled that of some Cup Final games Shane had played in his life.

They spent more of the game tied than anything else. The Metros went up by one, the Cens tied it. Ottawa went up, Montréal regained the tie. They had been stuck at three goals a piece since early in the second and it felt like his skin was on fire.

8:48 to go when Comeau tripped Barrett into Drapeau. He got called for it but the refs also gave Barrett two minutes for goaltender interference. The fans and Ilya made their displeasure with the call known to the ref but Barrett still went to the box and Boodram pulled Ilya away before he put them on the penalty kill. It was a bullshit call but that was just how the playoff reffing lottery worked, one minute you could get away with clotheslining a guy with your stick and the next you’d be called for someone tripping over their own skates within arms reach of you.

6:21 to go when a scuffle broke out in the Cens end. Shane ended up paired off with Troy but neither of them did much more than nudge each others’ shoulders. The fight petered out other than Brostadten still spitting something at Ilya with a ref and J.J. pulling him back and Ilya just grinned at him while making no move to get out of Dykstra’s performative hold.

“Sometimes he acts normal for a few days,” Barrett said. He was leaning on the back of Hayes’ net, watching the end of Brostadten’s tantrum from between Hayes and Shane, “then he ramps it up to a hundred after you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security.”

Hayes snorted longsufferingly and Shane was tempted to do the same. He knew Hayes a little from All-Stars and the couple times he’s coached at their camp. Barrett he was still uncertain of, but Ilya and him were friends.

Shane and Ilya were friends. He was allowed to be Ilya’s friend with his other friends.

“He has a good sense of when to be annoying.” He didn’t look back at either of them when he spoke, but he also resisted the urge to flee immediately in case he wasn’t meant to join their impromptu support group meeting. “It’s why he’s so good at picking the time you’d be the most susceptible to him riling you up to do exactly that.”

Barrett muttered something that might have been a plea to a higher power.

“He can do it with more than that,” Hayes said. “The noticing thing, I’ve got goalie eyes but he can walk into a room and read people like books.”

Shane turned slightly to nod emphatically enough to fuck up his hair under his helmet. “It’s more annoying than him trying to be annoying sometimes.”

Brostadten had finally been moved far enough from Ilya to cool off. He ended up in the box for starting the fight, and Ilya and J.J. ended up with equal time to put the Centaurs on the power play. The penalty box door slammed shut and Shane took it as the punctuation to his conversation with Barrett and Hayes.

He snuck a look at Ilya on the way back to his bench. Ilya was staring at him, eyes flicking back to Hayes’ net intermittently. He gave Shane a bewildered look but all Shane gave him in return was a grin.

5:05 to go and Haas appeared out of nowhere to intercept a pass. He ended up alone in Montréal’s end and Shane clenched his water bottle so hard Hayden had to yank it out of his hand. Drapeau stopped the shot, not because of quality goaltending but because he overcommitted far enough out of his crease that Haas’ clean shot through his five hole hit the post instead of going in.

3:51 to go and Shane was standing across from Ilya at the dot in his end. The crowd was screaming in compliance with the scoreboard screen demanding they make some noise.

It felt right to be standing in the middle of a sea of Ottawa red.

“It’s a shame they’re going to be going home disappointed tonight,” he told Ilya, still staring out at his hometown crowd.

“Ah, you think you will win this game. Is okay, we all think silly things sometimes.”

Shane bit back his smile as best he could. He could let Ilya break him that easily, even if he was just a foot away and chewing on his mouth guard in a way that Shane found deeply displeasing when anyone else did it but unfortunately hot when it was Ilya. “Seems smart to me, win now and get a couple extra days of rest before the next round starts. I wouldn’t be in a rush to get back to Montreal either.”

He didn’t say anything else, just let the implication take root in Ilya as the linesman approached them with the puck.

For the second time that game, Shane won a faceoff Ilya forgot to show up to.

1:16 to go and the whistle blew from Comeau icing the puck to put a stop to Ottawa’s barrage of shots even if it didn’t get them a shift change. It was bordering on a miracle that the game was still tied. They were just barely keeping it together enough to not allow them another goal.

1:02 to go and Theriault called for a time out. Shane had only just made it back onto the bench when the whistle blew and he wouldn’t be seeing it again until regulation ended.

0:44 to go and Ottawa had possession in their own end.

J.J. blocked the puck from leaving the end after a tip. He passed it to Comeau who moved in but ultimately passed it back to J.J..

They bounced the puck around. Each analyzing every possible shot and pass option they had, waiting for an opening.

0:31 to go and J.J. sent a slap shot to the net that sailed past everything except the back of Hayes’ blocker.

The puck fell into a scramble of sticks and skates.

Hayden fished it out with his back to the net.

Shane felt more than heard himself yell.

0:25 to go and the goal light shined bright.

Hayden jumped on his first, followed belatedly by the rest of his teammates on the ice. He would have been just as fine celebrating with only Hayden.

0:11 to go and they regained control of the puck. They played keep away as the seconds ticked down. Time was molasses slow as the heartbeat of the desperate crowd pounded against the ice.

0:01 to go when J.J. let go of the puck at center ice to scream bloody victory at the nearest Centaur.

They hadn’t exactly shut the Ottawa crowd up, but that was a difficult thing to do when fans weren’t as frugal with their respect and appreciation and Montréal ones.

Ilya was leaned forward, his stick pressed across his bent knees. A handful of his teammates surrounded him, not pressing in, but creating a protective barrier as their captain regained himself. Like pack animals that migrated together and kept their most beloved safe in the middle.

Shane was standing in no man's land between the Centaurs at one end of the ice and his team still whooping and raving like they hadn’t made it through this series by the skin of their teeth. He joined his team after taking another moment for himself. They circled him like sharks but no one bit. He didn’t give them any bait.

Despite the gloating his teammates ahead of him were handing out like Halloween candy, each Centaur he met in line shook his hand happily and was nothing but kind and polite in the face of their loss. Several offered impersonal congratulations, a couple younger players went a little more specific by naming something he did that they thought was awesome or impressive.

Troy Barrett was one of the last ones in line before Shane could get eyes on Ilya to see how he was doing. “I’d say see you at camp, but I’m not entirely certain that offer wasn’t conditional on us winning this series.”

Shane fumbled through meeting him for a handshake even after going through a dozen already. “You what?”

Barrett squinted at him, then behind him, vaguely in the direction of Ilya. “Roz invited me. And Bood. If you’d still have us, I’m excited about it.”

“No, that would be great.” It would be nice to meet more of Ilya’s team and get to know them once their relationship went public.

“I hope we can be friends,” he said, taking words, or at least the sentiment, out of Shane’s mouth. Barrett was also gay and someone Ilya had come out to even if he never confirmed any suspicion Barrett might have had about him and Shane. He could be someone Shane ends up relating to if they ever had a real conversation.

“Yeah,” the line was moving with them awkwardly standing still in the middle, “definitely.”

Barrett looked down at his arm like he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He made a weak attempt to coordinate himself but gave up on whatever else he was thinking to just pat Shane’s arm as he drifted away.

He made it through a few more handshakes with well mannered Centaurs before his eyes locked on Ilya. Losses like this hit hard and especially so with falling to a team they outplayed most of the series. Shane tried to get a read on him as soon as he was close enough, but his concern was mirrored on Ilya’s face.

“You guys played really well.” He shook Ilya’s hand. Checks and brushes against each other on the ice were perfectly normal for as long as they had known each other and off the ice he was growing accustomed to leaning in close for a picture at one of their events or Ilya hanging off of him, just a fraction of how much he did with his friends.

“So did you.” Ilya didn’t mean the whole team, and not just because he liked being a dick.

Shane didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what he could say with the thousands of eyes on them just in the arena and so many more at home or in bars or wherever else.

“I’ll- uh- I’ll call you later.”

Ilya nodded. “Get some rest tonight.”

He wasn’t sure that was possible. He wasn’t at the high he usually was from a series win, not with everything else preemptively cutting him down at the knees. Six games across thirteen days and two cities, and all he had to show for it was the slow end to his career in Montréal being prolonged ever so slightly.

There was no way he was getting any rest without being wrapped around Ilya. No amount of yoga, the come down from a series ending, or his daily routine would be a fraction of what being with Ilya would. If he could be with Ilya.

That wasn’t one of the kindnesses life was willing to offer him.

“You too.” Shane squeezed his hand one more time before moving along in the line.

“Always a pleasure playing against you,” Wyatt Hayes told him once Shane reached the end of the line. He was near the back of his own line and everyone was starting to scatter out. “Even if it is a little disrespectful to lowly goalies like me who can’t operate at light speed to try and keep up with you.”

Shane laughed. He had received his fair share of grievanced comments from opponents, but this was different. Shane was fairly certain he was in on the joke with Wyatt rather than being insulted.

“I’ll go easier on you this summer, how about that?”

Wyatt tilted his head in question. “What kind of example is that for the kids?”

“I- but you-“

Wyatt broke, his face splitting into a smile before he was outright giggling at Shane. “Good luck with Detroit, apparently you have to win four of these things.”

The locker room had fallen silent when Shane returned from media circuit. Hayden came in just a step behind him and made a questioning noise as every conversation stopped abruptly.

That was the last straw for him.

He had just spent however many grueling minutes smiling and nodding along with reporters asking him how they would be celebrating their victory, how the team would be preparing for their next series, and what he would be doing to ensure that they made it through the next round more decisively.

And he had responded exactly how he was meant to. Tried and true notions of teamwork, perseverance, and dedication to the game above all else.

It was always filler, noncommittal statements. It had never felt like outright lying until tonight.

The team could go out and get irresponsibly drunk or make whatever other stupid choices that wanted to. They always did, no matter how often he tried to remind them how much they hate practicing hungover or while complaining about getting dumped for their own bullshit.

J.J. or Hayden usually tried to talk him into joining, he would go out once in a while. Not drinking or ‘having fun correctly’, but to be there with his team. He hadn’t gone out since before they found out he was dating someone. J.J. hadn’t asked either and Hayden wasn’t a part of those conversations anymore.

They used to at least talk about their plans in front of him, not caring that he disapproved. Now they weren’t, like they were afraid he would try to tag along.

Shane ordered a car to take him to Ilya’s before they even made it back to the hotel.

He fidgeted with his phone, twisting and twirling it, the whole drive over. He was silent other than an automatic greeting and confirmation of the address of his destination. The driver was playing something he didn’t recognize and couldn’t even begin to place with each new song an entirely different speed and sound.

Anya met him inside the door. Shane crouched down to pet her, words trapped in his throat.

Ilya appeared a moment later.

“I couldn’t-“ Shane tried- “I needed-“

Ilya met him at floor level for a hug and Shane collapsed against him. The last few strings holding him up finally gave up as he fell into the safety of Ilya.

“Come to bed.”

“We should talk.” Shane had no idea what he would say if he dared start, but he should.

“Later.” Ilya kissed his forehead before standing. “Right now you need rest.”

Chapter End Notes

I'm still deciding how I want to space posting chapters out, usually I do one a week but I cannot keep up with that on the other side with how long these have been so I might keep them around two weeks? We're playing this one by ear tbh

Yapping re the second round series

Not playing the Admirals in the second round is the other change not related to the difference in the FanMail incident that I mentioned.

Obvs Montreal winning, not Ottawa, is a change but that does stem from the outing difference. The Metros are still disrupted by it and Ottawa is still on an upwards trajectory into the playoffs but both of those were significantly enhanced by the full outing/fallout in TLG with the Voyageurs falling apart and the Cens rallying more

Playing New York second round in TLG, that I don't understand. Maybe I'm missing something obvious because I didn't notice the first couple times I read the books even though I do follow hockey a bit, but I swear there should be no way the playoffs work out like that. It's stated that just a couple weeks before playoffs start that the Voyageurs have the most points in the league (so, at least a few points above basically anyone else) and that Ottawa essentially have a secured wild card slot. Since Montreal is higher than the top Metropolitain team, that would make Ottawa the lower wild card team.

So either, in the last few games of the season, the Voyageurs drop to second in their division and the Cens jump to third and the Admirals were a wild card team that wins over the new Atlantic 1st seed or something about the playoff format/divisions/some other bullshit was different that I can't figure out with the (minimal) additional research I did once I didn't just skim passed them playing NYA in the second round.

Or, what I think might be the most likely option, the Admirals were just used for recognition/plot convenience to get Scott and them in the same place for that convo faster.

Anyway, I probably thought more about this than anyone was ever supposed to. Not the only thing I did this with, I was slightly driven insane by the 'week' that Shane and Ilya were benched for (don't even get me started), so I brought this upon myself.

Chapter 3: 2 Months

Chapter Notes

... so this chapter has been a basically finished draft since the end of August I just didn't have it in me to look through everything again to make sure I still like the overall trajectory of things before I posted this

Also life just kept happening but here is a chapter. I am hoping to start getting these up somewhat regularly again but I also haven't written anything in the last month so the amount already written is just to the end of August (which was 13k sob) and apparently more of September than I thought

Montréal wins game one in double overtime and Shane is ready for the series to be over before it really begins. They came back in the second game with a cleaner 4-2 victory.

Games three and four in Detroit both went to the home team.

Ilya was waiting in his house when Shane got home. They had stolen a precious day in the lull between the first and second round, but Shane tried to return to their previously established agreement to not see each other while one or both of them was in the playoffs.

Getting through the last four games with only texts and late night calls to Ilya when he was just a couple hours from Montréal and already essentially done with his Centaurs responsibilities from the season was like holding his hand over an open flame. He texted Ilya from the airport in Michigan, letting him know that if he wanted to put up with Shane in playoffs mode he would love to actually come home to him.

Ilya dragged him to his trophy room as soon as he got home. To remind him who he was, to confirm to Shane that someone did see every little change that happened when he started playing for himself and rewarded it.

To fuck him like he was hockey fucking royalty even if his kingdom was crumbling around him.

“We’re losing this series,” Shane said in response to nothing. They were both freshly showered and Ilya had guided him into a barstool while he set to making both of them dinner.

“You are tied.” Ilya was making himself tacos while precisely following Shane’s direction to prepare his scheduled meal. “Two wins for you, two wins for them. Two equals two, simple math.”

Shane cracked a smile. “You know what I mean, asshole.”

“Ugh, yes. You mean you are going to lose series, you will not win with that kind of attitude.”

“That doesn’t- whatever. We basically have a win and a half but now Detroit is coming back here on a winning streak and we’ve been on our heels playing them this whole time.”

Ilya was staring at the instructions on Shane’s phone like they personally threatened him bodily harm even if it wasn’t the food he was going to be eating. “If your defense stops being idiots you might actually spend some time in offensive end.”

“It’s not that easy.” It was at least thirty percent that easy. J.J. was usually level headed- or stubborn- enough to balance out Comeau’s emotionality that strained their first defensive pair and without him doing that they were weakened and every pair after them was following suit.

“If Old Man Scott Hunter can still win games when he sneaks out of nursing home, I think the idiots on your team can remember how to play hockey.”

The Admirals were up 3-1 over Carolina and unless the Typhoons pulled off something insane, they would be whoever the winner of his series against Detroit played in the next round.

“Well, I mean, I’m no Scott Hunter. I hear that guy is pretty good at this hockey thing-“

Ilya chucked a chunk of lettuce he was slicing for his taco at Shane. “Do not even joke-“

He cut himself off. The knocking at the front door rattled for another moment.

Shane reached across the counter for his phone and Ilya did the same with his. There were no messages on either of them.

“It’s J.J..” Shane could make him out in the dim light of the shaded area of deck in front of his front door. “What the fuck does he want?”

J.J. hadn’t spoken to him in weeks and Shane was running out of things to give.

“You will have to ask him.” Then, before he could say anything, Ilya added, “I will stay in here.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. Go talk to your friend, I will be here if you need me.”

Shane opened the door for J.J. wordlessly, a reenactment of the last time he had invited himself over. They went to his living room again and J.J. sat on the couch with his back to Shane’s kitchen.

“So?” Shane said, sitting on the edge of his coffee table to face both him and Ilya.

“Being with Rozanov doesn’t affect your playing.” He said it like it was a hard won conclusion.

If it was anyone else sitting on his couch, Shane would have kicked them out right then.

“It took you four games after we beat them to figure that out?”

“I needed some time, Shane. You decided to get involved with Rozanov all of a sudden, I think some analysis was warranted.”

Shane chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Warranted. Just like you didn’t speak to Clements for weeks when his sister married a Guardian?”

“That’s different.”

“It’s really not.” He could list a dozen stories of players being involved with people from other teams- friendships, brothers, almost everyone in the league was barely two degrees of separation apart even without the actual hockey aspect. Those would be just as ineffective. “Being in a relationship with someone on a different professional team is hardly a new phenomenon. Even in hockey.” There wasn’t a professional women’s league to match the MLH yet, but they still played and fell in love with each other from time to time.

“Still-“

“Still nothing.”

“He’s your rival Shane. The two of you have been a cornerstone of the league’s marketing for the last decade.”

And they made them millions for being competitive. It wasn’t portrayed quite as that, but that truly was all it was.

“You have done enough bullshit sponsorships and interviews to know that not everything we market to the public is real. Montréal and Boston may hate each other, but Ilya and I never did.”

“I just don’t understand how you can get over it. Ten years. You guys were at each other's throats and then suddenly, what, I don’t know what could possibly have changed to instigate this.”

Shane pushed up, looping around the coffee table like it was a barrier to shield him from J.J.. “Nothing changed.”

J.J. laughed. “Bullshit.”

“I met you a few weeks before the preseason started my first year, right?”

“Right.” He let down his shoulders, Shane had taken him right off course for his rant.

“Before then.”

The words sat between them. Ilya was still silently dancing through Shane’s kitchen with the grace of a ninja. Everything since he got home to Ilya had been so good, then J.J. swooped in to fuck it all up.

“Before- before? Non?” He bit through a litany of curses. “So he strung you along-“

“Just stop.” Shane couldn’t look at him. “Whatever you think of our relationship it’s probably wrong so just don’t. We love each other and it took us a long fucking time to get to this place together. I don’t care what you think about it. I don’t care what anyone thinks about it actually.

“This is probably going to cost me hockey. I knew that when I was too scared to even say that I’m gay and I knew that when I proposed to him-“ he cut off J.J.’s near outburst with a sharp look- “and I’ve been trying to run myself I to the ground to prove to the Metros, then anyone, that I was still Shane Hollander even after this comes out. But I don’t have to fucking prove that to anyone. I am still the exact same person and I am with the only person who has ever been able to keep up with me. I love hockey, it has been the biggest thing in my life for as long as I can remember, but the best thing it ever did for me was give me Ilya and I’m not losing him.”

It was objectively shitty that he had to choose, but Ilya was his choice. He’d say that straight to Crowell’s face.

“So you're going to come out this summer? Then what, come back in the fall and expect everyone to just be okay with it?”

“What’s there to not be okay with, you said it yourself, it doesn’t affect either of our play. Not mine, and not his. We actually average higher stats playing against each other, Montréal and Boston or Montréal and Ottawa. Even All-Stars.”

“But-“

Shane stared at the seat he had been in when J.J. first interrupted their evening. In the bubble of home and Ilya, he almost started to feel okay for the first time in weeks. Then it was shattered. “But nothing. I know exactly what’s going to happen when we come out, that’s basically the entire reason why we haven’t yet.”

“I still think it’s a stupid plan.”

By all logical accounts, it was pretty fucking risky. But it was worth the risk.

“Then think that.” Shane crossed his arms over his chest. “Can you tell me something, honestly?” J.J. nodded with a level of uncertainty that was an insult to their years of friendship. “Would this conversation be happening if it was anyone else? Wyatt Hayes, Cliff Marlow, fucking Hayden?”

J.J. didn’t offer a response.

“That’s what I thought.” He caught Ilya’s eye for just a moment before pulling away. “Ten wins,” he said.

“What?”

“That’s all we have left to do. I gave ten years of my life to the Metros, I think it’s fair you guys at least try to get us the last ten wins.”

“You’re talking like you know you won’t be in Montréal next year. Nothing is set in stone-“

Shane shook his head. “We were close to finalizing my deal when this all came out. Montréal backed off negotiations. Even if they come back… at the end of June, I’m done giving anything to this team.” He was done with this impromptu inquisition from J.J. too. “You can leave now.”

“Captaine,” he started but nothing else followed. The fire that had been accompanying his words before was lost, extinguished, leaving only the weak remains of their friendship.

“Leave our house, please.”

J.J. spun around to gape into the kitchen, following Shane’s eyeline. Not in anger or annoyance, just utter shock. “He’s been here the whole time?”

“He lives here.” He was actually invited. Shane didn’t have enough energy left to aim that comment back at him properly. “Goodbye, J.J..”

No one said anything as J.J. dragged himself to Shane’s door. He hesitated with his hand hovering above the handle. “Ten wins,” he said with wavering conviction.

“Ten wins,” Shane parroted. He didn’t believe it either.

It wasn’t great, but he maybe had J.J. just a tiny bit back on his side.

The door shut with a dull thump.

Ilya met him halfway between the kitchen and the couch. Some part of him wanted to scream, another to cry, even one to laugh. It all averaged out to emptiness as Ilya wrapped him in a bear hug that was more crush than comfort, but exactly what he needed.

“I want a taco,” he muttered into Ilya’s shoulder. There was so much to talk about, but right now he needed to go back into their bubble of happiness where hockey and the Montréal Metros didn’t fucking matter.

“Uh…”

“Give me a taco, Rozanov.”

Ilya kissed his nose. “Two tacos and I split your salad with you.”

“Deal.”

This would come back to bite him tomorrow when his mind forced him to bear witness to every nutritional statistic this one deviation threw entirely out of whack. That didn’t matter to him right then. Not enough to stop him from eating something just because he wanted to while he got to spend time with the love of his life.

“I don’t- I think my diet stopped being just about health a while ago.” He was one bite into his first taco, something that would have sent him into a full on spiral the day before. It tasted like relief.

“I think maybe you are trying to live forever.”

“Not without you.” He took another bite. How long had it been since he last ate red meat? “And not for them. I meant what I said, I’m done with Montreal.”

Ilya set his taco down. “I think J.J. might be right-“

“What?”

“Let me finish.” Shane nodded. “Your team only knows you have a boyfriend and that is already making your life very difficult. It is not fair of me to ask you to make that worse than it already is.”

“We both agreed to come out this summer.”

“We both agreed to get married with coming out as side effect.” Ilya’s eyes were flickering around Shane’s face. “I am saying that maybe we reevaluate.”

Shane’s stomach dropped. “You mean, maybe we don’t get married this summer? No.”

“We can get married without every single person in the world knowing. I know I said differently before,” he added, before Shane could cut in, “but I was letting other things cloud my thoughts. Is not fair of me to put you in this position.”

“I agreed to this plan, Ilya. Sure, we both knew it was going to suck for me but Montreal have always been assholes. They’ve just been easier to ignore assholes up until now.”

“They are still your team. Still the jersey you have worn for the last ten years.”

Shane tapped his taco against his plate. “You gave up your team for me.”

“I willingly and happily left my old team so that I could be even happier somewhere else. It was my choice and I had a whole year to get ready and say goodbye. You are being pushed out, is not the same.”

“I want to marry you.” They didn’t have anything planned but Shane didn’t need a big, fancy wedding, he just needed Ilya. “I want to have a life with you. I want that more than I want hockey. I knew what I was saying when I agreed to the plan-“

Ilya swallowed something down harshly and scoffed. “Enough about the plan, Hollander, plan does not matter.”

“Having a plan matters to me. It-“ he got caught on what to say next- “it helps me. I don’t care what it is and I don’t need one for most stuff but… it might be a little bit like the diet thing, just less.”

“Gives you control,” Ilya supplied, not unlike Rose did when he told her some of the details of his food experience in the last little bit. “Okay, so we have plan. Just short term one for now, you need to get through playoffs before we go overboard.”

“Okay.”

Ilya tapped Shane’s plate as he leaned back in his chair. “Step one, you go to practice tomorrow and if J.J. is still being a dick you, you give me his phone number and Hayden and I will go talk to him.”

Despite himself, Shane cracked a smile. “Ilya.”

“Step two, you play all the way for Shane Hollander. Not Shane Hollander, Metros star. Not Shane Hollander, Canada’s Golden Boy. Just Shane Hollander, my Shane Hollander.”

“I already have-“ Ilya raised an eyebrow at him, his whole face melting into a challenge- “okay. I play for myself.”

“Step three, you have fun playing hockey.”

There was no guarantee of that. Ilya knew it too.

“Step four, I am here all the time unless I have appointments in Ottawa. Even if you are away.” Ilya hadn’t explained his appointments that he had been traveling back for. They weren’t entirely new even if he only just started telling Shane about them. He would tell him when he was ready. “Step five, playoffs end and I get to have you all to myself.”

“My parents might disagree with that step.”

“Too bad, is vital part of plan now, must be followed exactly.”

Shane had another bite of taco. He could work with Ilya’s temporary plan. “Thank you.”

“For taco?” Ilya asked, his eyes dancing with mischief. “I love you so much I give you my dinner, is nothing.”

Shane never wanted to leave their bubble of peace.

They scrape out a win in game seven against Detroit and Shane wants to claw his skin off by the time he is packing up to leave the dressing room. They’re in Montréal at least, he can go back home to his own bed and Ilya instead of some hotel.

J.J. clapped a hand on his shoulder as they crossed paths.

His phone attempted to vibrate out of his hand before he even picked it all the way up.

“Do I want to know?” Hayden asked warily, side eying Shane’s phone.

Rose: omg thank god

Rose: it’s finally over

Rose: i’m free

Rose: do you know how awkward you have made my family gc for the last couple weeks mister?????

Since they broke up, she has come to a few of Shane’s games. Most often in LA, but frequently the ones against her home state team. In a Perano jersey in Montréal and a Hollander one in Detroit because it amused her to mishmash captains and their cities.

Shane: But if I ended it earlier, you would have had three fewer Detroit games to watch

Rose: ugh

Rose: ily and great games tho

Rose: when do i get to complain about this to your face

Shane: After playoffs

Shane: Ilya and I were already planning to invite you over to help up with something

‘Something’ was a very neat way to package his entire hockey career, the publicity of their relationship, and possibly the planning of an entire wedding in just a few weeks.

Rose: ominous, i like it

Shane: I’ll text you when I have more details, that won’t be until after playoffs are wrapped up though

Rose: text me before then too

Rose: i’ve missed bitching with you and this set as been particularly bitching worthy

Shane: Will do

He had been spotty on messaging Rose, or anyone really, as of late. Even more so than other playoff years. That was probably going to be added to the pile of things he wanted to think about more deeply once he and Ilya cracked open Pandora’s box.

“I’m surprised she didn’t come out for any of our games this series,” Hayden said when Shane resurfaced from his phone.

“Filming has been like ninety percent night shoots from what she was telling me a while ago, she wanted to but that just didn’t make it possible.”

“Damn.” Hayden pulled open the door to let the two of them free of the dressing room. “Is that wrapping up anytime soon? It’s always nice to have another friendly face in the crowd.”

Especially when the person Shane wanted most at his games couldn’t be there.

“Hopefully. I think she said the end of this block of shooting should be soon. She might have to go back for reshoots or whatever later on but she’ll free up, from this at least.”

“Extra incentive for us to stay in this thing as long as possible.”

Words clawed at his throat as they exited the arena. They were in an empty area save for a few security personnel stationed around.

“That’s the other thing,” Shane said, keeping his voice low, “I told J.J. the other day when he dropped by, but this season is my last with Montreal. I hadn’t re-signed before and I don’t plan to now.”

“I know, Buddy.” Hayden bumped their shoulders together. “I’m gonna miss playing with you- and the free babysitting- but we’re always gonna be friends. You aren’t getting rid of us that quickly, expect to be dragged to my house every time you and Ilya play in Montreal. And you better have his house childproofed by next season.”

Hayden assumed that he was going to Ottawa. Like it was a given. Obvious.

He hadn’t let himself even think about it. The crushing weight of his hopes being dashed if he truly let himself want it was too much. Having Ilya and hockey, travelling together all the time… it was too good. Too impossible.

“So you’re actually going to willingly step foot in his house this year?” He managed. Addressing the rest of it wasn’t possible.

“Maybe. Jackie already signed the girls up for the Ottawa week as it is and we are too many people for one hotel room, even a really fancy one.”

“You really want to stay with us that soon after our wedding? Really?”

Hayden made a face. “You know what, there’s still time to find a rental house.”

They walked together in comfortable, familiar silence. “I’m gonna miss playing with you too,” he said, belatedly responding to Hayden’s proclamation. “I’m glad you made an effort to befriend me back then.”

He wasn’t a super outgoing person. He didn’t have Ilya’s ability to befriend anyone on a dime. But he valued friendships when he forged them, a few solid friendships was always enough for him even when his space in the locker room felt like an island.

“Wouldn’t change it for the world.”

The second unit of their power play had scored to bring them back within one. Time was winding down and the Admirals weren’t letting up.

He met Scott Hunter at center ice.

Scott glanced around hesitantly at the other players on Shane’s half of the ice. They caught eyes for just a second, something questioning in Scott’s. “Shane-“

The ref appeared before he could say more.

Scott kept giving him looks and Shane continued to not know what was wrong with him.

They lost the game in the end. Carter Vaughan scored their fourth on an empty net to seal the deal. It had been a tight matchup and a decent start to the series even if the point wasn’t theirs.

Anya and Ilya met him at his front door when he finally got home. He only took her for trips when he’d be in Montréal for more than a couple days. She didn’t dislike driving by any means, but it was a lot for a dog multiple times a week. She stayed at her hotel or with Shane’s parents if they weren’t travelling for one of his games and they loved spoiling their grandbaby.

“Why was Hunter staring at you so much?”

Shane was only halfway out of his suit jacket. Ilya hadn’t even said hello to him. “Um. I don’t know? Also it was only for the last couple of minutes, how obvious was it on the broadcast?”

“Not at all, but I spent the whole game staring at you so is easy to notice someone else doing it too.”

“That would be sweet if you weren’t being so weird right now.”

Ilya was standing a hair away from him, not touching but it was just as overwhelming. Shane didn’t care about Scott fucking Hunter and whatever was on with him or the game he just played. Ilya was right there and not touching him and Shane would be forced to take drastic measures if that wasn’t amended immediately.

“I am allowed to be weird.”

“Not untrue.” He stepped forward, forcing Ilya against the wall behind him. “I think there are better things you could be doing though.”

Montréal won the second game in overtime. The Admirals took three and four before the Metros staved off elimination at home.

His birthday was a week ago and this was the first full day he had alone with Ilya. He’d flown out to New York on his actual birthday and Ilya was in Ottawa the morning before game five. Today wasn’t even fully just for the two of them with his afternoon practice looming ahead of him, but he was taking what he could get.

It was the Admirals’ year again. He’d seen it in his mom’s face when he and Ilya last FaceTimed his parents. Shane wasn’t going down without a fight but coming back from being down 3-1 was difficult enough with a team that was all on the same page.

“We should go back to Ottawa once I’m cleared out for the season.”

They were catching their breaths against his dining table and Ilya gaped at him. “Why are you thinking right now?”

“I was thinking about it yesterday and just remembered.”

“We can talk about after playoffs after you win.”

“I-“

One of their phones started buzzing and Shane stared at Ilya. He shrugged, neither of them were expecting a call.

Shane yanked his pants back up while Ilya leaned out of his space to let him go search for the phone. He glared vaguely in the direction of the sound.

“You can’t blow up the phone with your mind because it interrupted us.”

“I can try,” Ilya bitched. “Is rude to interrupt afterglow.”

It was Shane’s phone, hastily dropped onto the arm of the couch when Ilya had come looking for him earlier. The call finished its last attempted ring before he could pick it up.

He had a missed call and three missed messages from Hayden at the top of his notifications.

“Scott Hunter might be on his way to your house.” The message didn’t make much more sense said out loud than it did when he read it.

Ilya muttered something to himself that sounded less like swearing and more like he genuinely desired to place a curse on whoever messaged Shane while finally grabbing for his discarded underwear. “We can just lock the doors, he is too old to know how to crack electronic locks.”

“Why would he know how to pick any locks?”

“Maybe he has met someone interesting in retirement home.”

Shane dropped back on the couch after thanking Hayden for the heads up. The first text was only a few minutes old, they probably had time to clean up a bit.

“Picking locks isn’t that difficult.”

Ilya made a high sound. “You cannot tell me this when Hunter is going to show up any minute.”

They were on opposite ends of his open concept living and dining area but a magnetic pull was trying to drag him to Ilya.

“We have to clean up. I can’t talk to him like this.”

Ilya was less on board with the no funny business until after Scott was dealt with idea. Shane only minimally opposed him joining him in the shower but they were both clean after regardless.

He pulled on a shirt just as his phone flashed with the notification that there was movement outside of his door. He pocketed it.

“He’s here.”

“I will stay here,” Ilya said, dropping onto his half of the bed. He was still shirtless and despite already having a good morning, he kind of hated Scott for not being able to just crawl across the bed and join him.

“I mean… we are probably going to have to talk to Scott about us soon anyway.”

“And we can,” Ilya tipped his head in the direction of the hall, “after playoffs. Right now all you need to do is see what is so important that he has to come here between games. If you want to tell him, sure, but I will be here.”

Shane faltered between reaching for Ilya and heading to let Scott in before he knocked for a second time. “Thank you.”

Ilya shrugged. “I don’t want you to do anything that will make your life more difficult right now.”

He hated how relieved he was that Ilya was offering to hide out in his bedroom while Scott was there. There were any number of things that he could have invited himself over for and Shane didn’t know if he could handle someone reacting to him and Ilya on top of everything else.

“Hey, Scott,” he greeted. Scott had his arm raised to knock again when Shane pulled the door open. “Um, come in?”

“Thanks.” He seemed just as lost for what to do as Shane. “Hi. I asked Hayden for your address, he was pretty reluctant to give it but I promised that my intentions were pure.”

Shane nodded. He shut the door behind Scott and led him to the couch. If he had too many more shitty conversations on it, he was burning it. Ilya had a nice couch in Ottawa, no one ever questioned his life choices on it.

“Yeah, he texted.”

Scott Hunter was in his house. They’ve been in the league together for years and Scott was a coach in their camp, but Shane was pretty sure they had never just been in an empty room together. Scott had definitely never been to his house before.

They were alone in the room, but not in the house. Ilya was there too. If Troy Barrett suddenly appeared they’d have a full set of active queer MLHers.

The ones Shane knew about anyway.

“Nice place,” Scott commented.

Shane bit back his immediate instinct to talk about the renovations he’d done and how long it had taken to find a place that felt right when he decided it was time to live somewhere more private. The tiny Ilya-esque demon on his shoulder goaded him on but that wasn’t what Scott was here to talk about.

“Thanks. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Not,” he dropped onto the couch and Shane sat at the end of the shorter edge of the L shape, “not exactly. Kind of the inverse, actually. I wanted to talk to you about something either way but it might help if I’m not completely off base.”

Scott was staring mostly at the black screen of the TV ahead of him but kept flicking his eyes to Shane while he spoke. Shane shifted his shoulders back as icy unease flooded through him.

“Okay.”

“I don’t- I really hate that I’m putting you on the spot with this but- either way…”

Shane being gay was an open secret. That didn’t mean anyone had ever confronted him about it like this. “Just say it.”

“Word has made it back to me from a few sources that maybe you came out to your team a few years ago?”

He nodded. There wasn’t anything he wanted to say to that even if he could speak.

“Well, congrats.” He tipped his head at Shane in awkward approval. “I’m not here because of that exactly, I heard those rumors a while ago. What I am here about is the other stuff I’ve been hearing from your team. Nothing specific that I can point to, there have just been a lot of little things the guys on my team have heard that haven’t been particularly pleasant. No one has said anything too close to me, for what I have to imagine are the obvious reasons, but I wanted to let you know it was happening.”

Ilya had mentioned a few comments that his team had heard during their match up after the fact. His team had shut them down without Ilya’s involvement. A couple comments sounded negligible compared to whatever drove Scott here.

“I’m not surprised about that. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with extra bullshit-“

“Jesus, Shane. No. My guys have been stopping it any time it comes up but it’s not always actually said to one of us, sometimes they’re just overhearing it.”

“Thanks.”

Scott ran a hand over his face. “I’m doing a shitty job of this. I want you to know that even if your team is being… how they are, you have allies on the ice. Carter Vaughan and I are getting a group together so that we can try to make some change, make sure people know they aren’t alone on the ice. We are already talking to MLH players and have other hockey players on board. The goal is to combat the toxic culture that’s still so prevalent in hockey- homophobia, racism, sexism, rape culture, transphobia, toxic masculinity, all of it. It sounds kind of impossible, but we have to start somewhere if we want anything to get better.”

“Like a united front kind of thing? When we see something shitty going on we all call it out together so they can’t shut us all up?”

“Exactly!”

Scott explained a bit more about his idea, about what inspired him to take a more active approach to improving hockey culture after the reaction to Troy coming out was still so negative even years after Scott took the first leap.

He listed names of people he already had on board, mostly Admirals players and branching out to people on teams he had played before now and in the playoffs. There were plenty more he was going to talk to once they were all free of hockey in a few weeks.

“I think this can do a lot of good.”

“So you’re in?”

“Yeah, yeah I am.” He took a deep breath. “I also wanted to tell you in person that you coming out did change things for- for me. Even if there is still a lot of improvement to be made, what you did still means something.”

Scott gave him a half grin. “When you emailed me I kind of had a feeling that it was a little bit more than just the actions of a well meaning player. I appreciated it then either way and now too. I had hoped that maybe more people would be out by now but maybe not that many of us were able to make it this far.”

“I’m planning to come out this summer,” he said before his mind caught up with his mouth. “Publically, probably. My team found out that I’m dating someone and things are kind of up in the air now but we’re getting married this summer.”

“Wow. Congratulations, Shane.” Scott’s eyes were wide and he sort of looked like he wanted to hug Shane but didn’t.

He pulled his phone out. Come say hi, he messaged Ilya before putting it back down.

“You know him, actually,” Shane said conversationally, like it wasn’t hockey’s biggest secret he was waving in Scott’s face.

“Really?” The wheels behind his eyes were turning wildly. “Someone from camp? There are always so many people helping out I might not even remem-“

“Hunter, you are in my house.”

Scott froze. Not in shock or any other visible emotion, it was like someone pressed pause on him right in front of Shane’s eyes. Shane was only half certain he was still breathing.

Ilya walked around the back of the couch unhurriedly, dropping down half beside and half behind Shane. He didn’t do anything more, still leaving room for Shane to backtrack after Scott’s consciousness returned to his body.

“Hi, baby,” Shane whispered to Ilya after a long minute of silence. It had only been a few minutes but he had missed having Ilya in his space.

“Oh my god.” Scott stood like he was unfamiliar with having limbs and stumbled to the nearest bit of open floor to pace. “Sorry, I just need to recalibrate like years of my life.”

He hadn’t said anything outwardly negative about Ilya yet, that ranked this top two for Shane telling people about them.

“Oh.” He stopped pacing suddenly. “Congratulations to you too,” he told Ilya then returned to pacing like he never stopped.

Ilya shot Shane a look.

“I told him we’re getting married this summer.” Then to Scott, “we haven’t sorted much out about it yet but this summer, definitely. July?” He looked at Ilya like this wasn’t the first time they’ve talked about an actual wedding date. “Before camp starts?”

That would make it after his free agency officially started. He could deal with whatever that meant for him before getting to focus on Ilya and them and the future.

“Sure.”

“This is the weirdest way me talking to you about our initiative could have gone.”

Shane would fill Ilya in on that later, he would be more than game to join and probably drag half the Centaurs in with him. Hayden and maybe J.J. would join but Shane didn’t have much hope for any of the rest of his current teammates.

“Because we are both men? I did not think you would be homophobic, Hunter.”

He didn’t laugh at the indignation on Scott’s face, or the confusion turned annoyance that followed. It was a near thing.

“You know what, fuck you for that. Give a guy a minute.” After only a fraction of the minute Shane and Ilya silently agreed to give him, he added, “can I ask when? It’s okay if not, my mind just keeps replaying every time I’ve interacted with either or both of you looking for a point when it changes. Obviously not your hockey, this definitely never affected how you played against each other, but everything else.”

“Thank you.” Shane hadn’t anticipated how relieving it would be to hear that from someone.

Ilya nudged him and Shane threw the ball into his court on how to proceed. They already did the hard part and there was no way Ilya had nearly had his fill of messing with Scott yet.

“When do you think?”

“Shane said that me and Kip made things easier for him so I’m stuck between after that and around when you guys were starting your foundation- wait,” he waved a finger at Ilya, “you moved to Ottawa.”

“I did. Is this something you forgot in your old age?”

Scott waved him off. “Did you move here for him?”

“Among other reasons. Is hard to be favorite son if I am in another country.”

“Jesus. Okay. So before you moved to Ottawa,” he hesitated, “was it when I came out?”

“We officially got together that summer.”

“Officially?”

Shane ducked his head, unable to keep the smile off his face.

“Is what the kids call going from almost dating to dating. Making it official. Like when you hook up for seven years and finally take the chance to really be together because it seems a little less impossible.”

“Seven?” Shane almost felt bad for what they were doing to Scott’s nervous system. “Seven years before I came out. That’s your whole careers!”

“That is how math works, yes.”

“Didn’t they do a whole documentary on your rivalry this year?”

Something intense in the room let out like a deflating balloon. Scott knew about them and it was okay, he wasn’t freaking out on them or trying to tell them how risky they were. They were just three people who had a few things in common having a conversation.

“They did,” Shane confirmed.

“If you do come out this summer, someone is getting fired. Maybe a lot of someones.”

“It was fun, telling people about our friendship and seeing all the overdramaticizations of our competitiveness in the final product. I don’t know how someone put all of that together without realizing that it’s so much more than just a rivalry or friendship.”

Ilya kissed the side of his head. “They were all very bad at journalism. We could have kissed in front of them and they wouldn’t have known.”

“Do you ever think about what would have happened if the FanMail hadn’t been returned? Or if my team had clearly seen you on Hayden’s phone?”

Shane was rolling out his thigh. His yoga routine had been a good but straining way to end his workout after running alternating drills and skates all practice that afternoon. Ilya was just a few meters from him doing something weight related based on his grunting, already into his summer bulking and maintaining regiment, but Shane refused to look his way before he finished his cool down.

“What?”

“I told Scott that we were- had been- planning to come out this summer.”

Something was dropped as gently as a heavy weight could be. “We talked about changing that. We are going to decide after you are done of playoffs.”

That hadn’t been decided in words, but it had in actions and a mutual understanding of their circumstances.

“I know. I don’t want to talk about that all right now, but it’s been bugging me since Scott left this morning.”

“That you told him we were coming out? He is ancient, has probably forgotten already and you didn’t sign contract or anything.”

Scott hadn’t really said anything more about them coming out and Shane hadn’t brought it up again after Ilya joined them. He would be talking to him about coming out at some point, he was one of the only players who had experienced coming out and still playing in the MLH. His experience was more likely akin to what Shane would have to deal with.

“Not that.” Shane returned his roller to the shelf of variously sized and patterned ones. “Just- we don’t know if we are or how we’re going to do it if we do. How, when, should we still be worried about Russia even if we are married first, there are so many other questions I haven’t even realized need to be asked.

“We agreed that we would be coming out this summer when we got engaged and that was great, it was solid. Not completely worked out but at least we had a goal. Now we have nothing. I know that is horrible for me to say because you could potentially be in a more vulnerable position and we wouldn’t have the opportunity to go about things how we would like to and I probably would have had a nervous breakdown that sent me to a hospital but I would have been… more prepared? I don’t know, just feel like I would have been able to handle the chaos of that better.”

“But not the emotional parts,” Ilya said. He slid down in front of Shane, joining him on the floor. “I would maybe have been the opposite. I thought I was ready to be all the way out even if it is hard, but I do not know what I would have actually done. Posted some pictures or talked to Farah.” He shrugged. “Never thought about what we would actually do.”

Put them together and you’d get one person who was probably, actually ready to take on the chaos and risks of being out. And the exact opposite.

“Logistically I would have figured out what to do.”

“Would have been worse for you and this was already bad.”

“But I would have been able to deal with it. Not emotionally, but still.”

Ilya bonked their knees together. “We will wait until we are both going to be ready.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible to be ready for what we have to do.”

“Then we get as close as we can. We will figure it out after you win the Cup again.”

Game six isn’t a landslide, but the Admirals put a swift and clean end to their playoff run.

Shane would have liked to have pushed for game seven to have his last game as a Metro on home ice, but this is easier. He doesn’t have to face the ruthless disappointment of Montréal fans directly this way. There are some in the arena, speckles of blue cutting through the sea of pure red and white.

He took a knee while attention was still on the celebrating New York players. The jersey on his chest already felt like a relic of an old life.

It twisted inside him, the changes that were coming. The inevitable. He pushed himself back up on his skates and held his head high regardless. This was the end of something, but maybe, just maybe, it would be the start of something too.

The Admirals were jovial and distracted in the handshake line, but still nice. Not as overtly as the Centaurs had been, but noticeable enough in contrast with Shane’s soon to be former teammates.

“You did well,” Scott said when they reached each other in line.

“Thanks.” Shane knew he wasn’t talking about this game, or even this series. Even if he never told Scott that part. “Good game and good luck.”

“I’ll see you this summer.”

They’re still on the ice with both of their full teams, but it was the most free Shane has felt on the ice in a long time. “July?”

“Yeah,” Scott accepted. “July.”

There was more bullshit to come before he was fully free of the anchor he’d been carrying around for so many years, it was going to hit him that this was the end at least a few more times before he was truly done. Clearing out his locker at home and walking out of the Montréal rink as a home team player for the final time. He might even walk in as a visiting player in future seasons.

None of that mattered now.

“It’s been a good run,” he tells a reporter at the end of his media participation for this broadcast, for the playoffs, and for Montréal. Their social media manager hadn’t called it, but Shane had nothing left to say. “Thank you.”

He was thankful to the fans that watched if they won or lost, to the staff who were a vital part to the organization, to the players who made him feel like family even if he was kept on the outskirts of it. He was thankful for the good, even if the bad was so overpowering.

Chapter End Notes

The Shane and Ilya what-if conversation came to me when I was under nitrous at the dentist and I spent probably half of my loopy time just begging myself to not forget that... then the first number I saw after I came out of it was 81so wtf, personal attack on me I guess

There have been some other instances of conversations being very similar to the books, which is just the nature of things but I adapted them to fit the changed story, I feel the need to point out that a lot of the Scott/his project conversation is very similar to the book, if a little jumbled around, mostly because the situation is almost the same for Scott so wildly changing that didn't feel accurate to what I would think would happen. This is the closest things will be to actual full conversations being the same, it just felt too close for me not to mention it, I normally don't write things that pull more than a quote or two from canon in a short span

Also, I'm undecided on the texting format because sometimes there are just one offs but I have some parts coming up where it is more incorporated, and I can do the full skin texting format but that feels jarring to randomly see like 30k words deep into a fic so maybe I will do that, maybe I'll just change it to something else, we'll see