Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

Gen, M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, (past), Shane Hollander & Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Joe | Shane Hollander's Figure Skater Friend, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Zane Boodram, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Ilya Rozanov Haunts the Narrative, Ottawa Centaurs Player Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Leaves the Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros, Character Study, Shane Hollander Gets Outed, Post-Break Up, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Found Family, Shane Hollander goes to Ottawa First, Shane's First Season with the Centaurs, Developing Friendships, POV Shane Hollander, Shane is a stray cat with trust issues, Angst, Internalized Homophobia, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mix of show and book canon as I see fit

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of Shane Hollander's Centaurs

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-23 Updated: 2026-07-20 Words: 40,460 Chapters: 10/?

Ithaka in Mind

Summary

Since Shane Hollander’s painful public outing, things clearly haven’t been right with the Voyageurs. Still, everyone is shocked when Shane gets himself traded to the Ottawa Centaurs.

Shane can’t completely explain it, to be honest, not in a way anyone else understands. He just knows this: he lost Ilya, lost the Voyageurs, lost his privacy and his choice. But hockey is still the love of Shane’s life. And he’s not going to lose that, too.

Notes

Kia ora koutou!! This fandom is so crazy active, thank you for commenting on the Wyatt POV I am truly so motivated by your loveliness <3 This one is going to be a bit melancholy because Shane is Not Having a Good Time, but he'll get there. Ilya will appear later but it's not HEA yet, and if all goes according to plan, there will be a more lighthearted Outsider POV of the season as well. Updates may be slow, depending on how much I procrastinate my Masters work :D

Chapter 1: A Little Sprain

Chapter Notes

When Shane is 4 years old, his parents take him to Disneyland for his cousin Kimiko’s birthday. Kimiko is turning 8, so she’s bigger than Shane. She speaks Japanese, and she thinks Shane is weird because he doesn’t. When Shane speaks to her in French, she says it sounds like he has a cold.

Disneyland is loud. People are screaming and the food is all messy to hold and the tables are sticky. Shane hates it. He cries and covers his ears and only enjoys the dark rides. Anaheim is hotter than Ottawa. His skin is wet with sweat and people keep bumping into him and the music clashing from inside and outside sounds bad and he just hates it. Shane doesn’t remember much but the impression of discomfort from that day at Disneyland.

While they’re in Los Angeles, they also go to a hockey game. He remembers it in vivacious detail. 

He remembers the crowd screaming when the Great One skates out onto the ice. He remembers staring impatiently at a hotdog messy with mustard and ketchup that his dad says he isn’t allowed to start eating until the Americans have finished badly singing their national anthem. He remembers a guy a few seats down spilling his drink—the ground is all sticky, but it doesn’t bother Shane because he’s standing on his seat to see the rink better anyway. He’s jumping and cheering and standing on his toes so much that he’s sweating. The goal horn is really loud and it kind of hurts Shane’s ears. He’s so exhilarated that he doesn’t care. 

His dad sometimes tells this story of juxtaposition, when he wants to illustrate how inherent Shane’s love for hockey is to him. Because all the same things he hated about Disneyland, he loved about the hockey game. And unlike Voyageurs or Centaurs games, where his excitement could be attributed to mirroring his parents, Shane had been more fascinated by the L.A. game than even his mother. 

At least, Shane thinks he remembers the game. He thinks he remembers the smell of the ice in the air, the sound of sticks hitting the puck, the distant shouts of the players when they score. Most of all, he remembers the sensation of unfettered enthusiasm. But the truth is, those memories, that feeling, they’ve been overwritten and merged and combined and refreshed over and over again, because that complete fascination is the same thing Shane feels every single time he steps out onto the ice. 

No matter who or what else comes and goes, hockey is the love of his life.

It’s April, 2020, and the Voyageurs are going to make the playoffs. They beat L.A. in their own barn. Shane finds himself closing his eyes as soon as the buzzer sounds. He takes in the smell of the ice, the sound of sticks and skates, the shouts of his teammates. It’s different, but the same. It’s all the same, except Shane doesn’t feel like he’s 4 anymore. He searches for the little boy inside him who found his joy in hockey and never stopped. 

Instead, he finds himself alone on the ice. He realises, as baseball caps rain down around him, that he is losing the love of his life. Shane thinks, briefly, of Ilya in the stairwell, saying goodbye. He remembers raising the Stanley Cup and thinking it was worth the heartbreak. 

Not this time, he thinks, Not this love. And he requests a trade to Ottawa that summer.

— — —

Shane chooses to think of it like an injury, and he draws up a recovery plan. Sprained my purpose in life. Hurts when I put weight on it. He knows what the physio would recommend: stay off it, rest and elevate. He’s heard it a hundred times. You pushed too hard.

Okay. Fine. Shane benches himself from his summer training regimen, at least for the first couple of weeks. During the moving process, he leaves his box of hockey books at his parents’ place. He pointedly does not watch anything hockey related, even though he really, really, really wants to. The hardest part is steering conversation away from hockey. If this is what addiction is like, it’s no wonder Ilya still smokes. Every moment of every day he itches to drive out to the cottage and skate in his own private rink until he collapses.

Shane caves, actually. On the third day. He heads to the nearest rink—one he trained at as a kid. Every glance he gets on his way through the door makes him feel like he’s headed for a funeral, and then he starts freaking out, because he’s never ever felt like hockey was a mournful thing before.

His saving grace comes in the form of a childhood friend in very tight leggings, loudly calling his name from across the lobby. 

“Shane!” 

“Joe, hey.” 

Shane leans down a little to give him a bro-hug. Joe looks happy. Rested. His brown hair has lightened in the sun, and his tan makes his teeth look even whiter. He’s let his beard grow out a little bit shaggier than he keeps it during the season. 

“Congrats on Worlds. How was Mexico?” Shane asks. He saw it on Joe’s instagram, same way he’s seen most of Joe’s life for the past 6 years. Joe glows at the very thought of his off-season trip.

“Oh my god, it was amazing, I have to go back. Shane, those kids appreciate being on the ice so much. They don’t take it for granted like Canadian kids do. Most of them had never experienced a private lesson before, they just taught themselves at public sessions in malls. Isn’t that amazing?” Joe gushes. 

“That’s great. It’s cool that you helped out,” Shane says sincerely. He doesn’t know any other skaters who do stuff like that. 

“I’m just lucky Donovan invited me. Hey, I’m glad we bumped into each other! I was hoping we’d get to catch up, since you’re coming back to Ottawa,” Joe says, so casually, like Shane leaving Montreal for Ottawa isn’t insane. Shane really appreciates it.

“Yeah, it’s good to see you. I didn’t think you’d be in Ottawa,” Shane says, “Don’t you usually go to Japan to do the ice shows?” 

Shane has always been a little bit jealous of that. Joe speaks more Japanese than Shane does because he’s there for at least a month every year. 

Joe grins. “That’s so sweet of you to remember. Yeah, no, I decided to skip most of the shows this year. I’m actually choreographing for a few other skaters right now, so I’m staying in Canada to work with their teams and coaches.”

“Cool. You’re calling the shots,” says Shane. Joe glances at Shane’s hockey bag, then at the compression shirt he’s wearing. 

“Are you practicing? Sorry, I don’t want to hold you up! I just finished. Is your number the same? We should get coffee or go for a run or something sometime, okay?” Joe suggests with such ease it makes Shane’s bag feel lighter for a second. Like nothing has changed. 

“Um, actually. If you’re not doing anything now…” Shane says, before he can overthink it. Joe beams.

They stroll down the street, Joe chattering happily away about a Star Wars-themed short program he’s choreographing. Shane’s happy to listen, nodding and asking questions every now and then. 

When they sit down at a nearby cafe, Joe just studies Shane for a long moment. Shane looks away, fidgeting with the peeling laminate on the table. 

“Shane, how are you, really?” Joe asks, his voice so full of warmth and concern. 

He should say he’s good, that he loves being back in Ottawa, that he missed home. 

“I’m adjusting,” Shane says. 

Joe makes a very expressive noise that communicates sympathy and that he thinks that’s an understatement. “Yeah, I bet.” 

Shane bites at his bottom lip, thinking. “Was it like this for you?” 

“Well, I wasn’t the second active skater to ever be out, so I’m not sure my situation is too comparable to yours, buddy,” Joe says wryly. 

“There were three other guys after Hunter, actually. One retired. The other two went unsigned and stopped playing. So I’m not the second one ever. Just the second one left,” Shane corrects. 

Joe looks stricken. “I didn’t know,” he says quietly. 

Not many people do. Sports can be shallow in that way. You’re remembered if you’re the best to do it. Or the loudest to do it. Or sometimes even if you’re not a Great, in a game of violence and grind like hockey, people take notice if you are the most enduring. 

Hunter is the best—a clean, family-friendly coming out at the pinnacle of his career and a smart, handsome fiancé. Shane is the loudest—against his will, his scandal and subsequent trade is probably the story of the decade for the MLH. 

Price, Baldwin and Lundin simply didn’t endure.  

Shane is happy for them. They shouldn’t have to. Shane just doesn’t know what else to do. 

Joe gets a thoughtful look on his face, so Shane waits quietly. Joe’s always been more eloquent than Shane. When they were kids at skate camp, Shane used to let Joe speak for both of them so he didn’t have to participate in every conversation. He feels a sweet rush of nostalgia. 

“My current coach was outed back in the 90s right before he retired. Once, I asked him the same question you asked me. He told me he lost friends. Sponsors. Some extended family. Invitations to certain ice shows.”

Shane nods. This has been true of his experience so far. 

“But he said being out let him find greater honesty on the ice. He said that being a trailblazer was hard and painful and scary, but it was worth it to make it safer for me to come out on the other side,” Joe recounts, the admiration in his voice warming every word. 

It sounds nice to have your coach in your corner like that. And for him to understand what you’re going through, too. Shane has a brief, ridiculous image of gay Theriault being supportive and it almost makes him laugh.

“You’re too good to go unsigned, Shane, and you know that. I think the key to pushing through the hardest part is reframing it. Don’t fixate on what it cost you. Try to see the new doors you’re opening, then look behind you to see the people walking through them. Find any way to skating until you are ready to stop, and not a single moment before,” Joe says.

Of course Shane doesn’t want to stop. If he had it his way, he’d never retire and keep skating until he dies. 

“That’s what you did? Reframed it?” Shane asks. 

“Yeah, and I was lucky. The biggest difference for me was from people outside the sport, honestly. Like, other athletes, the media, the public. That’s where I needed to be brave. Not on the ice, though. I think performing is where I was always myself, even when I was closeted,” Joe explains.

“Carter Vaughn said you were brave when we came to watch you in Sochi. He assumed you were gay just based on the sport, I think,” Shane recalls. Joe chuckles.

“Well, that’s sweet, I guess. He’s lucky his assumption was right. There are American skaters I know who would be very offended to have a hockey player assume they’re gay. Although, you know, some people think my components scores are inflated because I’m gay. Isn’t that crazy?”

Joe is interrupted by a teenaged girl shyly approaching to ask for a picture. He graciously agrees, and Shane offers to take it, which makes Joe’s eyes dance with amusement. 

“How’s it feel to be second place for once, Shane?” he teases when the girl has left. 

“Trust me, I’m familiar with the feeling,” Shane says dryly. Joe levels him with a deeply unimpressed look.

“Girl, please. I follow your career too. I know how you’ve been winning. It must’ve been hard to leave that behind,” Joe says. 

“Yeah, it was hard. It didn’t really feel like winning anymore, though. It was different, after,” Shane admits. Joe makes a sad noise and reaches across the table to squeeze his hand. Shane panics for a second, before he remembers he’s out—he can let himself be comforted. 

“When I saw the news, I wanted to tell you that I was proud of you for doing this for yourself, not going to whatever team will get you another cup. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you make a decision that wasn’t about hockey, before,” Joe says lightly. 

But that’s not right. 

“No, this is about hockey. What you said earlier about not needing to be brave on the ice? That was how I felt, too. So I guess that’s why I thought my team might be—okay about it. And then when they weren’t, and they wouldn’t let me play the same…suddenly I had to be brave. And I’m not,” Shane explains. He can hear the quiet anguish in his own voice. 

“Oh, honey,” Joe says with great feeling. Somehow, it helps. 

Shane still can’t quite find a way to put it into words, but this move to Ottawa is about hockey. Joe is right—he could’ve gone to a team that has made playoffs at some point in the last decade. Florida was interested. Shane thinks they’re probably going to win a cup soon. Vegas was interested too, and San Francisco. And honestly, Shane probably could’ve been fine in San Francisco. 

The most obvious reason, and the one Shane is sometimes willing to talk about, is that Ottawa is where he first fell in love with hockey. There’s a part of him that is convinced his body will remember the passion before his head does. It’s about tracing back his footsteps. Seeing if he can find his path again. And it’s about feeling safe, too. Everything in Shane’s carefully ordered and regimented life has gone to chaos. He needs stability to function. Ottawa represents stability. 

But there’s something else. Rumours and reputation, mostly. A handful of instagram posts. Something he secretly wants, but is too afraid to articulate. 

Joe looks at him and carefully says, “I’ve met a few Centaurs. They seem like good people, Shane. I think they’ll be good to you.” 

Shane drinks his oat milk cappuccino. He can’t bring himself to hope so, not out loud, not for real. 

Chapter End Notes

Figure skating references in this chapter:

- Mexico with Donovan: this a nod to the wonderful Mexican skater Donovan Carrillo, a charming 2x Olympian who first started out in a mall rink.
- Star-wars program: look up Adam Siao Him Fa Star Wars SP you will not regret it! In real life, this program was not choreographed by a Canadian, but a bald French man named Benoit who is responsible for many crimes.
- “Honesty on the ice”: this was said by legend and coach Brian Orser regarding being out as a skater. After he retired, he was outed in the 90s when an ex-boyfriend took him to court and the judge refused to seal the records.
- American skaters offended to be assumed gay: this is a slightly uncharitable reference to Nathan Chen’s homophobia controversy where he lightly complained about being seen as gay/feminine because he’s a figure skater instead of a hockey player. He also called FS a “homosexual-dominated sport” lmfaooo. He gave a good apology imo, but my friends and I still call him famed homophobe Nathan Chen because it’s funny.
- Gay score inflation: this is a reference to Ilia Malinin’s homophobia controversy where he posted an instagram story joking that his performance components scores would be higher if he was gay. smh. He apologised for this and then posted pictures with gay Jason Brown to show us he’s an #ally. I love Ilia but he can be a bit of a silly sausage lol

Fun fact: the first Olympian to be publicly out was a figure skater, the late great John Curry. He was outed/came out right before the 1976 Olympics, won gold, then retired. Curry was one of the skaters we lost in the AIDs epidemic, far too soon.

Also, Shane and Joe talk as if it's easier to be gay in figure skating because they’re comparing it to hockey, and Joe knows that freaking Shane out with his worst experiences won't be helpful. Sure, FS has more publicly gay athletes than most men’s sports, but it’s still very very common for skaters to stay in the closet while competing for the same reasons as any other athlete, and there is still a great deal of homophobia and misogyny as there is with any sport.

Chapter 2: Off-Season Conditioning

Chapter Summary

Shane works out. He meets some new people. He works out some more.

Chapter Notes

Sometimes, when Shane closes his eyes, he thinks he can feel his muscles tearing. When his heart is tightening like a fist in his chest, the blood flowing through his veins doesn’t feel automatic—every molecule of oxygen tied to every red blood cell running to his thighs is bound there because he willed it. Because he takes a breath. He chose to take a breath.

It’s too simple to say he bends his knees when he’s aware of everything. Lateral collateral ligament. Collagen. Elastin. Glycine. Proline. Hydroxyproline. Carbon. Hydrogen. Oxygen. He takes a breath from his diaphragm. The diaphragm is a muscle, too. 

All Shane’s life, people have called him reserved or withdrawn. He started talking a little late, in full sentences, so his mom says he’s always been that way. It doesn’t bother him. It bothers other people, though, people who don’t like to be alone with themselves. There have been times Shane wished he wasn’t who he is, but he has never had a problem with what he is. Muscle, tendon, ligament, artery. Hard bone and its soft marrow.

He thinks that exertion, to him, is what meditation feels like to other people. As he pulls himself up from the squat, he focuses on how it feels to hold his back straight and he doesn’t need music. There is harmony in the body. 

Re: Re: Address Change

farah@jalaliteam.com

To s.holbusiness2@gmail.com

Hi Shane,

I hope you’re settling well into your new place. I wanted to touch base on recent developments. The Centaurs comms team has reached out to us asking how we want to approach media strategy, but there’s no rush so we can table that discussion. For now, they want you to come into the office for the paperwork signing photo op we discussed. I’m seeing availability on your calendar for Thursday morning, would that work for you? After that’s done I understand you’ll want to head to your cottage, so I’ll push any necessary commitments to mid-August.

Heads up: someone just posted photos of you and your friend Joe last week. Fans are pretty excited about any news on you, so we’re expecting hockey outlets starving for off-season content to run stories on it. No further action required from you, just wanted to let you know that the public will be aware that you are currently in Ottawa. 

As always, I’m a call away if there’s anything you need. 

Best,

Farah

Shane contemplates the email as he showers off his hard-earned sweat. He’s successfully managed to reach a week clean of hockey. That’s more than enough for the ‘rest and elevate’ part, probably, right? Shane groans. This emotional shit is so hard.

He confirms with Farah that Thursday morning is fine, and suddenly, it feels like he has a deadline. For what, he doesn’t know. As usual, his mind summons a hundred things for him to do. His own voice shouts at him in his head. What the fuck are you doing, taking a week off? You only have six weeks before training camp and you just wasted 16.67% of that time reading books and making curry for your dad!

No, he argues with himself, It was part of the recovery plan. I didn’t waste anything, I worked on my off-ice fitness. Aside from resting, physios always assign exercises for mobility and strength. So. Yeah. He can think of going to meet the coaching team and doing a quick photo op as an exercise for regaining range of movement.

“Lock the fuck in,” he tells himself out loud. Nothing happens.

Shane grabs his iPad from the side table. If it doesn’t feel right to skate today, he can at least start thinking about hockey first, then maybe it’ll awaken his hunger. Watching a game always makes him think about what he could be doing better, which makes him want to get out on the ice.

He should really have reviewed his tape from last season by now, but he kind of wants to do that even less than he wants to skate, so instead he decides to educate himself on his new teammates.

He starts with Boodram—Shane already knows he’s a good player. But he skims his Wikipedia page anyway, then looks at his stats and records, then watches clips of his play. 

Fuck it, he looks Boodram up on HockeyFights. His highest rated fight is a 7.1. Better than Shane’s—not that it’s a high bar. 

After listening to a podcast episode Bood had featured in as a guest, Shane’s definitely hungry, but not for the rink. Fine. He makes himself a smoothie and moves on to Dykstra.

Shane falls into a rhythm. He reads, he processes, he takes notes, he watches clips to get a sense of each guy’s game. Hayes, Dillon, Boyle, LaPoint, Chouinard, Nieminen, Campbell, Whittaker, Karlsson, and on and on and on, each name carved into a rough shape by obsessive hands. Apparently, Hayes is really into comic books. That fact tickles a memory in the back of Shane’s mind that he can’t quite grasp. Dillon hates being called Pickle, and LaPointe set a record at Northeastern for most points in a season by an 18-year-old. 

The Centaurs have a very extensive social media presence. Faced with the reality of soon becoming a part of it, Shane doesn’t feel great about that. 

By the time Shane finishes with last season’s roster, a couple trades, and promising prospects under contract with Ottawa, it’s Thursday morning, and Shane finds himself sitting in his car outside the Bell Censplex. 

A part of him wishes his mom was here. The first time he visited this Censplex was in 2004 at the ribbon cutting ceremony, as a shy 13-year-old. He remembers that time as the slow creep into being Shane Hollander, how coaches and scouts and other kids started to treat him a little different, how he acted a little different once he realised that. He remembers the buzz of excitement outside these very doors as they opened to the public for the first time, his mom socialising with Centaurs staff and embarrassing him with her shameless bragging. He had been ungrateful and sullen and complained to his mom on the way home that he wouldn’t want to be a Centaur, anyway, so did they really have to talk to everyone for that long?

Eat your words, Shane, he thinks wryly. 

Shane had no reason to return to the Bell Censplex for a long time, so it would be poetic, almost, to be coming back with his mom. He thinks about calling her. He leaves his phone in his pocket.

A sweet older lady walks him to the coaches office, and Shane doesn’t let himself hesitate before knocking on the door. 

“Come in!” Wiebe calls from inside. Shane grits his teeth and obeys.

The office is not at all what he expected.

It looks like a new-age school classroom. Open plan, with electric standing desks around the perimeter of the room and a mix of office chairs and medicine balls and bean bags. In the centre, there’s a U-shaped group of tables that have white-board surfaces, where Shane sees a mixture of hand-drawn system diagrams and clumsy doodles under a plate of what appears to be homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. 

Assistant coaches are scattered around the room, having a spirited discussion about the draft. They wave in greeting as Wiebe pops up from behind a stack of boxes.

“Hollander. Hey bud, welcome home,” Wiebe says, giving Shane a hearty handshake. It heals and hurts. Shane takes a moment to assess Brandon Wiebe in the flesh, and all he can think is that he never had a young and handsome coach before. 

“Thank you, coach. It means a lot to be here,” Shane says honestly. 

“It’ll come as absolutely no surprise to you that it means a lot to us too. We’re hungry for a win, and now we have a winner. Let’s make it happen, eh?” 

“Yes sir,” Shane says solemnly, and he means it. 

Wiebe guides him over to a neat desk by the wall that features a giant mural of the Centaurs logo, presumably the backdrop for the picture. As he does, a stocky man with a soft beard and a Canon around his neck bustles into the office. He spots Shane and Wiebe immediately and his face is not at all guarded—Shane sees about 6 emotions cross his face before he ultimately settles on nervous excitement.

“Mr. Hollander! Hi! It is such a pleasure!” he enthuses, crossing the room to shake his hand. 

“Hi, nice to meet you. Just Shane is fine, uh…” 

“Harris,” Wiebe introduces them, then says, “He’s gay.”

This last part, he says in an informative tone, as if he’s given Harris’ job title instead of his sexuality. Shane is honestly at a loss for words. 

“Coach, I love the intention, but it’s a little weird to lead with that,” Harris tells Wiebe cheerfully. Wiebe scratches his head, like it had never occurred to him that Shane might not want to be personally introduced to every gay man in Ottawa. 

“Right. Sorry about that. Harris is our social media manager.” 

“Oh, cool. Sorry in advance for all the terrible comments you’re gonna get,” Shane says.

“You’re adorable. Our comments are already terrible,” Harris laughs, “I’ll hire a straight intern to handle the rabble.”

“Great,” Shane says dryly. He’s a little charmed—Harris seems really happy. He’s good at his job, too, he makes Shane feel at ease as he snaps pictures of the final bits of paperwork being signed, and it’s over quickly. 

Wiebe ushers him over to a bunch of unoccupied bean bags after Harris makes off with his bounty. Shane sits down warily, but he guesses this can’t be that bad a conversation if they’re sitting here in front of everyone in bean bags.

“Okay, well I get the feeling you’re the type of guy who likes to get right to business, so here it is: having you on the team is an unprecedented opportunity for this franchise, and we want you happy here. We support your right to be with whoever you like, and if anyone has a problem with that, I want you to let me know,” Wiebe orders. The sound of the bean bag shifting punctuates his statement.

Shane chews on the inside of his cheek. He’s relieved to have Wiebe’s support affirmed, of course. He tries to imagine telling Wiebe that one of his teammates called him a cocksucker, and it seems completely outlandish. He doesn’t want to be a keener or a snitch. At the same time, he wasn’t very good at handling the room on his own in Montreal. 

It’s nice of Wiebe to try to reassure Shane. If there’s one thing Shane learned from all this, though, it’s that being gay is tolerable conceptually, but not once the evidence is right in front of you. 

“I really appreciate that. But you just started with the organisation, and this is your first time coaching MLH. With all due respect, coach, it may not be up to either of us whether or not I’m happy here,” Shane says honestly. 

Wiebe considers that. “Hockey is a team sport, eh? I’m not asking you to come to me so I can bring my iron fist down on anyone who gives you grief. I’m asking you to come to me so we can handle it as a team, for the team. Think that sounds fair?”

Shane nods, a little chastened. Theriault definitely rules with an iron fist, but it isn’t fair of him to project that onto Wiebe. Far from being offended, Wiebe smiles warmly at Shane, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“And speaking of my inexperience,” Wiebe starts with a twinkle in his eye. Shane feels his cheeks heating up.

“Sorry,” he says. Wiebe waves him off with a laugh.

“No, no, you’re right, I’m the rook. Look, I’m confident that I’m the man for the job, but I’ve got Shane Hollander on the team and I’d be a fuckin’ idiot if I didn’t use that big brain of yours. You got thoughts on the systems, the lines, how we’re running practices, anything, I’m all ears,” Wiebe says. 

Shane agrees, noncommittal. He has thoughts based on all the tape he watched, but he’ll reserve judgement until he’s actually played with the guys, and even then he probably won’t say anything. He needs to win the team over if he has any hope of fixing everything. He doesn’t want them to think he’s an arrogant asshole who thinks he can come in out of nowhere and change shit and go over their captain’s head. 

Wiebe seems to realise Shane doesn’t have anything else to add.

“Okay, good talk. My wife and I would love to have you over for dinner, so don’t be a stranger. Come on, there’s someone else I want you to meet before you head out.”

Oh yeah? Is he gay? Shane thinks sardonically. 

— — —

Zane Boodram is exactly how Shane has always imagined a captain should be. Warm, welcoming, knowledgeable and confident. He is the Centaurs’ biggest fan, praising their strengths but not glossing over their (many) weaknesses. He talks about movie nights and barbecues and how much his wife Cassie loves the team. 

Shane immediately likes Boodram. He likes him less when he proposes they lace up their skates and play around a little, but that’s not his fault, and really, Shane’s going to have to get over himself sooner or later, so he agrees.

“Everyone calls me Bood,” he corrects Shane as they lace up their skates, “How ‘bout you?”

“Just Hollander, I guess. Or Shane.”

“Really? They never gave you a stupid nickname in Montreal?” Bood asks. 

Some of them called him Holly, but he’d never particularly liked that one. Made him a little uncomfortable to be called a girl’s name by his team—it's stupid, but it felt like maybe they’d figure out he liked it up the ass or something. Hollywood, for a few months, when he was with Rose, but that’s not something he wants to bring up. Shane thinks about it, then smiles at a memory that emerges. 

Holy Rollie! echoes in his ears, reliable as the Metros goal song.

“When I first got my Rolex deal, the guys called me Rollander for a while. Baz called me Rollie until the end.”

Bood gives him a weird look. “The end? What, you don’t talk anymore?”

Shane tenses, smile dropping in an instant. Why did I say it like that? He doesn’t want to make things weird with his new team right out the gate. Bood has already been gracious enough not to bring up the whole outing thing. Yet. And he’s Canadian, so he might have buddies on the Voyageurs or something. 

“Uh, I just meant like—The end of my time in Montreal,” Shane says. Bood doesn’t look convinced, but he moves on easily. 

“You ain’t gonna get through this season with your name intact, I can tell you that right now. Hollander is kind of a mouthful,” Bood teases, then immediately follows this with a juvenile, “That’s what she said.”

“Wait. That’s what he said?” Bood amends with a puzzled frown. 

Bood’s face drops with a realisation, “Oh shit, wait. Rose Landry. That’s what…they said?”

“Okay, fuck off,” Shane interrupts his train of thought. Stiff, he tries to skate away to grab a few pucks, but Bood grabs him by the arm. 

“Wait, wait, wait, I just need to ask you one thing first, Hollander,” Bood says. His captain faces him, his face going serious. Oh, shit, here we go. Shane braces himself for questions about the pictures, about who else he’s slept with, whether he looks at guys in the shower, about whether he’s really gay—

“Am I hot to gay guys?” 

Shane stares at Bood for a long moment. Waves of incredulity, amusement, embarrassment, and confusion all crash and recede until there’s only relief left on the shore. Oh my god, he’s completely cool with it. Bood’s reaction slots into a collection of precious memories of hockey players trying to express their acceptance, memories wherein Shane is simultaneously touched and uncomfortable. 

Shane realises he needs to show Bood his weird signal of allyship has been received, so he decides to play along. He lets his eyes flick down and drag back up Bood’s body, as if seriously assessing his hotness. Bood strikes a pose, attempting his best blue steel, which makes Shane smile.

“I don’t know. You’d be hotter if you didn’t use AXE body spray like a 13 year old,” he says.

“Hey, you recognise my deodorant by smell, so maybe it’s an iconic signature scent,” Bood protests. 

“It’s not hard to recognise. They can probably smell you all the way to Vancouver,” Shane grumbles. He taps Bood’s stick with his own, wordlessly expressing his impatience. The longer he stands out here on the ice without a task, the more he’ll overthink everything. 

Bood acquiesces to Shane’s silent request, and they start getting into it. Getting a feel for each other on the ice, shooting some pucks into the empty net, running a couple drills. Bood is very competent, but gives off a chill energy. It’s a good counterbalance to Shane’s exacting discipline.   

Shane almost manages to lose himself in it, until he sees a growing gaggle of employees lingering by the door, peering in at them. Shane can’t stop glancing their way. He’s too aware of their eyes. It’s making his body tight, so he scowls and tells himself to focus up. Thousands of people will be looking at him once the season starts, and he’s never let that bother him before. He can already hear the fucking Facebook comments. Now that Hollander’s gay, he can’t take the heat. 

The employees scatter quickly when they catch his eye on his next lap around the goal. Shane still can’t quite stop glancing at the door, though. 

By the time they’re done, Shane is too exhausted for the amount of energy he’s exerted. He wants to go home and be alone. Bood smiles hopefully and asks him if he likes Senegalese food. 

Fuck. Shane bites back a sigh. “Uh, can’t say I’ve really tried it.”

Shane is bracing for more eyes, for more pictures on Twitter and rumours that he’s trying to steal Bood from his wife. But miraculously, Bood takes Shane to a hole-in-the-wall, family-owned West African restaurant in town that has exactly zero other patrons dining. He makes Shane order for both of them in French, claiming that the servers are nicer to Francophones. 

“I found this place last season when LaPointe was living with us,” Bood explains, “He eats garbage if you let him, just fast food and instant noodles all the time. It’s like, you’re a professional athlete now, little man! His grandma’s from Senegal, so I started bringing him here when he missed his family. Feed the body, feed the soul, eh?”

Shane is impressed and a little guilty. He can’t recall doing things that thoughtful off the ice for his rookies in Montreal. His captain certainly never did anything like that for him in 2010.

“That’s really nice of you,” Shane compliments him. 

“Brown boys have to stick together,” says Bood, winking conspiratorially. 

Shane gets home and heads straight to the gym. 

He doesn’t know what to feel. Everyone has been nice so far, but it’s easy to be nice when nobody’s losing. He’ll have to wait and see how nice they are when it becomes apparent that Shane can’t singlehandedly win them a cup in one season. Or when he has another gay sex scandal. 

He lays out his yoga mat and he lets the stretch in his thighs dissolve the day, flushing the buildup of thoughts like lactic acid.

Chapter End Notes

shane after giving himself 7 days off in 10 years: so my mental illness is cured now right?

thank you all for reading and leaving comments, please feel free to share any and all thoughts down below <3 next week we see how ilya's doing over in boston!!

Chapter 3: King of the Ice—An Ilya Interlude

Chapter Summary

Ilya is on top of the world, on top of his game, beloved by his city and friends. He has everything he ever dreamed of.

Chapter Notes

Rating changed to M for Ilya: sex, drugs, rock and roll.
This work now features a skin for text messages, created by Azdaema Codes! Please let me know if the texts look funky to you as I am not an HTML wiz.

Ilya Rozanov is on the cover of Sports Illustrated, shirtless and sexy in a leather jacket and sunglasses. ‘KING OF THE ICE’, the glossy headline proclaims. It’s quoting something flippant Ilya said during the interview, when the dull journalist had asked him how it felt to win his third Rocket Richard in a row. 

Stupid question, Ilya thinks as he leafs through the magazine. He remembers thinking the exact same thought when the words first reached his ear. How does it feel? It feels fucking good. Triumphant. Orgasmic. These reporters should know by now that he is not nice Canadian Shane Hollander. He shoots when he could pass. He will not give credit to his team for his own achievements, he will not play humble or say it is a dream come true. And he will not give serious answers to stupid questions. 

And so he had stared blankly at the reporter and said: “It is getting boring, winning all the time. Nobody can challenge me, I am king of the ice.”

The interviewer had a follow up question, of course. “What about Shane Hollander?”

What about Shane Hollander? Ilya had sneered at the reporter.

“Hollander? He is most boring of them all.”

It is tattooed there on the paper for all the world to see. Ilya wonders if Shane read it. 

No, he thinks. He’s probably too busy hooking up with strange men in not-private-enough places to read about Ilya. Or maybe not, now that he’s back in Ottawa. Not as many gay men in Ottawa compared to Montreal. Probably Shane has increased the gay population by 100%. 

Ilya discards the magazine on his coffee table. He’ll bring it to practice when the season starts so he can rub it in the guys’ faces. 

He brings his suitcase to his room. The fruits of his trip to Moscow are beginning to rot and moulder with how long he’s waited to unpack. He unzips it and sees the carefully packed folder of drawings on top.

Every time he visits—sporadically and not for long—he is surprised that Alina remembers him so well. He pulls one of the drawings out of the folder. His little Alya is becoming a gifted artist. He runs his finger over her depiction of him, becoming each year less of a blob with yellow ribbons for hair and more of the man she believes him to be. Uncle Ilya is always huge in her drawings, and always smiling. He worries that she spends too much time alone, drawing because she has nothing else to do with her Papa out doing god knows what and her Mama becoming more downtrodden every day. 

He takes out the third drawing, his favourite, sandwiched between the others for safety. Аля и Илья is shyly written under the misshapen forms of two figures. Alya and Ilya, in a white void, with strange looking feet. He smiles at the memory it brings forth. Her mama had finally grown too weary to protest when Ilya declared he would take his niece skating for the first time. Alya is not a natural. 

Ilya takes the drawings and stows them in his bedside table. He hates the thought of putting them on the walls for anyone to see.

He glances at the rest of the things in his suitcase, and his arms grow heavy and uncooperative. Ilya does not deal with his bag. He instead lounges on his bed until it is time to meet Marly at the bar. There is no rush, anyway. He is the only one inside this big house, and he does not care to unpack anything. If he needs a shirt he can buy a new one. These are the benefits of being king. 

— — —

Marly brings him in and slaps him on the back when they see each other. “Roz, how was the motherland?” 

Ilya thinks about mentioning Alina, but decides he does not want another ‘heart-to-heart’. Marly is very bad at them. Still, Ilya feels a swell of affection for his old friend—steady as a rock and just as stupid. 

“Better than yours,” Ilya responds instead. Marly rolls his eyes.

“Really? ‘Cause you’ve been living here for ten years—”

“Ten? Wow, Marly, did not know you could count that high,” Ilya gasps. 

“How many’s this, asshole?” Marly retorts, giving Ilya the finger. Ilya shoots his friend a lazy smile and makes his way to the bar to get their first round.

Lara the goth bartender greets him easily, familiar with his and Marly’s presence. Ilya usually doesn’t bother to remember the names of past one night stands, but Lara is different. She is taciturn and protective of her regulars and she is very good at MMA. She is unafraid to cut people off and punch predators in the face—this attracts more women to the bar, which attracts Marlow and Ilya. 

Plus, Ilya thinks as she fixes a gin and tonic for someone at the bar, Lara is known for her heavy pour. She used to work at a gay bar. Ilya flirts out of habit as he waits for their drinks. 

“Too early for your trouble,” Lara dismisses him, sliding his glass of vodka across the bar.

“Lucky for you, I will be here sharing my trouble all night,” Ilya purrs. He tips her $50 and feels very smug when her lips thin—she is still surprised, somehow, after all this time. 

“I love your communist spirit, comrade,” Lara says as she pockets the bill, “Now please go redistribute your STDs somewhere else.”

Ilya laughs and fucks off obligingly. She always finds a creative new way to thank him. Marly elbows him when he sets their drinks down, smirking.

“You always like the ones that are mean to you,” he says. 

“I have grown out of puck bunnies,” Ilya says pointedly and disdainfully. Marly scoffs. 

“Don’t act like you’re better than me, Roz, you’re worse than I am. At least I’ve had a girlfriend before.”

“Okay, so what? ‘Time as boyfriend’ is now part of career statistics?” Ilya retorts. 

“God, could you imagine? Just another stat for Hollander to beat you in,” Marly laughs, and Ilya’s eyes snap to his face instantly. 

“What? No. Rose Landry got bored of Hollander very quickly,” he says. 

Marly’s face lights up at the opportunity to gossip. He takes out his phone and types something into it, handing it to Ilya. “Nah, bro, he has a fucking boyfriend. I still can’t believe he’s gay. He doesn’t seem gay.”

Ilya feels a wave of deja vu as he scans the gossip rag for anything other than pop-up ads. He scrolls down and sees the picture. It comes to life before him, the sounds of the bar fading away. Instead, he is in a quiet café in Ottawa, with Shane Hollander wrapped in his arms. He smells like the classy, expensive cologne his stylist picked out for him, and Ilya feels his smooth compression shirt under his hands. Shane looks lost in the picture, his pathetic doe eyes wide. 

Vodka burns on Ilya’s tongue. He blinks and he is in a bar with Marly, and he is looking at a picture of a tall, bearded-man comforting Shane instead. He looks like an athlete—figure skater, the article claims. Shane has a type. Ilya hums and passes the phone back to Marly.

“Hollander is shallow. Only fucks celebrities. Not like me, I am man of the people,” Ilya says, spreading his arms, every bit the magnanimous king. 

“I don’t think they’re just fucking, bro,” Marly says, “Everyone’s saying this is why Hollander waived his NMC for Ottawa, of all places.”

“For a man,” Ilya says flatly. What the fuck. What the fuck. He thinks it again in Russian.

Ilya feels the sudden urge to reach into his pocket for his phone. He reaches for the vodka instead, downing it and heading back to the bar. Marly says something stupid about Ilya inventing an excuse to talk to Lara. Ilya could laugh, really. Marly has no eyes. It is why he cannot keep a girlfriend despite being rich, handsome and funny. 

Ilya takes pleasure in trading barbs with his friend and happily gossiping about how the rest of their teammates are spending the summer. The rally of their banter is comfortable and easy, despite how harsh it might seem from the outside. Ilya likes harsh—it grates away the sticky film Moscow leaves on his skin. 

Once they’re pleasantly tipsy, Ilya and Marlow wave goodbye to Lara and head to a nearby club. On the short walk outside, faces light up as they pass. A girl asks Ilya to sign her tits, which he does, posing for pictures as he does it. Ilya blinks and he’s in a bathroom stall with a redhead who offers him a bump on the end of her house key. He grins, leans forward, and inhales. 

Ilya gets the redhead off with his fingers, whispering dirty shit into her ear. She smells pleasantly sweet, something with a warm note of honey. Her body is soft and slight against him. After she comes with a satisfied sigh, she sucks him off. Ilya enjoys it as much as the coke—the redhead is clearly like him. A sexy creature of the night and frequenter of dirty club toilet stalls. 

They grin at each other and right their clothing. Her pupils are huge. Probably Ilya’s are too.

Ilya loves the dance floor. He has always been a physical creature. Sports, sex, drugs, dancing, each allow him to chase a different sensation of pleasure. He lets his body guide him as the bass rattles his bones, with no intention but to make his blood pump. He grins at the redhead from where she’s feeling up some other woman across the dance floor. He feels his heart pounding and relishes the way his head spins. This is why his father always called him lazy, he thinks, because he is never chasing a higher ideal. He is not obsessed with achievements and legacy, he just loves the fucking rush of winning. Not like Shane. 

Ilya is back at the bar waiting for another drink. Suddenly, his phone is in his hand and he’s typing.

Lily

You have figure skating boyfriend now?

Shane doesn’t reply, of course. It’s 2am. He is long asleep. Ilya dances until the club is about to close and goes home with a sexy woman whose name he will forget when he is leaving her apartment.

— — —

Ilya wakes with a groan to Svetlana’s unimpressed glare, arms crossed. She has pulled his pillow from under his head.

“Fuck, Sveta, why?” he complains.

“You are meant to be meeting me for brunch in 20 minutes,” she says in English, then she throws his pillow in his face and leaves him to get ready. Ilya had not remembered to set an alarm, so this is probably fair. 

There is a very good English term Ilya learned to describe Sveta. Ball-buster. He does not want his balls busted today, so Ilya gets up, showers and gets dressed. Sveta is holding the keys to his Porsche when he emerges. 

Sexy fucking car. Every time Ilya drives it, he is smug. Another English phrase he likes—the cat that got the cream. In his black Porsche on the Boston streets that adore him, next to his best friend, Ilya feels like the tiger that got the boar. 

His phone buzzes. Ilya forces himself to retrieve it slowly, glancing at the screen like it’s nothing. It is nothing. 

Jane

Fuck you.

In the mouth of Shane Hollander, ‘fuck you’ can mean anything. It could mean that the figure skater is his boyfriend, and he does not want Ilya to know. It could mean that the figure skater is not his boyfriend, but he is too proud to admit it. It could simply mean he is irritated at Ilya for asking. Why do you even care? Ilya can hear his voice, prickly and defensive.

Ilya doesn’t care, of course. 

He tells Sveta about his night out with Marly. He thinks of watching the bodies coalesce, sweat gleaming under the lights, good fucking vodka on his tongue and a model on his arm. Sveta laughs in the passenger seat, wind blowing the summer sun through her curls. 

Why should Ilya care? He is the King of the Ice.

The light turns green. Ilya revs his engine and drives.

Chapter End Notes

Hey guys! Look at me, up to 3 weeks of weekly updates :D We'll see if I can keep it up lol. Ilya's SI cover is ripped from a real SI cover featuring Myles Garrett with the headline: Inside the Mind of the New NFL Sack King. It's a very cool SI cover, much more editorial than their usual.

As always I am eager to hear all of your thoughts!! Do you think Ilya is happy? Do you think Svetlana and Cliff feel that he's happy? Does Shane believes that he's happy?

Chapter 4: Three Steps Back

Chapter Summary

Back in Ottawa, Shane learns that not everyone in the organisation is as friendly as Wiebe.

Chapter Notes

3 WEEKS BEFORE TRAINING CAMP

Shane is called back to the Bell Censplex for his long dreaded media strategy meeting. He makes the drive down from his cottage feeling marginally better than when he left. 

Farah is waiting for him in the parking lot beside her sleek Lexus, her thick black hair meticulously styled, not a strand out of place. Despite the lingering traces of summer heat, she is wearing a beautiful wool jacket, like the fancy Chanel one Rose has, but she doesn’t appear to be sweating. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look sweaty, actually. She says it’s because Canadian heat is nothing compared to the time she spent wearing a hijab in the height of Iranian summers. Shane privately thinks that Farah is so terrifyingly in control of everything that her sweat glands just bend to her will.

“Shane, you have the power here,” Farah says decisively. 

“Yeah, I know,” he says, because she has told him this before, not because he truly believes it. She raises one perfect eyebrow and starts walking for the doors, trusting that Shane will follow. He does, of course.

“You can trust that I remember every single word of your plan. These are your decisions, not mine, so if you change your mind, do not hesitate to speak it. I can do the talking on the non-negotiables. You—”

“I’m a people-pleaser.” He already knows that one, too, though Farah has never said it. Farah turns to him, plucking a stray hair off of his shirt with a fond smile. 

“No, dear. You aren’t. Who told you that? I wanted to say—you aren’t alone in that room. If it comes to it, I will fight for you,” she says, voice hard, just like it was when they went in for negotiations with Montreal. Shane smiles back at her. 

“Thanks, Farah.”

The meeting room they’re led to is normal, with a conference table and chairs, not a bean bag in sight. Shane wonders if that’s a good or bad omen. There are more participants in this meeting than he thought there would be. There are the people Shane expected—Senior Director of Communications, a deeply serious man named Marc-Anthony, and Harris, the social media manager. Also present are two unfamiliar women who are introduced to him as the Senior Director of Marketing and an HR Generalist.

Shane sends Farah a very quick and very panicked look. What the fuck? he thinks, What kind of media strategy meeting needs HR?! Farah looks surprised, too, but pats Shane on the arm in reassurance. 

Shane exchanges pleasantries and sits next to Farah, who lays her tastefully manicured hands over each other on the table and waits expectantly. 

The Centaurs personnel glance at each other, wordlessly willing each other to speak. Finally, Marc-Anthony clears his throat. 

“Shane, before we can put together an appropriate strategy for your Centaurs debut, we want to establish some background with you,” he says. Shane doesn’t really know what that means. His career is extremely public. They know his background, don’t they?

“Uh, okay,” Shane says. Marc-Anthony flips his folder open.

“Great. Now, one of the biggest stories in the league is your decision to come to us. There will be a lot of buzz about what soured between you and Montreal. Can you tell us what happened there?” 

Wow. Shane isn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t being asked about the gory details of the Montreal trade at 8 o’clock in the morning. 

“Sorry, do you mind telling us what you need to know? Shane has certain legal obligations to Montreal, you understand,” Farah redirects smoothly. 

“Of course, of course. But if there is any bad blood, it will help us to know what stories to look for, what we want to elevate or bury. What narrative Montreal might push?” Marc-Anthony explains. 

“Montreal also has legal obligations to Shane,” Farah notes. The NDAs signed on behalf of the organisation don’t necessarily cover the players making their opinions known. Shane thinks that most of the team will probably maintain neutrality, but it’s not impossible that a handful of them will take shots at him once they’re facing each other on the ice. 

“There’s some bad blood,” Shane says carefully. Marc-Anthony waves a hand for Shane to elaborate, but he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“With the front office? Or players?” Marc-Anthony presses. 

“Little of both,” says Shane. 

“And does that only have to do with your departure, or problems in the dressing room before…? We’re just trying to understand what kind of press we might receive this season. Montreal’s fanbase is enthusiastic, as you know.”

An understatement on both counts. Bias aside, Montreal is the Mecca of the hockey world; the fans carry that historic prestige in their souls. And Shane knows those souls better than almost anyone. 

Which is why he and Farah have discussed all of this before, at length. They have plans and contingency plans A-Z on how they’ll pivot depending on what Montreal does when the season starts. They could share some of that work to make sure Shane and the organisation are aligned—it’s what they intended to do in this meeting today, in fact. 

Something tells Shane not to lead with that. He’s feeling a little uneasy. Everyone in the organisation has been respectful and welcoming to him so far, so he figures he owes it to them to make an effort, but without consciously making the decision he finds himself slipping into his media voice. 

“Yeah, I get that. Okay. Well, I guess the friction started in 2018, when I came out to the team. The reactions were, um…mixed, I guess. But it was fine,  because we won the Cup. Then, last season those pictures were published. When we were knocked out in round one, it was all my fault for my big gay scandal.”

It’s vague enough that it shouldn’t breach Shane’s NDA. He doesn’t mention Theriault claiming they lost because Shane was ‘distracted’ or the GM’s order for him to stay in the closet or Marcel trying to convince Shane to post a statement claiming the pictures were fake. He doesn’t mention Comeau implying that he played badly because his asshole was sore. 

Marc-Anthony nods dispassionately and takes notes. Farah is staring at him with laser beams coming out of her eyes. 

“That’s bullshit,” says Harris, “You didn’t ask to be outed.” 

“Now, regarding the pictures—” Marc-Anthony starts. Shane stiffens.

“It won’t be necessary to discuss that now,” Farah says. 

“I understand, I read your statement from that time, of course. I just wanted to ask if—”

“We expect that the organisation will treat the pictures as what they are: an invasion of privacy that outed Shane against his will. It’s tabloid trash that the organisation shouldn’t waste its breath on,” Farah says primly. 

“Of course,” Harris agrees easily, frowning at Marc-Anthony, who ignores him.

“But is the man from those pictures someone we need to account for?” Marc-Anthony asks. Shane is confused. How is he supposed to know that? He never saw that man again after that night and couldn’t have contacted him even if he wanted to. He barely remembers the guy’s name. 

“Marc-Anthony, I feel I have made myself quite clear,” Farah answers, gesturing for Shane not to answer the question. 

Her definitive shut-down of Marc-Anthony’s line of questioning silences the room for long enough for Shane’s unease to become a desperate desire to escape. He taps his toe on the round restlessly, trying to release some of the running impulse. 

“Why don’t we shift gears?” Carolyn the marketing woman asks rhetorically, pulling a stack of papers out of her portfolio, “Shane, we understand that the circumstances of your outing were…suboptimal. But we think there’s a real opportunity here to capture new fans and expand our market.”

She holds up a design for a Hollander Centaurs jersey featuring rainbow colours on some stripes and his number. Shane glances at the other designs in her stack of papers—a Pride flag with the Centaurs logo on it and HOLLANDER emblazoned underneath, a sparkly fan with SLAYNE HOLLANDER on it, a tailgate game day kit that for some reason includes glitter and a synthetic feather boa. 

“We already sell a Centaurs Pride flag, of course, but we see this as the perfect opportunity to expand our Pride range! Five percent of profits will be donated to the Trevor Project, too, so it’s all for a good cause,” Carolyn enthuses. 

“Uh…” Shane looks at Farah, at a loss. 5% seems a little stingy, he thinks, but his head is buzzing too loudly for any other opinions to surface. 

“We love the idea of expanding the Pride range. Just a thought: For the sake of inclusiveness, maybe it would be better to sell generic Cens Pride items rather than Hollander merchandise? That way, they could represent anyone in the organisation or on the team, not just Shane,” Farah suggests. Thank god for Farah, Shane thinks fervently. 

“That is fantastic feedback to take back to the team, thank you Farah. Shane, anything to add?” Carolyn asks, grinning expectantly. Shane wonders if she thinks he’s going to compliment the genius of a pink crop top with 24 on it. 

“Just what Farah said. General Pride stuff without my name on it would be better. The jersey is fine, though,” he offers. He doesn’t mind the idea of seeing fans wearing his jersey and knowing it’s not despite him being gay. 

“We’ll send you one, of course, but we can adjust the order if you need more?” Carolyn suggests. 

“Uh, that’s okay, I think my parents will just want the normal Centaurs jersey,” Shane says. 

Carolyn blinks and stretches her smile a little wider. “Sure! And there’s no one else you need some merch for…?” 

Shane looks at Farah again, but she says nothing, smiling pleasantly at Carolyn. Shane follows her lead and remains silent. 

“While we’re at it, Shane, there are some forms I brought for you today,” Riley the HR lady jumps in, and she pushes a form across the table at him. 

Personal Relationships Disclosure Form

The pieces finally fit together. This is an ambush. They had no intention of talking about media strategy collaboratively today—they’ve already decided that they’re managing a liability. 

He can’t even react at first, overwhelmed with the crushing disappointment and sick with himself for hoping the Centaurs could be different. He tried so hard not to want it, but the nausea in his stomach, creeping up his throat and stilling his tongue tells him that it was fruitless—he had wanted it anyway. 

After the initial devastation that he instinctively contains within himself, fighting not to let it show on his face, Shane is surprised that the disappointment is conflicting with something that’s almost relief. Under the pretty facade, the Centaurs are built on the same foundation as the rest of them. It makes a certain amount of sense. More sense than the fantastical notion of a whole organisation filled with every well-meaning ally in hockey. Better for Shane to know outright what he’s up against. Better for Shane to be fired up than vulnerable. 

Farah snatches the form off the table and skims it before Shane can see more than the title. She stares Riley down. “This is an intraorganisational form. Shane hasn’t even started playing for the Cens yet, he doesn’t have any personal relationships to disclose.”

Riley nods several times. “Right, of course, but I think given the circumstances, the scope could be a little broader. If there’s any—”

“I’m sorry, Centaurs HR is asking me to file official paperwork on who I’m dating?” Shane demands clarification, just to make sure. For a split second he thinks it's a good thing Ilya ended things with him years ago, or he would've had a heart attack by now. Then his mood immediately worsens at the thought of Ilya's name and that stupid fucking text he sent. Marc-Anthony tilts his head.

“So you are seeing someone? The figure skater? Or another player—Scott Hunter?” 

“Unbelievable,” Shane mutters. Hunter is on his honeymoon with his fucking husband. 

Marc-Anthony persists, speaking now directly to Farah. “There’s a lot of talk about how Shane’s already gotten rid of the man from the leak for the figure skater. If he has the best interest of the franchise at heart, surely he’d want to make us aware of anything that has the potential to reflect—” 

“Shane has no obligation to disclose details of his personal life to you,” Farah interrupts sharply. 

“Naturally he has no obligation,” Riley admits, “but if there’s any conflict of interest, the org—“

“Conflict of interest?!” Shane echoes incredulously. He’s two seconds away from telling them all to go fuck themselves when Harris interrupts.

“Okay, let’s all take a breath!” Harris says hastily. He shoots Riley a reproachful look before turning to Shane with an apologetic smile.

“Let’s take 10 everyone, alright? Shane, will you walk with me?”

— — —

Harris is wringing his hands a little as Shane and Farah follow him out of the room. 

“I’m sorry about all of that. I promise this is not how our media strategy meetings usually go. Don’t answer anything you don’t want to. I had no idea Riley was coming, or that they all talked about…” 

“Trying to corner Shane into discussing his personal life?” Farah suggests. Harris winces.

“Yeah. I thought this meeting was about how we’d handle your transition to Ottawa, things you don’t want to be asked about in the press room, normal onboarding stuff,” Harris says. Shane believes him. He and Farah exchange a long look. He nods.

“Okay. Talk. That meeting we were promised, let’s have it right now. Pitch your plan,” Farah commands Harris. 

In the span of a few steps, Harris goes from shocked to determined, giving Farah a firm nod. Shane respects that he’s game for it. 

“Let me preface this by saying that once you meet the team, you’ll see that the inclusivity we promote isn’t just marketing. This is a good team, and obviously you’ve seen that it’s not perfect, but there are a lot of good people working here,” he says, and then he outlines a proposed strategy to essentially make Shane into their golden goose of content leading up to the regular season. His personal pitch is a documentary series chronicling Shane’s entire first season with the Centaurs.

Farah asks questions and negotiates with Harris while Shane thinks quietly. The three of them do a few laps around the floor before they seem happy with the discussion, and Harris guides them back to the meeting room.

Shane stops Harris at the door. “You’re undermining your boss,” he points out. Harris bites his lip and nods. Shane waits. He expects Harris to say something about gay solidarity, or having his own bad experience with outing, or something. 

Instead, what Harris says is this: “I love this job, but it’s just a job. You’re a person.”

Fuck. Shane has no idea what to say to that. He just nods and hopes Harris can telepathically sense how much Shane appreciates that.

Marc-Anthony, Carolyn and Riley fall dead silent the moment the door opens, guilty eyes snapping to Shane. He regards them quietly, letting the tension in the air simmer.

Before any of them can speak, someone else comes through the door: Peter Babunski, or ‘Babs’, the President and GM of the franchise. A mediocre former MLHer and a much better GM, standing tall in a slightly wrinkled suit that matches the shade of how his hair grays on the sides. He walks in cheerfully, shaking Farah and Shane’s hands.

“I just wanted to check in on ya…” he says slowly, seeming to finally sense the friction dividing the room.

“Mr. Babunski. What a thorough organisation,” Farah says coolly, “Are HR briefings on workplace relationships always part of athlete onboarding? Or is this just for Shane?”

Babunski frowns. “What?” 

Farah hands over the Personal Relationships Disclosure Form, a little crumpled from where she’d gripped it. It’s a little bit of a gamble. Babunksi had been genial and refreshingly normal during the process of finalising Shane’s trade, but they can’t be sure he didn’t delegate this unsavoury task to his subordinates himself. 

Babunski looks up at Riley, then at Shane, who’s standing with his back to the wall, arms crossed defensively. He shoots Riley a very meaningful look that clearly says we’ll be having words about this later.

“I don’t care who the hell you’re sleeping with, that’s your business. I only care how you play. But I guess it would be helpful to have something prepared just in case of...well, I wouldn’t want us to look as bad as Montreal did when—” Babunski makes a gesture that probably means ‘when the entire hockey world was melting down over pictures of you and a strange man with your tongue down his throat and your hand down his pants’’. 

“We want to be ready to support you,” Harris supplies. Babunski snaps his fingers and says ‘yeah, that’. Shane spares a moment to assess Marc-Anthony and his cronies, who clearly don’t share their GM’s sentiments. This atmosphere is familiar to Shane. He knows how to endure until he snaps, and after last season he is very experienced at standing up for himself to a hostile front office. He assesses himself. The prideful, hurt part of Shane wants to throw his weight around. Farah said he had the power here, right?

But that won’t help him find his stride on the ice. Shane can’t tell if Babunski really means what he said, but he’s not sure he cares. He hired Wiebe, after all. As long as he is prepared to at least pretend he’s on Shane’s side for the sake of the team’s point production, it’s still an improvement on Montreal. 

And as terrible as this meeting has been, one thing stands out: Harris stuck his neck out for him. Shane’s not going to let the axe swing down on him now. 

“We want the same thing, right? What’s good for the franchise is good for you,” Marc-Anthony chimes in. Shane scowls openly, his blood boiling. What’s good for us is good for you. That’s exactly what Marcel had said, too. Maybe Marc-Anthony should go work for the Voyageurs.

The building emotion in Shane snaps him into the cold determination he can usually only access during a game. He forgets to be worried about the plan and his focus narrows to this moment. It’s 3-on-1 and he’s digging the puck out from between their skates and the boards. Marc-Anthony is going for the hip check but Shane never fucking skips leg day.

“I’ll do the docuseries and the other stuff we talked about,” Shane says to Harris, “The rest of you can fuck off.”

“Excuse me—” Marc-Anthony gasps, clutching his pearls. 

“Especially you,” Shane snaps, unimpressed by his shock. Surely it’s not the first time someone’s told him to fuck off. He’s so fucking annoying he probably hears it hourly. 

“I’m not seeing anyone. And if I ever start seeing anyone, that’ll still be none of your fucking business,” Shane tells Marc-Anthony. He fights to keep his voice under control so he doesn’t yell, but Marc-Anthony flinches anyway. He seems to be at a temporary loss for words, so Shane considers him dealt with. 

He turns to Babunski. “Sir, I’m prepared to meet all of my media obligations for the team, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to ask for a little respect from the people I’m working with. I’ll work with Harris. But not the rest of them. Ever.”

Babunski looks for a moment like he might argue, but eventually he sighs, and Shane knows that’s a concession. 

“Wait, Peter—” Carolyn protests, but Babunski ignores her.

Babunski studies Shane. He nods. “Okay. What else?” 

— — —

Shane doesn’t bother looking back as he leaves the room, but he sees Harris do so nervously before following him. He feels bad suddenly. Just because Harris was willing to undermine his boss in one meeting doesn’t mean he volunteered to be Shane’s personal media liaison. 

“Sorry to spring that on you,” Shane tells Harris sheepishly, “I guess I got pretty mad.”

Harris shakes his head incredulously. “You got pretty scary, Shane. It was badass, though! I can’t believe you told three different department heads to fuck off.”

Shane winces a little. Yeah, he did do that. He doesn’t regret it, but now that the anger has cooled slightly he thinks he probably could’ve been more eloquent.

“I’m looking forward to working together,” Harris says warmly.

“Me too. And, uh, thank you,” says Shane, thinking about You’re a person.

Harris recoils from being thanked like it offends him. “You don’t have to thank me, pal. Just take care of yourself, okay?”

Babunski emerges from the meeting room after them. Shane starts apologising to him, too, for good measure.

“Um, I’m sorry Mr. Babunski. I was unprofessional in there.” Shane says. The GM lets out an exasperated sigh, but shakes his hand goodbye anyway.

“Hollander, I think you’ve earned the right to say ‘fuck off’ every now and then,” Babunski says wryly, “Just don’t do it in front of me from now on, y’hear? And you can call me Babs.”

Shane nods quickly. “Yes, sir.”

The world is spinning as Shane walks Farah to her car. He can’t make sense of anything, the adrenaline and righteous anger is fully collapsing into panic. What does any of this mean? Is Babunski secretly seething at him? Does Wiebe know about this? Did Shane just burn another bridge? God, everyone’s going to call him a diva or whatever. Fuck.

Farah takes his arm with the pretense of leaning on him for support as middle-aged women sometimes do. The touch is firm and grounding, and clearly for Shane’s benefit. Shane instinctively curls his hand over hers.

“You are not a people pleaser,” she says proudly, “You are strong and stubborn. Sometimes even a little mean.”

Shane laughs with an edge of hysteria. “Did I totally fuck that up?”

Farah scoffs. “My dear, you just forced them to promote Harris Drover.”

Is that a yes or a no? Shane can’t tell. Farah does not elaborate as she unlocks her car. Shane opens the door for her. She smiles mischievously as she settles in the driver's seat.

“So, am I signing off on Slayne Hollander?”

Chapter End Notes

Sooooo I gave in and started watching hockey. What finally got me was a video of Nick Suzuki laughing in some guy’s face who was trying to fight him. His ice cold attitude intrigues me. I watched the MTL @ TBL game from Apr 1 and enjoyed it so much I went and watched every game from the Habs win streak. Long fucking story short I am fearfully invested just in time for playoffs…Canadiens…it seems I’ve grown quite fond of you…

This chapter is so dialogue heavy and I don't know why it jumped out of me (it was not part of the plan, this chapter was supposed to follow Shane and his parents out by the lake). But now that it's written, it feels important to me that Shane's journey to acceptance and falling back in love with hockey isn't Become a Centaur -> ??? -> Profit. Organisations are made up of people and people are varied. I also want Shane to be agentic within the broader organisation, because the fic's premise falls apart if we don't see him in the process of taking control of his destiny and refilling his cup off the ice. Call that foreshadowing ;)

NEXT one will be lighter and more fun, as Shane meets the team and we catch up to Countdown to Connect!! As always, thank you for your comments, I treasure them all.

Chapter 5: Countdown to Camp

Chapter Summary

Shane's POV of Countdown to Connect starts here!

Chapter Notes

8 DAYS BEFORE TRAINING CAMP

Captain skates start tomorrow. Most of Shane’s normal routines for this time of year are dead in the ground because he’s not in Montreal. Honestly, he’s not sure what to do with himself. He goes for a run when he gets up to quell the restlessness. 

Ottawa is beautiful in the fall. His body feels good; strong and fit and ready for the season. He’s going to need the bulk—he’s always been a team carry and he knows it, despite what he says to the media, and that’s only going to be amplified by the Centaurs’ inexperience. It’s a pretty young team. Shane’s probably going to play almost every game this season.

He wonders who his lineys will be. Bood, probably. Last season—after their second best winger signed with Detroit as a UFA—Dillon got undeserved top line minutes, but Wiebe will be looking to kick him down to 3rd line if he possibly can. He’ll have to try one of the young guys on for size. 

God, Shane will miss Hayden. They’ve been playing together for so long. He can’t imagine anyone living up to the kind of chemistry they have. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. There’s one other person that clicked just as well on his wing, but Shane will never know if that chemistry could go anywhere. His chemistry with Hayden won cups.

As if he can telepathically sense Shane’s thoughts the way he can telepathically sense his plays, Hayden calls Shane at that exact moment. Shane answers immediately.

His greeting is lost under the wailing of a child on the other end of the phone. Shane winces and turns the volume in his headphones down. 

“Sorry about that. How are you doing, dude?” Hayden asks once he’s moved away from the screaming. 

“Uh, fine. Is that Amber?” Shane asks, “I’ve never heard her crying like that.”

“Yeah,” Hayden sighs, “We thought she was skipping the terrible twos, but fuck man, she was just saving it all for the terrible threes.”

Shane had been there for Arthur, Ruby and Jade’s terrible twos. The reminder that he won’t be there for Amber’s terrible threes stings.

“Shouldn’t this be easy for you by now with all that practice?” Shane asks. He can practically hear Hayden rolling his eyes.

“You take her if you think it’s so easy,” he says. The crying gets ear-shatteringly loud. Shane rips out his headphones and holds the phone at a distance and he can still hear her shrieking. Jesus. 

“Amber?” he tries, jogging to a stop under a big tree, “Jeez. You’re crying so loud.” 

The crying lulls for a moment before picking up again.

“Keep going, bro!” Hayden says in the background, “She totally stopped for a second!” 

“She was probably just taking a deep breath,” Shane mutters under her wailing. 

“Amber, it’s Uncle Shane. Do you remember me? You’d better. I bought you a really cool train set for your birthday. It was probably the best gift you’ve ever gotten in your life, right? There isn’t much competition ‘cause you’re three, but I’m definitely winning.” 

Miraculously, Amber slows down, her harsh wails subsiding into hiccups on every inhale and upset moans on every exhale. 

“Nice job, kid. I’m way better at parenting than your dad, eh?” Shane coos. 

“I heard that!” Hayden squawks, “You are not a good role model. You taught Ruby how to say crap.” 

“It’s barely even a curse word. And don’t say it in front of Amber, you hypocrite,” Shane argues for the millionth time. Amber babbles something tearfully.

“Uncle Shane?” she stammers. She hasn’t quite mastered the ‘Sh’ part yet. 

“Yeah, that’s right, honey! That’s Uncle Shane,” Hayden encourages.

“Uncle Shane?” she says again, sounding less tearful and more confused. 

“He’s in Ottawa. Remember the lake by Uncle Shane’s house, and the ducks we fed? That’s Ottawa,” Hayden explains. 

“You know we did it wrong?” Shane recalls.

“What, feed ducks? How do you feed ducks wrong?” Hayden asks.

“We fed them bread. I read that you’re supposed to feed them like, seeds and stuff.”

“Dude,” Hayden says incredulously, “You’re trying to put the ducks on your diet, too? I was just joking about the bird food thing, you know, I’m pretty sure feeding them that shit would be animal abuse.” 

“Shit,” Amber says, but it sounds more like ‘sid’. 

“Oh, fuck,” Hayden groans, “Don’t tell Jackie.” 

Shane laughs, and he feels lighter than he has in a week. 

— — —

7 DAYS BEFORE TRAINING CAMP

For all intents and purposes, this is Shane’s first day as a Centaur. He begins his day at the Censplex by visiting Dale, the equipment manager. He is sure Dale has everything well in hand, but he prefers to see the equipment room himself every now and then, just to be sure. And maybe he’s putting off getting into his gear a little. Maybe he doesn’t feel ready yet. 

Eventually, Dale looks up from his sewing machine over his glasses. “Scram, Hollander.”

It surprises a chuckle out of Shane and unsticks him from the floor.

“Scram?” he repeats to himself as he heads to the dressing room. On the walk over he realises that he’d been waiting for Dale to throw gloves at him. It was his tradition with Phil in Montreal. 

He’s early enough that nobody else is here yet. Shane takes a moment to walk around, see where everyone is parked, catalogue the differences. The grief is quiet and endless. 

Shane finds his name next to Wyatt Hayes, near a few empty cubbies. Shane wonders if the team were upset to lose Chucky and Giron, if they’ll miss them. He wonders how Giron will do in Montreal (he has no doubt Chucky will thrive in fucking Florida). He wonders if the Voyageurs feel weird today, too, without him. He hopes they miss him a little, despite everything.

His new jersey on its hanger is uncanny. HOLLANDER. 24. Unchanging. But the colours are all wrong—black and gold instead of blue and white. 

Red is the throughline.

Shane closes his eyes for a long moment and practises his yoga breaths. Everything has changed, even the cells in Shane’s body that have been shed and replaced, and many of these cells have never seen Montreal. This layer of his skin has never touched a Voyageurs jersey. It’s not betrayal.  

He pulls on his Centaurs jersey for the first time and gets on the ice.

The rink is perfectly smooth and empty. Shane knocks over the stack of pucks sitting on the railing and listens to the echoes of their clattering on the ice. He takes a deep breath, and steps onto the ice as he exhales. 

The mindful breathing takes him through his warmups and a couple of his usual drills. He tries not to think about meeting the Centaurs as teammates rather than opponents. He isn’t really good with big groups. It had taken him a couple of years to really get comfortable with the guys in Montreal, apart from Hayden and J.J. 

Shane has had a lot of time to think about where it started going wrong, and he thinks it was probably way before he came out. If he hadn’t been so comfortable and content only being close with Hayden and J.J., if he made more of an effort with all the guys, maybe coming out wouldn’t have been as much of a big deal. Because they’d like him more. Trust him more. It was supposed to be his job as captain to set the tone in the room and take care of everyone, and looking back, he’s not sure he really did much of that. The tone in that room isn’t his tone. At least he fucking hopes not. 

He’s angry at them, of course he is, but he’s man enough to take responsibility for his own part in what happened. So he’s going to do better. He doesn’t need every single one of the Centaurs to be his best buddies, but he does need them to like him more than the Voyageurs had. For like, job security. He’s going to try harder. 

I won’t get too comfortable, he promises himself. 

It’s a mix of determination and anger and anxiety that suddenly alights Shane’s body. He listens to it. He picks up his pace, shooting each puck with greater force. He imagines Drapeau in the net and slaps one top shelf exactly where he never extends his glove high enough. 

A jovial voice cuts through the haze. 

“Hollander, you maniac! What did that net ever do to you?” Bood calls, skating over to dap him up. 

Shane greets him through a vague feeling of unreality, then sees half of the team standing still just outside the rink. It snaps him back to himself. 

Fuck, okay, game time. 

Bood glances back at them and scoffs.

“Don’t mind them. They’re just starstruck,” Bood says. Not the first time Shane’s heard that from someone, but he’s not sure if it’s true this time. They could be uncomfortable with the idea of talking to him for other reasons. 

“Starstruck? I see all of you like four times a year,” Shane points out hesitantly. Bood shakes his head like Shane’s a lost cause and starts warming up.

“Sure, bro. We’re glad to have you here,” he says. 

“Glad to be here,” Shane returns honestly. 

Wyatt Hayes is the first of the lurkers to step out onto the ice and skate towards Shane. He gives him a fist bump. 

“Hey, man. Wyatt Hayes,” he introduces himself.

“I know,” says Shane, because they have literally yelled their heads off at each other before, back when Hayes was backup goalie in Toronto, “Good to see you.” 

Evan Dykstra skates up next, checking Hayes out of the way to shake Shane’s hand. “Hollander! Dykstra. Fuck, this season is gonna be good!” 

Shane makes an effort to smile. “I hope so.” 

Following their captain’s example, each Centaur present talks to Shane briefly before peeling off to warm up. He relaxes a little at the pace of it. It’s nice. They don’t crowd Shane or ask about his scandal or the trade, so in turn he does his best to listen to them carefully and respond positively.

Last to approach are the kids who have held the pressure of the franchise on their shoulders: LaPointe, last season’s rookie, and Campbell, the rookie from three seasons ago. Both were first round picks with promise, and both were heralded as incredible talents that would elevate the team. Both have been lambasted by disappointed fans due to their lack of consistency. They’re calling poor Campbell a draft bust on Reddit. 

Shane doesn’t know how that feels, specifically. But he can empathise with the pressure. Does nervousness cancel out nervousness? As they approach, clearly sweating it a little, Shane feels some of his own anxiety dissolving. It sounds bad to say, but Shane’s pretty sure he doesn’t have to worry about winning them over. He remembers being a rookie and being introduced to Mr. Scott Hunter, sir. You can’t really fake that energy.  

“Hi, I’m Jordan. Campbell. But everyone calls me Soup or Soupy,” Campbell stammers, holding his hand out for a handshake, then visibly cringing at himself and changing last minute to a fistbump. But Shane already has his hand open to shake, and he awkwardly open-palms Campbell’s fist before tucking his fingers and trying again, by which point Campbell has reverted back to the handshake.

Shane and Campbell look at each other like they want to die. Shane is really fucking grateful Harris agreed not to film this week.

LaPointe laughs. “We call him that because his brain is soup.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Campbell scowls, and the boys start shoving each other. 

Shane watches them for a moment then decides he doesn’t need to be part of their rookie banter. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and joins the others for warmups. He’s already warm, but he’s not just going to stand around like a dick while everyone else gets to work. 

“Wait, Hollander! I did not introduce myself,” LaPointe calls, skating over to warm up next to Shane. 

With his broad shoulders, styled black wavy hair and smooth tan skin, LaPointe looks like the kind of guy who knows he’s cool. His body language is loose and expansive, loudly projecting an image of confidence. Or cockiness. 

“I know who you are.” Shane smirks to fuck with him a little. LaPointe’s grin freezes for a second before he recovers. 

“Wow, the superstar knows me? I must be really good,” he crows. Shane raises an eyebrow. 

“Where’s the superstar? I want to meet ‘em,” Shane says dryly.

“Why, so you can seduce another one, Hollywood?” LaPointe switches to chirping in French. Shane is intrigued by his accent: definitely a foundation of Quebecois, but he sounds more French-French than most other Canadians, and there’s something else that he’s never heard before. Maybe the influence of the Senegalese side of the family? It’s cool. 

“That’s Mister Hollywood to you, kid,” Shane says. Then, to avoid being interrogated about Rose by a child, he skates off to do a few laps around the rink. 

What does he know about seduction? He’s 20, he thinks to himself grumpily. He violently suppresses his brain helpfully reminding him of what he was doing when he was 20. 

While he’s swinging behind the net, he hears Hayes singing the Spider-Man theme song to himself as he guards the net from imaginary forwards, butterfly style. Hayes gestures to Dillon to shoot. He makes a weird noise as he catches the puck in his glove that Shane belatedly places as an impression of Spider-Man’s web shooting noise. 

Shane makes an effort to exchange a couple of words with everyone, but mostly he observes—he’s studied their tape, and now it’s time to study their dynamic so he can make the best play, so to speak. The Centaurs don’t make a special effort to chat either. That’s fine with Shane—he watches them attentively. The atmosphere is light and casual, with a group of the younger guys drifting to distraction until Bood or Karlsson rein them in. Everyone seems to get along well. They chirp incessantly, banter flying across the ice faster than pucks. Everyone seems relaxed and familiar, even though many of them haven’t been with the team for long. 

The Spider-Man theme song is stuck in his head, now. It tickles something in the back of his mind like when he’d been watching Hayes’ highlights. Near the end of practice, Shane’s face lights up in glee as a vague memory unfogs. 

A party at J.J.’s place, years ago. For some reason, it was a costume party. Shane and Hayden were lazy, so they just wore black suits and sunglasses and said they were the Men in Black. 

Wyatt Hayes was invited. He’d impressed everyone with his intricate Iron Man costume, complete with parts that actually lit up, and a visor-thing that actually opened and shut over his face. 

He impressed them even more when he had clanked off to the fence, desperately trying to remove the bottom half of the costume, and pissed himself in full view of everyone on the patio. He was so drunk it took him far too long to realise what had happened, and the slow horror on his face was priceless. Shane and J.J., both loose and drunk with the end of the season, had laughed so hard they almost pissed themselves, too.

The memory lightens Shane’s spirits considerably. He’s so looking forward to lording it over Hayes that it distracts him from the anxiety that is the dressing room. The look of dawning mortification on the goalie’s face when Shane brings it up is so familiar. It takes everything in Shane not to laugh at him outright.

Shane

Just had practice with Weewee Stark.

Hayden

Dude I forgot about that

J.J.

ah mon capitaine je m'ennuie de toi 😂😂😂

“What are you laughing at?” Bood asks as they walk out to the parking lot together. 

“Hayes told me not to say it out loud ever again,” Shane says. Bood squints at him and waits to see if he’ll cave to an awkward silence, but Shane just smiles at him.

“First day and you already have inside jokes? You’re going to fit in just fine, Hollander,” Bood declares.

Shane shrugs. He’s not sure about that. He isn’t blind to the fact that the group is pretty tight knit. He’s not really expecting to be woven into that. 

But it was okay, today, he admits to himself. 

— — —

6 DAYS BEFORE TRAINING CAMP

The next day, they do some weight training. Shane sets himself up next to Karlsson, who seems like the strong but silent type. The Swede just nods at him in greeting and starts stretching. Shane nods back.

Suddenly, some very twangy music starts blasting out of the gym speakers. Groans fill the room.

“Who the fuck put Dicks on the aux?” Dillon jeers, to general agreement.

“Is this Morgan Wallen?” Campbell complains. 

Dykstra grins unrepentantly. “You are gonna learn to like real music if it kills me,” he declares.

“No, Dicky, you are too young to die, your family needs you,” LaPointe says dramatically. 

About 20 minutes into their workout, Boyle waltzes into the room and slots in next to Dillon without a word of apology. Shane frowns when Bood doesn’t chew him out. He glances around to gauge the reactions from the team, but none of them seem surprised. 

Karlsson meets his eye. He looks even more disapproving than his usual stonefaced glower. Shane glances behind them at Boyle and Dillon shooting the shit. Karlsson just shakes his head, his lip curled in disgust. 

“No, dude, Babs is going to have to find Young another billet family when he signs,” Boyle is saying loudly. 

“What, he pissed Special K off? During development camp?” Dillon asks incredulously.

“Yeah, guess so. The kid’s burning bridges and he’s not even here yet.” The judgement is thick in Boyle’s voice. 

Young is a very promising defenseman, drafted by Ottawa in the first round two years ago. As far as Shane remembers, he’s still playing for his NCAA team. 

“They’re not signing him this season. And he won’t need to billet next year,” Dillon points out reasonably. 

“Yeah, he will. He said in that interview that he used to live in a car. He’ll need to be housebroken,” Boyle jokes. 

Shane frowns harder. It’s not a funny joke. He drops his weights, feeling increasingly uncomfortable the longer Boyle talks about this kid. There’s a familiar burning in his mouth—he wants to say something, but he’s not sure he can afford to. The gay guy nagging people for not being PC enough on his second day? That won’t go over well. 

“Boyle, shut the fuck up and lift your fucking weights,” Dykstra interjects. 

Shane blinks and picks his weights up, like Dykstra was talking to him. Boyle mumbles an apology. He’s quiet for about 10 minutes before he starts talking about random bullshit again, but thankfully he’s more mindful of his volume, so Shane can tune it out. 

He watches Dykstra and Boyle playfully ribbing each other over fantasy football in the dressing room later. He looks for lingering tension. He doesn’t find any. 

— — —

4 DAYS BEFORE TRAINING CAMP

Shane’s faceoff percentage isn’t even that good, but winning against Boyle in a scrimmage is easy. Shane whacks the puck out to Dillon and takes off, tapping his stick on the ice as soon as he’s open. Dillon sends his pass wide, forcing Shane to twist awkwardly in order to catch it without going offside. He recovers quickly and pumps his legs. Bood and Chouinard are gaining on him, he can see their sticks in his peripherals.

As soon as he sees Whittaker move, Shane goes for the slapshot and finds the net. 

“That’s more like it!” Bood laughs, coming to a stop beside him, “We got a game on our hands, boys!” 

When they reset and go again, Shane knows he’s not imagining how the Centaurs suddenly get better. They’re less lazy on the backcheck. They take advantage of bad passes instead of letting them slide. They’re no Tampa, but they’re definitely better. Good. It was taking them too long to clear the cobwebs. 

Shane, battling with Chouinard along the boards, gets a hold of the puck. 

“Holls!” Sylvester shouts from behind him.

Shane makes a pass backwards through LaPointe’s legs. He realises he’s smiling when it hits Sylvester’s tape. 

His heartrate is up and he wants to win and he’s having fun. Shane doesn’t resist the urge to play hard, even though he’s learned that isn’t really the culture here. He gets self-conscious for a second when he gets an ugly one in past Whittaker and he says “Damn, Hollander, you know playoffs ended 3 months ago, right?”. But then Karlsson retorts that “you would not know, Witty, you have never been,” so Shane laughs it off and keeps playing.

“Guys, off the ice in 10, please!” an assistant coach calls all too soon, “We need to get the prospects out here!” 

Bood looks up at the clock. “Oh, shit. Let’s get out of here. Good practice, boys.”

The pleasant exertion in Shane’s muscles and the high of a win—even a minor one—has him in a good mood. He almost felt like his old self again, for a few minutes. So when LaPointe asks if he’s coming to lunch, he wants to say yes. 

It’s just…Shane’s lost enough of his anchors and routines in the last few months. In the last year. He doesn’t want to compromise his diet, even for the sake of team bonding. It feels like one of the last things he has left of the player he was in Montreal, sometimes. He likes his superstitions and his traditions. He wants to keep this one.

“Depends where you’re going,” he responds, trying not to sound apprehensive.

He holds in a sigh in the silence. Clearly they know he’s got a weird diet. In Montreal, his teammates had a running joke of offering him food they knew he wouldn’t eat. 

But then Campbell, the nervous kid who couldn’t quite manage to shake Shane’s hand, offers up a place that he knows can accommodate Shane, and everyone agrees. He can’t stop being surprised by these Centaurs. 

Shane bites down on a smile, Campbell trailing on his heels as the team walks down the street to the Mediterranean restaurant. Sweet kid with a vegetarian girlfriend. He obviously wants to start a conversation with Shane as he sits down next to him at the restaurant, but can’t seem to decide what to say. Shane puts him out of his misery.

“You’re from the US, right? Did your girlfriend move here with you?” Shane asks. 

“Nah, we’re long distance, actually. She goes to UBC,” Campbell replies. 

“Rough,” Shane empathises. He knows how it feels to look forward to seeing someone a few times a year, to helplessly crave just one more hour.

“Yeah. She’s doing super well there, though.” Campbell sounds really proud of her, though his eyes fix faraway as if he can see her all the way in Vancouver. 

“What’s she studying?” Shane asks. 

“Forestry. She’s obsessed with like, trees and ecosystems and shit. Doing her Masters right now.”

“Cool. She sounds really smart,” Shane says.

“Too smart for me,” Campbell admits. Shane chuckles. 

“Let’s hope your kids get her brain instead of your soup, then,” he jokes. 

“Soupy is talking about how whipped he is for his older woman again, huh?” LaPointe teases, dropping into the chair across from them, “Did he tell you about how he found his cougar in the forest?” 

“She’s only 4 years older,” Campbell explains hurriedly, “She’s not a fucking cougar. And meeting someone on a hike is way better than trying to pick up puck bunnies.”

LaPointe shrugs unrepentantly. “Who says? Rozanov does it.”

“You know what else Rozanov does? Scores fucking goals. Ever tried it?” Campbell shoots back, throwing a scrunched up napkin at LaPointe’s forehead. 

LaPointe bats it away and leans forward, eyes locking on Shane with a sudden intensity.

“Speaking of Rozanov. Now that you are a teammate, you can tell us the truth,” he says. Shane immediately glances up and down the table, but none of the others are paying attention to their conversation. Campbell makes some kind of face at LaPointe, who doesn’t acknowledge him.

“Uh, about what?” Shane asks warily. That stupid fucking text and the disclosure form flash in his mind. He knows it’s impossible, but for a second he thinks that somehow someone hacked into his phone and saw it all. It’s not that incriminating, right? Ilya just asked if he had a boyfriend. That shouldn’t out him. Oh fuck, how is Shane supposed to spin it? 

“The rivalry! Is he really such an asshole? I think we bore him when we play Boston, so he does not act so crazy,” LaPointe explains. Shane tries to conceal his relief. Right. The rivalry. 

“Oh. Yeah, no, he’s definitely an asshole. He’s not as bad as when we were younger, though,” Shane says.

LaPointe raises one groomed eyebrow. “Didn’t you have a shouting match with him at All-Stars? It was only 2 years ago, non?” 

Yeah. That was an embarrassing lack of composure on Shane’s part. He regrets doing it in public. It was pretty cathartic, though, and in his defence, it was their first All-Stars since Ilya broke off their…whatever it was. Which started at the All-Stars before that. Better memories were salt in the wound.

It was huge news in the hockey world for a while. Nobody could quite figure out what made the famously calm Shane Hollander lose it during fucking All-Stars. This is the first time someone’s asked about it post-gay scandal, though, because that understandably overshadowed pretty much everything else. 

Shane could easily spin it into yet another story that paints Ilya as the bad boy. But he finds he doesn’t really want to, for whatever reason. Maybe he’s not as bad as when they were younger, either. 

“That wasn’t completely his fault,” Shane says, “I was stressed about other stuff. He just likes to get on my nerves, and I overreacted.”

LaPointe is unconvinced. 

“Come on, Hollander. Give me something, not this media shit. You say he was worse before, so what is the worst thing he did?” LaPointe needles him. 

Shane rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair, thinking about it. Behind the old, lingering hurt, he finds the memories are tinged with a kind of rosy nostalgia. To his surprise, it’s not hard at all to find the words. 

“Well, one time during a game he licked me,” Shane offers. LaPointe’s eyes widen and then he bursts into laughter. Shane huffs in mock annoyance, but he finds himself smiling too.

“Yeah, laugh it up. It was—” It was a really good game, some of the best hockey I’ve ever played. It was the last game we played against each other before he stopped touching me. Shane stops. Coughs. Takes a sip of his water, then tries again. 

“It was pretty funny,” is what he finally admits. It feels good to say. LaPointe looks absolutely delighted, and Campbell gives up on looking disapproving. 

“So, you don’t hate each other?” Campbell can’t resist asking. Shane smiles and shakes his head. 

“No, he’s not that bad, actually.”

“The rivalry is not real,” says LaPointe, looking oddly devastated by this. 

Shane wouldn’t go that far. 

“No, the rivalry is real. He’s the best goal scorer in the league, of course I want to beat him. I just…” Shane shrugs.

“I just don’t hate him.”

Chapter End Notes

OLE OLE OLE OLE CHADKOVSKY HAT TRICK FOR THE HABS WIN, FUCK YOU TAMPA
AND the Victoire are currently #1 going into the PWHL playoffs! Life is good. Do NOT talk to me when the Canada curse strikes again. wow, team sports are fun! i'm fully converted

I am kissing all of you on your foreheads for your wonderful comments. Or fist bumping respectfully if you are not into that. If I haven't responded to your comment yet, know that I have read it probably 3 times and I will respond soon!! Each comment fuels me I have never been so motivated to continue a fic in my life, you guys are amazing

Chapter 6: Sea Legs

Chapter Summary

Shane adjusts to his new team during training camp.

Chapter Notes

JULY, 2018

Shane makes his second attempt to come out to his best friends at a bar in Honolulu. The first had been at a dinner back in Montreal, after they were knocked out of the playoffs. He hadn’t quite been able to get the words out. But hopefully this time they’ll pick up what he’s putting down. 

The bar is loud, so they’re all shouting a little to hear each other. Shane tries to decide how to bring it up. J.J. watches him, assessing his expression as carefully as he’s able to with the amount of alcohol in his blood. 

“You have been too tense lately, capitaine,” J.J. says, “You need to relax! I will be your wingman tonight. Just tell me what kind of lady you are looking for, ah?” 

“I’m not really looking for a lady, Jay…” Shane says. This is his opportunity. He opens his mouth to say it: because I’m gay. 

“No, come on, dude. You can’t mope about Boston Lily forever,” Hayden chimes in with the worst timing. Fuck. Hayden promised to never mention Boston Lily again like a year ago, but evidently the alcohol has erased that promise.

“What? This is about Boston Lily?” J.J. asks, aghast, “Why didn’t you tell me you broke up?”

“Because we were never really together,” Shane feels compelled to answer the question, “But that’s not the—”

“Shane, there’s no way you’re still this torn up over just a hookup,” Hayden scoffs, “You’ve been seeing Lily for years. You were totally together.”

“Fuck her, you’re Shane Hollander! Plenty more pussy in the sea!” J.J. declares, raising his drink up in the air. The pale liquid sloshes over the rim and lands sticky on their table. Shane takes a napkin and wipes it up. 

“Yeah, we’re in Hawai’i! There’s tons of hot chicks here. Have some fun, bro,” Hayden encourages him, clapping a hand on his shoulder and shaking him a little. 

“But I’m not into chicks,” Shane tries again. That was pretty clear, right? He looks at Hayden meaningfully. But his friend’s eyes are a little glazed over.

J.J. rolls his eyes. “Fine, not chicks, women. Your ass is so hard,” he complains. Shane almost chokes on air.

“It’s ‘you’re a hardass’. J.J., gross,” Hayden groans. J.J. does his best shit eating grin and clinks his glass with Hayden’s, downing the rest of his beer. 

By the time Shane is done coughing, J.J. and Hayden are bickering about English slang. It feels like the moment has passed. 

Shane sighs deeply. Fuck. Another botched coming out attempt. Why is he so bad at being gay? He downs the rest of his drink too, and mumbles something about going to get the next round. 

The bar is pretty busy, and Shane waits patiently to be served. There seems to be a 21st birthday party ahead of him, and one of the kids staggers and accidentally leans his entire bodyweight on Shane as he attempts to look sober enough to buy another round. Shane gently shoves him upright, exchanging a wry look with a handsome surfer nursing a mojito at the bar. 

Once it’s his turn to order, Shane just gets 3 more of whatever beer Hayden chose for the first round. The surfer at the bar says something to Shane, but the music is too loud and he doesn’t hear it. He shakes his head in confusion. The stranger leans in closer, and Shane gets a whiff of his cologne and the smell of the sea in his long hair.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a beer guy,” he says into Shane’s ear, his warm breath fanning onto his cheek. 

“Why not?” Shane asks. 

“You’re too pretty to be so boring,” he replies. The words are lighthearted and said with an unmistakable purr of flirtation, but they hit Shane right where it hurts. He’s lost for words for a moment, disabled by the voice in his ear suddenly holding the phantom reek of Russian vodka. 

The surfer seems to see the change on his face, and he leans back a little. “Sorry, I was just teasing. Are you okay?” 

Shane shakes his head dismissively. “No, yeah, you’re all good. You just…reminded me of something.”

“Or someone?” the surfer suggests. Shane bites down on the inside of his cheek. Maybe it’s all the beer, but suddenly he wants to tell this stranger everything. He can’t even fucking tell his best friends, for fuck’s sake. He’s drowning in the words. Shane just nods. The surfer leans in again.

“I’m Ari,” he says, “Want to talk about it?”

“It’s a little too loud to talk,” Shane points out. 

Ari shrugs. “Then let’s get out of here.”

— — —

Shane drops the beers on the table and looks at J.J., then Hayden. He’s feeling bold and dangerous and tipsy and so fucking tired of feeling alone. 

“I’m heading out,” he says, “Don’t wait up.”

His friends light up instantly, heads spinning around as they try to locate whatever girl they think he’s picked up.

“Hell yeah, bro!” Hayden exclaims, “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“There’s no girl,” Shane says shortly. He joins Ari at the door, letting him sling one tattooed arm over his shoulders. Shane glances over his shoulder at his friends; Hayden and J.J. are watching him with wide eyes, unmoving at the table where he left them. 

Well, it wasn’t exactly how he planned to do this, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words. He figures this will get the message across. 

Not into chicks, he thinks he can see Hayden mouthing to himself. Right before Shane turns away, he sees his best friend shoot Shane a supportive but bewildered thumbs up. He smiles back and leaves with Ari.

When Shane returns to their villa at the resort the next morning, J.J. is sleeping face down on a rug by the bathroom, and Hayden is sprawled out on the couch in the same clothes he was wearing last night. Shane goes to the kitchenette to dutifully prepare their hangover cures, and fetches some Aspirin while he’s at it. 

At some point, his friends start to stir with very familiar groans of pain. They’re getting too fucking old for this. 

“Yo,” Hayden croaks, cracking one crusty eye open, “Hell of a way to come out, dude.” 

“Joyeuse Fierté,” J.J. mumbles into the rug. 

Shane laughs, and it sounds a little delirious, but he’s just relieved. He doesn’t think he’s ever been wished ‘Happy Pride’ before. 

“Thanks,” he says simply, and he hopes they hear how much he means it. 

— — —

2 DAYS BEFORE CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP, 2020

Bood is a merciful captain who gives his teammates the weekend off to train independently. Having a sample size of 2, Shane doesn’t know if he and his predecessor in Montreal were hardasses, or if Bood’s soft, or both. 

Regardless, for Shane, the season has as good as started, so he’s not taking the fucking weekend off. He’s found some kind of momentum finally and he doesn’t want to know what will happen if it stops. 

Shane comes into the Censplex to see the team’s massage therapist after his morning workout. He wonders if he can fit a light skate in today, too, and he asks the lady at reception if any of the rinks are available. Just as she apologetically tells him that they’re fully booked, Wiebe and his army of coaches and scouts flood out of a nearby meeting room. 

“Hey, Hollander. You want some ice time?” Wiebe calls. He checks his watch. “If you watch the prospect tourney with me, you can have the pad after.”

At the beginning of the week, while Shane was getting to know the existing roster, Wiebe and the team went to Buffalo for the Prospects Challenge. They played very well against the other rookie teams in Buffalo, but as they start thinning the pack ahead of training camp, the coaches want to see how well they stack up against each other. 

Wiebe makes Shane sit right next to him, in the centre of the coaching army. At first, Shane isn’t sure what he expects of him, but he gets lost in watching the game as Wiebe seems content to observe together, with only the occasional comment. Most of the NCAA and European prospects aren’t here—their school year and their seasons have already started, respectively—so it’s predominantly juniors and a few AHL/ECHLers. Shane swears every year the kids look younger. 

“So,” Wiebe says when the game winds down, “If it was up to you, who’d you want to see next week?” 

Shane is already familiar with the most promising prospects, having done his research over the summer. There are quite a few of them—the result of favourable draft lotteries after many seasons hovering near the bottom of the standings—but only a few seem close to ready by the eye test. 

Stanislav Mamonov between the pipes. Confident, good at reading plays, aggressive in the crease. Wants to play the puck too much, though. Oskar Holmberg, huge and unmistakable. Not the best skater in the world, but he chases down pucks with dogged determination and shuts plays down so frequently that some of the others were visibly frustrated. And Luca Haas on the wing. A sniper. Pretty short, but fast and ballsy with his shots. 

“I kind of have a soft spot for Rizzo, too,” Wiebe confesses, “He needs a few more years, but at development camp I saw something in him. Sometimes he reminds me of Scott Hunter.”

Shane wasn’t expecting to hear that. “Why, because he only plays well until he’s in the lead?” 

Wiebe laughs. “Jeez, Hollander!”

“No, I didn’t mean—Hunter’s obviously a great player,” Shane walks it back immediately, because he hadn’t meant it as an insult. But Wiebe’s just teasing him. 

He explains his thinking earnestly, like Shane’s opinion on any of this actually matters. He’s not a development coach. “I know, their play isn’t that similar. I meant more as a leader. He commands respect in the room, you know? And he’s only 18. You’re right that he gets real hot then disappears. But when he’s hot, he elevates everyone around him. Kind of like you, too, in that way.” 

“I don’t disappear,” Shane objects.

“Of course you don’t, you couldn’t if you wanted to. That’s why you’re a leader,” Wiebe says, “That’s what I mean. Rizzo’s gotta learn to be more like guys like you and Hunter, but he has the potential to be a captain someday.”

Shane shrugs. He’s not really a leader the way Hunter is, so he’s uncertain of that comparison. Shane’s strength as captain is sheer competitiveness. High expectations didn’t bother Shane because his expectations of himself were so much higher. He elevates everyone on his team because they have no choice but to keep up with him or be left behind. He’s great at the hockey parts of being captain, but that’s only half the job. He’s not terribly charismatic, or sociable, he’s not good at hosting team bonding events or giving eloquent pre-game speeches. Evidently, in all his years as captain, he never really earned the room’s trust. He’s not sure Rizzo should take a page from his book.

“You know, Babs lets the guys vote on their captain here. Like a real democracy, isn’t that neat? Interested in running?” Wiebe asks. 

“Uh, no, probably not this season,” Shane says, “Bood seems like a good captain, and I want to focus on adjusting to the systems and getting to know the team and stuff.”

Down on the ice, Holmberg is chewing out some poor juniors prospect for losing them the game. Shane watches an assistant coach ask Holmberg to step outside with him into the hall. Yeah, Holmberg was being harsh, and he really needs to control his temper. This is a professional environment, after all. But also, the junior kid gift-wrapped the other team’s game-winning goal, so maybe he needs to hear it. 

DAY 1 OF CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP

Shane has always loved training camp. He loves the competitive atmosphere, he loves the exhausting hard work day-in-day-out, he loves that it’s structured and regimented and there are clear goals for what they have to do and when. He loves how it makes conversations easier because there’s always something hockey-related to talk about and nobody’s sick of talking shop so soon after the off-season. He loves playing with everyone and their dog to see what lines might stick. 

Ambition is high this time of year. Anything is possible before you’ve seen what you’re up against. 

Despite his conflicted feelings about hockey, easing into it with captain skates did help. Kind of. It distracted him from the existential dread of it all, at least. The razor sharp focus he normally feels at the start of the season comes in fits and starts. Half of the time it gives way instead to a nebulous awareness and propulsive breath. Like a shark at an aquarium swimming in circles; His body knows what to do. Maybe he was going about this all wrong—maybe he didn’t need to rest his hockey muscles at all. Maybe he just needs to rely on them to carry him until he feels normal again.

Shane sits down next to Bood in the conference room and tries to ignore the staring and whispering. He nods to the guys he knows and greets anyone who approaches him directly, but he’s pretty used to pretending not to notice people talking about him after all these years. He pretends everything is normal and that they’re all whispering about normal stuff. 

“You think it’s true he was fucking Hayden Pike?” Shane hears a kid mumble behind him.

“Nah. He was definitely fucking Boiziau,” another kid says back. 

Nevermind.

Shane can’t help the amused breath that leaves him. At this point, it’s almost too ridiculous to even be offended. God, the entire world thinks Shane has fucked every single one of his friends. Should he take it as a compliment? He doesn’t actually have that much game. He definitely couldn’t seduce J.J. if he tried, though Hayden would probably kiss Shane one time if he was drunk enough and Jackie said it was okay. 

Bood catches his eye, clearly having heard the exchange as well. 

“You’d fuck Boiziau but you won’t even admit I’m hot?” Bood demands jokingly, “There’s no way he’s hotter than me. He looks like he’s still waiting for puberty to hit. He looks like that creepy kid from Coraline. He—he looks like he was raised by Mormons.”

“And you say black on black crime is a myth,” LaPointe deadpans, “Maybe you are jealous he looks like a model and you look like an ashtray.”

Bood lightly thwacks him upside the head. “I’ll show you black on black crime,” he says. 

“Wybie,” Campbell says suddenly. 

“Where?” Bood glances around the room. 

“No, the kid from Coraline,” Campbell explains. 

“What? He looks nothing like Wiebe,” Bood responds, baffled. 

This conversation is a trainwreck, Shane thinks.

When Wiebe does appear, Shane wonders if he’s nervous. He has as much to prove to the MLH as Shane. More, actually, now that he thinks about it. Shane’s trophy room boasts 3 rings—Wiebe never even breathed the same air as the Stanley Cup. 

If the coach is daunted by a room of 54 hockey players waiting for him to earn their respect, he doesn’t show it. 

You are home, says Wiebe, Respect, loyalty, trust. 

It’s a nice introductory speech. Very inspirational. Shane makes eye contact with Hayes down the row as he looks around the room. He’s not sure what the goalie sees on his face, but in Hayes, Shane sees fiery determination. 

Shane aside, Hayes is unquestionably the star player here. Fans and hockey media attribute much of the Centaurs’ rise to mediocrity to Hayes playing out of his mind while his team flounders around him. 

Hayes nods at Shane solemnly. 

Shane takes this to mean that he’s bought in. Hayes believes Wiebe when he says the Centaurs will lift each other up. And he came here from Toronto—if there’s anyone who knows what it’s like to come from a gritty old school team and become a Centaur, it’s Wyatt Hayes. So something about this nod is a comfort to Shane. 

He chooses a bike next to Hayes for fitness testing. As captain, Shane always tried to make sure he was setting the standard with regards to strength and conditioning. All pro hockey players are fit, of course, but Shane has been to the playoffs almost every season for nearly a decade, and he made sure he was the fittest on a team of the best. He knows he has a level of grit that these guys probably don’t. He wonders if he should try to make sure he falls behind Bood a little bit. He probably shouldn’t go too hard, right? That would be annoying. 

The second they start peddling, all thoughts of social cohesion vanish from his mind. Shane is going to win. He pumps his legs like a medal is on the line. He’s hyperaware of everyone else’s pace and exactly what he has to do to stay ahead of it. Every time someone silently challenges him and then gives up, his ego swells with smug satisfaction. 

“That was fun for you, wasn’t it? Showing us all up?” Hayes pants when it’s over. 

Shane tries really hard not to smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. 

Some kid has collapsed onto the floor behind them in exhaustion. Shane definitely won. 

“What the fuck,” someone wheezes nearby, “How? Isn’t he like, 30?”

“Adderall?” someone else replies. 

“Guess we need to work on our off-ice fitness, boys,” Wiebe says to the room at large. 

People are still whispering about him, but at least the whispers have changed their tune. 

— — —

DAY 2 OF CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP

It’s Shane’s least favourite day of camp: media day. He is green with envy of the prospects and bubble players that are on the ice instead of in the studio.

Shane is used to the photoshoots. That part is fine. He just like, looks seriously down the barrel and ignores Bood and LaPointe chirping about all his ad campaigns. The part that he’s never liked is the more substantial segment of the day: the videos.

“Okay, Shane, I’ll get you to sit next to Dykstra right here.” Harris is directing a select group of them to cram their thick thighs into these flimsy canvas directors chairs for some kind of superlative game. Shane sits obediently. The lights are bright and hot. 

“Hey, congrats on your promotion,” Hayes says as Harris places him in the front row. Harris shoots Shane a knowing look and says thanks.

“Now, all of you have little magnets of the guys stuck to the back of your boards. We’re going to do about 8 rounds. Each round, I’m going to give you a question like ‘Who’s most likely to sleep through practice?’, and you’re going to pick someone and put the magnet of his face on the front of the board. Got it?” 

Shane chews on the string of his hoodie as Harris sets up and starts rolling. He barely knows these guys. They barely know him. 

“Harris, why the fuck did you choose this photo?” Dykstra complains, holding up the little magnet of his face. Shane examines it. Magnetic-Dykstra is missing his two front teeth. 

“You look the same,” Nieminen says. 

“No way. This is a top-of-the-line cosmetic bridge, bro,” says Dykstra, baring his teeth. There is indeed a very natural looking bridge where the hole used to be.

“Maybe you can use your bridge to get over it,” Chouinard suggests.

Harris shakes his head fondly and doesn’t bother telling them to shut up. He holds up a queue card with the first question on it.

Who is the best golfer?

Immediately, about half of the guys stick their own faces to the front of the board. Dykstra turns to Shane conspiratorially. 

“They’re all full of shit. Niem is the best,” he says. 

“Nah, nah, nah, I beat Niem any day of the week,” LaPointe boasts. 

Boyle scoffs. “You can’t even beat Niem’s 10-year-old daughter.”

“She plays competitively!” LaPointe protests. Everyone laughs at his expense. Shane follows Dykstra’s lead and puts Niem’s face on the board, and he finds that the game isn’t so bad. 

The Centaurs feed him the answers easily, casual and sandwiched in chirps and jokes. It’s educational, really. Shane learns who eats the most (Karlsson), who takes the longest to get ready (LaPointe), and who’s most likely to go to a Taylor Swift concert (Campbell). The guys don’t expect him to chime in much, but they still include him in their conversations. Bood teases him for not knowing who DaBaby is (what kind of rapper calls himself DaBaby?!). It’s nice. 

Who would you trust to be your emergency contact? 

Shane can answer this one. He picks Bood without much thought, as do most of the others. To his surprise, a bunch of them stick his face alongside their captain’s.

“I think Hollz is the kind of guy who’d pick up the phone. He just seems responsible,” Hayes explains. 

“Yeah, he’d totally bail me out with his Rolex money,” Campbell agrees.

“How would you call me from the station? You don’t even have my number,” Shane says without thinking. The guys are stunned for a moment, then they crack up.

“Brutal,” Dykstra says, slapping him on the back. Shane had meant it earnestly, but he’ll take the win. He makes a mental note to give the kid his number. 

— — —

DAY 4 OF CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP

Hayes is the first to arrive after Shane. He tries not to look too eager, but Shane’s pretty excited to play with Hayes. He’s a better goaltender now than anyone thought he’d be. Rises to the occasion and thrives under pressure. During Montreal’s back-to-back Cup runs, they had a world-class goalie in Miitka, but he got older and left the MLH to play in the Slovak Extraliga instead of retiring, so it’s been a while since Shane had so much time to practise with a goalie of this calibre. Drapeau is no slouch—he’s a Cup winner himself, after all—but Wyatt Hayes is going to be a Hall of Famer if he keeps playing like this. The fact that he’s able to record as many shut-outs as he does is insane with the state of Ottawa’s defence. 

Shane summons his courage and asks Hayes to run some backhand shooting drills with him. Thankfully, Hayes seems happy to oblige. Mostly he just seems like a happy guy. Lots of happy guys in this organisation, which Shane can’t deny he finds kind of weird considering how much they lose. 

“Can I ask why backhand?” he asks when Shane’s paused to collect the pucks.

“It’s my worst shot,” Shane says. 

Hayes chuckles, uncertain. “Are you fucking with me?” 

Shane gets that kind of reaction a lot when he talks about his backhand. “No. My backhand is good—”

“It’s really fucking good. One of the best,” Hayes interjects. 

“—but that’s ‘cause I worked on it. A lot. It didn’t come naturally to me like the other stuff. So I have to keep working on it or I’ll lose it,” Shane explains. This is all true. Shane just doesn’t mention whose blunt opinion it was that prompted him to start working so hard on his backhand in the first place. 

Hayes seems to accept this answer, but he has a weird look on his face. 

When they go back to their drills, Hayes blocks more of Shane’s shots, gets a little more aggressive in the crease. It’s almost like a shootout. It’s such a fun challenge that Shane barely feels nervous when the other guys start arriving and slot into the drill seamlessly, lining up behind Shane and following his lead. 

Somewhere after they switch to passing drills, Luca Haas quietly introduces himself and calls it an honour to share ice with Shane. It’s slightly awkward, because they’re both slightly awkward people, but Shane doesn’t mind. Haas reminds Shane a little of himself, at that age.

Hayden, and later J.J., were so vital to Shane integrating into the Voyageurs back then. So when Haas tries to stick with him, he sends him off to go and run drills with LaPointe and Campbell. He needs friends his own age. It won’t do him any good for the other guys to think he’s sucking up to Shane, for a whole slew of reasons. 

LaPointe and Haas find a good pace almost immediately, Shane notes. 

“Nice one, Haas!” he calls out, hoping to assuage any worries the kid has that Shane sent him off because he doesn’t like him, or something. Haas beams. 

Okay, job done. Shane goes back to his own drills. Unfortunately, with Dillon. Haas should be grateful Shane sent him off, or Dillon’s poor stickhandling might rub off on him. 

— — —

DAY 5 OF CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP

Wiebe loves tournaments. This is complicated for Shane, because he is hopelessly addicted to competition. He ensures his team wins, even though he doesn’t act like a team player to make it happen. He can’t. That doesn’t really feel great, if he’s being honest, but not feeling great about winning on the ice isn’t really new to Shane at this point. Ultimately, he’s not sure how useful the tourney will be to the coaching team in terms of building lines around him.

He stays late to talk to Bood about the game, and they go over the tape together. It’s his first time seeing Bood act serious, and it helps him see his captain in a new light. 

“There,” says Shane, “That’s the chance I was talking about. He had a lane. He could’ve shot, but he hesitated and tried to force a pass.”

Bood nods. “Okay, I see what you’re saying. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen Soupy go for a shot like that.”

“White gave us a perfect screen, though. We have to capitalise on opportunities like that if we’re trying to score on goalies as good as Hayes. And look, this was the thing with LaPointe. He’s looking for the wraparound. He’s like, set on it. Won’t adapt the play, even though Dykstra gets his stick on the puck right there. Here’s the turnover. And then—” 

Shane remembers where he is and who he’s talking to and shuts his mouth. Bood pauses the video. All of a sudden, the dressing room is really quiet, and Shane is very aware of the black and gold on the walls. 

“It’s cool,” Bood says slowly, “You can give me notes. I’m a big boy, I can take it.”

Oh, shit, he knows. Shane would be pissed if he thought someone was coddling him. That’s probably what Bood is thinking, right? Shane stares at tiny Bood on the iPad screen.

“For real. I respect you, man. I want to know what you think,” Bood insists. 

Shane hesitates, and Bood just waits for him. 

“Okay,” Shane says, “Okay. Uh, well. When your stick broke, I think you could have rotated to stay on Dill. He’s only dangerous when he has space and he loves to turn it over, so you can probably tie him up pretty good even without—” 

And they’re off again. 

— — —

DAY 6 OF CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP

Hayes gets a shutout over his own teammates, which is awesome. Shane is glad he isn’t the only vet playing hard. He thinks maybe he’s starting to understand why the Centaurs can’t quite pull it together, despite having a decent roster on paper. He just hopes the rookies don’t get used to this easy-going pace. 

A Swedish kid who’d played on the losing team approaches Shane in the dressing room while they’re waiting for the coaches to call them in to dissect the game. 

“Mr. Hollander? Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to thank you,” the kid says. The room gets a little quieter, but Shane forces himself not to look around self-consciously. Mr. Hollander. Fuck, he’s old. 

He tries to recall what he could be thanking him for.  “Oh, for the thing with your backhand grip? It’s nothing, man. It’s my worst shot too.” 

“Yes, the coaches said my backhand has improved. But also I want to thank you for—“ the kid cuts himself off, struggling for the words. 

“My brother had to leave hockey when his school learned he had a boyfriend.”

“Oh fuck,” Shane whispers to himself, hopefully too soft for the kid to hear. 

“He was really good when we were kids, better than me. But he could not go on, did not have a choice to come out like Hunter. When he found out you will keep playing after the leak, he cried a lot.”

The kid’s voice shakes a little, his blue eyes getting misty. “This week he joined a beer league and played hockey for the first time since high school.”

Shane has no idea what to say. The kid is trying to say that Shane’s a role model, he guesses. Like Hunter, but for poor assholes who were outed. He says ‘when he found out you will keep playing’ as if there was another option, and Shane should be commended for not taking it. 

He should feel good about it—That it made a difference for someone. Maybe that should make it less of a nightmare. Maybe it should make him feel proud to be out. He never wanted to be a role model, though, selfish as that is. If he could erase the entire world’s memory and go back into the closet, he honestly probably would. 

“I will be returned to MoDo next week. So. I wanted to tell you first,” the kid says quietly. 

Shane clamps down on his impending spiral and takes a deep breath. He just focuses on the hockey part. His existence encouraged a kid to play. That’s good. That can only be good. 

“Uh, yeah, thanks. I’m glad you did,” Shane says. He extends a hand to the kid and shakes it firmly.

“Your brother’s a lot braver than I am,” Shane finds himself admitting, “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have hockey.” 

“Maybe a yoga instructor,” the kid says. Shane starts. What’s that supposed to mean? 

Before he can ask, the kid thanks him again, mutters something about the bathroom, and rushes off. Weird.

Shane hears an amused noise from the stall next to him. Feeling off-kilter and exposed, Shane’s eyes snap to Hayes, who’s got a smirk on his face.

Fuck, is Shane being weird? Is that why he’s laughing? Or maybe it’s just the concept of some other gay dude looking up to Shane Hollander, of all people. I wore nothing but Bauer athleisure until I was like 25, Shane thinks. The idea of him being a gay role model is pretty ridiculous. He’s never even really had a boyfriend.

Or is Hayes laughing because he thinks gay shit is funny? Schneider was kind of like that. He’d been mostly cool with Shane coming out, except that he kind of giggled whenever it was mentioned.

“My sister and her girlfriend love your lake mansion yoga video too,” Hayes teases. 

“Gays love yoga,” Campbell nods, serious like he’s imparting deep wisdom. 

Shane’s brain takes a second to catch up. The first thing he thinks is: yoga video? Then: oh, the house tour. Until eventually, the far more pertinent thought comes through: Hayes has a gay sister?

The word ‘gay’ has passed through Shane’s brain too many times in the past five minutes and now it sounds like a fake word. He elects to ignore all of the subtext to unpack later. 

“Yeah, I guess. And it’s not a yoga video. I only do yoga in it for like 5 seconds,” Shane says.

When Shane stops feeling like his ears are ringing, he finds that instead they’re echoing with the Swedish kid’s story about his brother. He remembers Joe telling him something about reframing—look behind you at the doors you opened for others. He thinks of J.J., hungover beyond belief, wishing him a Happy Pride, and Wyatt Hayes’ gay sister, and Scott Hunter’s MVP speech. He’s not sure how they all connect, but he’ll figure it out eventually. 

— — —

DAY 7 OF CENTAURS TRAINING CAMP

Shane has a dream that he’s made the playoffs, maybe with the Centaurs, but for some reason Scott Hunter is there, too. And Dream Shane says something like ‘Mr. Hunter, when you came out, I cried a lot’ and ‘I’ll be returned to Montreal tomorrow, so I wanted to tell you’. Then, the Stanley Cup is in his hands and he’s trying to kiss J.J., but J.J. says no, and then Crowell uses a screwdriver to strike every instance of Shane’s name off of the rings.

The dream is weird, but Shane wakes up feeling oddly happy that the Dream Centaurs won the Cup. Then, Shane’s team wins the tournament easily, in real life. It’s not quite the dose he craves, but it’s still a win.

The past week has cemented the scattered thoughts Shane has been building up ever since he decided he was leaving Montreal and started researching which team to go to. The guys here have been nice. They respect his hockey. But more importantly, they need him, and this time all of Shane’s cards are on the table—he is coming to them as he is, and they are willing to let him play. So it’s time to get serious: Shane needs to make the fucking playoffs. As much as he’d like two years and a polygraph test to ease himself into trusting his new team, he knows that’s not how hockey works. He’s 29 and he’s not getting any younger. 

It doesn’t matter how he feels about hockey right now, which is convenient, because he’s even further from untangling that than when he started. Winning with a team that doesn’t look at him with open disdain will make him feel better, he’s like 99% sure. Maybe it’s a little late, because he’s already been traded and bought a new house and everything. But it finally clicks for him: Shane, you’re a Centaur. 

So there’s only one thing left to do, and never let it be said that Shane Hollander half-asses anything. He’s going to throw himself into the scrum and hope to god he doesn’t get his shit rocked again. 

Chapter End Notes

Disclaimer: Hayden was not abandoning Jackie with all the kids to go to Hawai’i—they went to spend time with her huge family and she told Hayden to get lost for a week so she could spend quality time with her sisters.

I'm not super happy with the flow of this chapter but I just needed to move on and get it done! Updates will likely become sporadic for the month of May because of work stuff, thank you as always for sticking with me. Also, Countdown to Connect has now become my most popular work by kudos which is pretty fucking cool. Bisous x

Chapter 7: Catching Wind

Chapter Summary

The hockey corner of the internet is in chaos leading up to Shane's first preseason appearance as a Centaur

Chapter Notes

Hi! Sorry for the semi-false alarm. This is just a little thing to set the scene for the next chapter, which is already 95% written and coming later this week once I have time to edit. I'm posting the social media stuff now because all the formatting was a mish and I want the dopamine, hahaha

Chapter End Notes

Thank you to the wonderful Angel_sama for translating the one bit of French in there!! And thank all of you for your amazing comments, I am slowly working through replying to every single one <3

Also happy birthday Jakub Dobeš love u king

Chapter 8: Preseason Pride

Chapter Summary

Shane is shocked by the fans during his Centaurs debut.

Chapter Notes

There are chalk rainbows all over the concrete outside the Canadian Tire Centre. Shane blinks as he drives to the team’s parking lot. Jesus. Is this for him? A bunch of fans are kneeling on the ground adding to the collage, and families and their kids are taking pictures. He sees more than a few of them with Pride flags. The doors won’t even open until 2 hours before the game—this amount of people tailgating at the CTC, which isn’t exactly in a convenient place, for a preseason game? He had no idea Cens fans were this dedicated. 

Shane meets Harris in the hallway where they typically take walk-in pictures.

“Hey Shane, how are you?” Harris asks, and Shane thinks he actually wants to know the answer to that, even though his camera isn’t recording yet. 

“I’m okay. Ready to beat Toronto. Again,” he says honestly. Regardless of what hurdles he’s jumping over, it’s always good to beat Toronto. He asks after Harris, too.

“Me? I’m fantastic. I have a good feeling about this season. I think it’s our year,” Harris declares.

“You sound like a Guardians fan,” Shane says dryly. 

Harris gasps. “Take that back! Fuck Toronto, all my homies hate Toronto.” 

“Just saying. Every year they say it’s their year.” 

“Well you’re going to prove them wrong today, right, pal?” Harris holds up his camera. “Ready to roll?”

Shane nods. The little red light blinks at him. “Oh, by the way, what’s up with all the fans with the chalk? Did the front office organise that?” 

Harris laughs. “Buddy, you’re in for a treat.”

— — —

Just as Shane planned, he’s the first into the dressing room. He likes arriving when everything in every stall is still pristine. Every helmet and glove and piece of padding exactly where it belongs, freshly cleaned and dried and laid out with care. Dale is finishing up, hanging jerseys in each stall, and Shane can hear one of the assistant equipment managers sharpening blades in the service room. 

Shane goes up and gives Dale a fist bump. “What’s up, Dale?” 

“None of your business,” Dale replies, “What are you doing in here so early?” 

“I’m always here early,” Shane says.

“Make yourself useful then,” Dale says, and shoves a handful of hangers into Shane’s arms. Shane automatically takes what he’s being handed, blinks down at the clean jerseys. Dale walks off with a cheerful wave.  

The first jersey on his small pile is LaPointe’s. He goes and finds his stall and hangs it up the same way Dale’s done for all the rest of them. Nieminen, Sylvester. He hangs them up. 

Shane is startled by Dale standing by the door, watching him over his thin wire glasses, one wispy white eyebrow raised. He thought Dale left. “I was joking, two-four.” 

Oh. Shane feels his cheeks getting a little hot, but he just shrugs. “Careful. I might put you out of a job.” 

Dale sort of exhales strongly, which is as close to a laugh or smile Shane’s seen from the man so far. “I’ll leave you to pre-wet LaPointe’s gloves, then, eh?” 

Shane recoils.“Ew. He likes his gloves wet?”  

Dale shrugs, gesturing to the kid’s stall helplessly. A lot of guys are just freaks like that. He gives Shane a nod and disappears into the storage room without another word. Shane goes into the other room to change into his base layers and team hoodie, eager to get started on his routine before the other guys turn up. He carefully hangs up his suit in his dry stall. It’s a little weird. The visitors' dressing room is similar enough that it feels perfectly familiar, but everything is just a little bit off. Like when you move a table and don’t put it back exactly where it made indents in the carpet. 

It’s good, in a way, the newness. Shane knows the world will never forget, but he can pretend it’s a fresh start. He can pretend he’s a rookie again, nervous and so determined to prove himself that he scored 67 fucking goals. He silenced everyone who doubted him. He’s going to do it again. They say preseason games don’t matter, but Shane promised himself he wouldn’t get comfortable—he has to assume that at this point, everything matters.

Shane goes back to the flashy dressing room to take his jersey into his hands. He feels the fabric, slows his breaths to be deep and deliberate. He sits in his wet stall and presses his intentions for the game into his number.

I will score tonight. Our passes will connect. We will win. I won’t let Barrett or the crowd get to me. I will have fun. I will have fun. 

“Shut up, he’s casting his spell,” someone hisses. Shane pulls in one last big inhale, holds it for four counts, and slowly lets it out. He opens his eyes—Haas and LaPointe are standing in the doorway staring at him.

“My spell?” Shane asks. The boys glance at each other. 

“Your black magic pre-game ritual,” Haas elaborates. That doesn’t explain anything. 

“Black magic?” Shane echoes again. 

“There is a meme,” LaPointe articulates this slowly, as if Shane is his befuddled 80-year-old grandfather, “that you put curses on other guys before each game, and that’s why they play so bad against you.”

He pulls his phone out and shows Shane a picture of himself holding his Team Canada jersey from IIHF Worlds several years ago. It’s edited so that the dressing room looks dark and a circle of candles surrounds him. He’s doing precisely what he always does—sit in his stall with his jersey in his hands, eyes closed, focusing on what he wants out of his game, getting himself in the right mindset. Underneath the picture of him is a collage of scorelines and headlines: shutouts, sweeps, comeback wins, Calgary Blaze Extinguished by Voyageurs, Clarke On Injury Reserve Ahead of Playoff Series with Montreal, Sweden Collapses Against Canada After Dominant Start, Montreal Clinches Wild Card After Historic Buffalo Losing Streak.

“Clarke took a shoulder to the head from Ryan Price.” And the rest of them played badly because Shane’s teams were better and worked harder. “Curses aren’t real.”

“President’s Trophy Curse is definitely real,” LaPointe disagrees. Shane actually has a lot to say about the very logical and rational reasons behind the so-called President’s Trophy Curse, as someone who was on a President’s Trophy-Winning team that didn’t win the Cup. Haas speaks before he can get into it. Probably a good thing. 

“Maybe you cursed Buffalo. After they swept you in your rookie season, they never made playoffs again,” Haas points out. 

Buffalo’s window closed right before Montreal’s opened. He guesses he and Ilya could be partially responsible for that, considering Boston and Montreal were fighting for the bottom of the division before they were drafted—a fight they happily conceded to Ottawa and Buffalo. 

“Well, it’s your rookie season,” Shane says to Haas, “Who would you curse?”

Haas’ eyes widen. 

“Don’t say Montreal, they are already cursed with losing Hollander,” LaPointe says. Shane shakes his head and doesn’t dignify that blatant flattery with a response. Haas sits down in his stall with his jersey, mirroring Shane’s posture and thinking very hard about his answer, as if curses are real. 

“Toronto Guardians,” Haas whispers. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s almost sweet, like when Arthur pretends to be reading the same book as Shane. He tries not to laugh at the kid. 

“Are you guys praying?” Sylvester demands, strolling into the dressing room, “Do gay people believe in God?”

LaPointe makes a wordless noise of disdain. “You’re going to be cancelled, Sly.”

“Don’t curse him!” Haas cries. 

“I don’t know why you’re all so superstitious,” Sylvester says, wandering off to his dry stall. 

“I’m not superstitious,” Shane mutters, “I just like routine.”

They send Shane out for the first lap on the ice before warmups like a rookie playing his first NHL game. He’s honestly a little grumpy over how big a deal they’re making of all this until he emerges from the tunnel and sees them.

Shane can barely breathe. His mind empties of everything. 

The CTC is packed to the walls. For preseason warmups. Pride flags shine in the black and red sea. There are a surprising number of Voyageurs jerseys, a couple that Shane recognises from women’s hockey teams of the recently collapsed CWHL, and even one group of girls in Admirals jerseys. These confuse Shane a little at first, because Les Canadiennes de Montréal really have nothing to do with anything, and the Admirals literally beat Shane on their way to the Cup in 2017, but then he realises that it’s probably more about gay hockey rather than Shane Hollander hockey. He just has to get used to the fact that Shane Hollander hockey is gay hockey now. 

Shane skates an easy lap around the rink. He tries to read every sign. WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER, THE CUP IS OURS THIS YEAR. Homophobia ≠ Hockey Culture. Welcome Home #24. Montreal Will Miss You Captain! GAY CAN PLAY. A young man in his Voyageurs jersey holds a sign up to the glass which features Shane’s head badly photoshopped onto Superman, looming over a defeated villain with Dallas Kent’s head badly photoshopped onto it. That one almost makes him laugh. 

But he doesn’t laugh. All he can do is stare. He spent hours today going through his usual routines to put on his usual hockey-blinders and cultivate his usual single-minded focus, but nothing about this is usual. The crowd response in Montreal after he’d been outed was overall supportive, but not quite so celebratory. Shane has seen crowds this excited before, of course. During the fucking playoffs. Not in preseason. 

Haas skates up beside him, laughing breathlessly. “Wow, this is like a Pride festival. Wow.” 

Shane has never been to Pride, so he wouldn’t really know. 

The kid skates up to get a closer look at the Superman sign and grins, smacking his blade against the glass in acknowledgment. The guy holding the sign is delighted, jumping up and down, banging his hand on the glass. Haas turns to Shane with bright eyes, obviously exhilarated by what is probably the biggest crowd the kid’s ever played for. He should probably say something. Offer him some wisdom or encouragement or whatever. 

Bood appears, takes one look at Shane, then corrals Haas over to the other corner to point out a fan with a Swiss flag. Shane is faintly grateful. 

He should be warming up. He needs to warm up. Shane does another dazed half-lap instead. 

Shane has been lucky and unlucky enough to have the reverence of the most insane hockey market in the world for his entire career. After the betrayal of leaving them by choice, Shane had thought this kind of fanatical support was a thing of the past. He thought he’d be dead to the fans, like he’s more-or-less dead to the Voyageurs organisation. He saw the videos of guys burning his jerseys outside the Bell Centre when Gary let it slip in a press conference that Shane was the one who initiated talk of trade. 

Shane salutes the crowd with his stick. The crowd roars for him. Shane feels his eyes misting over a little. His heart is so loud in his chest. He doesn’t say a word while he warms up. Haas can’t stop excitedly pointing out various signs to a confused but indulgent Mamonov, the Russian AHL prospect between the pipes tonight. Shane blushes when he gets down on the ice to start stretching out his hips and a contingent of the crowd start hooting and whistling. 

Bood skates over and taps Shane’s hip lightly with his stick. “This is insane. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Shane just nods. He wonders if this was what it was like for Hunter, after he won his Cup and came out. Maybe he should’ve paid more attention. It certainly wasn’t this crazy when Montreal played New York the last couple of seasons. 

“You think it’s ‘cause of that Renaud thing?” Bood asks as Shane gets to his feet. 

“What Renaud thing?” Shane asks. He vaguely remembers skimming an email from Farah telling him they’re getting some positive press and not to worry about anything. 

“Dude, Simon Renaud told everyone that the Voyageurs are homophobic and forced you out of Montreal. Then a few former employees backed him up, and now half of Montreal is melting down about it,” Bood explains. 

“Wow. Renny said that?” Shane should’ve read that email more carefully, but in his defence, he tries to ignore media chatter leading up to a game for his own sanity. 

“He didn’t tell you? Are you guys close?” Bood asks. He doesn’t ask for further details about Montreal, for which Shane is grateful.

“Not really. Haven’t seen him in a couple years.” Shane never knew Renny disapproved of the casual homophobia in the locker room. He had no idea he even cared about stuff like that. 

“Seems like he’s in your corner,” Bood says. 

Shane looks out at the fans. They’re bobbing along as the DJ plays something upbeat. Don’t stop me now, ‘cause I’m having such a good time, they sing. The arena is, in a word, joyous. Seems like more people are in Shane’s corner than he dared to hope for. 

And while Shane has been stunned and silent, the Centaurs are basking in it. Sylvester is letting some teenagers with edgy haircuts teach him a TikTok dance through the glass. Nieminen throws pucks to fans with witty signs. LaPointe is swapping his stick with a guy who’s brought a custom spray painted one in rainbow colours. 

It’s seeing his new team happily encouraging it, engaging with it, enjoying it, that thaws something in Shane’s stomach. He hesitantly smiles at a fan in a Voyageurs jersey and a hijab who he thinks he recognises from season ticket holder meet-and-greet events back in Montreal. She waves her Pride flag back at him. It’s nice. Part of Shane still feels like he’s doing something wrong. 

“Is it true he lives alone in the woods?” Bood asks after a beat. It takes Shane a second to remember what he’s talking about—right, Renny. 

“He’s not, like, a caveman. He has a cottage in Lac-Brome,” Shane says.

“Someone said something about handmade arrows,” Bood says dubiously. 

“He just likes hunting!” 

“You think you could convince him to give us some meat? Because that wild shit could take my barbecue game to the next—”

Bood tenses suddenly. Shane sends him a questioning look. He jerks his head towards centre ice. 

Troy Barrett approaches, doing his usual routine of standing a puck up on its side on the red line. His face is blank as he stares out at the crowd, made handsome by the lack of its usual cruel sneer. Then, he turns to look directly at Shane. Bood’s hackles raise the longer Barrett stares. Usually Barrett would’ve started yapping by now, but he seems shell-shocked. Their little staring match drags on a moment too long. Barrett seems to realise where he is and his expression falls into its usual scowl. 

“What?” Barrett snaps.

“What’s wrong, Barrett? Scared of a little colour?” Bood challenges. 

Barrett shakes his head in disbelief and disgust, turning his whole body towards them. Shane nudges Bood away from the red line. It’s not worth starting something with a guy like Troy Barrett before the season even starts. They’re probably pissing him off enough just by being themselves. 

Besides, nothing Barrett says is going to help him win. He can’t say anything to Shane that he hasn’t heard before. That’s the trouble with trying to be offensive all the time: you run out of material. Shane salutes the crowd again as he heads back into the tunnel. They cheer. 

Slowly, Shane’s shock settles back into focus. It just feels a little lighter now.

By the time Shane’s setting his stick on the ice for the first face-off, O Canada ringing in his ears, he’s smiling. The puck drops. Shane wins it clean. When he scores his first goal as a Centaur, less than a minute in, the fans howl along to Song 2 like it matters. 

It’s far from an important goal, in the grand scheme of Shane’s career, but it feels auspicious. 

They win the game decisively. 

They pile into the dressing room, happy and satisfied, someone blasting Cardi B on the giant JBL speaker that lives in the corner of the room precisely for moments like this. Shane is feeling good. He achieved his goals for today, and his plan for fixing his weird mood is totally working. He RICE’d the shit out of himself. And he somehow still has fans. 

“I liked a lot of what I was seeing out there, boys,” Wiebe announces, “Keep working hard. See you bright and early for video tomorrow, enjoy your night!” 

Shane thinks he will, for once. He turns to Bood and Sylvester and doesn’t even have to rehearse it in his head before he asks: “Hey, want to get a drink after media?” 

He goes out for one singular beer, then drives himself home at a respectable hour and gets 8 hours of sleep. It’s good. Everything is going according to plan.

Dad

Hey buddy. Good game! Mom & I are so proud of you. I know you’re busy with the team tonight, but we’ll be in town all week. Let us know when you’re free for dinner, okay? Love you.

— — —

Shane is bolstered by boos from the stands as he makes a clean hit on the Carolina winger and swipes the puck off of his stick. He’s already been skating for over a minute, but the adrenaline keeps his legs pumping as he spins around a defenceman. Hayden’s moving in his peripheral vision. He shoots the puck into seemingly empty ice with full instinctual confidence that Hayden will be there to receive it in less than a second. 

As the puck finds Hayden’s stick, Shane tries to manoeuvre himself to where Hayden needs him to be next. He’s cross-checked roughly from behind as he moves. He stumbles forward. He is suspended in fall, feeling gravity tug at him and determination to stay in the game locked in his muscles, and just manages to balance himself on one foot to avoid falling on his face into traffic. 

Just in time. Hayden passes through a tunnel of legs. Barely hanging onto his balance, Shane wrists the puck towards the net. The goalie gets a piece of it, but a lucky bounce sends it squeaking across the line. 

He crashes down onto the ice. He can’t even see the net through all the traffic, but he sees his teammates raise their arms into the air and a second later the horn blows. 

He barely has time to stand up before Carolina #9’s face stretches disdainfully and his lips purse. He spittle flies directly into Shane’s face onto his visor with the vehemence he says his next word with.

Shane is a professional hockey player. He’s heard this particular slur too many times to count. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before. It doesn’t feel personal anymore, but he knows that things are different now—this time, it actually is. 

Shane’s linemates are behind him now, patting him happily on the helmet. He’s not sure if they heard it. The goal horn harmonises with the chorus of boos and cheers. Shane focuses his eyes on his visor and sees little drops of moisture.

It occurs to Shane that maybe he should drop his gloves, but he’s just tied it up, and he’s not offended enough to gift Carolina a power play. He lets his eyes pass over #9 with disinterest. There’s a referee standing nearby. Shane raises his voice a little and asks: “What did you say?”

The ref looks over at them, ears always pricked for trouble. #9 doesn’t care. He steps in closer, gets in Shane’s face. He looks ugly and surreal up close, like Shane’s looking at him through a fish-eye kaleidoscope tube.

This time he doesn’t spit it, he murmurs it. Just for Shane. It could almost pass for seductive, if it wasn’t pure malice. 

Hayden hears it and goes to drop his gloves, but Shane stops him. A linesman steps in to keep Hayden and #9 apart, trying to push the Carolina player back towards his bench.

On his other side, Comeau had just been slapping his back, congratulatory. He’s always been one to start a fight, Comeau, and for a sliver of a stupid second, Shane thinks he needs to be concerned about him starting one now. He turns his head to look at Comeau through his spit-sprayed visor and he sees him think about it.

This man who Shane has known for years, who’s watched his back and bought him shots and sent him stupid memes about people they both hate. This man who Shane has picked up black-out drunk from bars all across North America, who let Shane bully him into trying tofu for the first time and admitted that he actually liked it.

Comeau looks at Carolina #9 with instinctive hostility. But then as the word registers, his glare gives way to epiphany. He turns to look at Shane like he’s never seen him before.

The strange sepia of dreamvision sharpens into technicolour, and Shane can suddenly feel the fatigue in his legs, even though he’s in bed. He knows what happens next.

Comeau reaches out with a single glove to wipe off Shane’s visor. He gives Shane a brief tap, as if to say, you’re okay, now go. A little gesture of tenderness that hurts worse than the slur. 

The ref skates over to ask Shane what was said. He is silent, so Hayden explains for him. The guy gets a 5-minute major and game misconduct. Or does he? Hayden is suddenly gone from his side. The dream is dissolving at the edges, Shane clawing at it to let him go. 

The crowd boos. He watches Comeau watch Carolina #9 skate off to the dressing room. Then the player skating away isn’t Carolina #9 at all, but Troy Barrett.

“Did we win?” Shane asks, “Did we win?”

Shane wakes in his bed with a racing heart. Half-asleep, he raises a hand to wipe off his visor again, only to realise he’s not wearing one. Fuck, he thinks. He really doesn’t want to go to the Sensplex today.

He groans at the ceiling. “Fuck!”

Shane is doing everything right, right? He’s trying to. He won. He talked and he spent time with his new teammates and he skated and he enjoyed it. Why can’t this heaviness just fuck off? Why is his mind making him relive it? 

Frustrated tears are welling up in his eyes, but Shane wills them away. He lets himself lie there for 5 minutes, which seems reasonable. Then his alarm goes off, which means it's time for his morning run.

Shane gets himself out of bed and runs. 

Eventually, he finds himself at the Sensplex. On his way to the video session, he finds Stanislav Mamonov sitting on the ground in the hallway, wearing his suit trousers and a button down. 

Shane knows immediately what has happened. The kid had a morning meeting with Wiebe and Babs and they let him down easy. He’s going back to Belleville, at least for now. He looks up at Shane, his face set in mulish misery. Aside from his deep voice and thick Russian accent, it’s the searching hazel eyes and furious flex of a strong jaw that remind Shane of Ilya in Sochi, vulnerable and brought low and hating it. 

“Why I am not good enough? Why they don’t keep me?” Mamonov demands. 

Shane wishes he knew the answer to that himself. 

He might never know, though. And he still has years of good hockey ahead of him. So does Mamonov. He offers the goalie a hand, pulls him up from the floor. “You’re awesome. You will be good enough.”

“But not now. Maybe not here,” Mamonov says, biting down the hurt in his voice to something flat. Yeah. That’s the tough part. 

Shane awkwardly pats him on the shoulder. He casts around for something else to say that doesn’t sound like a platitude, or a suggestion to pull a Tonya Harding. He tries to think of how he got through the initial period of realising that he couldn’t stay in Montreal if he wanted to keep playing. Mostly he told himself that once he fixed his issues, he’d win another Cup. 

“Be the best fucking goalie Belleville has ever seen. Make the playoffs. Make them take you seriously,” Shane says eventually, going for motivational. And if it still doesn’t work, hopefully at the end of it you’ll be good enough for yourself. 

Thankfully, it seems like the right thing to say. Mamonov holds onto Shane’s hand and shakes it solemnly, like they’re making a blood pact. A long silence stretches between them, in which Mamonov stares into his eyes and doesn’t blink. 

“I will do this, Shane Hollander,” Mamonov promises gravely. 

“Cool. Good luck,” Shane says. He finally manages to extract his hand. Mamonov strides down the hallway without another word. Shane shakes his head. Goalies are so weird. 

Chapter End Notes

We've almost caught up to Countdown to Connect now! Only one more chapter that runs parallel to the events of that fic, and then we push on to the regular season. How do you guys think Shane's RICE recovery plan is going?

RIP Habs Season 2025-26 you were stunning beautiful gorgeous amazing <3 Can't deny the Canes fans oléing at the end was pretty funny. Can't wait for next season!!! Wish I got to be in Montreal for the Victoire parade :(( TODAY IS TODAY

Also I forgot to say: this chapter goes out to DRY STALLS!! Every chapter I write teaches me new things about hockey. When I started watching NHL I noticed that the main dressing room stalls where players get into their pads and jerseys (wet stalls) are in fact NOT where the players changed as I was led to believe by many HR fics!! The media waits in there for interviews and eventually the guys appear freshly showered and clothed!! But I couldn't find information about how it works from quick googling. The name for the separate place where players hang up their walk in fits and change into their team clothes/base layers = dry stalls, which I learned from watching like every NHL equipment manager video that exists on YouTube. The Red Wings and Avalanche ones were particularly helpful.

Chapter 9: Retaining Walls

Chapter Summary

Shane gets to know Bood a little better and wrestles with the prospect of captaincy as the Centaurs make a shaky introduction to the season.

Chapter Notes

Words and expressions and tone have a capacity to morph in a way that can sometimes be tiring for Shane. They only exist for as long as it takes for the sound waves to reach your ear, for facial muscles to flex and relax. You can’t call a video review on a social interaction. You can only review it in your mind, where memory is soft and malleable from moment to mood. 

A house is clear and hard. A structure. Changing the paint, the finish, the decorations—these things are effortful and take time. Still, underneath it all, the construction remains the same. Whatever illusions granted by white walls or floor length drapes, the roof will always be as tall as it was built to be.

Ilya used to tease Shane about his real estate fetish, but on some level, he must have understood that the home reveals the heart. That day in his Boston home, he knew what it meant. If he had come to Shane’s cottage maybe he would have understood why it scared him so much. You step into a home and you are inside its beating chambers. Shane thinks the phrase open your home is a good one. Thank you for opening your home to me. Opening. 

Shane’s home—his cottage—was designed to be a sanctuary. A quiet retreat for only him and his small circle of loved ones. 

Zane and Cassie Boodram’s home is somewhere between a ranch and a manor, wider than a schoolhouse and twice as tall. Modern without being minimalistic, charming while still elegant. Far too big for the two of them, even with their first child on the way. A house chosen with the future in mind. A home with a wide open front door and a cheerful welcome mat out front.  

As Shane toes off his shoes and takes in the foyer, he sees that everything is already baby-proofed, complete with a tiny gate on the stairs even though they won’t need it for another year. Shane remembers getting snowed in at Hayden and Jackie’s one night, getting up in the dark to go to the bathroom, and eating absolute shit after walking straight through the baby gate. Jackie made him sit in the hallway with a screwdriver the next morning and reinstall it. 

The sounds of merriment surround the house. Everyone seems to be outside which makes sense, because the Boodram home sits on a fucking estate. Green stretches out in all directions. Bood’s land is lush, with shades of forest along the sides and an honest-to-god pond with a fountain fixture in the distance. The mouthwatering scent of meat on the grill swirls under a large open-lattice pergola, complete with the climbing vines beginning to cover the wood. 

Shane steps outside and the hard decking under his socks reveals the heart of the Boodrams. This house and all its land is far too big for a family of three, but turns out it’s the perfect fit for a family of sixty. 

The entire team and their families liven up every square metre of the sprawling land. The team spreads to fill the space, some chatting as they sit in lawn chairs, others kicking around a soccer ball in the grass. Nearby, under an old tree, two women are watching a gaggle of small children as they squeal and chase each other around its thick trunk. A handful of teens too cool for this loiter around the pond. The Boodrams are at the centre of it all. Bood is manning an extremely large and expensive looking barbecue, calling encouragement to Cassie as she destroys poor Nieminen in a foot race. 

A long table is abundant with all kinds of food. A plate from each household, the different colours and shapes and sizes fitting together somehow. Shane finds the perfect space for his bowl of fruit salad. He feels a pang of yearning that he doesn’t quite understand. 

Shane realises that it’s not only the team here, but staff and their families as well. In a cursory scan, he spots Fay, the director of team services who does everything from scheduling buses to handling their work visas, and the Wiebes. This seems odd to Shane, who rarely saw Theriault outside of work except during Cup celebrations. Theriault certainly never invited Shane to come to his house and have dinner with his wife. Shane didn’t even know Theriault had a wife until his second year in the league.

What follows is several hours of Shane being cornered by various partygoers. Not in a bad way, just…well, the team is overflowing with extraverts. Shane meets Bood’s hockey-loving young nephew Ezekiel, who lives here with the Boodrams together with his mother. He meets Lisa Hayes and Wiebe’s wife and three children. Lisa and Wyatt must see that he’s teetering on the edge of overwhelm, because they stick with him, filling his awkward silences easily when they come and periodically splintering off into conversations with just the three of them. Shane is grateful—it makes up for the slight probing they did about his captaincy in Montreal and Hazy calling him a nerd.

Which is rich coming from a guy who only reads comic books. Shane had said so, told him to fuck off, and shoved him too for good measure. 

Glowing with a warm haze cast by the thoughtfully placed outdoor heaters, this is a picture-perfect family gathering. The kind that looks like a Hallmark movie, except everyone is saying ‘fuck’ a lot. And he thinks maybe Karlsson and Holmberg are playing MLH19 inside, which would definitely be copyright infringement if it were in a Hallmark movie. 

Shane had seriously considered bailing tonight, but he’s glad he came. In the bones of this house, Shane sees the heart of the Centaurs culture. 

His apartment in Montreal was only big enough for him and sometimes his parents. It was white and quiet. When he had his teammates over to watch games or have movie nights, it seemed stuffed and overfull. It had been perfect for him—comfortable, familiar, private, clean, organised. Even as he got older, his responsibilities greater and his needs changing, he never once considered leaving it.

Shane just waves goodbye to Bood and Cassie on his way out, calling out his thanks, because it feels a little embarrassing to go over there. Shane needs a little time to process before he can face his shortcomings. 

Lisa gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek at the door. “Are you doing okay? Have the boys been good to you, Shane?”

“They’ve all been really nice. It’s…different here,” Shane says. 

Lisa nods emphatically. “I know. I think this team sets a record for least blonde WAGs in the MLH.”

Shane laughs, so caught off guard that he’s pulled out of his thoughts entirely. Lisa, he notes, has jet black hair. 

“It’s still like 50% blondes,” Lisa admits, “But it’s better than Toronto.” 

Hazy barrels into the foyer, having wrapped up the godawful duet he was doing with Campbell on Bood’s karaoke machine. He makes Shane promise to watch some kind of Captain America movie with him next week. 

Shane pretends to be reluctant (He’s really looking forward to it). 

— — —

The day after their last preseason game, Shane comes in for the optional morning skate. He’s first to arrive, as always, but today Bood turns up pretty early. They’re putting on their gear together in companionable silence when Bood clears his throat.

“Hey, did Big Bunski tell you about the election?” Bood asks. 

Shane takes a moment to understand what he’s referring to. Babunski? Election? “Oh, how you guys vote on captains? Pretty cool. Wiebe mentioned it.”

“So Buns will probably come and take our votes at the end of the meeting today. We do it MLH Award style, ranked choice 1-5. The guy with the most points wins and the runners up are alternates,” Bood explains. Shane nods along. Makes sense. He slips his jersey over his head. Moves on to his shin pads.

Bood starts to say something, stops before he gets anywhere, then lets out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, let me just be straight with you—” 

Shane smirks. Straight. 

“Shut up,” Bood says, “I’m trying to ask if you want the C.” 

“What?” Shane asks, stopping in his tracks, “You’re the captain.”

“No shit, man. But you were already a captain when I was a rookie,” Bood points out. Okay, Shane did not know that and he doesn’t like it. 

“Are you calling me old?” Shane asks, only half-joking.

“I’m calling you experienced,” Bood says, and the worst part is he’s completely sincere, “Seriously, bro. You don’t need me to tell you that you’ve earned it. I honestly thought Babs would give it to you out the gate.” 

This is a serious conversation. Shane makes an effort to still his fidgeting and turns his body to look Bood in the eye. The man doesn’t look reluctant to discuss this, open and warm as he always is, even though it must hurt to suggest. 

“If you need my experience, I’ve got your back. But this is your room. You’ve earned it too,” Shane says. 

Something happens on Bood’s face. A hand running over his curly hair, Bood breaks Shane’s gaze to look down at the floor. A deep breath is passed between them. 

“Thanks for saying that, man,” Bood says quietly. There’s no need for thanks, it’s just a fact. Bood is an excellent captain. He reads the room well, knows the guys and the staff well, has played here his whole career. He’s a perennial Lady Byng nominee. He’s polite and pleasant to officials. Shane understands better than ever that Bood is the soul of the room. 

“I’m guessing the locker room culture was pretty different here when you were drafted,” Shane says carefully. 

Bood barks out a sarcastic laugh. “You’d know. You were the first Asian on the Voyageurs, right?” 

“Yeah. Oldest team in the league,” Shane says dryly. Bood holds up a hand, and Shane eyes it before giving him a reluctant high five.

“You could share the credit, you know. I know you’re famous and all, but I was the third Asian captain in the league after you, that’s still a podium position. Guess I’m too mixed to count,” Bood says. His tone is light and joking, but Shane is struck. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were part Asian,” Shane admits, “I guess I thought you had African heritage? I don’t know much about Trinidad and Tobago.”

Bood waves him off easily. “Yeah, most people don’t. It’s all good. Part African, part Indian, all Canadian. I didn’t grow up with the Indian side of my family though, so I didn’t really understand I was Asian Asian until I got older.” 

“I get that. It’s weird to be a role model for your people or whatever when you don’t even really know what that means,” says Shane.

“It’s weird to be a role model for anyone, man!” Bood laughs, “We never went to university, never had to work a 9-5, get paid shit tons to play games all day. What the fuck do we know?” 

Shane laughs along, shaking his head. It’s kind of a good point, though he never thought of it that way.

“But it makes a difference, man. It really does,” Bood says earnestly. Shane sees the light in his eyes as he says it, the conviction with which he presses the words into sound. 

“You’re the captain,” Shane repeats firmly. 

Bood shakes his head, making an exasperated noise, the kind you make when you’re faced with something you don’t understand. 

“Do you not like being captain?” Bood asks, “Hazy said you didn’t sound into it but I thought he was full of shit.”

“No, I do. But it’s—Maybe I need a break,” Shane admits.  

Bood wavers, still uneasy about settling it just like that. “It feels kind of wrong to be captain when you’re here.” 

Shane understands. When he first entered the league, things were different. You didn’t eat before the vets. You didn’t get on the massage table for treatment before the vets. You weren’t even allowed to be part of the team’s fantasy football league until you’d played a few seasons. One time as a rookie he tried to get on an elevator with his captains at a hotel and they literally threw him out to wait for the next one. 

He is grateful for the player they helped him become; Shane isn’t an old-school leader, but he’s still made up of some old-school parts. And sure, some of those parts rankle at the thought of allowing himself to be placed further down the hierarchy. They tell him that he’s losing. Because early on, hockey taught him that hierarchy can be won. If you win the hockey game, you win the room. If you do your time, you get your reward. Shane has a few seasons on Bood. He’s done more time, won more games. 

Shane hates losing, but he’s okay with conceding this one to Bood. All Shane needs is a good place to remember why he loves hockey. 

“I appreciate you talking to me about it, but it’s fine, really. I just want to play hockey and be a part of the team. I don’t need to be captain,” Shane says as seriously as he can. 

Bood studies him for a moment, then nods. “Okay, man. You just wanna be lazy. I won’t tell anyone.”

— — —

Shane stares at the back of Dykstra’s head as the guys go out one by one. The tunnel reverberates with the booming announcer’s voice and blasting music. “Le numéro quatre-vingt-neuf, number eighty-nine: Isaiah Whittaker!” The fans cheer happily. At the end of the tunnel, Shane watches the lights dancing on the ice. 

He takes a deep breath and taps his glove to the Centaurs logo, imagining that he can feel his number through the back of the jersey. He thinks of the intentions he had pressed into the white 24 before he got dressed, hears the cheers as Dykstra is announced as a call to action. 

Open the season strong. 

“Alternate captain, le numéro vingt-quatre, number twenty-four: Shaaaaaane Hollander!” 

Remind them how you play. 

“Aaaand your captain, le numéro sept, number seven: Zane—”

The announcer cuts himself off. As one, the crowd calls out a low howl of his name: “Boooooood!”

A fun little tradition, familiar to the fans after years of his tenure, familiar to Bood, who’s grinning as he steps out onto the ice. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, vos Centaures, your 2020-2021 Ottawa Centaurs!”

The team salutes the audience with their sticks. The crowd boos a little when the Detroit players come out. That’s the last Shane thinks of the crowd after that. He knows what they want from him, it’s the same thing the team wants from him and what he wants from himself.

Play a 200-foot game. Create opportunities. Put the puck in the back of the fucking net. 

Detroit’s captain is a whiner. Likes to complain about how other guys line up to get them ejected from the faceoff. Shane doesn’t give him anything to complain about.

“Alright, get ‘em down boys, let’s go,” the ref says. 

The puck hits the ice.

Their sticks bat at the puck at the same time, neither man winning it clean. Shane digs at the puck aggressively. He nudges it out of the way just enough to pin his opponent’s stick against the ice for the split second it takes to kick the puck backwards with his skate. 

Sometimes hockey is a game of just enough, a centimetre over the line, a lucky bounce at the right time. It quickly becomes clear to Shane that tonight, they have a game of those little rolls of the dice. A soft pass from LaPointe to Boyle in their defensive zone is intercepted by a Detroit player, who loses an edge before he can shoot. Holmberg makes his first MLH hit and forces a turnover, only for Haas to miss his stretch pass, resulting in an icing. A shot beats Hazy’s glove, but bounces off a post. 

The energy is getting a little frenetic on the bench, impatient, coiled too tight. Haas is practically vibrating next to Shane as he watches Sylvester on the heels of a Detroit D-man heading for another breakaway. 

Sylvester’s entire body lengthens along the ice, wingspan wide, in an attempt to poke the puck away. He succeeds. He also succeeds in tripping the defenceman. 

The whistle blows. Detroit scores on the power play. They score again off of a bad change from Ottawa, and end the period up 2 to nothing.  

The second period is scoreless on both sides. Ottawa’s impatience makes them grip their sticks tighter, take stupid risks and make panicked mistakes. Chouinard heads down the tunnel after a hard hit that leaves him limping, and Holmberg takes issue with the guy that hit him. Haas’ vibrating energy slows to a sad rocking. 

Shane chews on his mouth guard and watches. The team does not seem to find a new gear in the third period, either. They’ve barely tried anything and they’re all out of answers. Frankly, it pisses Shane off a little. 

Luckily for the team, pissing Shane off allows him to find a new gear, scoring 5 minutes into the third. This needs to change the momentum of the game. They need to start playing like they have a chance—because they do.

“We can tie it up,” Bood declares, “Just one more.” 

“Good hustle, Hollzy,” says Levy from the bench, which annoys Shane, because Levy wouldn’t recognise hustle if it came up and shook his hand.  

Detroit is running the clock down. 15 ticks down to 5, until the Centaurs are fighting for a chance at overtime in the dying minutes of regulation.

By the time Wiebe claps him on the shoulder twice, Shane is itching to hop the boards. Detroit is running the clock down—they’re not playing to win, they’re playing not to lose. 

Shane loses the faceoff, but Dykstra jumps into the ensuing board battle with relish. Dillon is circling, ready to pick the puck off the moment it gets free. Shane can sense what’s about to happen, in a way he never knows how to explain when reporters ask him. He just sees the way their bodies move. Where their sticks hover. The way their toes are pointed, the way their heads turn. He backs up. Finds space. 

“Dill!” he shouts. 

Right in front of the blue line, Shane gets himself just open enough to receive a precise pass from Dillon, and enters Detroit’s zone with the puck. 

“Two on!” Bood hollers. Shane sees them in his peripherals—two guys closing in on him, herding him towards the boards. Campbell is skating in to join the play on the weak side of the ice. Shane passes it off like a shot, the puck flying over the ice and landing right on the young defenceman’s tape. 

Campbell doesn’t shoot right off the pass, delaying, looking for backup. There’s nobody to pass to.

“Shoot! One on!” Shane yells at Campbell. In another two seconds, Campbell’s chance will vanish. But that’s two seconds for him to shoot. 

Campbell’s indecision takes too long. A Detroit player rockets into him, and the puck is loose along the boards. With Campbell still picking himself up off the ice, Shane skates hard to get a stick on it, barrelling through anyone in his way with his entire body. He swings around the net, passing it to Bood, who goes for the one-timer. 

The goalie knocks it down but can’t cover it up. 

Shane steps right up to the blue paint, batting the puck towards the goal line inelegantly. Sticks are everywhere. The puck is jerked this way and that, swatted out of the crease, swatted back in, sliding off to the right. The goalie flops on his belly, but still can’t control the rebound. Shane’s body reacts on instinct—one hand extends with his stick, sweeping at the puck with little finesse or control. Luckily, he manages to knock it around the goalie’s toe. The puck slides just over the line, right as the buzzer goes to signal the end of the game. 

The goal horn sounds and the crowd goes wild. Shane’s blood pounds in his ears. His head whips up, he’s panting as he raises his hands in the air. He looks around for the ref. Did he beat the buzzer? Detroit’s captain gives Shane a firm shove out of the crease, whining about something again, probably. Shane goes with the push easily—he’s got bigger concerns. 

“Verny! Did I get it in time?” Shane calls, skating up to the ref. 

Vernon shrugs with a wry grin. “No fuckin’ clue. Let’s see what the guys in Toronto say. Never a dull moment with you, eh, Shane?”

Shane’s lineys skate up, wrapping optimistic arms around his shoulders. The Centaurs on the bench are varied in their celebration and reservation, some giving Shane a celebratory fist bump as he skates up, others leaning back behind the bench to watch the screen on the ground where Wiebe and the coaches are reviewing the play. 

Wiebe glances at Shane as he reviews the play again. Shane shrugs. He thinks he scored. The fans are singing along to Song 2 like it’ll be a good goal if they woo-hoo loud enough. 

“The play is under review to determine if the puck crosses the goal line before the period expires,” Vernon declares into his mic, voice echoing over the rink. The arena feels like it’s holding its breath. Shane accepts his bottle of water from LaPointe as he leans back on the boards, ready to catch his breath for a couple of minutes. 

“Nice, bro. That was greasy,” Bood says with a grin, skating up to lean beside him. 

“Off the rebound from your shot,” Shane points out. 

“That you set me up for,” Bood argues back. 

Dykstra groans, shoving Bood so that his shoulder violently knocks into Shane’s. “So humble, it’s a team effort, blah blah blah. Bunch of fuckin’ Lady Byngs. You both got points and I didn’t, just fuckin’ say it.”

“Okay. I got 2 points and you didn’t,” Shane obliges. Dykstra uses Bood as a blunt force weapon to whack Shane again. 

— — —

[An on-screen graphic reads UNDER REVIEW over a split screen with feeds coming from 3 different cameras. On the left is Shane Hollander, laughing with Zane Boodram and Evan Dykstra by the bench. In the centre, a referee speaks into a headset and reviews footage on a tablet. Brandon Wiebe is on the right in a suit and red tie, looking serene.]

“The Centaurs are looking to force overtime against the Cobras for a chance to win their first game of the season here at home. They lost to Detroit in 3 of their 4 meetings last season.”

“The referee there is on the line with the Situation Room in MLH Headquarters, reviewing the play from various angles.”

[An birds-eye view of the net with the clock burned into the top corner of the footage plays in slow motion. Hollander taps the puck past the goalie’s toe, and it slides in with 0.2 seconds left, though the crossbar partially obscures the puck. A second angle from inside the net reveals a closer look: the puck is entirely across the line with 0.1 seconds on the clock. The crowd oooohs as the footage is replayed on the scoreboard. 

The feed cuts to the camera trained on the referee. “Upon review, we have a goal. Let’s reset to 0.1 on the clock,” the ref announces. The clock runs down and once again, the goal horn goes off along with the buzzer.] 

“And we’ve got overtime! Such a close call—0.1 seconds! After dominating for most of the game, Detroit will want that one back.”

“They’ll have 5 minutes of 3-on-3 play to respond, which is not an ideal position for the Detroit Cobras. Hollander is dangerous in 3-on-3, and the Cobras struggled in overtime last season.”

“If I’m Detroit, I do everything I can to score in OT and avoid a shootout. Wyatt Hayes has an excellent shootout record and he has been fantastic tonight, keeping Ottawa in the game even as Detroit outshot them 32-15.” 

[A group of Centaurs fans jump around in the stands, visibly screaming along to Song 2 even though it’s playing for a second time, for the same goal. The beers in their hands slosh around onto the floor.]

“Hollander sure made the fans happy, scoring both goals in the third period—the first unassisted.”

“The crowd will be hoping to see him get a hat trick to close it out. The reception from his hometown has been very warm since he was traded.”

“It hasn’t been Hollander’s best game tonight, but that’s a pretty high bar. I’d say he’s earned that warm welcome.” 

[The Centaurs rough Hollander up in celebration as he steps off the ice and sits on the bench while the ice crew clear up the snow. Campbell sits down next to him and says something, looking sheepish. Hollander shrugs and turns around to grab an iPad from an assistant coach, showing Campbell something on the screen.] 

“And it looks like he’s back to business. You know, I was surprised he didn’t come out of that tunnel with a C on his jersey tonight. He led Montreal to 3 Stanley Cups, and you can see the kind of work ethic he brings.”

“Since Peter Babunski was hired, the Centaurs players have been allowed to select their own captains. I think there will be a lot of questions after the game about why the guys might have chosen not to vote for Hollander.” 

— — —

“Shaner, are you coming to Monk’s?” Dykstra asks under the spray of the shower. 

“Nah, I’m supposed to meet my parents after. They came to watch,” Shane says. 

“Just bring ‘em,” Dykstra says easily. 

“Dicky, we talked about this,” LaPointe interjects suddenly, “Are you in prison, or what?”

Shane glances between them, confused. LaPointe makes a deeply exasperated noise and flaps a dismissive hand at Shane. “You are no better, Hollander, you use 3-in-1.”

Shane shuts off the shower, grabbing a towel. “What’s wrong with 3-in-1? It’s practical.”

“Thank you! Why do kids have a fucking problem with everything these days? Soap’s for cleaning, I’m fucking clean, so fuck off,” says Dykstra. This helps Shane understand what LaPointe is complaining about—Dykstra is rubbing a bar of soap directly on his hair. It doesn’t look like it feels very good, but he’s known a lot of guys that barely use soap at all, so Shane doesn’t think much of it.

“You are hopeless, you ugly fucker,” LaPointe says, flicking his sopping wet hair in Dykstra’s face to punctuate his statement. 

“Oh yeah?” Dykstra grabs the kid in a headlock and plucks the tub of his expensive hair mask out of his hand, holding it out of his reach as he protests. The big defenceman grabs an overflowing handful of the cream coloured goo, slathering his hair in far too much product.

“Am I beautiful?” Dykstra mocks, putting on an exaggerated French accent. Shane shakes his head and leaves them to it. 

His parents easily agree to the change in plans, Shane figures they want to meet his new teammates, which is cool. He’s a little nervous. He wants them to like the Centaurs, and for the Centaurs to like them. He wants to see them, of course, but he’s honestly a little relieved at the prospect of having his team there as a buffer. 

Yuna Hollander has never been shy about expressing what she thinks or feels at any given moment. And it is clear to Shane as soon as she walks into Monk’s, with his dad trailing warily after her, that she is on a warpath. He immediately regrets thinking this was a good idea. 

“Shane, it’s so nice to see you,” Yuna says pointedly. 

“Hi, mom,” Shane says meekly, “Hi dad. Guys, these are my parents, Yuna and David.”

Naturally, his dad is genial as ever, easily socialising with the guys while Shane goes to order his parents drinks. He glances over at his mom from the bar. She has her arms crossed and eyebrows slightly raised in that way she does that makes everyone feel inadequate. Shane can’t stop chewing on the lime wedge they put in his beer, even though all the fruit juice is gone and now it’s just the astringent whites. 

Hazy emerges from the pack, heading up to the bar with a slightly manic smile on his face. “Dude, your mom is exactly like you, if you were actually scary. Except way scarier. And I think she hates us.”

“What? Why would she hate you?” Shane asks, glancing over at where she’s got Bood and Dykstra cornered. He doesn’t refute the assertion that she’s scary. There’s a reason why he volunteered to get them drinks, after all. 

“Maybe ‘cause we sucked tonight,” Hazy suggests. They sucked a little. They won the game, though. It’s early in the season, it’s normal to take a little while to get going. Sucking in a season opener shouldn’t be enough to earn her ire—the Voyageurs were pretty sucky the first couple of years, too, and she didn’t hate them. 

“We didn’t completely suck,” Shane argues anyway, just for the sake of it. 

Hazy laughs. “High praise, Shaner. Now I see where you got the terrible poker face.”

Shane watches his mom’s eyes sharpen, like a missile locking on a target. He pushes himself off the bar and picks up the drinks in a hurry. “Oh, shit.” 

He hurries over to them just as Dykstra is saying something nice about Bood being a great captain.

“Is that so? Better than Shane, would you say? More deserving of your vote?” Yuna asks pleasantly, like a lawyer in a cross-examination. Fuuuck. It’s the captaincy, she’s pissed about the captaincy. They both stiffen, immediately looking guilty and apologetic, which Shane won’t have at all. 

“Oh my god, mom!” Shane rebukes. He presses her drink into her hand, like that will distract her. Futile effort.

She’s affronted, frowning as if Shane is the one who’s out of line. “Shane, after everything you’ve achieved—”

“Mom, please just drop it,” Shane says firmly, then to Bood, “I’m so sorry about her.”

“Do not apologise for me,” she snaps, voice low and warning. Dykstra makes a strangled noise and slinks out of the conversation. 

Shane scowls. “You can’t talk to my team like—”

“Shane, it’s cool, man,” Bood interrupts, “She’s right, isn’t she? I get it.”

Shane is prepared to wave him off and steer his mom outside so they can really have it out, like they haven’t since he went through puberty. But the surprise seems to disarm his mom, who turns back to the captain, eyeing him skeptically. “You do…?”

“Of course.” Bood glances at Shane, looking for guidance on how much he should tell her. Shane should have already explained everything to her himself, obviously. He should have told her about the C, so she wasn’t blindsided in the rink. He feels terrible that now Bood has to deal with the fallout. 

“I—We look up to him,” Bood says carefully, “What the media has been saying about the election isn’t the truth. I know we haven’t known Shane that long, but he’s a great teammate, and he’s a leader, no matter what letter’s on his jersey. ”

Yuna narrows her eyes at him for a moment, because he’s not saying much of anything. But nobody is immune to Bood’s charm, in the end. Shane bites back a sigh of relief as she finally relaxes a little.

“Alright. Clearly there were conversations about this that I wasn’t privy to,” she says, pointedly not looking at Shane, “I shouldn’t have assumed, my apologies.”

They seem to come to some kind of understanding. Then, Yuna straightens, all business again. “Shane, a word?”

— — —

In Shane’s childhood home, the hallways and bookshelves are adorned with the various trophies, medals and awards Shane earned before he made it to the MLH. Every Saturday morning, his mom dusts the shelves carefully, using special delicate cleaning cloths for every little trinket Shane received then never thought of again. 

“You don’t want to be captain,” Yuna says as soon as they get outside, “Boodram sounded ready to offer it to you. And I can’t imagine Farah would fall short negotiating something this important, so you must have told her not to ask.”

He could tell her that Farah didn’t even need to negotiate—Babunski offered him the C, pretty much immediately. But like with Wiebe, and with Bood, Shane can’t see how that information would help. She’s right: the problem isn’t that Shane wasn’t offered the captaincy, it’s that he doesn’t want it. He said no before he even met Bood, let alone knew if he was a good captain.

“I remember the day Gary told you he was making you captain of the Voyageurs. You were so happy.” It’s wistful, a warm breath materialising in the cold night air, then curling back out of sight.

In the hallway across from Shane’s childhood bedroom, his mom has a jersey framed on the wall. It’s a jersey from Shane’s U13 team. Not a particularly important one, except that it was the first jersey Shane wore with the C on it—a real choice, not just a rotating role like they had in the minor teams that came before. She doesn’t know that he knows, but she’d fought hard for him to keep that patch. His teammates had been largely supportive, but their parents were furious, and his coach was panicked and ready to bend.

It wasn’t the first time. His dad tried to withdraw Shane from his very first team when he was barely old enough to play, on account of the racist things the other parents would heckle at his son from the stands. His mom had been the one to bring him back the next week, and the week after that, because Shane loved to skate and he’d thrown a tantrum every day they didn’t go to the rink. 

Yuna turns to him, and now that the righteous anger is gone, she just looks hurt and confused. “Is it true, Shane? I’ve read all the posts. But I’d rather hear it from you than Simon Renaud.”

The guilt weighs heavy on Shane’s eyes, and he becomes unable to raise them, unable to look at her. 

Sometimes Shane thinks about how his mom sat there every day and listened to all the filth that his white dad couldn’t bear to hear. And he thinks about telling her that he just wasn’t good enough as a captain, that he left her favourite team because he couldn’t take it, after everything she took for him. And he can’t do it. 

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you everything, I promise. But—not tonight, is that okay?” Shane asks timidly.

“Okay. Not tonight,” his mom sighs, “I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too,” Shane says. 

They watch the cars passing. 

“He does seem like a decent captain,” she offers.

“He’s great,” Shane agrees. 

“You know what’s not great? His zone entries.” 

Shane grins. He missed this. They proceed with their ritual of picking apart every moment of the game down to the detail, eventually drifting back inside to rejoin the others. To their credit, the team don’t bat an eye at the change in mood. Hazy jumps into the dissection easily, offering equal parts valuable insights and stupid jokes that quickly thaws whatever scariness Yuna had directed at him earlier. Haas and Campbell listen to them silently for almost 10 minutes before they finally pluck up the courage to join in. 

They’re on such a roll that they even once everyone scatters for the night, his parents end up back at Shane’s place, and he finally fills them in on the organisation, on Babunski and and Harris and Wiebe, the disastrous communications meeting and the promising training camp. 

They talk all through Shane making up the spare room for them, and through brushing their teeth and flossing, and when they say goodnight, his dad surveys the spare room and says:

“I know I said this when you were moving in, but this really is a nice place. I think the walls are a little bare, though. Maybe we could bring over some of your things from the house? Mom and I are starting to run out of wall space anyway.” 

Shane isn’t sure if he wants to put holes in the walls yet, but he hopes that maybe someday soon, he will. 

Chapter End Notes

For anyone looking to get into hockey next season, I recommend PWHL Hamilton, their brand so far is good vibes and lesbians and it’ll be their first season so you can say you were an OG fan!! The expansion teams are tearing my Victoire apart but at least Hamilton seems cool…

Click for some fun(?) facts!

- Shane is wrong: the first Asians to play for MTL were John Hanna (1963) and Alain Nesreddine (1998), who each played less than 10 games for the team. The reason he doesn’t count them? They are both Lebanese. Shane is not hip enough with pan-Asian solidarity to recognise that Middle Easterners are in fact West Asians. Bood is just repeating it because he read it on MTL social media.

- The first East Asian player in MTL was Victor Bartley (part-Taiwanese) in 2015 (played 9 games). The oldest franchise in NHL history dressed its first East Asian player 5 years AFTER Shane was drafted in GC Verse. The second would be now-Captain Slick Nick (part-Japanese) in 2019—as far as I can tell, the first Canadien of Asian descent to play more than 10 games for the team (and more than 1 season).

- The first Asian player for OTT was Jim Paek (Korean) in 1994, who was the first Korean to win a Stanley Cup. The third was Cody Ceci (part-Filipino) in 2013, which is Bood’s rookie year! This fun fact + the name Boodram suggests to me that he is at least part Indo-Trinibagonian, but I thought it was likely that he is known as/identifies more with being black. Because, like, if he was widely known to be Indian, Shane/Ilya would probably find it more notable that he is a trailblazing South Asian captain, and it would be highlighted in canon…right? Because racism is a huge part of hockey and impacts Asian players deeply, so the lead characters who are a trailblazing Asian captain and his partner would notice, right??? Right, Rachel??? /lh

- The examples of strict hierarchical culture Shane describes are all true stories from that period of time. Not to mention the hazing. You can read more about how hockey culture is changing with the generations in this article: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7116482/2026/03/25/celebrini-bedard-gen-z-vibe-shift-tik-tok-nhl/

- The anecdote about David withdrawing Shane from Timbits because of racism is also adapted from a true story in Steve Sandor’s book Leveling the Ice, which is about racism and diversity in hockey. Great read and the audiobook is on Spotify if you’re interested.

Thanks for being here lovelies, please let me know what you think <3 Especially with meandering chapters like this which feel very self indulgent to me, it helps me a lot to hear about how it flows, how it feels, if the hockey or dialogue was confusing/boring/redundant, what you want more/less of, etc <3 Happy Pride!! I hope you are feeling Happy and Proud

Chapter 10: The Water Never Runs Clear—An Ilya Interlude

Chapter Summary

Hockey, interrupted by Shane Hollander.

Chapter Notes

Chapter title from Expert in a Dying Field by the Beths. The whole lyric is “The city is painted with memory, the water will never run clear.”

Another lyric from this song I love for this fic: “I can close the door on us, but the room still exists. And I know you’re in it.”

Boston is the early favourite to win it all this season. It is too soon to say anything, but the pressure is on—last season they fell to injuries and unlucky bounces in the conference final. The fans can’t wait to see their rat of a captain back on the ice, driving full grown men to insanity with equal parts unmatched skill and unmatched insolence. After so long, Ilya moves through the start of the season comfortably, a well-oiled machine with his boys and their traditions. 

They’re in high spirits playing sewer ball before their game against Brooklyn. Marly pulls off a beautifully controlled header, delivering the ball right to St-Simon’s knee. “Did you watch the Ottawa game last night?” 

“Fuck, Chicago was out for blood. When Becker flattened Hollander two minutes in I think I came,” Sebbin groans. Normally, this is where the guys would crucify Sebbin for suggesting he lasts only two minutes, but his wife is leaving him for another man, so they generously refrain. 

“I love watching Hollander lose. It’s like Christmas twice a week,” Marly says.

“I watched it too,” Carmichael says, “It’s kind of sick.”

The ball sails in a lazy arc towards Ilya. He receives it with his knee, bouncing it once before kicking it at Carmichael. “What? Hollander losing?”

Carmichael rolls his eyes, kicking the ball at Rookie #1. “I always thought Hollander had a stick up his ass, but I guess he dislodged it so he could put funner stuff up there. I mean, it’s ballsy. He said I’m coming home, fuck your timeline, fuck your draft, sell the farm, I’m gonna make you contenders. Respect, man.”

“You’re giving him way too much credit. He had to go somewhere,” Sebbin says. 

“Fucking Ottawa. If I was Shane Hollander I’d sign for 30 mill in LA and get back with Rose Landry. Beaches, bitches, ballin’. That’s the fucking life, right Rozy?” O’Regan looks to Ilya for support.

“Reggie, he is gay. This is very famous,” Ilya reminds him. 

O’Regan cringes. “Oh yeah.”

Rookie #2 kicks the ball a little too hard, and it sails down the hall. He runs to go get it. 

Ilya glances at Carmichael. “What did Sebby mean ‘he had to go somewhere’?” 

Carmichael shrugs. “People are saying Montreal wanted him out.”

Ilya frowns. He feels a brush against his lips and remembers Shane shoving him away on a rooftop, the sound of running water and a whisper: not here. Ilya kicks the ball. 

The rookies are drooling onto Ilya’s couch. He considers telling them to clean it up just to be annoying, but the couch has seen much worse. His living room still smells like the greasy burgers and fries he fed them last night, and the boys look ridiculous in Ilya’s big sleep shirts. Thankfully neither of them has choked to death on vomit since the last time he checked. 

Ilya switches on the TV and cranks up the volume, putting on the highlights from yesterday’s games.

“Chouinard to Hollander, Hollander gives it back, and he scores! Nick Chouinard wins it for the Centaurs!”

The rookies stir and whine pathetically. The goal horn is their alarm today. 

“Chop, chop. Time for morning skate,” Ilya announces. 

Rookie #1 cracks an eye open, then groans at the light coming through the tall windows. He tries to say something, but achieves only a croak. 

“Don’t talk. Get up,” Ilya commands. 

“Optional,” Rookie #2 groans without opening his eyes.

“Oh, you are saying morning skate is optional? Not anymore,” Ilya says cheerfully. He throws bottles of water at them and is delighted when they’re too groggy and hungover to catch them. 

He feeds the rookies painkillers and a healthy nutritionist-approved breakfast which is terrible. Ilya makes a show of humming appreciatively as he eats his own portion, and even manages to ask them if they like it around his mouthful of seeds and dust. Eager to please, they lie to him and eat every last mouthful. Ilya laughs at them all the way to his least expensive car. They stagger after him like zombies, not making a sound except to whine when he revs the engine and blasts his Russian rap music. 

By the time they’re putting their pads on with the rest of the guys, the boys have managed to achieve a little bit of talking, if grunting like cavemen can be called talking. 

“What the fuck is wrong with them?” Marly asks, watching Rookie #1 fail to put his helmet on top of his sunglasses. 

“I pay for the rookies’ drinks all night, so today they learn to play with heavy legs,” Ilya explains. Cliff lets out a knowing ah. 

“You fucked us up purpose?” Rookie #1 whines. Ilya rolls his eyes. He did not do anything to them—only opened a tab and allowed them to order what they wished. They teach themselves a painful lesson. 

He turns to the rookies and the room at large, capturing their attention. “Hey! You know what I am?”

“A sadistic motherfucker?” Carmichael suggests. 

“Stanley Cup champion,” Ilya enunciates every word to emphasise his point, popping every p, “I want to be two time Stanley Cup champion. And you will not stop me, even though you are trying very hard.” 

“But—” Rookie #1 whines again. 

“No, Roz is right, this is important training. Don’t embarrass us with the Vegas flu next week,” St-Simon says, locking his arm around Rookie #1’s head none too gently. 

“You will skate hard. No excuses. And in game 14 of playoffs you will thank me,” Ilya says. 

Marly shakes his head in amusement. “It’s fucking October.”

Ilya curls his lip into a snarl worthy of a bear. “Two. Cups.”

His boys hoot and holler in agreement, setting off another round of pitiful groaning from the rookies.

The rookies take two days of chirping and they are hungry to prove themselves at the next game. Ilya pats their helmets and says ‘good job’. They beam at him, and Rookie #2 even promises to pay for Ilya’s drinks next time. Ilya tells him to call his mother, because he is a nice little boy alone in Boston with a mother who misses him. Kane follows this up by calling Rookie #2 a mama’s boy like Hollander, in a tone of voice that suggests he somehow thinks it is gay for a man to love his mother. Ilya feels very sad for Mrs. Kane. 

Ilya is not as superstitious or rigid as many hockey players, but he is experienced and he knows what he likes. During the 2nd intermission, Ilya goes to the players lounge to have a snack. 

Someone, probably Carmichael, has left the TV on the Centaurs game. It seems to be finished already, highlights from the game giving way to interviews in the dressing room. 

“Luca, what is it like to play with Shane as a rookie?” 

“Yeah. It’s like a dream. I am very lucky to learn from him every day,” Luca Haas is saying sweetly. Ilya pulls a banana off of the counter and peels it open without moving his eyes from the screen. 

“It’s a little scary, you know, because he won the Rocket Richard as a rookie. Tied Rozanov, who is the greatest active goal scorer. So my two goals are a little pathetic, in comparison,” Haas jokes tentatively, and the reporter laughs.

“And our team is very loud, so I am happy to have quiet guys like Shane and Karly to give balance,” Haas concludes. 

Another young player with auburn hair barges onto the screen, wrapping an arm around Haas’ shoulders. “He’s kissing butt ‘cause he wants to be Shane’s favourite little bro.” 

“Who’s his favourite now, Jord?” the reporter asks. 

“Lapi,” the boy answers.

Haas tilts his head to the side like a puppy hearing a strange noise. “What? Soupy, no. To be clear, Shane would hate for us to compete over him, but if we did, you would be winning.” 

“No way, he’s always picking apart my plays on the bench,” Soupy argues.

“Obviously this is why I think you would be his favourite, if he had favourites,” Haas says, “But he likes us all equally.”

A third boy crashes into the frame, Jules LaPointe. Sveta likes his game-day suits and his hair. Whenever she comments on them, Ilya accuses her of being a cougar until she tries to smother him with a pillow. 

“Haasy is Hollzy’s favourite. He is everyone’s favourite,” LaPointe says, and he squeezes Haas’ face between his fingers and thumb like a grandmother with a fat-cheeked baby. Haas pushes him off and the three of them start to wrestle, seemingly forgetting the reporter in front of them. A flailing limb knocks the reporter’s microphone with an unpleasant thump. Then suddenly, they all freeze, look to the right, and release each other. 

LaPointe and Soupy apologise for interrupting and depart as quickly as they came. 

Haas smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. Does it answer your question?” 

The reporter laughs. “It was perfect. Thanks Luca, enjoy your night.” 

Ilya finishes his banana. These children worship Shane. Nothing special, happens every year. Ilya’s rookies are more MLH ready than Shane’s and they worship Ilya, so he wins, probably. He should go and take a piss while he has a chance. He tells himself this, but he stays rooted to the ground. 

The broadcast cuts to the next interview, this one with Shane himself. The words he’s saying don’t mean much—the broadcast could replace this footage with any other player’s post-game spiel to hear the same old clichés they brainwash Canadian children with. Instead, Ilya watches how he moves. The way the corners of his mouth tense and pull and relax. Shane nods and frowns thoughtfully like they aren’t the same three questions asked and the same three answers given. He says something humble and flat that makes them laugh. 

“Earlier—when you told them off—the boys were arguing over who’s your favourite little bro on the team. Do you have an answer for us?” a reporter asks. 

Shane shakes his head, but there’s a cheeky little smile on his face. “I normally don’t play favourites, but right now it’s Holmsy by process of elimination.” 

The faint sound of heckling and protests ring out in the background. Shane’s smile grows a little bigger. Ilya remembers this smile. He has not seen it in over a year. 

“Roz?” 

Ilya controls his muscles so he doesn’t jump. He turns around casually. Marly is eyeing him in confusion, crease between his brows. He knows Ilya would normally be in line for the toilet by now. 

Ilya goes for the first excuse to still be here that he can think of and pulls the fridge open. He grabs two bottles of Coke and offers his friend one. “What? All these are just for you?” 

Marly takes the offering and buys the excuse. Ilya cracks the lid and takes a reluctant sip. Marly is saying something about Buffalo’s top D-pair and Ilya is glancing back at Shane’s cocky half-smile. 

As it turns out, not taking a piss and drinking half a bottle of Coke is a terrible mistake. Ilya spends the entire third period consciously holding it every time he’s sitting on the bench and loudly blaming Shane Hollander in his mind. After the fifth time he shifts uncomfortably on his ass, Marly finally demands to know what the fuck is wrong with him.

“I have to piss,” Ilya grudgingly admits. 

Lightning quick, Marly punches him in the bladder. Hard enough to make every muscle in Ilya’s body clench up so he doesn’t piss himself. Ilya doesn’t know what face he’s making, but it must be ridiculous, because Marly will not stop laughing.

“What the fuck!” Ilya snaps. 

Marly cackles. “I’m helping with your piss!”

“Jack him off on your own time, Marly,” someone grumbles from down the bench. 

Ilya channels his irritation into baiting one of Buffalo’s hot-heads into attempting to fight him—twice. He keeps his gloves firmly on and gives the refs his best innocent face. They send him and the hot-head off for the remaining 5 minutes of the game so there are no escalations. Ilya finally gets relief and the satisfaction of humiliating the idiot from Buffalo. He flips Marly off as he goes down the tunnel. 

Boston wins the game. Of course. 

Scott Hunter is too relaxed after his honeymoon, or one cup is enough for him, maybe. He and Bennett have recently bought a cozy little gay bar. Strange retirement plan. Ilya is very curious about the bar, actually, but he does not go. 

Instead, he and Hunter meet after the game at a very good sandwich shop on a street corner nearby. Hunter has never asked why Ilya avoids the Kingfisher, despite being otherwise supportive. Maybe he does not ask because he thinks he knows why. 

Hunter orders the same thing every time, while Ilya always orders something different. Ilya teases him for being predictable, tells him it lost him the game. 

“No, I’m pretty sure you pissing Vaughny off so bad he slashed the back of your knees was what lost us the game,” Hunter sighs, “What did you say, anyway? He wouldn’t tell me. I thought you two were cool.”

Ilya shrugs. “I said the Admirals love gays so much they bend over and let Hollander fuck them. Then I said I don’t mind sloppy seconds.”

Hunter coughs around his mouthful of bread. “Jesus. You shouldn’t have said that. With everything going on with Hollander, people are going to think you’re homophobic.” 

“What is homophobic about fucking twenty New York Admirals?” Ilya asks, “And what is ‘going on’ with Hollander? He has a loser boyfriend who has never won a World championship?” 

Hunter gives him a searching and deeply judgemental look. “This is a minefield you’re dancing on. Joe is not his boyfriend—stop spreading rumours—and he’s not a loser. He’s an Olympian.” 

Ilya drawls automatically, even as his mind is stalled and sputtering: “And you can be loser even at the Olympics. Ask me how I know.” 

“Rozanov, this is serious.” Hunter says, “This isn’t about your stupid rivalry. This is Shane’s real life.”

For the first time, Scott Hunter’s scolding has an effect on Ilya, because he knows that. He was just trying not to think about it. The savoury aftertaste in his mouth becomes nauseating. The food in his stomach feels heavy churning inside him. 

Because if Joe is not his boyfriend—

“The rumours are true. He left because of Voyageurs,” Ilya says. 

Hunter clenches his jaw. He scans Ilya’s face, his expression still guarded with irritation and disapproval. “I don’t think I should be discussing this with you.” 

“Hunter,” is all Ilya can manage to say. It is true, there is no good reason for Hunter to break Shane’s confidence here. Ilya has been annoying and flippant all night. But he stood by Shane after he was outed, in the little ways he could, some that Hunter saw and some he didn’t—doesn’t that mean anything? 

Hunter sighs, and runs a hand over his face. He looks older for a moment. “Yeah, I think it’s true. He didn’t say much, just that he wanted a fresh start. But he came out to them privately two years ago. If this is a homophobia thing, I think it’s been brewing for a while.” 

Ilya takes a long swig of his drink. Fuck. It wasn’t meant to be this way. 

This all feels too real, it is mythical again. One of the greatest players in the history of the sport, fallen from the sky, a hundred tiny little men binding the giant Gulliver with tiny little ropes and bleeding him with tiny little toothpick spears. One of the greatest players in the history of the sport, sent off to the farm to die quietly like an old dog. Shane will not allow it, of course. But he looked so tired all the time last season. So tired. 

The thought hurts Ilya. He digs his fingers into the bruise. 

“How was your honeymoon?” he asks, so he can watch Hunter’s eyes light up, the way his brow smooths and his shoulders roll back. He tells Ilya of his paradise. Of unselfconscious romance. For the first time, stepping off a plane and not searching. 

“Good. I am happy for you,” Ilya tells Hunter. He crumples up his sandwich wrapper and draws his vape out of his pocket, shaking it in explanation before he stalks outside. 

Ilya leans against the wall. He is happy for Hunter. Somewhere along the line, he has become a friend. He just also resents him a little. The door swings open and shuts again. 

“You vape now?” 

“Coaches and doctors say I need to quit, they have a plan to wean me.” Ilya spits out the sickly white vapour out disdainfully. 

“You okay?” Hunter asks quietly. 

Ilya blows another big fruity cloud. “What, with Juicy Peach Ice? No, I fucking hate it.”

“Rozanov.”

He shrugs. “Yes. Why not? I will win the Cup this season.”

Hunter is silent for a long moment, then he says: “You don’t sound all that excited about it.”

“I’m Russian. This is the most excited we get,” Ilya deadpans. 

“You don’t want to talk about it,” Hunter surmises, “Fine. Just—Be smart. You’re pushing it. One day you’re going to go too far, and I hate to admit it, but I don’t want to see that happen.”

“You will not see it,” Ilya promises, “You cannot, with your cataracts.” 

“You don’t have to joke for my benefit. I don’t think you’re funny anyway,” Hunter lies. Ilya exhales. They exist there in a thick silence for as long as Ilya can stand it. 

He would never admit it out loud, but the Boston Bears are starting to get older, too. Their core has seen success, and the front office is hesitant to do more than a light retool when they continue to make deep runs in the playoffs together. This is the purpose of Ilya’s rookies: injecting speed into the roster, they say. 

Ilya, still in his prime, remains one of the fastest skaters in the league. Some of it is natural athleticism that cannot be taught, but Ilya thinks that people like to overplay his athleticism. They call him physical. Explosive. They call him a freight train, or a monster truck, or a tank. It used to annoy Ilya that his skill was often overlooked, but he understands now that most people who watch him do not skate themselves. 

Speed is not only a matter of strength, but a matter of balance. Ilya is a master. Changing edges, turning on a dime, keeping opponents guessing. He can push his outside edges so deep you wonder how he stays upright. Every day, Ilya plays a game of balance. Inside, outside, backwards, forwards. How far can he bend before he falls? 

When the commentators remark on his edgework, Ilya wonders if the red-faced armchair coaches shouting at their wives and their television screens know what it means to balance on a blade so thin, so sharp, so deadly. 

The bottom of a skate blade is not a flat piece of metal, like a knife. Instead, it is shaped like a little tunnel. The absence of steel down the centre of the blade is called the hollow, and the hollow creates the two edges. Every skater must experiment, must discover the size and shape of his hollow, how much he can carve out before he sinks too deep into the ice, muscles fatigued, fighting the weight of his own body. 

Ilya skates on a deeper hollow. For his size, maybe it takes a little more energy than necessary. Maybe he would glide easier, if he closed the gap. But a deep hollow gives Ilya more grip. More bite. This is how he likes it. 

Ottawa’s coach is promising but untested, along with half of their roster. The Centaurs are a question. Ahead of their first matchup of the season, LeClaire needs to convince them he has the answer, so he reminds them of the known quantity: Shane Hollander. 

There are nights when Shane controls the pace every time he’s on the ice and makes everyone around him look better. There are nights where he tries too hard to be the hero and fumbles good chances. There are nights when he is sloppy and tired and stonefaced on the bench. (Not that Ilya watches all of their games, of course. It’s just—known quantities.)

“You know the drill with Hollander, boys. Lean on him. Don’t give him space, don’t give him time. If he’s mucking it up with you against the boards, do your fuckin’ best,” LeClaire says wryly. The guys laugh knowingly. 

Someone jeers. “Fuck, that’s why he’s always getting pinned to the boards. Probably likes it.”

Ilya clenches his jaw, then forces it to relax. “He likes to be in possession of the puck? Yes, probably. Maybe you could like it more, Sebby.” 

St-Simon elbows him. “Cap, lay off, you know he’s going through it.”

Ilya quiets, but shoots a glare at Sebbin for good measure. Divorce should not be so ‘tough’ on him the third time around. Sebbin glares back for a moment, then averts his gaze. When Ilya turns his attention back to LeClaire, he tips his chin up, challenging. LeClaire doesn’t bother reprimanding him. 

“Don’t play stupid. It’s not open season on Hollander just ‘cause he doesn’t have Comeau around anymore. I don’t wanna see any of you leaving a man open to get even with Hollander, and that includes you, Rozanov. If you hate him so much you can prove it by winning,” LeClaire commands. 

He has one closing instruction before he goes: “And watch your mouths about the gay stuff. I don’t need a scandal.”

They watch their mouths. The crowd does not. Shane has always been hated in Boston. The gay stuff is just another weapon now. 

He watches Shane’s face as they skate in for the opening faceoff. He looks good, serious but not so hunted. His hair is longer. Ilya is not sure how to behave. Since the last time they met, Shane has changed—Ilya has 60 minutes to figure out how.

Shane just nods silently in acknowledgement. Ilya does the same. 

By the end of the first period, the jeers from the crowd are too loud. A few fans have been escorted out of the arena. It’s too tense and quiet on the ice, with the Bears holding their tongues and the Centaurs watching them like hawks. Shane hasn’t said a word, barely even looks Ilya in the eye. Ilya can’t take it anymore. He skates a big circle around Shane, glancing around at the officials, who are huddled together in deep discussion. 

Shane tenses. He flicks his eyes at Haas, who’s hovering nearby. Ilya rolls his eyes. Yes, yes, Hollander, obviously I will not tease you in front of your rookie about how we used to fuck. I am not stupid. 

“Hollander, I should thank you. You go to this shit team, gift wrap the Cup for me,” Ilya says with a smirk. He expects Shane to tell him coldly to fuck off, or just skate away, the way he did all of last season.

To his surprise, Shane bites instead. “So you admit you can only win if I don’t make the playoffs?” 

His teasing tone strikes Ilya like a spark. The heaviness in the air has turned into propane, and Ilya is aflame. He wants to push back, wants to chase Shane down and check him hard into the boards. He wants to beat him so badly—this is not new, but somewhere in the last few years this desire has gone from fun to imperative. Now, there is a little bit of fun in Shane Hollander’s face. It burns. 

“You admit you will not make the playoffs?” Ilya retorts. Shane huffs, irritated, in a way that means I’m not admitting anything out loud but we both know the answer.

Ilya turns to Haas, who’s been staring at Ilya non-stop. “Hey, rookie,” he calls, “Hollander thinks you are shit.”

The kid stutters, visibly flustered that Ilya is talking to him. He looks helplessly at Shane, who just waits, making it clear that he’s not going to save the kid from his first Rozanov chirp. Ilya thinks of chirping rookies as the last test of the combine—He’s just checking if they have what it takes to play in the league. 

The rookie gulps, then speaks with a wavering voice. “If we are shit, then what will you be when we win?”  

Shane nods approvingly. “Nice. Usually I just tell him to fuck off.” 

“Ja, okay.” Haas turns back to Ilya dutifully, “And fuck off.”

It’s very polite. Ilya almost cracks a smile, but controls himself at the last second. He shakes his head in mock disapproval. “Hollander, first you insult your team, then you teach rookie bad sportsmanship. Good thing you are not captain.” 

Shane takes a moment to consider this chirp, and Ilya suppresses a jolt of fear that he has gone too far, that this brief moment of levity between them is ruined and Ilya will never be able to create it again. But Shane just tells him to shut up, giving his rookie a quick pat on the helmet as he skates off.

When they circle back to each other again for the next faceoff, Shane actually meets Ilya’s eye. The flame licks at Ilya’s fingertips. He is never lighter on his feet than when he shares ice with Shane Hollander. He is flying, he is on fire, he is an ugly mixed metaphor from someone’s bad poetry, a hot air balloon, maybe. 

To beat Shane at his best, who is impossibly well-rounded, the most complete player in the world, Ilya needs to be shifty. Creative. He cannot power his way through Shane, because they are matched in power. The moment he gets free of Shane, Ilya weaves his way through the Centaurs who are no match for him. It’s only a few seconds before Shane appears again.

Ilya extends his stick, protecting the puck with his body and slowing down with a wide stance as he skates down towards the right circle. With the puck on his backhand, he settles into an almost stationary stance. Looking relaxed invites two Centaurs to close in on him. They think it’s an opportunity to turn the puck over. 

He makes a surgical pass to Marly, who goes for the one timer. But then, there is Shane Hollander, darting over and sliding to his knees to put his broad shoulders directly in the puck’s trajectory. He winces as the puck bounces off of him, but flails his stick to knock it out of the zone. Ilya should be annoyed that his perfect setup was wasted, but he is exhilarated. 

He chases after the puck on Shane’s heels. And he sees that Shane is smiling too. He turns slightly to widen his vision of the ice, and for a moment he’s smiling at Ilya. It feels like it has been a lifetime since the last time. 

Everyone else disappears as they speed through the neutral zone, weaving through defenders like they’re pylons. Ilya is a teenager again, meeting his match for the first time in Regina. They play. 

Ilya chases Shane into the corner, and he’s in trouble now—Shane can’t be moved off a puck for anything. Still, he digs at it, they’re throwing elbows, bumping and shoving, a mess of skates and sticks and sweat. Shane knocks the puck to Haas.

“Nice try,” he pants into Ilya’s ear smugly before he peels off the boards. Ilya grins and goes to take off after him—

The horn blows to signal the end of the period. 

Ilya thinks to himself that Shane never got to finish his play. Shane slows to a stop on the ice, just a couple of metres away. He looks over his shoulder. This time, when their eyes meet, Ilya’s stupid fucking balloon is leaking hot air as he stands there against the plexiglass. 

Shane’s smile drops away at the same time Ilya’s does. Ilya wonders if he was thinking of them, too, the two kids who knew they would be alone at the top. Are they still climbing there together? 

The next time they face off, Shane looks studiously down at the milky red paint. Ilya does not chirp him. They play a clean, beautiful game. Shane loses, and he waits with Boodram at the gate, who offers fist bumps to each of his teammates as they file off the ice. Despite the loss, the Centaurs don’t seem glum, laughing and knocking their helmets against Shane’s. Ilya understands. He knows the rush of being worth something to Shane Hollander. 

“Good job, you remember defense exists tonight,” Ilya praises Rookie #1, but his focus is divided. He can just make out the cheerful noise coming from the Centaurs. 

“No way, I’m sleeping in. Ask Shaner and Zaner,” Wyatt Hayes declares. 

“But…gangsters and ghosts!” pleads Luca Haas, “Shane, you will like it! It is a walking tour!”

Shane loses. Ilya wins. 

In a sick twist of fate and Crowell, the Bears get straight onto their plane after the game and fly to Montreal. Ilya checks into his hotel room and goes out the back door for a smoke, because he deserves a real fucking cigarette for winning, none of this Juicy Peach Ice bullshit.  

His lighter is a little stiff with disuse. He glances around, at the sound of creaking metal—he doesn’t need LeClaire getting on his ass about smoking again. As he glances back, he sees a sign on the wall. No Smoking.

He sees these signs dozens of times a day, on every second building, in every city. He has smoked in front of hundreds of them, probably. They are not special. Everyone can see them. Everyone. 

The nicotine doesn’t give him a rush, nor does it relax him. Ilya is gripped by a very familiar impulse. It is not an impulse to do anything in particular, but to do anything at all. To go dance or provoke or run or fight or shout or—

Ilya gets into the next cab. Fuck curfew. It’s October and he’s Ilya fucking Rozanov. He gives the driver an address in La Plateau-Mont-Royal. 

Three years ago, there was a kitchen shop and two empty floors in Shane’s ‘investment’ property. Now, it is an audio equipment store, with speakers and machines with many knobs and dials. They probably blast music at all hours of the day. Ilya clenches his jaw and backs away from the storefront. He squints up at the loft.

Shane always kept the curtains closed before. Now, Ilya can see a little bit inside. He can see a new lamp that is too rustic for Shane. He can see a guitar leaning against the window. He tries to imagine who could be living there. Could they feel the hush in the air when they carried in their boxes? Did Shane leave the couch? The bed? All these places they fucked until their skin cooled, now just the last landlord’s furniture. 

There is a little sprig of dried flowers hanging from the back door now. Ilya does not know the meaning of them. He presses his palm to the cool door, one barrier away from the bottom of the stairwell where he said goodbye to the only man he has ever loved.

Fuck. 

Ilya snatches his hand away from the door and turns on his heel. He marches blindly down the street, with no idea where he is going, only that he needs to walk away. Even that thought fills him with bitterness. Always walking away, Ilya. 

He never expected Shane to keep his sex condo, but he never considered someone else living there. There are touches of a resident who does not mind being seen, who lives here and puts flowers on the door. Maybe they have friends over. Maybe lovers. Family. He wants to know who has set foot inside, if they can be trusted. He wants to buy it himself. 

Ilya is disgusted with himself. He smokes another cigarette and hails another taxi. He tries to put Shane’s fucking ‘investment’ property out of his mind. It is impossible to separate it from all of Montreal, even though Shane bought it for just that purpose. 

So Ilya lets it fester. Tomorrow night, he will step onto the ice and he will wonder if Shane sold his building to one of his former teammates. 

Svetlana barges inside when Ilya gets home, and it is not a sexy surprise. She grabs him by the head and examines his face, makes him pull up his sleeve to show her his bruised shoulder. She traces a gentle fingertip around the purple splotch on his cheekbone, pulls at his split lip. 

“What's wrong, Ilya?” Sveta asks, “Why are you suddenly fighting? The Atlantic is still a bloodbath, even with Hollander in Ottawa. You know you cannot win the Cup if you get yourself ejected from every game.”  

What does it matter? Even though Ilya was reckless and unstrategic, the Bears still won. Ilya has no broken bones. 

“I will not be ejected from the game on Saturday,” Ilya drawls, because it’s true. He can’t be ejected, because he is not playing. Sveta's tenderness hardens, unimpressed by his attempts to deflect. 

“Yes, how could I forget? Two game suspension. I know you are smarter than this. What is it about Montreal that makes you—” Sveta freezes. “Jane.”

“Don’t, Sveta,” Ilya warns. He pushes her hands away and stalks into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. He does not want to talk about Jane. He pours her a glass, too. A brief truce: they sip at their vodka. It doesn’t last long enough for Ilya to drain his cup. 

“Ilya, what did Jane do to you?” Sveta asks. 

“Nothing,” Ilya says. Sveta waits. Fuck. Ilya knows he can’t put this off forever. He has already avoided Sveta’s questions for three years. He wants to tell her, but he doesn’t know how. He is afraid that if he opens his mouth he will not recognise what comes out. 

“Nothing,” he insists, “It was me. He wanted me to go home with him for the summer. I said no. We fought. No more Jane.”

Sveta purses her lips, tilts her head expectantly. “That cannot be all. Is he taunting you? Blackmailing you? Ilya Grigoryevich, do not just stand there and stare at me.” 

Is he taunting Ilya? He is the only one who can. Everywhere Ilya looks, there is Shane Hollander. And yet he feels further away than he ever has. The same ugly emotion is simmering inside of Ilya, the one that boiled over in Montreal yesterday. 

Ilya snaps: “He sold the place he bought for us!”

Svetlana stares at him like he’s crazy. He probably sounds crazy. “It has been years. Maybe he just moved.”

“Yes, he moved, but—It feels like…it is not our secret anymore, it is only mine. You would understand if you knew him. ”

It will not mean anything to Sveta, but still Ilya feels he has said too much. Everything he says is giving what was theirs away a little bit more. He presses his lips together firmly. He cannot say any more. Seeing the change that comes over him, Sveta sits on the couch and crosses her arms. She was more sympathetic about these moods three years ago. 

“Oh no, of course, I could never understand your special Jane. Maybe I could if you told me anything at all about him. But probably not, because you have always had such complicated tastes,” she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. Ilya cuts her a hard look.

“You know I cannot tell you about him,” he says.

“I know that since you became so obsessed with Jane you refuse to trust me. I am not asking you to tell me his name Ilya, I just want to know what happened to make you like this,” Sveta sneers. 

“What is ‘like this’?” Ilya demands.

“You cannot even admit it!” Sveta throws her hands in the air. She turns from him and turns on the television, fixing her attention to whatever game is on and thoroughly ignoring Ilya.

He storms off to the bathroom to look his own furious jealousy in the eye until his reflection backs down, and now it is only Ilya. 

Ilya secured safety for himself. If he looks too long, he will begin to wonder about Shane. Is he safe now? Would he have been safer in Ilya’s hands? Or would it all end the same way, no matter what they chose? The edges of Ilya’s consciousness prod at other questions, ones that scare him. He looks away. Drains his glass. Goes and sits next to Sveta on the couch.

She is watching the fucking Centaurs. He watches the game with her for a few minutes—penance. 

“He looks happy. Jane,” Ilya admits quietly, a peace offering. 

His old friend sighs and strokes a hand tenderly over his arm. “You left him and he moved on. Maybe it is time for you to do the same.”

Ilya could laugh. Does she think he has not tried? Every time Ilya thinks he has moved on, Shane Hollander surprises him. Shouts at him in front of the whole world, comes out to his team, has a fucking sex scandal. And now this. Ottawa. He’s not sure why this surprise has seeped into the cracks of his life so deeply. It has nothing at all to do with Ilya. 

Chapter End Notes

OKAYYY how are we feeling, less miserable than the last Ilya interlude ? Ha Ha : D My god this chapter was a struggle, Ilya POV is FUCKING HARD, triple kudos to all of you who write him regularly!!

If you are someone who spotted a typo/mistake and let me know in the comments, THANK YOU!! And to those of you who comment on every single chapter, I adore you and I hope you are granted 3 wishes and get everything your heart desires without the genie fucking you over

Click for notes!

- Ilya’s hungover rookies were inspired by an episode of Hockey with an Accent, where the former NHLers explain that playing games near the end of a long playoff run feels the same as playing hungover. They proceeded to tell stories of terrible games they played hungover in their careers, and I thought to myself, Ilya was such a prodigy AND a prodigious drinker that he’s probably really good at playing hungover. While he’s joking about getting the rookies used to skating hungover in preparation for the playoffs, I think he thinks it genuinely worked for him.

- Vegas Flu is a half-silly half-serious theory that visiting teams play badly/lose in Vegas because players can’t resist indulging in casinos and strip clubs. The idea is that living it up on the Strip results in visitors playing hungover or unable to play at all, citing mysterious flu symptoms that disappear as soon as they leave Vegas. Vegas Flu is also good cope when the Vegas Golden Knights win at home and you hate them too much to admit they’re good.

- On the Rocket Richard: this is the award given to the highest goal scorer in the regular season. RR doesn’t mention Ilya and Shane sharing the award in their rookie season in HR, but canonically they both scored 67 goals. Now 67 goals is a bonkers number for two players in the same draft class to achieve in their careers, let alone in the same season, let alone as rookies. The only player IRL to beat that number since 2000 is Auston Matthews with 69 (nice). Even Ovechkin himself, one of the greatest goal scorers of all time and the inspiration for Ilya, has a personal record of only 65 goals in a season. I can only assume that in GCU, the 2010s are meant to be a 90s-esque high-scoring era, because if they did NOT win it, that would mean at least THREE players had 60+ goal seasons in 2010-11. The implications of a high-scoring 2010s era is too sophisticated for my level of puck knowledge, so I am going to stick closer to the hockey I know for the sake consistency with how I write it. All this to say: I am awarding them the Rocket Richard, please note that this is not canon.

- The Hollow Is Real! The depth of the hollow is called "radius of hollow" (RoH) and skaters vary in their skate sharpening preferences, but since Ilya is a big, powerful guy he would realistically prefer a pretty standard RoH (somewhere in the range of 1/2"-5/8"-3/4"). So consider my 'deep hollow' thing poetic license rather than realism. Though for a real point of reference, in an interview with the Penguins equipment manager Dana Heinze in 2013, he mentions that Sid used to prefer an unusually deep hollow until the lockout (maybe 3/8" or 7/16"), when he switched to a shallower/more normal hollow for an NHLer (1/2" as of the interview). If these numbers mean nothing to you, don't worry, you don't really need to know. I'm just infodumping because it took me so fucking long to understand what the fuck a RoH of 7/16ths of an inch was. Imperial I Hate You.