Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Original Male Character(s), Coach LeClaire (Game Changers), Connors (Heated Rivalry), Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Player Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov Stays in Boston, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Dumb Hockey Boys, Social Media, This author knows way too much about hockey, the notes are full of research and fun facts, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ilya Adopts A Rookie, Humor

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of If it wasn't for that meddling kid

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-30 Updated: 2026-08-17 Words: 38,883 Chapters: 3/4

Best of Seven

Summary

“I’ve been looking at Twitter,” Ilya said, one hand on the wheel and the other playing with the hair at the nape of Shane’s neck. It wasn’t doing much to calm the stiffness in his shoulders. “Is not so bad, most people are more mad at your GM than you. It helps that everything is so mysterious.”

“Really?” Pava asked, his head appearing from the backseat. “I see people very mad at him.”

“Not helping, Pava.”

* * *

Shane Hollander moves to Boston and tries to find his place on a new team. In some ways, it's more difficult than he expected.

Chapter 1: Part One

Chapter Notes

This is associated with my other fic, “If it wasn’t for that meddling kid.” This probably won’t make sense if you haven’t read that one.

Heads up, there’s been some small edits in the main fic, nothing crazy, mostly for accuracy and continuity. I can be a bit of a perfectionist. The point is, if you ever go back and read something and are like, hey? I thought this was different? That’s very possible. My bad, gang.

Thank you for the love! I’ve been reading all your comments and seeing posts on reddit (my reddit username is different so you’ll never know it’s me 😈) and taking note of all your suggestions and everything you hope to see next. I’ve got another part to this, as well as at least two more oneshots planned for sure. Though, I must warn y’all I’m going on a cross Canada road trip soon and I won’t have tons of time to write, so if you’re wondering where I am the answer is probably on a highway somewhere.

RIP Habs, I’m still proud of you guys, you played an insane amount of games. I love you Dobeš. Though I will say that if Vegas wins the cup I will commit literal arson. Between the Panthers, the Knights, Men's USA Hockey, and the Frost, we've really been getting punched in the face these past few years. Bless the Victoire.

First time using in-fic embedded images, kinda nervous.

This one is a bit more Shane-centric than the primary fic, covering his initial move to Boston. But I know you guys want more Pava, I have a few more things in store for him in the future.

Yap at me on Tumblr.

Edit: you'll notice that in the first image here that I've used the logo of the Bruins and the Metros. The reason for this is that I can't do graphic design, and I created my own problems by sticking to the book names. I think the Bruins logo works for the Bears, but the Metros logo doesn't make tons of sense here, just ignore that. Though I will say, the longer that I look at it, lowkey the logo almost forms the shape of a V and an H, which would make perfect sense in the context of this fic. Fun fact, the reason that the name "Habs" was popularized for the Canadiens was because there was a rumour that the H in the Canadiens logo stood for Habitants. This is not true, it stands for "hockey" as in hockey club. Therefore, in this fic, it would make the most sense that the Voyageurs logo would be a combination of a V and an H. Let's pretend that's what it is.

Edit 2: You may have noticed something special about this chapter...all the social media is coded!!! Make sure you have "creator`s style turned on" to make sure you can see the coding properly. All credit goes to Chani on Tumblr who reached out and asked if they could write the script. Absolutely phenomenal amazing work, never in a million years could I have done it myself. Thank you a thousand times over!!! I know the next update is taking a while (I`m still on vacation, I am using a library computer in Quebec City to type this) but hopefully the next part will be out before the end of the month. Enjoy!!!!!

Shane knew there was no going back.

As soon as he talked to his agent, it was over. Even if his team didn’t trade him this year, it would be inevitable as soon as he made his intentions clear. His team would be stupid not to trade him when they knew they’d be losing him at the end of next year.

He knew when he made his decision what the consequences would be. Betrayal from his team and his city. A media whirlwind. Overwhelming shock and confusion from across the league. He could’ve been traded somewhere else completely, the Western conference even.

But he wasn’t, he was in Boston. And even though there was little else he could do to avoid the rest of the scandal of it all, he at least had that going for him. He wasn’t going through it on his own. He was amongst friends.

Well, sort of.

Shane was at the Bears’ practice facility the day after he was traded, management making it clear they wanted him on the ice for Thursday in their game against Ottawa. This meant that Wednesday morning Shane was up bright and early and straight over to Brighton, packed into Ilya’s least annoying car as he drove them over, Pava tucked into the very cramped backseat.

“I’ve been looking at Twitter,” Ilya said, one hand on the wheel and the other playing with the hair at the nape of Shane’s neck. It wasn’t doing much to calm the stiffness in his shoulders. “Is not so bad, most people are more mad at your GM than you. It helps that everything is so mysterious.”

“Really?” Pava asked, his head appearing from the backseat. “I see people very mad at him.”

“Not helping, Pava.”

Shane shook his head. There was no point in trying to shelter him from it, Shane knew what it would cost. If anything, he was a bit surprised at the lack of backlash towards him. He hadn’t thought too hard about it, but the very thing that pushed him out was also the thing that kept him hidden. The Voyageurs would never risk accusations of discrimination by divulging their reason for the trade, which meant they couldn’t really say much of anything, other than a bland and unrevealing statement about a “mutual parting of ways.” Shane wouldn’t complain about that, following up with his own equally dull statement cementing his appreciation for the Voyageurs and his time with the organization.

That wasn’t to say no one blamed him. There were plenty of loud voices that hated him, but perhaps an equal amount of voices that were sure that this was the fault of Montreal. In a way, they were both right.

They were early enough to the facility that they didn’t run into any of his new teammates as they entered, though the curious looks from the staff that were milling about were inescapable. Shane and Ilya walked side by side through the halls, Shane still hauling his gear in a Montreal Voyageurs branded duffel.

“This is so weird,” Shane said. “Being here as…not a visitor.”

“You can say it,” Ilya said. Shane could tell his boyfriend was trying to remain indifferent for his sake, but there was simply no hiding the giddiness from his expression. “You are a Bear now, yes?”

Yes, he was. Shane was a Bear now. And he would have to get used to it.

If Ilya had it his way, he would have followed Shane around the rest of his day. For his physical, his gear fitting, his meeting with coach, discussions about visas. Ilya wasn’t actually totally sure of everything Shane would need to do. He’d never been traded before.

Unfortunately, Shane had identified the way Ilya was trying to latch onto him like a barnacle, and had immediately kicked him and Pava to the curb the moment he reached the trainer’s room.

Fine, whatever, Ilya could be cool, he could be independent.

“Rozanov? Let me grab you for a sec.”

Ilya raised an eyebrow as he was halted on his way down the hall by LeClaire, poking his head through the doorway of his office. Ilya nodded, then quickly turned to signal Pava to continue on while he entered the room.

LeClaire was looming over his desk, flipping through some papers.

“So, Hollander.” He said, and Ilya really couldn’t read his tone.

“Yes.” Ilya said.

“The thing is,” LeClaire sighed, thumping himself down in his swivel chair. “I had planned to sit you down and ask if I’d have to worry about the two of you, but Jen just told me you’re living together? Is that real?”

Ilya shrugged. “We’re friends, Hollander did not want to stay in a hotel.”

LeClaire nodded. “Okay, well, just so we’re on the same page, you aren’t gonna try to poison his coffee, are you?”

Ilya shook his head. “He does not drink coffee. If anything, I would poison his ginger ale.”

“Please just say no.”

“No, coach.”

“Okay,” LeClaire replied, looking satisfied. He sat up a bit. “But seriously, I need you to play nice with Hollander. I don’t want this to turn into some dick-measuring competition. You’re my captain, you’re staying first line, but I’m hoping for equal ice time for Hollander. We have the two best centers in the league and we’re not gonna shit the bed here.”

Ilya nodded. “So when you say two best centers, it is me and then Hollander?”

“Rozanov. Shut the fuck up.”

“It will be good, coach, Hollander and I have played well together before. We will figure it out, yes? We both like to win.”

LeClaire looked skeptical, but nodded. “Okay, make me proud, kid. I like this job, I’d like to keep it.”

Ilya sent him a cheesy thumbs-up before retreating back into the hallway. All in all, that went pretty well. Ilya had sort of expected a talk like that from LeClaire, just to check in. LeClaire had been around a long time, he was the only coach that Ilya had ever had in Boston, which was a rarity for most guys that had been playing as long as he had. They had a good relationship, he trusted Ilya. If Ilya could show him that he and Shane were good together, they’d be golden.

When Ilya returned to the hallway, Pava was standing there.

“Why did you wait?” Ilya asked.

Pava shrugged. “Why not? Was not long.”

When Ilya and Pava finally entered the dressing room, all eyes turned their way. Before they walked in, they had been trained on the sparkling new HOLLANDER nameplate installed in one of the center lockers, empty asides from the crisp black jersey hung up below it.

Delly was the first to speak. “Is he here?” He asked, as if he was questioning if Elvis had entered the building.

Ilya rolled his eyes as he tossed his bag into his own locker. He frowned a bit when he noticed that Shane wouldn’t be located in any of the lockers near him. “Yes, he is here, untwist your panties. He’s getting his physical.”

“Do you have his number?” St-Simon asked. “We should add him to the group chat, huh?”

“Should we change the name?” Delly asked. “Only…it seems weird to add the Shane Hollander to a group chat named ‘Puck Strong Women Get Money.’”

Well, the name was better than it was. It used to be called “Puck Bitches Get Money” until Ilya put on a podcast about second wave feminism and Marly made them change it out of fear that Noor would actually kill him if she ever saw the name.

“Why are you talking about him like he is the spirit of myth?” Ilya asked. “I am better and more legendary than Shane Hollander and yet I am still forced to hear you talk about your weird rash all day long.”

“That’s different. You’re you.”

“I will add him,” Ilya said, pulling out his phone. “Don’t be weird, he is just another incredibly boring hockey player, nothing you haven’t seen before.”

As Ilya opened up his contacts, his thumb paused as it hovered over the name.

Jane

He tapped on the name, then backspaced four times.

Shane

He added him to the group chat.

“Okay,” Ilya announced. “Don’t sell his number on eBay, please. I do not care, personally, but Hollander will give me a boring lecture about internet safety if it is my fault.”

Ilya began to tug off his hoodie to tuck into the locker, his practice jersey hung up before him. He knew it was irrational, but he had this feeling in the back of his head like Shane was never going to actually walk through that door. That this whole thing was an elaborate prank to screw with his heart.

Cloutier, who had just entered the dressing room, wasted no time at all getting straight to the meat of the gossip. “You know why he was traded, Roz? Didn’t he have an NMC?”

Ilya scratched at his temple. That was a great question. Did Ilya know the reason Shane had been traded? They hadn’t really discussed if it was something he was supposed to be aware of. Sure, they were known friends, but if Shane and Montreal were planning on keeping this locked down tight, would it be more suspicious if Ilya was one of the only people to know than if he didn’t know anything?

Fuck. They should have discussed this beforehand.

He shrugged. “I did not know he was being traded,” Ilya said. That was true, at least in that moment. “I do know that Montreal is stupid for giving him up, especially to us.” That was very true.

“This is gonna be so weird,” Connors interjected. “Played against the guy my whole career and now he’s on the same team? Might even be on my line.”

Marly gave him a look. “You’re acting like no one’s ever been traded here before.”

“Ah, fuuuuck,” Connors moaned, his head tipped back. “Carmy’s gonna leave the group chat, isn’t he? And Brownie and Janny.”

Ilya frowned. He’d be lying if he said he cared all that much about the guys they were losing. Obviously, it was sad, he’d played with Carmichael for a long time, and he liked the other two well enough. But in the grand scheme of things, if losing a few guys was what it took to get Shane here? He’d take it any day. They could’ve traded literally anyone and he wouldn’t have minded.

Well, maybe not everyone.

He did know it was a concern of Shane’s, though. He knew he’d be walking into an unfamiliar room. New guys with new rituals, new play styles, new coaching methods. And on top of that, he’d have to face it all while knowing his presence meant a fractured team.

Ilya knew his teammates were good people, while they were upset at the loss, they wouldn’t blame Shane. How could they? Who would ever be mad about getting Hollander on their team? But Ilya also knew that it would take a lot more than a few reassurances to properly convince Shane of that.

“Okay,” Ilya said, tugging on his helmet. “I’m sure you will have plenty of time to gawk at Hollander on the ice. Let’s go, now you have no excuse if we play like shit.”

Shane took to the ice thirty minutes after the rest of the team.

They were largely split into groups at that point, working on individual skills. Ilya was working with Pava on his onetimers. They all knew the primary point of this practice would be to get Shane up to speed with their powerplay structures and defensive strategies, and at least get him somewhat used to playing with his new linemates for tomorrow’s game. As far as Ilya knew, Shane would be taking over the second line, he’d fit in well with Newf and Connors.

Heads turned on swivels as Shane skated by, straight towards Ilya.

Ilya blinked, absolutely stunned at the sight of Shane in black and gold. He shifted his hips a bit in an attempt to adjust himself. Holy fuck. He’d never considered that he might need to train himself not to get a hard-on every time he played with Shane. He could already imagine all the ways he’d be reopening the hole in his wall later this evening. He’d have to tell Pava to charge his headphones.

Shane skated up with a grimace.

“You are moving like cowboy,” Pava remarked.

“Yeah,” Shane admitted. “These pants are tight as hell. I haven’t had to break in a pair in like, years. My gloves too.” He reached up to adjust his helmet. “I usually get a custom bucket, but that won’t come in for at least a week.”

Ilya dragged his eyes up and down Shane’s form. Hockey pants weren’t exactly known for being the most flattering, but that was besides the point. Shane could wear a paper bag and still get Ilya going. In fact, he’d love to see him in just a paper bag.

“What are you staring at?” Shane asked, but he had a spark behind his eye.

“You should be careful, Shane Hollander,” Pava said ominously. “Team is looking at you like supper.”

Ilya watched as Shane turned to look over his shoulder. Lo and behold, the rest of the team seemed to slowly begin gravitating towards the man. Most of them snapped their gazes away unconvincingly once they noticed Shane’s attention.

Ilya rolled his eyes, something he guessed he was going to be doing a lot over the next few weeks. “Okay, everyone, take a knee,” he called out, gesturing his team over. The way they fumbled across the ice at his urging reminded him a bit of his kiddos at camp.

Shane furrowed his brow as he watched the assembly, and nearly two dozen grown men (Pava included) kneeled before them. He turned to Ilya and raised a brow.

“Okay,” Ilya started up again, standing over the crowd like Christ the Redeemer. “Everyone listen up, I am only going to say this once. Everyone, this is Shane Hollander. Say ‘hi, Shane Hollander.’”

Shane gave Ilya a look of disbelief. “Okay, we don’t need to—”

“Hi Shane Hollander,” the team chimed back at him.

“I know what you are all thinking. ‘Wow, he is so famous, wow, he is so good at hockey, wow, he is so handsome.’ It is true, I am. Also, Shane Hollander is here.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Ah! You bully me? Your captain? Wow, day one and I am already being shown such disrespect from my…eh, what is the word?”

“Teammate?” Marly chimed in.

“No, idiot, I know the word ‘teammate.’”

“Inferior?” Doherty said.

“Eh, closer.”

“Subordinate?” Pava asked.

Ilya snapped his fingers. “That is it. How do you know ‘subordinate?’”

Pava shrugged.

“Ah, it’s okay, I like it when you are mysterious, Pava. Anyway, the point is, please do not be weird around this man,” he said, gesturing to Shane again. “It will go to his head. Most of you have played him a million times now, yes? Do not embarrass me by making him think we suck.”

“G’wan b’y,” Newf chimed in. “Takes no genius to see this team’s got the arse out of ‘er, God love ya cotton socks. The b’y’s our best chance to get ‘er scald.”

St-Simon turned to Newf with an incredulous look. “I swear to god you have to be making this shit up. I’ve played with you for six years and you keep pulling out new shit I’ve never heard.”

“He is saying the team is bad, but Shane Hollander is help,” Pava interjected.

“Have you secretly downloaded Newfoundland Duolingo and not told me?” Ilya asked.

“I do not know what this is,” Pava replied.

“Watch it, me duckie. It’s Newfoundland and Labrador,” Newf chimed in. “They always forget Labrador.”

“Can we practice now?” Shane asked, nearly begging.

“Yes, yes, but before this, I must tell you something important,” Ilya said, turning to Shane with a serious look.

Shane’s brow furrowed in concern and curiosity, as if wondering what he could have to say in front of everyone.

Ilya paused for dramatic effect before taking off down the ice, calling over his shoulder.

“Last one to the bench is a sausage!”

“Should I stay in a hotel?” Shane asked.

The way Ilya whipped his head around to look at him, you’d think Shane had just slapped him.

“What? Why? I thought you like my house? I bought thirty pounds of salmon for you, is in the freezer.”

“Yeah, you really didn’t need to do that, you’re seriously running out of room.”

Ilya nudged his foot against Shane’s from where he was stretched out on the opposite side of the couch. “You want to leave?”

Shane shook his head, tucking his phone under his leg. “No, not at all, I’d stay here forever if I could.” Well, maybe not forever, Shane had an appreciation for some aspects of the architecture of this place, but it was a little too Barcelona Pavilion, where Shane was more of a Fallingwater kind of guy. “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to hide you, or…pretend I’m straight, or anything. I meant that, and I wanna be more open with you. But…living with you like this? Right off the bat? Isn’t it a little…obvious? I’m still new to these guys, it’s gonna take a while for them to get used to me, and I don’t wanna screw that up.”

Ilya tipped his head a bit. “You are right, if we weren’t hockey players, it would be very weird. But…” he gestured useless around the room. “This happens all the time, after trades, yes? The guys I know who are traded at the deadline hate being in the hotels, they would stay with a friend when they have the option. And also, with Pava here…is not weird at all. Like Full House, yes?”

“Huh?”

“Is nothing,” Ilya brushed off. “But also…if you want to get to know the team separate from me…I understand this too.”

That was another fear that Shane had, that he hadn’t really expressed to Ilya. This was Ilya’s team, the team he’d been drafted to, the team he’d won a cup with. He was the hero of Boston. Shane would be intruding on all that, his new teammates were Ilya’s teammates first. His friends. He was afraid that if he tied himself to Ilya, they might never get to actually know him as his own person.

“No,” Shane said. “No, you’re right, I’m being stupid. But…maybe I’ll keep all my stuff to one of the spare rooms? Make it look lived in, in case anyone visits?”

Ilya frowned, but nodded along. “Right, but you will not actually stay there, yes?”

He was trying to look nonchalant, but Shane could see that he was worried about what the answer might be. Like he was scared Shane was using this as a backwards way of expressing his regret.

“No, ‘course not,” Shane said. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

Yeah, so…Ilya had kind of forgotten that this was technically his fault. Honestly, he’d just gotten so used to the whole thing, he forgot it was inherently strange. Even LeClaire stopped complaining about it all.

“At the turn of the 19th century, the range of bison covered a significant part of North America. By 1870, the population had been reduced to two great herds. By 1889, American bison numbered in the hundreds, down from tens of millions at the beginning of the century.”

From across the room, Ilya saw Shane’s head cock to the side in confusion. It was only two days following Shane’s trade from Montreal, a home game against Ottawa. Ilya was glad it was Ottawa, not only did they suck, but their team wasn’t full of assholes. They probably wouldn’t have anything too awful to say about the whole situation.

“The buffalo were central to indigenous culture in the plains, which is why the US government wanted them wiped out completely. White settlers in North America adhered to a cultural belief known as ‘manifest destiny…’”

Shane turned his head from side to side, as if wondering if anyone else was going to comment at the cool voice that echoed through the room. When no one seemed to react, he gathered the courage to speak.

“So…” Shane started. “What are we listening to, exactly?”

Ilya winced. He was hoping that Shane might just quietly accept it without question.

“Oh, it’s a podcast,” St-Simon explained from the right of Shane. “It’s like a talk show, but usually educational.”

Shane blinked. “Yeah, I got that. I more meant…why are we listening to a podcast?”

In Vic’s defense, Ilya might’ve also assumed Shane didn’t know what a podcast was. After all, this was the same guy that didn’t even listen to music when he exercised, he just bathed in the sound of his own breathing, staring into space like a psychopath.

“What, you don’t like learning?” Marly asked, a bit defensively.

Shane only blinked in response.

“I picked it!” Delly said proudly, puffing out his chest a bit. “Roz suggested it.”

Well, shit, now Shane’s eyes were definitely on him.

“Ah, yes,” Ilya agreed. “I was telling him it’s weird he only reads books about World War Two. Needs to expand his horizons.”

“Yeah, but,” Delly continued. “He came up with the idea for the whole podcast thing in the first place. Sharpens our minds and stuff.”

Shane narrowed his eyes as his gaze turned to Ilya. “Oh?”

“I’m telling you, Holly, it’s like a secret weapon,” Connors said, appearing from the hall. “I’ve banged three chicks alone just because I could hold a conversation about Roe v. Wade at a bar.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Shane replied.

“And you wonder why you can’t keep a girlfriend,” St-Simon fired back to Connors.

“I keep saying it’s weird,” Cloutier chimed in. “The locker room shouldn’t sound like fuckin’ NPR.”

“Shut up, Cloud,” Marly chirped. “All you do is play Brad Paisley on a loop.”

“My wife likes it! You seriously telling me you prefer a three hour rant about how train tracks are built over some country music?”

“Hey,” Doherty interjected. “You guys said you like my train podcast.” He turned to Shane. “It’s called ‘Loco for Locomotives.’”

“It’s not about the trains, Cloud,” Marly insisted. “It’s about hearing your brother out. Self expression. It makes us a better team!”

“Yes, yes,” Ilya insisted. “I feel much closer to you all after listening to Spotify people talking about a boat exploding in Halifax Harbour. Why don’t we move on, yes?”

The conversation did move on, but Ilya noted the crease between Shane’s eyebrows never totally went away. That wouldn’t do.

Ilya sauntered across the room to Shane, who was finally pulling on his jersey as they prepared to go on for warmups.

“How are you feeling?” Ilya asked.

“Okay,” Shane shrugged. “I didn’t know you even listened to podcasts.”

Ilya brushed it off. “Ah, you are the one who is so impressed with my vocabulary, yes? I get it somewhere. And you know how it is,” Ilya rolled his eyes playfully. “Everyone on this team is so obsessed with me, they all want to be like me. They see I play podcasts, they must play podcasts, is so annoying.”

“It’s definitely…strange,” Shane admitted. “But, actually,” he tipped his head to the side in a way that Ilya knew all too well, “I could see how it might improve your mindset before the game. Kind of like a meditation, get everyone focused, also introduces opportunities for discussion so that teammates can get to know each other better, which improves communication on and off the ice. Do you think there are any studies on this?”

Ilya grinned. Shane was such a nerd. He loved him.

“Well, I was asking how you felt about the game, but it seems that you are feeling very focused now?” He gestured with his head to the center of the room and the speaker that was still dispelling the woe of the bison.

Shane nodded seriously. “I won’t lie, it’s fucking weird,” he looked down at his own black and gold clad frame, “but I’m not, like, worried? I guess? I don’t know. I know we’ve only had one real practice, but I feel okay, I trust everyone, you know? Maybe ask me again if we play Montreal.”

The Bears had no more regular season games scheduled against the Voyageurs this year, and Ilya didn’t know if that was a good thing. With the way things were shaping up, it was very possible that Boston would be facing Montreal in the playoffs this year.

The truth was, aside from the idiotic loss of Shane Hollander, the trade hadn’t actually been that bad a deal for Montreal. The guys they got were solid, and more importantly, they were good defensively, which was exactly what Montreal had been needing. Of course, they’d have to wait and see if Montreal actually utilized their assets, but…they had a serious opportunity to do some damage in the post-season.

Ilya had thought Shane might be bluffing when he said he wasn’t nervous, but he kept his eyes trained on him as they stood in the tunnel and the starting lineup was announced. His shoulders looked relaxed, he tapped the heel of his stick against the rubber rhythmically, any typical signs of stress that Shane usually put out were absent.

The team skated out one by one. Ilya took up the back as captain, Newf and Marly just in front of him as his alternates. Shane was just ahead of them, sandwiched between his linemates.

Cheers followed each player as they took to the ice, but the resounding boom that echoed through that arena as Shane emerged from the tunnel was deafening. Shane of course, didn’t bask. He didn’t do any extra loops around the ice, he didn’t even look up to the crowd. He kept his head down and took his spot at the bench as the praise rained down on him.

The game was not easily won.

Shane was still getting used to playing with new guys, it would take time before he could learn their tells and know where he was needed. For that, their defense was a bit weak to start, one of the two goals they gave up that game having occurred while his line was on the ice.

But, LeClaire seemed to have anticipated this, consistently matching Shane’s line with their strongest defensemen, St-Simon and Cloutier. Shane registered his first point as a Bear that night, assisting Connors on the game-winning goal.

Ilya grinned like an idiot as Shane joined him on the bench.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” Shane said, but there was no heat behind it. “I didn’t even score.”

“Next game,” Ilya declared.

Shane couldn’t help but feel like he was doing everything wrong.

Shane had thought the hardest thing about being traded would be learning a new coaching style. He'd only ever been coached by Theriaux while in the NHL, and he'd heard from guys who had been traded often that one of the hardest things to learn was all the wants from coaches that usually went unsaid. That part hadn't actually been too difficult for Shane. LeClaire went about things differently, sure, but he was very direct about what he wanted. Shane wasn't left to guess what he meant, as he often had to do in Montreal.

The far more difficult task at hand had been figuring out the locker room. He had been playing in Montreal for nearly a decade, and at that point he was practically fluent in the language of the locker room. In Boston, that wasn’t the case. He felt like he’d been thrown into a crash course for a new board game, except the rulebook kept changing, and there were a million pieces mixed in from other random games.

“Here,” Shane said, grabbing hold of Cloutier’s stick, which had clattered to the ground from where it was propped against his locker. He handed it back to him, caught off guard when a collective groan echoed throughout the room. Shane looked around dumbly.

“I have to retape it now, dude,” Cloutier huffed, already reaching for a new roll.

“He won’t let anyone touch his stick after it’s taped, otherwise he has to re-tape it,” Connors explained. “I know it’s a lot, you’ll get it eventually.”

Shane nodded, not so much feeling bad for Cloutier, but feeling embarrassed that he seemed to keep screwing up everyone’s superstitions. He was trying so hard, but some of these really were out of nowhere.

He thought he knew all the obvious ones. The first time he walked into the locker room before the game, he diligently avoided stepping over the logo in the middle of the room. Apparently, that wasn’t right, if he was entering before a game, he had to do a full loop before he was allowed to sit down. Marly had nearly toppled him with a tackle trying to keep him from sitting down before he could do his loop, apparently that would be bad luck.

Okay, that’s fine, he could remember that. He could remember that before the third period Newf needed to hide in the closet and listen to the entirety of Heave Away all the way through, or that Doherty liked to call his wife before each game and got upset if anyone interrupted him, or that St-Simon needed to be the second last guy off the ice during warmups, or that if Connors started crying during the national anthem, he wasn’t allowed to comment on it, or that Schneider had his own water bottle at the bench that no one else was allowed to use.

He was getting the hang of it. Until the first away game, and it seemed like it was back to square one.

“No dude, wait,” St-Simon said, just as Shane started making his way through the cabin of the charter jet. “You have to dap up Jen before you get on, it’s bad luck if you don’t.”

Shane blinked, and turned to Jen, who was sitting in the frontmost aisle seat. She was the Director of Operations, in charge of all their flights and hotel bookings, or whatever logistics came up. Shane had never really talked to her before.

That was another thing Shane noted since joining the Bears. They had a lot of women on staff, much more than the Voyageurs, or most NHL teams in general, ever had.

Shane did as he was told and dapped Jen up. Every time he was told another convoluted tradition, he was sure it had to be some sort of hazing, but Ilya insisted it was all real, and not to be disrespected.

“Am I gonna get yelled at if I sit in a certain spot?” Shane asked, turning to Ilya just behind him.

“No, no,” Ilya insisted. “The big decision is if you join the MarioKart crew or the poker crew.”

“What if I don’t wanna play either?”

Ilya shrugged. “I think Delly keeps trying to convince someone to play Heads Up with him? You could humour the kid.”

Shane did not know what Heads Up was, but he quickly found out.

“Pass. Uh…Pass. Pass. Pass? Is that the guy from…no, pass.”

Delly’s expression grew more and more concerned each time he tipped the phone backwards.

“Are you serious, Hollander? You don’t know fucking Emma Stone?” Ilya asked incredulously. “La La Land?”

“Oh,” Shane said. “The red-head? I mean, I watched it on a plane but I don’t know her name. Pass, pass, pass.”

Delly shook his head. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“Dude, you don’t know Julia Child? The cook?” Marly said.

“Huh?” Honestly some of these names were so obscure, Shane was sure these guys were pretending they knew who they were. Who the fuck was Oscar Wilde?

“Jesus, Hollander,” Ilya said, slumping down in his seat. “His head is so full of hockey he has no room for anything else.”

“Isn’t it weird that you’re the only one that still calls him Hollander when you’re the ones that were already friends?” Wolkowski chimed in from where he was dominating the poker table.

“Shut up,” Ilya replied, without any real bite.

Shane liked the Bears, he really did. He had spent so much time with the Voyageurs, he sort of just assumed every room was like that. The Bears, while they acted like stereotypical jocks, were just nicer. They chirped Shane, but never with any malice, and they seemed to be trying to get to know him for real. He’d only been in Boston for a week, and yet he felt like he knew them better than he had most of his Montreal teammates.

“What’s Stonewall?” Shane asked as he lounged against the stack of pillows. “Marly keeps sending me podcast links.”

Ilya leant to look over Shane’s shoulder. “Ah, we listened to that one a few weeks ago. Is just American history thing.”

“He said he wants me to get caught up so I understand all the inside jokes. What inside jokes could you guys possibly have about the Boston Molasses Flood?”

Shane was in Ilya’s room at their hotel in Detroit, the both of them scrolling on their phones in silence. It had taken a lot of convincing before Shane agreed to join him at all. He thought that for the first road trip, it would be better to keep their distance, Ilya insisted it was better to establish their friendship early on.

Ilya’s foolproof method of making Shane agree seemed to involve loudly proclaiming to the bus that he and Shane were going to have a movie night after the game, which then required him to spend the next half hour firmly telling the rest of the team that they weren’t allowed to join them.

So, fine, Shane folded. But they weren’t having sex, not when Ilya’s room was sandwiched between Pava and Doherty. No one needed to be traumatized tonight.

Now, Shane was dealing with his full inbox. It seemed that the Bears were fully utilizing their access to Shane’s phone number now that he’d been added to the players’ group chat. Marly was trying to keep him up to date with all the gossip, Delly had sent him a dozen reddit memes, Cloutier kept trying to convince him to watch Yellowstone, and Doherty sent him a single photo of himself (only the top half of his face) instructing Shane to use it as his profile picture.

“Did Doherty ever say anything, the first time he played Minnesota?” Shane asked, suddenly turning to his boyfriend. “Like, what it was like playing against his old team?”

Ilya shrugged. “You could ask him.”

Shane scrunched up his nose. It felt too vulnerable, and the Bears weren’t really the kind of guys who liked talking about their feelings. He might’ve asked St-Simon, but he was already plenty vocal about what he thought about Vancouver, and Shane didn’t think their experiences were all that similar anyway.

“Do you…” Shane started, then trailed off. It was a stupid question, but it had still been eating at him. “Are you glad I’m here?”

When Shane looked at his boyfriend again, he saw him staring back at him. His eyebrows were raised, but he didn’t say anything.

“Just, I knew we had this whole plan and everything, I just wonder…this is your team, your guys, I’d get if my being here was…disrupting that.”

Ilya blinked. “Shane, I put together whole scheme to get you here, and as soon as you are, you think I change my mind like that?”

Shane shrugged. “Maybe it’s one of those things that seems like a better idea in your head?”

“Is that how you feel?”

Shane shook his head a bit too vigorously. “No, I actually…I really like it here. I feel like, like I’m not having to put in as much effort, you know? Not like, in the game, I’m still working hard and everything, just with the people.”

Ilya laughed. “Oh, believe me, Hollander, no one would ever accuse you of slacking off. You know it is not normal to spend entire flights watching game tape.”

“Shut up,” Shane replied, raising up his cold foot and placing it flush against Ilya’s bare thigh, causing him to jump.

“Blyat! You say I cannot ravish you, yet you keep getting closer and closer to my dick.”

Shane giggled, throwing himself backwards as Ilya started to grab at his waist. “I’m serious! Off, I’m trying to make a good impression.”

“What about all the impressions you make on me?” Ilya reached down to place a kiss on Shane’s neck.

Finally, Shane firmly pushed Ilya off. “I should go, it’s almost ten, I need to get my sleep—” he was cut off as Ilya tried to grope him again. “—in my own bed, thank you very much.”

Ilya whined, slumping against his mattress as Shane got to his feet.

“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” Shane said, pulling his hoodie back on. “Please don’t stay up all night playing Subway Surfers.”

“No promises.”

“Thanks,” Shane said, nodding to the penalty box attendant as he opened the door for him. “Don’t start,” he continued, this time directed at Ilya.

Ilya shrugged innocently, but did nothing to try and cover up the massive grin on his face. His helmet was in his lap, his unruly curls plastered across his forehead with sweat, and he was holding a towel up to his bloody teeth.

“I would never, Hollander,” Ilya grinned.

Shane took a seat next to him, and Ilya shuffled up a bit to make room. “If anything I should be mad at you. You shouldn’t be risking a broken hand this close to the post-season.”

“Ah, is all in good fun.”

Of course Shane didn’t want Ilya getting injured at this point in the season, but besides that, he wasn’t particularly upset about his boyfriend's fight. They were already up five this game, and they were nearing the end of the third. Also, Ilya looked unreasonably hot with his gloves dropped. Shane was really the one who had given Arizona the man advantage with his hooking penalty (which, unlike Ilya’s penalty, was completely accidental).

“He deserved it anyway,” Ilya declared. “Ignatyev is an asshole. And he was a dick to Pava.”

Shane scrunched up his nose “well, fuck that guy.”

Ilya laughed brightly, nudging Shane in the shoulderpads, and his joy was so infectious that it caused Shane to break into a smile of his own.

“Stop, you’re being a bad influence, we shouldn’t be laughing in the penalty box,” Shane said. He was sure that they were getting a decent chunk of broadcast time.

“Is fine, we have great defense, they will make us proud!” Ilya proclaimed, emphasizing it with a couple whoops through the glass as St-Simon passed them by.

“Now you’re just trying to jinx it.”

“Okay Mr. Fancy Tape and Mr. Twenty Year Old Shoulderpads. I almost forget I am talking to King of Superstition.”

“Shut up, rich coming from you. Your team is literally insane, I can’t walk two feet without accidentally breaking someone’s ritual.”

“Ah, you are getting the hang of it.”

Their attention turned back to the ice just in time to watch Pava level one of the Arizona wingers against the boards. It was a clean hit, but it was brutal as hell, Shane wouldn’t be surprised if the Coyotes tried to retaliate.

“You guys really hate Arizona, huh?” Shane said.

“No, Shane,” Ilya said firmly. “We hate Arizona.”

Just when Shane thought he’d maybe found his flow with the guys, he manages to fuck it all up again.

“Hey, Marly, I brought your eggs, don’t leave before I can give them,” Mason said, waddling past in his goalie pads, catching the taller man on his way to the shower.

“Eggs?” Shane questioned aloud, before he could think better of it.

Mason smiled. “Yeah, me and Mia started keeping chickens, I have more eggs than I know what to do with.”

“And I thank tha Lard Jaysus for it too,” Newf chimed in. “Eggs are hard as a blue lobster to come by these days b’ys.”

“If you want, I can get you some,” Mason shrugged. “I’ll just add you to the list.”

Shane nodded thoughtfully. “That’s cool. Are the chickens a lot of work? How do you keep the eggs clean? Do you ever have any issues with getting sick or anything?”

Mason looked at Shane like he’d just slapped him in the face. “What?”

The change in demeanor was so stark that Shane nearly got whiplash. The rest of the room seemed to be looking at them.

Shane blinked. “Just…I don’t really know much about chickens.”

Mason narrowed his eyes. “You think my chickens have the bird flu or something?”

“I mean, I don’t know, I just—” and because Shane was an idiot who loved to double down, he finished with: “do they?”

Shane had never seen Doherty show so much emotion on his face before. He slowly raised a finger to point at his own chest. “You disrespecting my chickens?”

Shane chuckled lightly, expecting Mason to end the bit. He did not. “No,” he tacked on.

At that, Mason looked Shane up and down, shook his head, then retreated back to his locker.

Shane raised his eyebrows, quickly turning to Newf beside him. “He’s not actually mad, right?”

Newf nodded. “Oh, the b’y’s is right rotted. What a sin, I don’t t’ink you’ll be gettin’ those eggs, me duckie.”

Shane blinked. Surely this was all a bit of an exaggeration. Shane knew he wasn’t the best at reading the room, but eggs? Really?

“Oh he’s offended as fuck,” Ilya said on the drive back home. “How could you say this about his chickens?”

Shane threw up his hands. “They’re fucking chickens! I didn’t know he’d take it so seriously.”

“He loves his chickens,” Pava interjected. “He is named them all. Mia is knitting them sweaters.”

Shane huffed. This team was so weird. If someone came into the Montreal locker room trying to show off their chickens, they’d be getting laughed out of the rink.

“Would be like if I made fun of your real-estate fetish,” Ilya offered.

“You do make fun of me.” Shane countered.

“I do not count, it is cute when I do it,” Ilya said. “Is like if they make fun of Pava’s hats. Off limits.”

Shane nodded. Maybe he was being a dick. “It’ll blow over, right?” Please God, don’t let this be the reason Boston never accepts him. Not after a group of chickens named after baked goods.

“Oh, no,” Ilya said. “These guys are very passive aggressive, you need to be direct. Make a formal apology. Maybe a peace offering too.”

This was so fucking stupid. Shane wasn’t even completely sure this wasn’t some sort of incredibly elaborate hazing from Ilya. But Shane was desperate, he needed to win over his new team.

They waited until just before morning skate before their game against Vancouver, one that he knew the majority of the team would be attending. He needed to make it public.

“I’m not doing that,” Shane whispered harshly, he could already feel the eyes looking their way. He supposed it didn’t matter, soon they’d all be looking at him anyway.

“Get on the stool, Hollander.”

“‘I’m not getting on the stool.”

“I can help, Shane Hollander—”

“No, Pava, I’m capable of getting on the stool, I just don’t want to.”

Of course, Shane ended up standing on the stool, overlooking the entire dressing room, filled with teammates who were looking at him as if he was about to announce the apocalypse. Well, aside from Ilya and Pava. Ilya was trying and failing to keep a serious face, while Pava sent him an encouraging double thumbs up.

“Uh, hey guys,” Shane said, drawing the attention of anyone who hadn’t already been staring at the grown man on the stool. Though it was an optional skate, attendance that morning had been pretty high, it typically was when they were making the push for the playoffs. “I’d just like to say something to the room, if that’s okay.”

He directed his attention towards Mason, who was sitting in his locker, strapping his pads to his legs. He raised a single eyebrow when he noticed Shane’s eyes on him.

“Mason,” Shane began. “I would like to take the opportunity to formally apologize for my mistreatment of your chickens. I never meant to disrespect them, I’m sure you foster a safe and clean environment for them.” He placed a hand on his chest sincerely. “I am very sorry, and I hope you and your chickens can forgive me.”

Shane scanned the room, trying to gauge their reactions. No one was laughing, no one was throwing things, which was a step up from what he might’ve expected from Montreal.

Mason approached Shane dramatically, gesturing for him to come down off the stool. After a few moments into a stare-down that had Shane sweating, the goalie’s expression split into a toothy grin.

“It’s alright man,” he said, patting Shane on the shoulder. “All is forgiven.”

Doherty might as well’ve set off a firework the way the room exploded at that, his teammates cheering and whooping and patting Shane on the back. Shane couldn’t help but laugh along as he was swarmed. Maybe the whole thing had been a joke to them, but if it was, it certainly wasn’t at Shane’s expense.

“Hollander,” Ilya called, breaking through the crowd. “Don’t forget.”

“Right,” Shane said, moving to retrieve the box from his locker. He carried it over to Mason across the room. “As a token of my sincerity I got you this,” he spun it around so the label was showing. “It’s an automatic water dispenser for your chickens. It’s heated, so it won’t freeze in winter.”

“Sick,” Mason replied, looking genuinely pleased. “This is awesome, Butter Tart keeps knocking over the water bin, I’ll have to try this out.”

Shane blinked. “Butter Tart is…a chicken?”

“Yeah,” Doherty nodded. “There’s Butter Tart, Muffin, Cupcake, Croissant, Banana Bread, Blondie and Brownie, Strudel, Doughnut, and Snickerdoodle.”

“And…you can tell the difference?”

“Oh yeah, you should come meet them! We’re gonna clean out the coop after playoffs and we’d always appreciate a hand.”

Shane could not think of a more miserable way for him to spend an afternoon than hanging out with and cleaning up after a bunch of chickens, but he also knew it would be stupid to upset Doherty again after he’d just gotten back into his good graces.

“Yeah, maybe,” he replied simply.

Shane thought that the biggest adjustment he’d have to make when moving teams would be learning the play or coaching style. In truth, it was the team culture that was throwing him for a loop.

The guys wanted to win, of course, but they were also there to have fun. They didn’t just work together, they liked each other. They came to optional practices not just because they were expected to, but because they wanted to hang out. The locker room, while still filled with plenty of crude hockey player talk, wasn’t especially offensive.

Even LeClaire, though he was blunt and not the most sociable, and swore like a sailor, wasn’t harsh or mean. The worse Shane had seen from him had been following a game against Colorado in which Boston lost 4–0, and after the game, LeClaire had quietly retreated to the hallway to spend a minute straight shouting and throwing things, before returning to the room to give a stilted—yet slightly calmer—review of strategy, as if nothing happened.

Shane was getting there. He was trying to make an effort not to take himself quite so seriously. He wasn’t sure if he had it in him.

“Shane,” the reporter said, trying to inch forward ahead of the rest of the cluster. “What’s the adjustment been like for you, being moved to the second line here in Boston after seven years as captain and 1C in Montreal?”

Shane let out a deep breath, staring off into space rather than looking at any cameras. He had played 18 games with Boston now, and still the press kept finding new ways to ask him the same exact questions. He was just in his base layers, still soaked in sweat, watching as his teammates milled around the room while he was forced in front of the cameras.

“Yeah, uh…you know, I think we all wanna be able to contribute to the team. I don’t really see the second line as any worse than what I’ve been able to do in Montreal. This is a new team, new guys, we’re figuring out what works, and it seems like these line combos are working for us.”

Shane turned to the next reporter to take a question, but before he had the chance, he was interrupted.

“Hey Holly,” Marly said, walking up to him but still staying out of frame. He paid no attention to the reporters he was disrupting. “Can you hold this for me?”

He thrust his stick into Shane’s hands, not bothering to wait for a response before walking away. Shane didn’t really think much of it, it wasn’t the weirdest thing Marly had ever done, not by far.

“Shane,” another reporter said, the first one to snap out of it. “You scored just 35 seconds after Calgary scored their first goal, you didn’t really allow them to get into the game. What can you say about the way that this team kind of maintained that pressure throughout the game?”

“Hey Holly, can you hold this for a sec?” It was Connors now, placing his own stick in Shane’s other hand.

“Okay,” Shane said, before turning to the camera. “Yeah, you know, I thought we responded well, we always talk about a shift after a goal, and, um, you wanna grab onto that momentum—”

This time it was Newf. “Would ya mind holdin’ onta this b’y? God love ya cotton socks.”

“—and hopefully use that to keep scoring goals, which is always a bonus. So, yeah,” Shane continued.

“Do ya mind holdin’ onto this for me, Holly?” Cloutier asked, shoving a helmet onto the ever growing collection of sticks into Shane’s arms. He had to fumble a bit to make sure he didn’t drop anything.

Another reporter jumped at the chance to get a question in. “You’ve been regularly sharing a line with Kehoe and Connors, what are your thoughts on how they played tonight and your general experience with them?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, already having a jersey thrown over his shoulders by Ilya. “They’ve been great, they’re great players. I think Connors is really patient with the puck—” Doherty’s leg pad was draped around his neck by the strap, “—and Ted is always so reliable, just always where I need him to be.”

By the end of the interview, Shane was holding five hockey sticks, a helmet, a pair of skates, and was wearing two jerseys, a leg pad, a pair of aviator sunglasses, and Pava’s bowler hat.

Boston was currently first in the division.

They had a dozen games left in the season, and they hadn’t clinched. The race in the Atlantic division was fucking close, with only two points separating first from third. Both wildcard spots had already been all but secured by Metropolitan teams, which meant there truly was no safety net.

All they could do at this point was try their best to win as many of these remaining games as possible, but even then, their place in the standings would be determined by the success of their opponents. Particularly Montreal.

To the shock of many, Montreal was currently standing at second in the division. Through their trade with Boston, they had lost their top scorer, yes, but they had significantly reinforced their defense as well. Shane could see what a different team they had become in these last few weeks. Even though Ilya warned him against it, Shane was obsessively following Montreal’s games.

They played like a unit, like guys that knew and trusted each other. Nothing like these past few years with Shane. Before, Montreal was smack in the middle of the division, now, they were number two.

It was true. Montreal had been better off without him.

“Hey, Holly.”

It was the morning before an Admirals game, a quick one off away in New York before they'd return home. Shane was the first on the bus, as he always was. As clingy as Ilya was, he wasn’t willing to wake up any more than fifteen minutes before breakfast closed, even if it meant more Shane time. These days, he had more Shane time than he knew what to do with.

Shane looked up from his phone to find Cliff Marleau standing over him.

At a first glance, Cliff Marleau was a physically intimidating guy. He was tall, muscular, with strong features, and a low baritone voice. Shane had been admittedly nervous when he realized he’d have to get to know him as Ilya’s friend. Though, it seemed that Marly turned on the sensitivity whenever he talked to Shane. Maybe that had more to do with the fact that up until recently, the most they’d ever interacted had been when Marly had fucked up his collarbone.

“Hi Marly,” Shane replied. He scanned the bus quickly, no one else was there yet. It was strange, if anything, Marly was usually one of the last guys onto the bus, typically crawling on just in time to avoid a fine.

Marly took a seat in the row across from him, sitting so his knees were in the aisle. He looked from side to side as if he were preparing to divulge state secrets.

“Just wanted to say hey. Just…you know I, like, know. About you and Roz.”

Shane blinked. “Yes.”

“Just wanted you to know, totally cool with me. I have a gay nephew, he wears eyeshadow and everything.”

“Oh,” Shane replied. What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? “I…don’t.”

“And that’s totally cool, it’s a spectrum. That’s what Noor says when she tries to convince me to pierce my nose. It’s weird, for some reason she’s pro nose piercing but anti ear piercing. She says an ear piercing’ll make me look like an asshole. Oh, Noor’s my girlfriend by the way, I was thinking maybe you guys could come over for dinner or something.”

Shane’s eyes widened a bit. This was a lot, he kept flitting his eyes to the entrance of the bus, praying that no one else was about to get on.

“Maybe. Uh…hey, Marly, maybe we could just keep things on the down low? I appreciate it, really, but…” Shane couldn’t help but frown, “I don’t really want anyone to be asking too many questions, you know?”

Marly looked surprised, but he nodded. “Oh, yeah of course. Low key, I totally get that. Just a couple of bros.”

Shane nodded. According to Ilya, they could trust Marly, and Shane believed it, but he only hoped the man understood just how serious this was. They couldn’t afford to slip up, so much as something in the background of a picture, or an offhand comment about them sharing a room, it could ruin everything.

Any more of Shane’s spiralling was disrupted when Delly and one of the new rookies clambered onto the bus. Just before anyone made it too far their way, Marleau leaned in one more time to speak in a whisper.

“Also, Roz is sexy as fuck so I get why you want him, but he’s also a solid motherfucker. If you break his heart or something, I’ll break your other collarbone.”

Shane raised his eyebrows, but he shot Marly an impressed look. “Noted.”

Chapter End Notes

Some more info

I try to strike a balance when writing the Bears. I don't at all want to make them perfect allies that magically make Boston a better place than Montreal, so I try to give them some of their own problematic behaviour. Still, this is also a fanfic that I hope makes y’all warm and fuzzy, and so I'm forced to get a little bit hopeful in order to get things where I need to be. I'm a bit inspired by the reputation of the Canadiens locker room, obviously they're still hockey boys, but they seem to have some good eggs in there shaping the culture for the better. Notably, Jakub Dobeš spoke up to a ref during a game earlier this year after an opposing player said a slur on the ice. Nick Suzuki has also been known to maintain a positive non-toxic team culture. Are most hockey players and locker rooms incredibly evil? Yes, yes they are, but every once in a while it’s true that there can be good people out there.

The reaction to Shane’s trade is based on Quinn Hughes and Wayne Gretzky. I use Quinn Hughes here as a comparison frequently, as the trade occurs at similar times in their careers and under similar circumstances. The difference here is that due to the secrecy of Shane’s departure, there’s a lot more uncertainty in regards to his reasons for leaving. In the case of Quinn Hughes, it had been obvious for a long time that he would not want to re-sign with Vancouver, so when he was traded, most of the upset was aimed at him. Whereas in regards to Wayne Gretzky’s trade to LA way back at the end of the 80s, that came as more of a shock. People mourned for months, politicians tried to block the trade, the phone lines at the Oilers offices melted with the amount of incoming calls. Some people did blame him, called him a sell-out, blamed his actress wife, but generally people HATED the owner of the Oilers. Fans burned an effigy of the team’s owner outside the arena.

Fun fact, on average, NHL head coaches only last 2.5 seasons. Currently in the NHL, the longest tenured coach is Jon Cooper, who’s been with Tampa over 11 years. In the books, LeClaire was Ilya’s coach since his first season, so if he’s still around at this point, it would be his 9th year in Boston. Typically, when a team is doing poorly, the coaches are the first to get the boot, even if they’ve been recently successful with their team. For example, this year the Oilers just fired their head coach Kris Knoblauch, who brought the Oilers to the cup finals for the past two years.

Shane briefly judges Ilya’s taste in architecture. He references Barcelona Pavilion, which is a famous modernist house. As well, Fallingwater, a famous Frank Lloyd Wright design. Shoutout to my sibling who used to study architecture and gave me all the tea.

This is the video that the podcast the Bears listen to is based on. The same thing happened in the Canadian plains as well.

Shane being laughably bad at Heads Up is based on this video of Macklin Celebrini.

Doherty’s chickens are taken from Mikhail Sergachev of the Utah Mammoth. He apparently keeps trying to give some of his chickens away to his teammates, and takes it very personally when people don’t appreciate them, he withholds eggs if his chickens are disrespected, and demands formal apologies.

The tweet showing Shane’s defaced jersey is based off of a similar incident with Quinn Hughes’ jersey, after the Men’s Olympic Hockey team visited the White House.

Having Shane and Ilya giggling in the box together is inspired by this moment from McDavid and Draisaitl. These guys have their own stat for sharing the box.

^Newf every time he opens his mouth

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Shane frowned as the video played through. He’d watched it so many times he could probably quote it perfectly.

I’m, y’know, looking forward to joining the team here, it’s been a whirlwind 48 hours, but, I think I’m settling in okay. I’ve spent some time in the room already, and I’ve been able to see the team culture, uh, just how the guys interact. Not just the players, but the staff too. The coaches and the management.

He was standing in front of the Boston branded backdrop. A matching hat and jacket. He looked like a little kid playing dress-up.

Chapter Notes

Yes this took a while. I’ve created a prison of my own making. I can’t write one sentence without doing an extra hour of research. Idk how it keeps getting longer and longer, there’s just so much I want to explore. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t feel too drawn out or anything like that.

You may also have noticed on this chapter and the last that all the social media sections are now coded!!! All credit goes to chani on Tumblr who is an absolutely brilliant coding wizard and did all the work on the workskins and finding profile pictures and everything I don’t know how to do. Special thanks to you and I owe you my life.

I’m back from my trip! You would not believe the wild time I had. I met Wab Kinew. And also Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau (I was in Ottawa for Canada day). I went to Quebec City for the first time and went to the Plains of Abraham. I did not make it to Newfoundland, but wow are the Maritimes accents equally impressive. I went to the Hockey Hall of Fame!! The Walter Cup was not there :( I mostly info dumped on my poor British friend who doesn’t care about hockey the entire time. Anyway…I’m back!

Talk to me on Tumblr!

Shane frowned as the video played through. He’d watched it so many times he could probably quote it perfectly.

I’m, y’know, looking forward to joining the team here, it’s been a whirlwind 48 hours, but, I think I’m settling in okay. I’ve spent some time in the room already, and I’ve been able to see the team culture, uh, just how the guys interact. Not just the players, but the staff too. The coaches and the management.

He was standing in front of the Boston branded backdrop. A matching hat and jacket. He looked like a little kid playing dress-up.

At this point in my career, it’s, uh, doing something new like this is a bit daunting, of course, but exciting. I’m excited to learn everything that comes with it, the new ways things are run, playing with new guys.

The press room must’ve been as full as it’d ever been that day. Reporters were practically clambering over each other to talk to him.

Do you have any thoughts on what it’s like playing on a new line? Particularly sharing the ice with your long-time rival, Ilya Rozanov? Is any of your past antagonism going to affect your ability to integrate as teammates?

Shane’s eyebrows had furrowed. He could see the way his brain had searched for the words he’d written down and rehearsed the day before to answer the question he knew was bound to be asked.

For sure, uh…you know, I’ve always had a lot of respect for Ilya, we’ve played our whole careers opposite each other. I’ve gotten to know him a lot better over the past few years especially, becoming friends and starting the Irina Foundation…yeah. Um, I’ve only ever gotten to play on the same team as him at All-Stars in the past, which was always great. It’s gonna be interesting to see what it’s like in a real game now, yeah.

So there’s no remaining ill will between the two of you?

Shane frowned on screen. He remembered being annoyed at that question. As if they hadn’t been making themselves clear for the past two years.

I wouldn’t say there’s ever been any ill will. I mean, it’s well known we’ve been close friends for a few years now, but…even before that there was never any real vitriol. The uh, the fighting and the chirping, that’s just the game, anyone will tell you it gets left on the ice. Ilya has a lot of respect for the game, and I have a lot of respect for how he plays and approaches it all. I think we’ve already proven that we work well together, and we’ll keep on doing it. I’m looking forward to playing with him. Though I admit, I’ll miss facing off against him.

That made the crowd of reporters chuckle. The perfect sound bite for their headlines. Shane fast forwarded through the video.

Shane, what does it mean to you to be moving to Boston after nearly a decade playing in Montreal. I mean, surely you were planning to play there for the rest of your career?

You could see through the screen the way Shane’s knuckles had turned white, clenching his hands into fists in a desperate attempt to channel his energy.

I mean yeah, I think most players hope to stay in one place for a long time. It just didn’t work out for me that way. That’s no one’s fault. I’m grateful to the organization for everything they’ve done for me and all the opportunities…

Shane watched as his bottom lip started to tremble. He dipped his head down, trying to hide the wetness in his eyes under the brim of his hat.

Sorry, uh, yeah. I, um, I have a lot of great memories in Montreal and some incredible years there, some great people. But really it’s a privilege to be playing in this league, no matter the team. I’m um…I’m not trying to step on any toes coming in here. I’m here to see the best way I can help and hopefully bring this team to another cup. I’m happy to be able to contribute to the team.

Shane, this was a very sudden trade for everyone, I think, especially taking place on the deadline. Can I ask how you found out about the whole thing? Was this something you knew about in advance?

Well, uh, I actually found out the same time as everyone else, I guess it got leaked to the press before my agent could call me. I was in Montreal, then a couple hours later I was in Boston. It’s been sudden, for sure, but uh…just trying to take it one day at a time.

He could see the teeth begin to bare on the reporters in front of him. Like they could smell his discomfort, and they wanted to feast upon it.

Do you have any comment on the reason for your trade? Was it something you requested? Or was it the decision of management?

The emotion seemed to be zapped from his expression at that. A cool, professional, almost robotic look took its place.

Hockey is a great sport, but it’s also a business. There’s a lot that goes into these things from a lot of different areas of the organization. I have a lot of respect for Leon, and he has a job to do, we all do, and I hope that this’ll turn out to be mutually beneficial for both teams. We, uh, Montreal, has been struggling a bit recently. I get that some changes needed to be made.

He skipped ahead again. He couldn’t explain why he kept forcing himself to watch even when he couldn’t bear it.

We see you all decked out in your Bears gear now, what did it feel like the first time you put it on, looking in the mirror and seeing yourself in black and gold?

Shane narrowed in at his own expression looking back at him on the screen. He thought he did a good enough job appearing neutral.

Yeah, uh…first time I put it on was actually first practice, today, when I wore the gear. It’s uh…it’s taking some time to break it all in. It’s weird, for sure, but, I think it’s starting to sink in a bit and…I’m getting the chance to fit in here now.

That wasn’t technically true. The first time Shane had ever put on his Bears branded kit had actually been just before that practice, during his physical.

He’d been filling out a few forms, just some medical information, an immediate emergency contact. He put his mom for now, but they’d said he’d need someone in Boston sooner than later. He’d have to figure something out, he wasn’t so sure about putting down Ilya. That might invite too many questions.

Just as he’d finished filling out his allergies (bee stings, penicillin), and moved to pick up the paper, the edge of the page catching just so on the pad of his thumb. He hissed as he drew blood, immediately applying pressure to try and stop the bleeding.

Despite Shane’s insistence that it was nothing, just a small cut, the trainer had retrieved him a bandaid, just to keep him from getting blood everywhere.

Shane had stared down at that stupid fucking black and gold bandaid, decorated with a cartoon bear, and he just about threw up all over the poor trainer’s shoes.

The press conference had been done just after his first practice with the Bears. At that point, the colour had returned to his face, but the sick feeling hadn’t totally fled from his stomach. The rest of the video was largely filled with fluff questions. Shane scrolled to the comments section.

59 6 Reply

34 51 Reply

144 54 Reply

268 54 Reply

28 165 Reply

654 351 Reply

37 1 Reply

34 0 Reply

41 8 Reply

351 8 Reply

351 68 Reply

3 replies

34 1 Reply

2 replies

0 1 Reply

1 reply

0 1 Reply

Shane, unlike Ilya, was pretty decent at sewer. After checking several times with Ilya (and then Marly, in case Ilya had forgotten something) that there were no extra rules or superstitions that might bite him in the ass, Shane decided to join in. It would be a good way to bond.

“Get it Holly!” Cloutier called as the ball bounced hard sideways off his knee. Shane reached to catch the ball under his foot just before it hit the concrete, sending it flying up to the rafters.

“Well,” Shane frowned, watching it wedge right in the V of the truss. “Shit.”

“Ah, it’s okay,” Cloutier said. “Happens at least once a game.” He turned. “Kosmodemyansky! Get your tall ass over here!”

Pava had been hovering next to Sumaya, who had been trying to explain some sort of social media thing.

“So, is just egg?” Pava asked, incredulously. “Why do people like?”

“That’s the whole point,” Sumaya said. “It’s about unity. It’s just a picture of an egg, but everyone is choosing to like it to make it the most liked photo. It beat out celebrities and everything. It’s funny.”

“I am not understand.”

“Dude!” Cloutier yelled again.

That did catch Pava’s attention. “Do yourself! Your hands are not work? Busy combing hair, yes?”

A communal “ooooh” echoed throughout the hall, Ilya cackling loudest above them all. He had been sitting off to the side stretching. He hated sewerball.

“Dude, lay off the hair, damn,” Cloutier whined. “My wife likes it.”

Still, Pava moved to help, arranging himself in what looked to be a well practiced routine with Delly and Cloutier. Shane stood back near Ilya to observe.

“Oh,” Doherty said, suddenly appearing on Ilya’s other side. He had a habit of just materializing places with no warning. “Mia wanted me to ask you something for her, Shane.”

Shane looked towards the goalie. “What’s that?”

“I meant to ask you earlier actually, but do you have a girl? Anyone we need to add to the WAG chat?”

Shane blinked, catching Ilya’s eye before turning back toward Mason. “Oh, uh…no, no. No one to add.”

“No one since Rose Landry, huh?” Interjected St-Simon, from nearby. “No mysterious Canadian girlfriends? Not like Roz?”

“Oh?” Shane replied, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Doherty replied. “He keeps it locked down tight, I’ve only heard rumours. Apparently he went to her place in Montreal for Christmas, him and Kosmodemyansky.” Doherty’s eyebrows furrowed together as he paused. He turned to Shane. “Have you met her?”

Before Shane was forced to come up with an answer for that, Ilya interjected.

“You are talking about me like I’m not here,” Ilya said. “I never said who the jacket is for. You don’t know, maybe it’s for me to wear, is my name on it, yes?”

“Or maybe the Montreal girl was never real,” Delly butted in from the sewerball circle. “Maybe it was all a cover up for Svetlana.”

Shane clenched his fist by his side.

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Wow, I didn’t realize you were all so obsessed with me, you sit here and make up theories about me, nothing else going on for you, yes?”

It seemed the conversation had pulled the attention from the rest of the room, any games of sewer long forgotten.

“Obviously she’s real,” St-Simon said. “Where else would he disappear every time we’re in Montreal? He pretends he doesn’t but I hear him stomping back to his hotel room at 3 A.M. every fucking night like fines don’t fuckin’ exist.”

“Then why haven’t we met the old trout?” Newf asked. “She gat da face only a mudder could love?”

“Fuck off,” Ilya said. “You could not begin to imagine the beauty I am faced with. I do not have the English for it.”

“That’s right, I’ve seen the broads you wheel,” Connors grinned. “Cap only bothers with rockets.”

“I am a very respectful lover of all kinds,” Ilya insisted. “I know it is hard for you to understand. It’s why you can’t keep a girlfriend, yes?”

“Fuck off, Rozy.”

“Wait,” St-Simon said, looking thoughtful. “Didn’t Kosmodemyansky meet her? Didn’t you say you were seeing her at Christmas? Then he went with you?”

All eyes turned to Pava, who was standing awkwardly holding the soccer ball. “Hm?”

“You met Roz’s girl, right?” Doherty asked.

Pava stayed frozen, his eyes widened. The whole team had turned to look at him. Shane tried to convey a look with his eyes that said “please don’t fuck this up.” One look at Ilya and Marly showed them doing the same.

“Ah.” Pava added, unhelpfully.

“Is that a yes?” Connors asked.

Pava moved his head in such a way that was undiscernable from a nod and a shake. The room continued to blink at him.

“Didn’t you go with him for Christmas?” Cloutier asked.

“Yes,” Pava replied.

Cloutier raised his eyebrows. “And?”

“And what?” Pava asked.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Jaysus Murphy, who knit you, me son?” Newf said, shaking his head.

“Stop interrogating this man,” Marly said, reaching to lay a hand on Pava's shoulder. “Look at him, his head is so in the game he can’t even think about anything else right now!” That maybe wasn’t the most convincing deterrent, but Shane applauded his efforts.

“Marly is right!” Ilya joined in. “We are about to play a game! And you are all too interested in my very sexy romantic life, if you think this much about hockey I am sure we will win, yes?”

The insult to their playing abilities seemed to be enough to snap the Bears out of their train of thought, either returning to their game or heading off early to the dressing room. When the room had thinned out, Shane turned to Ilya.

“A secret Canadian girlfriend, huh?”

Ilya shrugged innocently. “Ah, I would not say secret. But I must keep her away from prying jealous eyes, I know she has a thing for sexy Boston hockey players.”

Shane had been worried about moving in with Ilya. He knew that Pava had tolerated them as a couple well enough, but that was just for an evening here and there. Moving in with him was a whole other beast. He didn’t even ask permission, he was just moving in because Ilya said. Shane had rethought a number of times that he should’ve been staying in the guest bedroom, just to make things a bit easier, but every time he considered bringing it up, he was bogged down by the image of Ilya’s sad cow eyes begging him to stay.

It turned out, Pava actually wasn’t much of a problem. Shane had been too distracted by the rest of it.

He hadn’t thought too hard about it, but Shane hadn’t had a roommate since juniors, back when he lived with his billet family in Kingston. He didn’t realize how tough the transition back would be.

“Ilya!” Shane had shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Did you use all my fucking almond milk?”

Ilya shouted back from down the hall. “Is milk! For drinking, yes?”

“It’s for my fucking smoothie!” Shane shouted back. He huffed. If he didn’t have his morning protein smoothie, it’d fuck up the rest of his routine.

“You can have some of mine, Shane Hollander,” Pava offered, lifting his head up from his bowl of cereal. It was some sugary monstrosity that only he and Ilya ate.

Shane winced. He was referring to the jug of cow’s milk in the fridge. Shane was sure his gut would explode if he so much as looked at it too long.

Rose has once told Shane that he had a case of Only-Child-Sydrome. He hated to share. But surely it was reasonable for people to have their own things? Their own boundaries, when sharing a space?

“Ilya?” Shane tried to keep his voice calm, but his lack of sleep was increasing his irritability.

Approximately 16 hours following the almond milk incident, Ilya was beside him in bed. Playing Hay Day at full fucking volume.

“Yes?” He replied, not pulling his eyes away from the screen.

“Can you please turn that down?”

Ilya flicked his eyes over to Shane, then back to his phone. “Okie.”

To Ilya’s credit, he did turn it down. But the brightness of the screen seemed to illuminate the entire room.

“Can you lower the brightness a bit?” Shane tacked on after a few minutes.

“But then I can’t see my chickens, Hollander.”

Shane huffed, throwing off the covers and getting to his feet. “I’m sleeping in the other room.”

Ilya frowned. “You are mad at me?”

“I’m not mad,” Shane said unconvincingly, his hair sticking up every which way. “I just need to get some sleep.”

Ilya raised his eyebrows. “Maybe if you did not wake up at ass crack of morning every day and make loud smoothie, you would not be so tired.”

And, yeah, Shane didn’t sleep in Ilya’s bed for the rest of the week after that one.

Sure, maybe he was being particular. But wasn’t that what Ilya liked about him? He folded his clothes before sex, he brought a portable steamer with him on every road trip, he couldn’t stand floral scented candles, and he needed to wash his hands after he fuelled up his car, or else it would bother him for the rest of the drive. Ilya always said it was cute.

Maybe it was the kind of thing that stopped being cute after a while, and turned into resentment.

“Ilya,” Shane said, bounding into the living room. He thrust out his hand in front of his boyfriend, who had his laptop out on the island. Ilya raised his eyebrows when he saw the giant box of condoms and bottle of flavoured lube shoved in front of him.

“I never thought I would say this, Shane, but I am a bit busy now.”

Shane frowned. “Ilya. These were just out, in your bedroom.”

Ilya blinked. “Yes. Normally that is where they go.”

Shane gave him a stern look. “Olena was here this morning. What if she saw these?”

Ilya laughed. “Okay, so the maid sees the box of condoms. I’m sure she’s seen worse.”

“This is serious. What if she thinks—”

“Thinks what? She thinks I pull, I bet she is very impressed.”

“Ilya,” Shane repeated, growing more annoyed at the way Ilya didn’t seem to care at all. “I’m not kidding. Maybe it’s easy to pass off us just being friends to our team, but this is different. She’s in your house, she can probably fucking tell that no one’s using that guest room, this is just shoving it in her face.”

“So what? I shouldn’t have to hide in my own fucking home,” Ilya retorted, getting to his feet.

“What if she—”

“Who cares what she thinks?”

“I care!” Shane nearly shouted, and as soon as he did, he regretted it. He covered his face with his hands, trying to slow his breathing. After a moment, he split his fingers open and peered through them.

Ilya looked heartbroken. Shane was ashamed to think he was ever the cause of that.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

This was what Shane was afraid of. That they’d finally be together, and it’d be too much. That Shane would find a way to ruin it all.

Ilya frowned, but he didn’t do what Shane had feared. He didn’t push him away. He reached out.

“Shane. Come here.”

He pulled Shane forward, wrapping him in a firm hug. Shane still held himself tensely, not allowing himself to relax.

“I’m sorry,” Shane repeated. “I know I’m a lot. I just…I’m fucking terrified.”

He could feel Ilya nod against his shoulder. “No, you are right. I wasn’t thinking.”

Shane shifted to bury his head in Ilya’s chest. “But you’re right too, I shouldn’t be making you hide in your own home. I know if it was up to you, we’d be more open. I’m just holding you back.”

Ilya shook his head, pulling Shane away so he could look him in the eye, while still comfortable in his arms. “No, you are keeping me sensible.”

Maybe if Shane were a better man, he would have pushed it. He would’ve done more to see Ilya’s side of things.

Yet it felt like Montreal still loomed over him like the Sword of Damocles. Not just the fear that what happened there might happen again in Boston, but also the knowledge that any one of his former teammates could expose him if they so desired. All it took was one poorly taken loss, or a drunken evening, and all his hiding would have been for nothing.

And that this time, it would be for good. There were no redos.

“Hey,” Shane said, sliding up to Delly. He’d been noticing the kid lately, showing up to every optional practice, arriving early, staying late. It didn’t seem like something normal for him, based on the way Ilya had described him in passing.

“Ah,” Ilya said, when Shane had asked. “I think he is just worried, bumped to third line. He will be fine, he’ll be plenty cheered up when we win the cup.”

If it were Shane that’d been pushed to the third line to make room for a trade, he could guarantee that it would take more than a cup win to get that out of his head. Ilya probably knew better what Delly needed, he knew his teammates better than Shane ever would. But still, it couldn’t hurt to try.

Delly looked up, sweat dripping from his brow. He’d been finishing up with some convoluted drill that involved a dozen pylons and several missed shots on net.

“Hey Hollander. Or, uh, Holly.”

Shane gestured at the dot behind him, “I was just gonna work on some faceoffs. Wanna join?”

Delly’s eyebrows drew together, but he nodded, following Shane. Coach Maya was at the dot already, a dozen pucks gathered in her jacket like she was collecting eggs.

The first drop was easily stolen away by Shane. Then the second.

“Here,” Shane said, leaning forward, stick resting across his knees. “Move in more. And when you're making that first push—” he jutted his stick out so the handle collided with Delly’s, “—forget trying to beat the blade, you wanna be controlling with the shaft, yeah?”

They tried a few more times, Shane lagging back to give Delly the opportunity to push him off the dot.

“That’s better,” Shane said.

Delly huffed. “You’re going easy on me. I’m shit at this, my draw stats are fucked.”

“I’d say you’re gonna get better, but that’s not true,” Shane shrugged. That only made Delly blink in surprise. “No one gets better at faceoffs, you just get better at cheating. I was shit as a rookie, everyone is. You learn what you can get away with, your percentage improves.”

“He’s right,” Maya chimed in. “You read the refs, get to know who lets you get away with what. Unless you’re Ilya, then you just get kicked out all the time.”
6
Delly nodded. “Okay, well, until then…can we practice a bit more?”

Shane smiled, leaning back down over the dot. “Let’s go.”

“What are you doing?”

Shane looked up from where he was stretched out in Warrior I. It was a pleasant day, still cool, but warming up. That time of year where they didn’t need to run the heat or the air conditioning. It was one of their off days between games, intermittent practices had been growing more infrequent as the end of the regular season neared, in an attempt to ward off injury and conserve energy.

He had also gotten Ilya to finally unstick from him. Despite the fact that they were together all day every day, Ilya was acting like if he so much as took his eyes off Shane for a second, he’d disappear. He’d finally convinced Ilya to give him a bit of space, he was off with Marly, doing whatever it was those two got up to.

Now though, he wasn’t alone. He turned to see Pava lurking in the doorway to the gym, dressed in a pair of athletic shorts and a compression shirt.

Shane straightened a bit. “Yoga.”

Pava cocked his head to the side. “Looks boring.”

“It’s relaxing,” Shane replied easily, used to much more annoying needling from his boyfriend. “Good for flexibility and focus.”

Pava continued to stand there as Shane transitioned to Warrior II. Shane gave it a full ten seconds before he spoke again.

“Are you planning on using the gym or…?” He trailed off.

Pava furrowed his brow. “Is yoga good for hockey?”

Shane nodded. “I’d say so. There’s lots of guys in the league who do it.” He relaxed fully from his pose. “Actually, I bet you’d really benefit from it. I know taller guys struggle more with flexibility.”

Pava looked considerate as Shane moved into Warrior III. Shane just about fell over when he heard the taller man speak again.

“Can I try?”

Shane raised his eyebrows. Ilya had joked a dozen times about joining Shane in his routine, but he never actually meant it, nothing past standing back and watching with lustful eyes.

“Really?” Shane asked.

Pava shrugged. “Is no trouble?”

“No, no,” Shane said, feeling a bit embarrassed about how he was floundering, like if he didn’t act fast enough the kid would change his mind. “Here, I have an extra mat. Yellow okay?”

Pava smiled. “Is best.”

As it turned out, Pava was incredibly inflexible. Shane had noticed it a bit before, but he never said anything. He was still so new to this team, he didn’t want to seem overbearing by going around and backseat driving everyone’s fitness levels. Still, Pava seemed eager to make an effort, despite the fact that he couldn’t quite touch his toes.

“Okay, maybe, uh…just bend your knees until you can reach. Just as long as you’re still feeling the stretch. Don’t hurt yourself”

Pava’s face was looking a bit red as he attempted the seated forward bend.

“Maybe we can get you a resistance band?” Shane offered.

“I think maybe yes.”

They continued through Shane’s routine, the room filled with nothing but the sounds of their breathing, along with the occasional chirp of the chickadee coming through the screen window.

“Is nice,” Pava said. “I always listen music, but is nice to think.”

“Yeah,” Shane agreed. Normally he thought of yoga as his silent time, but he was actually appreciating having someone next to him as he cycled through the motions. It seemed every day of his life, every aspect of his job, he was constantly surrounded by noise. The crowd cheering, reporters asking questions, his coach barking orders. He liked the opportunity to decompress.

“I am happy you are here,” Pava said suddenly, and Shane did a double take. It shouldn’t be a surprise at this point, but he was taken aback at how sincere this kid was. He was always so direct, unfiltered, not afraid to show his feelings. Shane was jealous, growing up around hockey players, it seemed emasculating to talk about that stuff. And here Pava was, always saying what he felt and what he thought like it cost him nothing.

He kind of reminded Shane of that guy from those old shows his dad used to make him watch. The one with the pointy ears, always very honest. He was blanking on the name.

“I was not best, before,” Pava continued. “First time in house with you. Am better now, more words to explain, yes? I hope is okay with you.”

Shane’s first instinct probably should have been to tell Pava, “no, for sure, no hard feelings,” tell him how glad he was that they were friends now, that he was grateful that he was here for Ilya when Shane couldn’t be.

Instead, Shane got stuck on one little sentence. “First time in house with you.”

Well, that wasn’t really true. After all, Montreal had two away games in Boston that season, the spring before the playoffs.

February, 2018

Shane shot up from his place sprawled out on the mattress. He reached backwards, halting Ilya in his movements..

“What’s wrong, kotik, too much?” Ilya purred, nuzzling into Shane’s back.

“No, shhh, shut the fuck up,” Shane whispered. He was holding his hand up, as if that would help him hear better.

The telltale sound of the front door opening and closing echoed through the halls.

“Fuck!” Shane whispered, nearly tumbling off the bed in an attempt to get to his feet. His legs still felt like Jell-O.

Ilya seemed to finally clue in at this point, cocking his head to the side.

“I thought he was supposed to be gone for the night?” Shane whispered furiously.

Ilya shrugged. “I said I needed him out. Maybe he just thought I meant the evening.”

In hindsight, Shane probably should have seen it coming when not a month later, he would run into Pava in the living room just past midnight.

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” Shane said, scrambling to pull his underwear on.

“Shane, relax, relax,” Ilya said. “He’s on other side of the house, he’s not going to come running in here. Just let him go to sleep, then you go. Is all fine.”

Ilya was right. Well, he would have been right, if Shane didn’t take that moment to completely miss placing his foot in the leghole of his sweatpants, instead catching it on the waistband in such a fashion that caused him to lose his balance and go toppling with this whole body onto the hardwood with a resounding bang.

They both went silent for the next ten seconds, looking at one another with wide eyes.

“See,” Ilya said eventually. “Is fine, he doesn’t care—”

“Il—Roz?” Shane heard Kosmodemyansky call out through the hallway, accompanied by footsteps that grew louder.

“Well, shit,” Ilya admitted.

“Get me the fuck out of here,” Shane said, pulling on his Reeboks, incredibly grateful that Ilya hadn’t told him to leave them at the door again.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Ilya whispered back. “You can’t climb out the fucking window!”

Shane blinked. Looked at Ilya, then the window, then back to Ilya.

“I’m climbing out the fucking window.”

“You are insane! I’m telling him to go away.”

“He’s seen my car!”

Shane nearly flew a foot into the air when he heard the rookie knock at Ilya’s door, proceeding to speak quickly in Russian.

As Ilya was distracted in his response, Shane started prying open the window.

“Shane Hollander?” Pava said, snapping Shane back to the real world. The kid looked worried, and Shane remembered he was supposed to be reassuring him now.

“It’s okay,” Shane replied. “Water under the bridge.”

Pava gave him a confused look.

“Oh, just…it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“This is fucking rigged,” Ilya said, throwing down his controller.

“I don’t understand how you keep playing this over and over, and you don’t get even marginally better,” Cliff retorted. Roz came to his place once a week just to get crushed at Chel over and over again.

“Don’t pretend you know what that word means,” Ilya replied. “Can we just play Sims 3 again?”

“Dude, that always just ends with me sitting here and watching you make a sim that looks suspiciously like Rose Landry, and then you try and drown her in the pool.”

“I only did that once.”

Cliff rolled his eyes, but proceeded to enter the menu to change the game. “Crazy though,” he said, “you and Holly. Man, I remember all the Rose Landry stuff, all makes sense now. Lucky that he got traded here,” Cliff shook his head. “Couldn’t believe it, dude, when Montreal gave him up. Someone in their stats department’s getting bounced,” he laughed.

Ilya frowned, raising an eyebrow. “Marly…you realize that Hollander asked to be traded, yes?”

Cliff blinked. “No shit, really? What, just to be with you? I mean…no offense, but, that’s fuckin’ wild. Holly’s got some massive balls on him.”

For some reason, that made Ilya rub his hands over his eyes. He turned to look at Cliff dead on. “No. Well, kind of, but, not really.” He huffed. “Marly, I am going to tell you something, and it is a secret, okay?”

Cliff nodded a little too quickly. Cliff was a good friend, he could be trusted. He was going to show that he was worth trusting. Whatever Roz needed to tell him.

And…oh, shit, what if he and Holly had broken up? That would suck, he liked them together, they matched each others’ freak. Fuck, it was gonna be so awkward playing with two dudes that hated each others guts. Well, not that he hadn’t done that before, but this would be different. A different kind of hate. A…sexual hate. Like that one ex-girlfriend Cliff had that threw all his sneakers off his balcony into the pool after he accidentally moaned the wrong name during sex. Yeah, he maybe deserved that one. In his defense, it wasn’t like he said some other chick’s name, it was a video game character at least. He’d been playing a lot of Tomb Raider at the time.

“Okay,” Cliff replied.

“Shane asked to leave Montreal,” Ilya said. He turned his attention back to the TV where the Sims loading screen had appeared, like it would be easier to talk if he didn’t have to look Marly in the eye. “He came out to his teammates last year.”

Cliff raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Shit. Montreal knows?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “And they handled it badly. Very badly. It was…unsafe, Shane had to leave. You understand.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yes. And is why it’s so important no one else can know. Would be too hard to go through it again for him.”

Cliff frowned. “Yeah, but…our guys wouldn’t be like that. He could tell ‘em he’s gay, they’d be cool.”

Ilya widened his eyes. “Are you sure about that? Cloud’s a Republican. Connie almost threw a tantrum over some rainbow tape. Delly’s fucking Albertan. I don’t blame him for not wanting to risk it.”

“But,” Cliff started, but he didn’t really know what he was gonna say. “Shit. Well, what’s your plan then? You just gonna hide it forever? That doesn’t seem like you.” Or maybe it was like him. These last few weeks with Holly here were the most open Cliff had ever seen his captain.

Ilya shrugged. “Probably yes. Is a difficult situation for him, I don’t want to push. Besides, it’s not such a good thing for me if it gets out either. I have a green card now, but still Russian passport. Could still be a problem.”

“That sucks,” Cliff said, handing the controller over to Ilya so he could start building his Sim. “Man, I dunno what I’d do if I couldn’t talk about Noor. She’s like, the best part of my day.”

“I know,” Ilya said. “I know too much about her, you never shut up.”

“You could probably tell some people though, isn’t Newf’s sister a lesbian? Or Wolly always goes to that one bakery with the rainbow flag in the window. Coach Maya has a septum piercing, that’s gotta be something, right?”

That made Ilya laugh for some reason. “Maybe. We will see. Shane is very worried. Does not want anyone to be suspicious. Has even set up guest bedroom like he is there.”

“Damn,” Cliff remarked. Ilya was making his Sim way more jacked than he actually was. “Montreal must’ve been real shit.”

It took Cliff a full minute of watching Ilya dress his Sim in an assortment of fugly outfits before the thought crossed his mind.

“Oh, fuck,” Cliff said, like the words had been ripped from his throat. Ilya gave him a strange look.

“What?”

Cliff winced. “Shit, if I tell you something, please don’t be mad?”

“What did you do?”

Cliff scratched at his temple in an attempt to partially mask his face.

“Okay, so, when we were in New York, I kinda talked to your boy.”

Ilya gestured at him to go on.

“Well, y’know, I gave him a bit of a shovel talk.”

Ilya’s eyebrows drew together. “What is this?”

“It’s like, a bro talk. To your bro’s girl—or, guy, I guess. Just a light threat, let ‘em know to treat you right.”

“A threat.”

“I may have threatened to break his other collarbone if he ever hurt you.”

Ilya looked like he was ready to punch Cliff in the face. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It was a joke!” Cliff said, his voice a bit too high. “He knows it was a joke!”

“Does he? You put him in the hospital, Marly.”

“I thought it was a cute little callback.”

“You idiot, he just got run out of Montreal and now you threaten him? The one teammate who knows he is gay?”

“Well I didn’t fuckin’ know he was run outta Montreal! Apparently, no one thought to inform Clifford! Not like it’s useful information or anything!”

Ilya threw up his hands. “I didn’t know I need to tell you not to threaten my boyfriend.”

“I was defending your honour, bro. I’m on your side, he should appreciate that.”

“You stupid fucking idiot.”

“Well what was I supposed to think, dude? You kinda gave me whiplash here. You get a boyfriend, surprise, he’s Shane Hollander. Suddenly he changes teams and moves in, it’s a little fast. I’m just being a good friend, I’m looking out for you. It’s like that time Connors let his girl move in with him after a month and she stole all his watches.”

“It’s not the fucking same Marly, me and Shane have been fucking since before rookie season!”

Cliff blinked. “What the fuck? What? The fuck? You’ve been together that whole time.”

Ilya huffed and sunk back into the couch cushions. “I never said together. I said fucking. The point is, you do not have to worry that Hollander will steal all my watches. I maybe will steal all of his.” He sent a glare towards Cliff. “But you should worry that I will murder you in your sleep if it turns out you have ruined everything.”

“I’m sorry man,” Cliff replied, and he really meant it. He’d been trying to be a good friend. He’d have done the same thing if it was a chick Rozy was seeing. Well, maybe not exactly the same, he’d probably hold back on the physical threat part, but he’d never had to do this with a dude before. He should’ve consulted Noor first. She always knew what to do. “Should I go tell him I’m not gonna beat him up?”

“Knowing you, you will probably just fuck it up,” Ilya said. “I will deal with it.” He turned his attention back to the screen. “Would you say your eyes are a chestnut brown or more of a hazel?”

Cliff looked at the TV. “What the fuck man, why do you always make my forehead so small?”

“Shane.”

Shane had his tablet propped up while he spun on the stationary bike as Ilya approached him in the home gym. Ilya raised an eyebrow. Normally when he did that, he was watching game tape or at least something hockey related.

“Yeah?”

Ilya raised an eyebrow, temporarily distracted from his mission. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh,” Shane said, slowing his pedalling and sitting up straight. “I’m looking up yoga modifications for taller people. Also some stuff that focuses on hamstrings and lower pack pain. Did you know they make extra long yoga mats?"

Ilya raised his eyebrows. “I am sorry to tell you this, Hollander, but you are short.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “We're the same height. And besides, it’s not for me, it’s for Pava.”

“You have finally tricked someone into doing yoga?”

“I didn’t trick him. He asked, and I think it’d be really good for him.”

“Hm,” Ilya said. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Shane let out a breath, finally taking his feet off the pedals and swinging his leg off the bike. He took a swig of water, wiping at some of the sweat on his forehead. He was fucking hot.

“Oh?” Shane replied.

“About Marly…” Ilya said. This felt like a weird conversation to have. Like Shane was some kid and Ilya was trying to convince him to visit the school psychologist. “He said something to you, yes?”

Shane cocked his head to the side, confused. “About the nose piercing? I told him he shouldn’t ask me, I don’t want to be responsible for that decision.”

“No, other thing.”

“He’s said lots of things to me. We’re on the same team.”

“I mean something else. He said something to you about me. Us.”

Shane just twisted up his face even more.

Ilya huffed, throwing up his hands. “Hollander. Marly told me he threatened to break your collarbone.”

Shane blinked. “Oh, yeah. I remember that.”

Ilya gave him a look of disbelief. “And? You did not say anything?”

“Was I supposed to tell you? It was a pretty basic shovel talk.”

“Why does everyone keep using this word? What does it have to do with shovels?”

“I’ve never thought about that actually,” Shane said, moving to take a swig from his water bottle. “I assume it’s a reference to grave digging? So in the scheme of things, a threat of recoverable injury was pretty tame from him.”

Ilya blinked. “You are being very chill about this.”

“Am I?”

“I don’t know. I thought after Montreal…what if you thought Marly was going to jump you in the hallway?”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “I promise you, I’m not worried about that.” He turned to grab a towel, deciding his workout was as good as finished. “Honestly, I’m impressed. No one in Montreal would ever do the same thing for me.” He frowned. “It felt…weirdly normal. I never thought I’d ever get the chance to be threatened by my boyfriend’s best friend. It’s kinda nice.”

Ilya smiled. He supposed it was sweet in a way. Like Marly was looking out for him, trying to keep his heart intact.

“Also, it really shows his dedication to the team,” Shane continued. “It’s important that the team stays a unit. We don’t want interpersonal drama to get in the way. But in that case, I really hope he doesn’t break my collarbone, then I’d be benched. That would be really bad for the team.”

“Hollander.” Ilya huffed, but he couldn’t keep the fondness from his tone. “You are so predictable.”

Cut

“Hey everyone.” Mason Doherty said to the camera. He was sitting at a folding table somewhere in the Bears practice facility. “I’m Mason Doherty, and I’m your newest Planters™ Teammate! Today I’m taking over question of the day, and I’m asking the guys what their favourite Planters™ snack is.”

Cut

The Planters logo flashes across the screen. Below it is a tagline, reading:

“Almost as nutty as your average goalie.”

Cut

“What’s this?” Cloutier asked, first one off the ice, still carrying his stick as he waddled through the tunnel.

“It’s Planters Picks! What’s your favourite Planter’s snack?” Sumaya smiled.

In front of Cloutier was an assortment of nuts laid out on a table.

He raised an eyebrow, tugging at one of the containers. “I can have one?”

“Yeah!”

Cloutier made a face, grabbing a handful of the honey roasted peanuts. “Probably these.” He slapped his hand against his face, throwing the handful into his mouth in one go before proceeding down the tunnel.

Cut

“Ah,” said Ilya, pushing his sweat soaked curls away from his forehead. “Have you tried giving these to Hollander? I am sure he will complain about seasoning. ‘Too high in sodium’ he will say. You know he is doing new diet? Eats like a caveman. He cannot eat cheese, beans, lentils—”

Cut

“Why is nuts?” Kosmodemyansky asked, approaching with Delly at his side.

“It’s for Doherty’s new partnership! What’s your favourite Planter’s snack?” Sumaya replied.

Delly looked quizzically at the containers, carefully turning each one to look at the labels. “I’ve never thought all that hard about what nuts I eat.”

“You eat nuts?” Kosmodemyansky asked.

“Sometimes. Depends on the day.”

“I like eh…salty, I think.”

“What’re these ones?” Delly asked.

“Those are the Montreal Style Barbeque,” Sumaya replied.

Delly carefully handed a few nuts over to Kosmodemyansky, and the two taste tested them with the diligence of a professional wine taster.

“This?” Pava asked.

“Uh, those are…ranch. I think.”

“This one?”

The video fast-forwarded at 8x speed, the next ten seconds filled with footage of Delly and Kosmodemyansky meticulously taste testing each sample, twice over.

“I like this. Can I keep?” Pava asked when the video speed had gone back to normal. He was holding up the container of plain cashews.

“Oh, uh…sure, yeah. I’m sure they won’t be missed.”

Cut

“He will have rice, but no other grains. No wheat, no corn, no oats—”

Cut

Connors, barely even stopped to answer. He merely pointed at the bag of plain salted peanuts as he went by.

Cut

“No sugar, no dairy—”

Cut

St-Simon was more decisive, grabbing a few of the hickory smoked almonds with a smile.

Cut

“He lives at my house, yes? He has filled my fridge with salmon. Chicken. So many eggs, I have no space for anything. I starve in my own home.”

Cut

“How’s ya gettin’ on luv?” Newf said, flashing Sumaya a toothless grin.

“I’m good! What’s your favourite Planter’s snack?”

“Ah, well tha truth is, I can be a right goulu when I get a pack’a dese,” he said, grabbing a scoop of the peanut butter chocolate trail mix. “Some deadly, they are.”

Cut

“I ask him, Hollander, why are you eating like the wheel has not been invented? Cavemen did not live very long.”

Cut

Svensson and Schneider proceeded quickly, one grabbing a honey roasted peanut, and the other passing without an answer.

Cut

“He will choose this,” Ilya said, pointing at the bag of plain unsalted almonds. “I would bet my McLaren.”

Cut

“What’s up?” Marleau said, making his way through the tunnel followed closely by Shane. The two were breathing heavily when they reached the table.

“We’re just asking everybody what their favourite Planters snack is,” Sumaya replied from behind the camera.

“Oh, sick, I can have them?” Marleau asked, already shoving his hand in one of the cans. “I like the hickory smoked.” He grabbed another handful. “And the honey roasted.” He shifted a few containers around. “No way, y’all got the M&M ones? Those go hard.”

“What about you, Shane?” Sumaya asked.

“Hm,” Shane said, looking seriously at his options. He immediately picked up the canister of plain, unsalted almonds. “Probably these. High in fibre, they’re supposed to be great for your gut health.”

“My guts?” Marleau butted in. “I don’t think ‘guts’ is a medical term.”

“You also get all your medical advice from Dr. Phil, Cliff.”

“Ooh, burn,” Sumaya interjected.

Cut

Wolkowski had a glove tucked under his shoulder when he came through. “Peanuts are unbelievable. I like these,” he said, gesturing to the peanut medley. “Or these,” he added, poking the Montreal style.

Cut

Doherty was the last to make his way on screen, twice his normal size dressed up in all his gear. He smiled as he approached.

“Hey Mason! What’s your favourite Planters snack?”

Mason looked down at the table, his eyes darting across the different options. His smile turned to a frown.

“Where the heck are the salted cashews?”

“Ooh, how about this?”

Ilya squinted to read the movie description. He never should’ve let Shane control the remote. He always took forever to navigate.

“It’s a mini documentary series about the history and evolution of hockey equipment,” Shane said with a smile. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere, I don’t know why it’s been so hard to find.”

Ilya blinked. “Yes. I cannot imagine. Surely it is in high demand.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Come on, it looks cool. They interview a bunch of equipment managers, and they feature archives from the Hockey Hall of Fame!”

Ilya rubbed his hands over his face. “Shane. It is ten in the evening. We have a game tomorrow. The last thing I am wanting is to listen to boring hockey history narration while I am trying to feel you up.”

Shane frowned. “Why’re we even watching anything if you’re not gonna pay attention?”

“Maybe I would pay attention if you did not have such terrible taste in movies.”

Shane huffed. “All you do is watch shitty action movies that’re just the same formula over and over again. It’s just a bunch of average looking guys blowing shit up and making out with girls.”

“Yes,” Ilya nodded. “Is message I support.”

Shane switched off the television, looking actively annoyed. But he couldn’t have been that annoyed, considering he didn’t even pretend to protest as Ilya started pulling at his hoodie.

Born in 1911 in Sakata, Japan, goaltender Teiji Honma joined the Machurian Medical University ice hockey team at the age of 25. In 1936, he would go on to represent Japan at the 1936 Winter Olympics.

It took Ilya a second to notice. He had become so used to the constant droll of podcasts filling the room before games that he sometimes took a moment to really register what he was hearing sometimes.

Ilya looked up, his eyes tracking along the bench until they reached the location of the speaker, then the aux cord.

Though the glasses-wearing Honma may have had questionable skills in goal, he would go on to be a pioneer of one piece of modern-day goaltending equipment.

There, holding his phone soundly connected to the aux cord was Shane. He was looking straight at Ilya, his eyebrows raised, daring him to say anything.

Shane had his first turn in charge of the speaker a few weeks back. He was initially surprised at the system, the fact that they had a rotating schedule.

“Oh, you guys can skip me,” Shane had shrugged. “I don’t really listen to music, I dunno what I’d put on. I don’t mind.”

Ilya didn’t think anything of it. It was true that Shane didn’t listen to music. If anything, it would probably stress him out to be in charge of playing music for the group, too worried that they were secretly judging each song as it came on. He had more important things to worry about before a game.

Now, though, a few weeks later, it seemed that Shane had no issue taking the reins.

Honma wore a mask similar to that of a backcatcher in baseball. Leather, with a wire cage. More uniquely, the center of the mask had two circular eyeholes designed to fit around his glasses.

Ilya narrowed his eyes from across the room, catching Shane in a game of chicken. Shane was not standing down.

“What the fuck is this?” Ilya asked, stretched out on the floor in just his base layers, going through the motions with a foam roller.

“What?” Shane asked innocently.

“We are about to play a season deciding game, and you are trying to put me to sleep?”

Shane rolled his eyes, prepared to protest. He didn’t get the chance.

“Woah, dude,” Marly interjected. “What happened to the sacred rules of the aux?”

“Is his turn,” Pava nodded. “Is what he is wanting.”

Ilya blinked.

“Dude, you’re the one that put on that three part series about the Greek lesbian,” Cloutier said.

“Guys,” Doherty whined, his hand deep in a bag of almonds. “Can we go back? I missed a whole part. You guys were talking over it.”

Ilya turned his attention back to Shane, who was bearing an incredibly smug expression.

He had created a locker room full of monsters.

Ilya loved living with Shane. It was like having a constant reminder, every minute of every day, that someone loved him.

Ilya blinked as he looked at the plastic wrapped box on his dresser. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.

“Shane?”

Shane popped his head out of the ensuite bathroom, halfway through the process of buttoning up his dress shirt. He was in the same suit he always wore for walk-ins. “Yeah?”

Ilya held up the box of cologne. “You put this here?”

Shane nodded, still half distracted as he did up his tie. “Oh, yeah, I saw you were running out. I wasn’t sure if it was a part of your routine or something, I know you always wear it on gamedays, but sometimes you don’t keep up with that stuff until it’s too late. I just ordered some online.” He quickly flitted his eyes up, noticing the way Ilya’s eyes were trained on him. He frowned. “Oh, is it the wrong one? Or are you particular about where you get it?”

Ilya shook his head, placing the box back on his dresser, next to his nearly empty bottle. “No, no, is good. Thank you.”

Shane nodded, and Ilya watched him retreat back into the washroom.

Ilya opened up the box, pulled out the new bottle, and applied some to his wrists.

Shane stood in Ilya’s kitchen at one in the morning steeping an herbal tea.

It was Ilya’s kitchen, not his. He was in Ilya’s house, in Ilya’s city, on Ilya’s team, and he couldn’t sleep. It had been happening more often lately, Shane blamed the change in his routine. But maybe he couldn’t use that as the reason he’d been tossing and turning in Ilya’s bed, his mind racing with visions of Montreal every time he managed to drift to sleep.

Boston had lost one of their last two games of the regular season, resulting in their demotion to second in the division. Montreal rose to first. The only upside to this outcome was that Boston and Montreal wouldn’t be playing each other in the first round. Though, if they both advanced, Boston would be starting on Montreal’s ice for the second round.

Shane thought that perhaps the waiting was worse. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about it, returning to Montreal after half the city thought he had chosen to abandon them. Didn’t he? He had abandoned them, and Montreal seemed to be better for it. Any dreams Shane had held of his number being retired to the rafters in Montreal were long gone.

Shane knew he was a great player, that was never in doubt, but hockey was a team sport. It didn’t matter how great he was if he couldn’t carry a room, if he broke the cohesion. Now, Shane couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be the same cause of fracture in Boston. The Bears were a unit, they trusted one another, they understood each other. Every wrong step Shane took, every superstition he missed, every name of a wife he forgot, he was sure he was disrupting that.

“Hello.”

Shane jumped so hard his head might’ve hit the ceiling. He turned to see Pava standing in the living room shrouded in darkness. It was a sight that was a little too familiar.

“Jesus Christ, Pava.” Shane said, pressing his palm against his chest like an aghast Victorian woman. How did such a large man move so quietly?

Pava didn’t seem apologetic at all, wandering the rest of his way into the kitchen. He started rummaging around in the fridge, pulling out an assortment of containers.

“I am hungry at night,” Pava said. “Even if I eat all day.”

Shane nodded, watching as Pava retrieved the loaf of bread that had been twisted up rather than using a tag to keep the plastic closed. He watched in silence as the kid began to build a sandwich, stacking filling after filling, the thing growing impossibly tall.

“Is that enough?” Shane asked, cocking his head to the side as he stared at the sandwich in morbid fascination.

“Too much bread if else.” Pava smiled. “And, is fun.”

He finally put the last slice of bread on top, then lifted the sandwich to his face. He opened his mouth as far as it would go before stuffing it into his mouth, its filling spilling out all over the island. Shane scrunched up his nose.

“Would you like?” Pava offered, mustard smeared on his chin.

“No, that’s okay,” Shane said, taking a sip of his tea that had finally cooled enough not to burn. “I should probably go back to bed.”

Maybe Shane should try sleeping in the guest bedroom. Maybe it would help him to feel not so in the way. But he could already imagine Ilya’s puppy dog eyes if he tried that.

Shane didn’t move from his spot at the island as Pava kept chewing away, licking his fingers in such a way that Shane prayed he’d wash his hands before touching anything else. Surely he would, this was the kid who kept lemon hand soap and travel hand sanitizer in every room of the house. Sometimes Pava had the habits of a guy with clinical OCD, then other days he was pulling shit like this.

“You are nervous for playoffs?” Pava asked.

Shane blinked. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? This is only your second run.”

Pava shrugged. “Is okay, is bigger deal for you, yes?”

Well, yes, but no one had really been so blunt about it with him. It was like the elephant in the dressing room that everyone danced around. Shane was expected to prove himself this year, the whole continent was watching.

“Yeah,” Shane said. “Sometimes it feels like everyone’s just waiting for me to fuck up.”

Maybe it was the time of day that was making Shane so obliged to spill. He probably shouldn’t be unloading on the kid, if anything, it was his job to be reassuring Pava. Or hyping him up, whatever he might need. Shane really wasn’t sure, he couldn’t read the man.

“Probably,” Pava replied. “In Montreal. Not here, yes? I will still like you okay if you are playing bad.”

Shane laughed despite himself. “Thanks, Pava. Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

Pava nodded, finishing off the last of the sandwich. “You should sleep. If you are not there, Ilyukha will wake up like Mummy of Anka to looking for you.”

Shane didn’t know what that was. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said, setting his empty cup in the dishwasher. “See you in the morning?”

Pava smiled. “Good night, Shane Hollander.”

“Hello, I am Paviskakiy Kosmodemyansky and today I will be wearing a microphone for the Boston team photo.”

Pava smiled at the camera, giving a thumbs up. He’d practiced the line a few times to make sure the grammar was perfect.

“I am tell no one I have microphone,” he added. “Will be fun.”

Cut

“D’ya think they’re gonna stick you in the back again?” Delly asked, laying across the top of the boards like a scene out of Titanic.

Pava shrugged. “Is okay. Or else I am blocking someone.”

“Okay but, for real, did your mom ever take you to the doctor and ask, like, is my son okay? Is he ever gonna stop growing?”

“Eh, yes. They say, ‘Is fine. Put him in sport.’”

Cut

Pava slowly glided up to Doherty and Wolkowski, who had gathered on the bench.

“Hey,” Doherty greeted. “You know it’s Wolly’s first photo?”

“Oh yes?” Pava replied. “You will need picture. For instagram.”

“Yeah!” Doherty laughed. “Y’know those draft photos?” He held his arms up, gesturing as he would if he were pointing his stick blade at the camera.

Connors skated into the mix. “Fuckin’ hell Doey, teaching Wolly to thirst trap? Gotta get Rozy over for that.”

“I will take photo for you,” Pava said to Wolkowski. “In net. Very cute.”

“You’re shit at photos,” Wolly replied. “They all look like a satellite took ‘em.”

Cut

“You need help?” Pava asked, skating up to Jen, the Director of Operations. She was struggling across the ice in her heels.

She laughed. “You think that someone working for a hockey team would have a bit more grace on the ice.”

“Is okay,” Pava replied, holding out an arm for her to lean on. “I help.”

The camera captured the pair from the back as Pava carefully guided her to her spot on the carpet where she was placed for the photograph.

Cut

“Where am I?” Pava asked, sliding up behind the row of elevated chairs.

“Oh, no, Pava,” Shane said. “You’re up here.”

Shane waved him towards the front row, where the captains and alternate captains would sit. Ilya was already in the center place, Marly and Newf on his left. In the seat to his right, was Shane, wearing his newly minted A across his heart. One seat was remaining next to him, at the edge of the player seating.

Pava glided up with a frown. “No, I am not thinking so. Is for alternate.”

“Dude, your name’s right here,” Shane said, gesturing to the seat. “C’mon. You’ll block everyone if you stay standing.”

Cut

“How lucky am I?” Ilya grinned, just audible in Pava’s mic from two seats away. “I get to sit in front of my favourite hockey player!”

“Fuck off,” Connor said, standing just behind Ilya.

“Ilya,” Shane said, in a low voice, barely audible in Pava’s mic. “Untuck your sweater.”

“It’s fine,” Ilya said back.

“We are smiling, yes?” Pava asked.

“Yes,” Shane replied, at the same time Ilya said, “No, smolder.”

Cut

Across the screen flashes the full team photo, with a matching patterned border, similar to that of a Christmas card. At the bottom, reads:

Happy 2018-19 Season!
Love, the Boston Bears

“Oh, Newf,” Ilya said, clapping his teammate on the back as they filed out from video review. “Siobhan is doing playoff jackets, yes?”

“Yes b’y,” Newf replied. “Bless the missus’ for the business degree. I swear the woman could sell gloves to a lobster.”

“I am sure they will be beautiful,” Ilya assured. “Will you give me her phone number?”

“If ya tryin’ ta steal her away, ya stunned as a lump. Ya too pretty for ‘er, she likes’a bit more scruff on ‘em.”

“Do not worry old man, I know she is too good for me. I just need to ask her for a favour, put in an order, yes?”

Newf raised his eyebrows.

“Eh…I would like a jacket. For my Jane.”

As if he had been awoken like a sleeper agent at the sound, St-Simon appeared, squeezing in between the two.

“You said Jane? I fuckin’ knew it was serious. Does this mean we finally get to meet her?”

“Relax,” Ilya said as the rest of the team started to crowd in to listen. Shane could feel his cheeks starting to burn. “You think I will introduce her to you losers? I respect her more than this. Jacket is a treat for me.”

“You dog. You know she’s gonna expect a ring soon.”

“You think anyone’d get with Roz for a ring?” Connors said, punching Victor in the shoulder. “I’m sure she’s gettin’ all she wants already.”

Newf only raised his eyebrows. “I see, finally got ya sweetheart scald. Proper ting. Took my sis’ ten years to convince ‘er Jenny to marry her. Wedding was as much a time as it was dear.”

“Okay,” Ilya replied simply, and Shane wasn’t confident his boyfriend understood the man anymore than he did. “Send me the contact, yes?”

The boys poked at Ilya a bit more until it became clear he wouldn’t divulge any more information. They were eager to go anyway, they were given a full day off before they were set to play their first game against Tampa.

“Are you seriously getting me a WAG jacket?” Shane whispered, once the group had dispersed.

Ilya shrugged. “I do not know what you mean. Is for my Montreal girl.”

Shane elbowed him in the ribs.

Round one of the playoffs started with home-ice advantage. Shane’s face was cleanshaven, and he hoped he wouldn’t be touching a razor again until June.

Tampa was a solid opponent that had made a strong push to clinch at the end of the regular season. They certainly weren’t the same team that Boston had been playing at the start of the season. Shane prayed to whoever was listening that they wouldn’t get knocked out in the first round. He wasn’t sure he could come back from that.

Luckily for Shane, Tampa didn’t seem to know what to do with them.

Tampa was the youngest team in the playoffs, recently having upped their game since starting their rookie goaltender from Slovakia. It was effective, of course, a great goaltender could carry a team far.

But Boston had recently turned into every team’s worst nightmare, especially now that they’d found their footing. Teams were prepared to face Ilya Rozanov on the first line, they had a formula for how to outlast it. What they hadn’t yet figured out was what to do when they were hit with equal firepower on the second line.

“Nice shot, Holly,” Connors said, giving him a pat on the back. Newf was on his other side, tapping his helmet.

They were up four on Tampa in the second, their opponents having given up three goals in the first period. Shane didn’t expect it would be this easy for the whole first round, but the win was sure to give them good momentum going into their away games.

Shane skated to the bench, shucking off his gloves and handing them to Nick to try to dry off before his next shift.

“Was not bad,” Ilya shrugged, spitting onto the rubber. “A bit messy, but…”

“Oh yeah?” Shane replied, his eyes on the ice. “Messy goal is better than no goal.”

Ilya scoffed. His only goal had been disallowed at the start of the second for goalie interference.

“We will see. Why don’t we make a deal, Hollander? Most goals in the playoffs?”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “And what does the winner get?”

Ilya smiled. “Haven’t decided yet.”

Shane bit his lip to hide his smile, turning his attention back to the ice just to watch a Tampa player fall backwards dramatically, drawing a penalty.

Shane and Ilya both shot to their feet as the whistle was blown, already shouting as the ref called the penalty for an elbow.

“He fucking dove!” Shane yelled, barely audible over Ilya’s “that’s bullshit!” They watched the Tampa player skate back to his bench, dramatically holding his face.

Delly seemed to agree, shaking his head as he was directed to the box. “Fucking pussy!” He shouted, mostly muffled, but his sentiment was easy enough to read from his lips.

The arena was nearly shaking with the sound of the boos, along with a “refs you suck!” chant growing louder by the second. Ilya scoffed as they sat back down. “Delly can’t even fucking reach his face.”

Both their heads turned to the jumbotron as they replayed the penalty. It showed Delly crowded up against the boards, the Tampa player behind him applying pressure. Shane visibly winced as he watched Delly throw his elbow back and clock the guy in the nose.

“Well,” Ilya said, after a moment of silence from the two of them. “Okay, yeah, maybe he deserved that one.”

Ilya sat at the head of the dinner table. Shane was to his left, Pava to his right.

He noticed Shane raise his eyebrows as he watched Pava wolf down his rice. A couple pieces flew onto the table. Maybe Ilya needed to get placemats, for Shane’s sake.

They weren’t really eating for pleasure these days. They were exclusively eating their nutritionist approved, pre-made meals, with perfectly calculated macros and well over 5000 calories a day, and even that wouldn’t be enough to keep them from dropping weight. There wasn’t anything to look forward to. After playoffs were done, Ilya wouldn’t even be able to look at the seafood section of a grocery store for months.

“It’s not going anywhere, Pava,” Ilya said, watching as Pava scraped up the remains of his plate.

Pava looked up innocently, his face still buried in his plate. “Hm?”

“If you eat too fast, you’ll get a stomachache,” Shane added.

Pava ignored them, moving to chug his glass of water instead.

“Well,” Ilya said, trying to start some sort of conversation. Ilya was the one pushing them together to eat like this anyway. It was always a little awkward. Ilya felt a bit like a scene out of Mad Men, sans the glasses of milk. “Newf gave me my WAG jacket,” he waggled his eyebrows at Shane. “You will have to try it on.”

“They are very nice,” Pava interjected. “I see on Instagram. Very styley.”

“Ah,” Ilya said. “We should have got one for you. Make you a fake girlfriend. Just for jacket.”

Pava made a face. “I do not want to.”

“And you shouldn’t.” Shane said, before turning to Ilya. “You’re such a bad influence. Stop encouraging him to make up convoluted lies.”

Pava blinked. “What is con-vo-luted?”

“Like, complicated,” Ilya said. “Shane just likes using big words because he likes to confuse immigrants.”

“Shut up,” Shane said. “Don’t make up a fake girlfriend,” he said, looking to Pava again.

“Ah, so is like when Ilya is try to style hair nice? Is too convoluted?”

Shane laughed a little too loudly, quickly moving to cover his mouth.

“Jesus Pava, you cannot give me rest? I try gel one time, Sveta suggested it!”

“You look like Isaac Newton.”

At that, Shane nearly spewed his mouthful of rice across the table.

“Maybe you borrow a hat,” Pava continued. “Bad hair day, yes?”

Ilya threw up his hands, defeated.

“So, Pava,” Shane started, “I saw your faceoff percentage has improved significantly. I know it’s not something wingers overly focus on, but I think people underestimate the—”

Ilya sighed. “Hollander, Pava will not stop bullying me, and you will not let me escape from hockey. In my own home!”

“Well, what else are we supposed to talk about?” Shane asked.

“Eh…” Ilya started. “What is your favourite colour?”

Shane rolled his eyes. “That’s so—”

“I like yellow,” Pava said. “Like the sun.”

Ilya turned to Shane with a shit-eating grin.

Shane sighed. “Okay, uh…green? I guess? Like the trees.”

“You are very predictable, Hollander.”

“Well, what’s yours then?”

“Black.”

“That’s not a colour. That’s a shade. And it’s a terrible answer.”

“I like green,” Pava said.

“Dogs see in black and white. You think they see fake colours, Hollander?”

“That’s literally not true.”

“I like dogs,” Pava added.

“I also like dogs, Pava,” Ilya replied. “If you were a dog what kind of dog would you be?”

“Eh, maybe…terrier. Like Laika.”

“Oh, is that your dog back home?” Shane asked.

Ilya threw down his fork. “Seriously Hollander? She is a Soviet hero!”

“Well that’s not fair,” Shane retorted. “It’s not like I expect you to know what a house hippo is.”

“You are making this up.”

“Hippo?” Pava interjected. “What is this?”

“Begemot,” Ilya supplied.

“In house?” Pava replied, looking only mildly panicked.

“Terrier is a good choice, Pava,” Ilya said, ignoring his question. “If I were a dog, I would be…German Shephard.”

Shane rolled his eyes.

“No,” Pava agreed. “You are maybe…shih-tsu.”

“Why am I crusty white dog—”

“And Shane Hollander,” Pava continued, “You would be border collie.”

“Ah, so I am a lump of fur, and Hollander is majestic sheep herder?” Ilya proclaimed.

“You love crusty white dogs,” Shane said.

“Is true,” Ilya nodded, reaching out to pull Shane into his arms. “Is why I fell in love with you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Shane replied, shoving his boyfriend off. “Eat your food.”

The room was filled with only the sounds clinking cutlery for several moments. But of course, good things could never last.

“We should get a dog,” Pava mused aloud.

Game two felt slightly more relaxed following their establishment of a lead, but not by much. The stadium still thrummed with the pulsing energy of the fans stomping in their seats. Shane could feel it in the tunnels below the arena as he camped out in the stick room, leaning on the table saw until he could cut them perfectly equal.

“I could swap out your stick in the middle of the game and would never tell the difference,” Ilya complained, swinging his legs off the edge of the folding table. “You will not notice millimeter difference.”

“You would know, huh?” Shane said, his focus still on the saw, “You’ve always been reckless with measuring.” He turned to his boyfriend, raising an eyebrow. “Mr. Nine Inches, huh?”

Ilya shrugged. “Is basically nine, rounding up, yes? Inches are useless measuring system anyway.”

“Okay, well, we don’t even use inches in Canada.”

“Ah, ah, not true, I have been to Subway.”

“We talkin’ Subway?” A voice interjected, swinging the door open and poking his head through. Shane nearly had a heart attack, considering that they had just been talking about dicks moments earlier.

Marly appeared in the doorway, a woman following behind him. “Man, you didn’t hear this from me but the Beyond Meat shit is actually fire. Noor tricked me into eating it.”

Shane raised an eyebrow, removing his last stick from the table. His attention focused on the woman with Marly.

“Oh, yeah, I wanted to introduce you guys. This is Noor,” he said, gesturing between her and Shane.

Shane had heard a lot about Noor over his short time in Boston. Mostly it was small interjections in everyday conversation. “Noor says this,” “Noor told me that,” “Noor thinks I look stupid when I try to grow a mustache.” Marly probably talked about his girlfriend more than any of the Voyageurs (sans Hayden) had collectively talked about any of their wives, though that wasn’t exactly a high bar.

Shane had never actually seen her before. She wasn’t what he expected at all for a WAG.

“You choose to make this introduction in tiny closet, Marly?” Ilya said, looking around their cramped surroundings. “You could not wait five minutes for Hollander to finish so we are not talking in hamster cage?”

Marly shrugged. “Noor has to go soon, and Holly always takes like half an hour to cut his sticks.”

“Hey,” Noor said, reaching out a hand to shake with Shane. “Nice to meet you.”

Shane took her hand, as well as the opportunity to glance over her. She had thick curly hair, olive skin, and a tall build. It also didn’t go unnoticed that she was wearing a Bears jersey under her playoff jacket, no doubt with the name “Marleau” plastered across the back. That caused Shane to blink in surprise.

“It’s my first playoff game,” Noor continued. “I missed the last one, exam prep, y’know, but I’m excited.”

“Oh,” Shane said. “If we lose this game you might not be allowed to come anymore.”

Noor laughed lightly, sobering when she saw the serious looks of the men around her. “You’re for real?”

Marly nodded. “You can’t mess with the universe, babe.”

“You guys are so weird.”

“I am liking your jacket, Noor,” Ilya said, pushing himself up to his feet. “You look very pretty, makes me wonder why you put up with Marly.”

“Watch yourself bud,” Marly said, crossing his arms in some attempt to appear more intimidating. “Don’t think that you can hit on my girl just ‘cause you like—”

Marly cut himself off abruptly, his eyes comedically wide. The room stopped along with him, an awkward silence hanging in the air along with the end of Cliff’s sentence.

It took Shane a moment to realize what was going on. They seemed to be stuck in a three way stalemate. Marly didn’t want to say a word about Ilya’s bisexuality, lest he slip up about Shane. Noor apparently knew about Ilya, but she didn’t know about Shane, or that Shane knew about Ilya. Shane, meanwhile, didn’t want to say anything at all, lest he be forced to share anything about his personal life.

Ilya didn’t seem to agree with the silent vow not to touch the subject.

“What?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows at his friend. “Just because I like dick? Yes, I know, I pull twice as much as you Marly.”

“Jesus,” Shane said with a sigh.

The door opened again, this time, Pava was poking his head through. “Why are you in closet?” Pava asked. “Google is saying this is metafora.”

That was enough to finally get them out of the god forsaken stick room, instead funneling out into the tunnels where the rest of the staff and team were milling about in preparation for the game to start.

“Have you guys seen Mason?” Nick, the equipment manager asked, noticing the quartet of hockey players emerging from the stick room. “I needa fit his new neck guard.”

Shane was only halfway through a shrug before Nick was already gone, walking determinedly down the hall.

“Where’s my fucking clear tape?” Connors shouted, stomping down the corridor in only a hoodie, his long underwear, and a pair of slides.

“Up your arse,” Newf replied, not even looking up from where he was untangling his headphones.

“Aw man,” Ellis said from where he was sitting off in a corner. “Hey does anyone know what lyme disease looks like?”

“Well,” Noor said, stopping in her tracks. “This is…chaotic.”

“This is nothing,” Marly said. “Two years ago Siggi started freaking out that his bangs were getting in his eyes right before a game, so he tried cutting them himself with the tape scissors. Buddy ended up crying in the dressing room ‘cause he looked like Wayne’s World.”

“What’s Wayne’s world?” Shane asked at the same time that Pava said “I do not know Wayne.”

“Anyway, babe,” Marly said, turning to Noor in lieu of answering either of them. “It’s only gonna get worse down here, you should head up to grab your seat.”

“Oh,” Shane said, “you’re not going to the family room?”

Noor shrugged. “No, I’m just in Cliff’s seats in the lower bowl, I think.” She raised her hands, speaking quickly as an attempt to halt Shane’s growing frown. “I asked, y’know. Being with the other WAGs can be…a lot.”

Shane did not know, in fact. His short lived relationship with Rose had never resulted in her getting to know any of the WAGs, though, based on some of Jackie’s gossip, Shane had gotten the gist about what some of the dynamics could be like with the women.

“By yourself?” Shane asked.

Noor shrugged in affirmation.

“My uh, my mom is here, actually. My dad was supposed to come too, but something came up with work. Anyway, the seat next to her is free, she’s really nice, I mean, she’s passionate, but nice. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you wanted someone to sit with,” Shane said, surprising himself.

She raised her eyebrows, and Shane was sure he was awaiting a rejection.

“Sure, actually. That’d be great. I still don’t always know what’s going on.”

Shane nodded. “Oh, okay, uh, I’ll just text her, I think she’s here already.” Shane wasn’t sure why he was so quick to offer. He liked Noor, even just from their short conversation, and more than that, he certainly knew what it was like to be stuck in a place he didn’t feel like he belonged.

At this point in their conversation, Ilya and Pava had been pulled away to help inspect Ellis’s notably concerning welt on his leg. Marly was still lingering.

“Perfect, you’ll love mama Hollander, babe. She’s lowkey scary, kinda like you, actually,” Marly said, moving to quickly throw an arm around Noor. “Anyway, I’m gonna start getting ready, these hamstrings don’t stretch themselves. Holly, please get her where she needs to go.” He landed a few kisses across her cheeks before disappearing towards the dressing room with a passionate “love you babe.”

This unfortunately left Shane alone with Noor in the hallway, with no idea what to say as he silently prayed for his mother to text him back.

Well, they weren’t really alone, the hallway was still buzzing with activity, which at least gave him some places to look.

“Does it still stress you out?” Noor asked, seemingly lacking the same qualms Shane had with small talk. “All the playoff stuff.”

Shane shrugged. “I mean, sure. I guess it’s different now that I’m not the captain.”

“Right,” Noor replied simply.

They fell into an awkward silence for a full thirty seconds before it was broken.

“Hollander!” Ilya called from across the hallway. Ellis was now practically on his back as Pava had hoisted the affected portion of the man’s leg up into his arm to get a closer look. “If the ring is blue this means it’s not lyme disease, yes?”

“Jesus Christ,” Shane muttered. For the first time in her life it seemed like his mom wasn’t glued to her phone.

“You know Ilya pretty well then?”

Shane blinked, raising his eyebrows as he turned back to Noor. She was looking at him casually.

“Uh…yeah, I guess.”

“Sorry, I never really watched hockey,” Noor said. “But if there was any hockey players I knew, it was Gretzky, and then you two.”

“Oh, yeah,” Shane nodded. “I mean, we were drafted the same year, they marketed us as rivals and everything. You know.”

“But you’re not actually rivals?”

Shane shrugged, looking back to Ilya. He had taken out his house keys and was now poking at the tick bite. Shane cringed.

“I mean, sort of. We’re competitive, but, no, we don’t hate each other or anything.”

“You live together, right?”

Shane felt himself tense a bit. Why was she asking? It wasn't that weird, not among hockey players. To anyone on the outside, their dynamic was nothing compared to whatever the hell was going on with some of the guys in Edmonton or San Jose, nothing out of the ordinary. No, it was normal, surely Noor just didn't know much about hockey, that's why she was asking.

Unless…unless Cliff had said something to her by accident? And it was one thing to let something slip to his girlfriend, but what if it was someone on the team? What if it was Connors, or Cloutier, or someone that wouldn't be understanding as Noor?

Shane had meant it when he told Ilya he didn’t care what other people thought about them, he really did, he just…didn't think it would all be so soon. Not in his first month on the team, not during playoffs. He didn’t think it would make him feel so exposed.

Maybe Shane should take a step back, just for the rest of the postseason. Maybe not spend so much time with Ilya, it couldn't hurt to get to know the other guys better anyway. Spending so much time glued to Ilya would only invite suspicion.

“Uh, yeah. It was…convenient,” Shane finally answered.

“That’s cool.”

The ping of his phone in his hand might as well have been the call of a saviour the way he rushed to look at it.

“Okay, that’s my mom,” he said, quickly unlocking it and typing back a response. “She said she’d be happy to have you, as long as you don’t mind her shouting too much. She should be easy to find, she’s still refusing to wear a Boston jersey, but I’ll give her your number just in case if that’s okay?”

“Sure,” Noor said, leaning over her shoulder to type it in. “Thanks, honestly, I’m still…not the most comfortable in the family room,” she shrugged. “Maybe one day.”

“I get it,” Shane said. “If it helps, I’m glad you came. It’s good to know Marly’s got someone like you keeping him in line.”

“Oh wow,” she said, a toothy grin overtaking her expression. Shane could see now that she had a piercing peeking out from under her upper lip. He didn’t even know you could get a piercing there. “Shane Hollander thinks I’m cool. Might just add that to my LinkedIn.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Hey, count yourself lucky. Normally my endorsements cost a pretty penny.”

“Oh I know,” she replied, waggling her eyebrows. “I saw the seltzer commercial.”

Shane bid Noor farewell with a polite handshake and a wave before turning to reunite with Ilya and Pava, who were no longer holding Ellis hostage.

“Is Ellis okay?” He asked.

Ilya tossed a hand aside. “Ah, he will be fine. A little lyme disease never killed anybody.”

Pava chimed in at that. “I have cousin with this. Whole face fall off.”

Shane blinked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what Pava meant by that.

“Is okay,” Pava continued, unphased. “We should win today. Will be sad if we lose, then we will not see Noor again.” He frowned. “I like her. She is going to taking me to MIT.”

Shane was impressed at the way Pava was able to make certain phrases sound incredibly catastrophic. As if by losing this game, Noor was going to be thrown into a volcano by the gods of hockey superstitions. Maybe he actually did think that, the way he chased down Ilya every warm up just to shoot the puck between his legs. Shane was surprised that he made it this far without getting roped into a newly formed superstition.

“What? Pava!” Ilya exclaimed. “She is trying to steal you to become a scientist. I don't allow it, okay? The cure for cancer can wait until after we win the cup.”

“I will not learn medici—”

Ilya cut him off by swinging an arm over his tall frame and turning to Shane. “Too bad. I will not sign your permission slip. Neither will Shane. He does what I tell him.”

“I do not,” Shane protested.

Ilya raised his eyebrows and sent Shane a cheeky grin.

“Whatever,” Shane muttered.

He would be able to make Ilya shut up more ways than one later than night. For now, they had a series to win.

Chapter End Notes

Fun facts!

Shane’s press conference at the beginning here is based on the presser that Brad Marchand did when he was traded from the Bruins to the Panthers. It was similar to Shane in some ways, in that he had been Captain at the time, and a lot of people saw it as a shock and huge betrayal by the organization. And yes Marchand did cry at the presser.

Shane helping Delly with his faceoffs is based off this little video of Leon Draisaitl and Josh Samanski from Oilers practice.

Team photos are done every year prior to the playoffs to record the full active roster on the team that year. The photos also include coaches and immediate staff, and they usually do another round of photos with extended staff (like scouts).

Doherty’s Planter’s Nuts sponsorship is inspired by Leon Draisaitl, who somehow got scooped up in a Haribo sponsorship at the end of last year after he was out for the regular season with an injury. I can say that the ads worked, because my mom (who loves Draisaitl) now buys Haribo all the time, and whenever she does, she tells me “Leon told me to get it.”

Yes I’m aware that “this is going to ruin the tour” happened after 2019, but this was just too good an opportunity so suspend the timeline please.

The scene where Delly gets a penalty for elbowing a guy in the face is inspired by this moment at a Jets game.

Back in the start of the original story, it’s mentioned that there’s actually been more than one instance that Shane’s been over at Ilya’s that first year that Pava was living with him. The second instance had not been explicitly covered in those earlier chapters, so I’ve been sitting on this little flashback for a while.

Fun fact I learnt while writing this, the term “backcatcher” is uniquely Canadian. Elsewhere, the position is simply called “catcher.”

You may have noticed that there are a couple of fan accounts in the Twitter sections, one for Pava and one for Doherty. The photo used for Pava is one of a young Evgeni Malkin, who was an inspo for Pava. He still plays in the NHL, and he spent his whole North American career with the Pittsburgh Penguins alongside Sidney Crosby. The inspo here for Doherty is Carey Price, who was one of the top goaltenders in the world during his career with the Montreal Canadiens. His career unfortunately ended early following a catastrophic knee injury obtained in a game in the 2014 playoffs.

Shane makes an offhand comment about house hippos. This is a reference to a popular Canadian PSA from the 2000s that warns about tiny house hippos inhabiting your home. The point of the ad was that you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV. The reality was that a young me believed that there were hippos living in my house.

Shane makes a comment about Noor wearing Marly’s jersey. It’s actually very unusual among WAGs to wear their partner’s jersey, it’s generally seen as “tacky” or “fan behaviour.” Misogyny 😞. A source I love in regards to the dynamics of WAGs is Lexi Lafleur Brown, she’s the wife of former NHL player JT Brown, but a hockey player and romance author in her own right! She makes a lot of content regarding her own time as a WAG and her experience with that.

Chapter 3: Part Three

Chapter Summary

The Bears were in the locker room when they heard the news.

It was the second intermission during game four against Tampa. Thanks to an overtime loss in Tampa, it looked like they had a bit more work to do before they’d be able to knock out the Lightning. Ilya was still hoping for a gentleman’s sweep, and by the way they were dominating the game going into the third period, things were looking optimistic.

“Ah, shit,” Ellis remarked from across the room. He sat on the bench with his phone in hand, turning to Connors beside him. “Montreal just swept Buffalo.”

Chapter Notes

Content warning for casual racism.

Sorry that these are getting written much slower these days. I have started my full time job now and I am not built for 40 hours a week. I just want to sleep all the time. I'm also spending 4 weeks in the field over the next two months that will probably slow me down even more. Don't blame me, blame the oil and gas industry.

Disclaimer I am not an evil oil baron my job is making sure that pipelines don't explode so I have to go visit them all in person.

The Bears were in the locker room when they heard the news.

It was the second intermission during game four against Tampa. Thanks to an overtime loss in Tampa, it looked like they had a bit more work to do before they’d be able to knock out the Lightning. Ilya was still hoping for a gentleman’s sweep, and by the way they were dominating the game going into the third period, things were looking optimistic.

“Ah, shit,” Ellis remarked from across the room. He sat on the bench with his phone in hand, turning to Connors beside him. “Montreal just swept Buffalo.”

Half the eyes in the room looked at Ellis. The other half looked at Shane.

Ilya had never so much despised the fact that his stall was across the room from Shane’s as he did at that moment. In a lot of ways, Shane was easy to read, he always wore his heart on his sleeve, his emotions in his watery eyes and trembling lower lip.

But now? Well, Ilya had no idea what Shane was thinking. The man was retaping his stick with the level of concentration of a man that would be shot if the alignment was off by a millimeter.

At Shane’s lack of reaction, eyes slowly drifted away from the Canadian, the team's attention instead turning to hushed whispers between one another at their future competitors, dependent upon their ability to finish the job against Tampa. Ilya waited a few minutes, until he was sure that the attention was off of Shane, before getting to his feet.

He wandered over nonchalantly, taking over Newf’s seat while he was off hiding in the closet. Shane was decidedly not looking at anything that wasn’t the blade of his stick.

“Montreal will be easy,” Ilya said. He spoke casually, but his voice stayed low, as to not rise above the chatter of the dressing room. “They do not know what to do without you, yes? Easy. Straight sweep.”

Shane still didn’t look at Ilya. Instead, he started unwrapping the tape job he’d just completely. “Maybe,” he said. “I guess we gotta beat Tampa first.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Ilya replied. “I would never get ahead of myself like this, only terrible captains do this. No, I am, eh, living in the moment.”

The comment was intended to make Shane laugh, tease Ilya about his dramatics. Still, nothing, as he began retaping the blade of his stick.

Slowly, Ilya nudged his skate-clad foot to the side, letting it lightly knock up against Shane’s. With no hesitation, Shane pulled his own foot away.

“The tape was fine, I think,” Ilya said.

“No,” Shane replied. “It can be better.”

The thing about playoffs was that they were a great way to get to know people. You were stuck with the same people around the clock. Even when you were at home, they wouldn’t leave your brain.

“You okay?”

Shane looked up to see Mason standing in the aisle of the charter, hovering over him. They were flying to Montreal early before Game 1 tomorrow.

“Hm?” Shane asked, he hadn’t realized he was staring into space.

“Can I sit?” Mason asked, already sliding into the seat beside him as Shane nodded. “You look out of it.”

“Oh,” Shane said, shifting a bit. The bus was drafty as hell, despite the fact the heat was running. “No, I’m just thinking. I’ve been studying the Voyageurs line combos, they’ve been switching things up their last few games.”

Mason leaned over a bit to look at the iPad Shane had been unintentionally ignoring in favour of zoning out.

“Huh,” he said. “Learning anything?”

Shane shrugged. Honestly, yeah, he’d learnt a lot. There’d been a big shift in Montreal’s playing style with him gone, it’s like he almost didn’t recognize them. They communicated on the ice, their passes connected, and they operated like a well oiled machine, impressive for a team that had been completely upturned just a month ago. Though Shane didn’t feel too eager to do a thorough analysis with the guy who was just asking as a courtesy.

“Their defense is solid,” Shane said, gesturing to the defensive pair on the screen. “But their shots on goal were like half of Buffalo’s. The only reason they're still in the game is ‘cause Drapeau’s standing on his head.”

“Yeah? Good thing I heard Boston’s got a pretty good goalie.”

Shane laughed lightly with a roll of his eyes. “But also, nobody’s really pushing to make scoring opportunities, they’re too busy hanging back and passing the puck waiting for something to happen.”

“Well no shit,” Doherty replied simply. “That’s ‘cause they’re still waiting for you to do that.”

Shane winced at the quiet part that Doherty had decided to say aloud. “I don’t know,” he said, moving to turn off his tablet. “I’m just, I guess I’m a bit worried that we go into this too confident and…yeah. I don’t think I’m quite the backbone of the team everyone thought I was.”

Shane didn’t like talking about Montreal, especially with his new teammates. If he was anything other than optimistic about his new situation, if he was ever too honest about how he felt about it all, they’d start peppering him with reassurance. How good he was. How Montreal was nothing without him. That wasn’t what he wanted. He just wanted someone to fucking listen.

He expected that from Mason. But Mason didn’t speak for a few moments, instead electing to work away at his packet of cashews. Shane wondered, did he get those for free? Shane still got the occasional pack of seltzer, so he would assume so. Knowing Doherty, he would plow through them faster than they could deliver them.

“You nervous then? About playing Montreal?” He said at last, his mouth still full.

Shane reached to tug at his hoodie string, trying to resist the temptation to place it between his teeth, just to give him something to do.

Shane shrugged in a way that he hoped appeared nonchalant. “Yeah. I…I don’t know.” Mason probably expected him to say more. He had nothing to give.

Shane’s silence, however, didn’t seem to deter Mason. “Honestly? It sucks,” the goalie said. “I mean, it’s nice when you go and they do the tribute and everything, talking about how much they miss you, but…” he shrugged, “It also made me mad. I play there eight years and they just trade me away. Like, I loved the city and fans and all, but they were also the same guys that’d turn on me whenever I had a shit game. I come back for a game and they hail me like a hero.”

Shane frowned, trying to narrow his attention instead to the peeling bit of sticker on the seatback in front of him. Anything that would keep him from thinking too hard about what Doherty was saying.

Mason let out a huff. “And it’s always nice to see all the guys again. It’s weird, though, seeing the guys they traded you for, like, damn, they just replaced me like that, huh?”

Shane gripped his knees. Was there turbulence or something? Was that to blame for the sudden wave of nausea?

“And shit, my first game back against Minnesota? I played like shit. You’d think I’d be good at playing against the guys who’d been shooting on me for years, but, man I just got so in my head.”

Mason looked to Shane then, furrowing his eyebrows. “Oh, sorry man, you probably don’t wanna hear me complaining.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Shane said unconvincingly. “Sounds tough.”

Mason shrugged, holding out his bag of cashews. “Nut?”

“No, that’s fine,” Shane said. Surely Mason would get up and go back to whatever it was he normally did on flights. Shane was pretty sure he had taken to dominating the poker table lately.

“You sure you’re good?” Mason asked again.

Shane was one question away from slamming his head on the seatback table. He had spent a career curating a facade that was meant to prevent people from trying to talk about personal things with him. It normally worked, other than when the occasional asshole forced their way in. Like Ilya. Or Hayden.

“Yeah,” Shane said.

“It’s just, normally you sit with Roz.”

Shane blinked, and turned in his seat a bit to sneak a glance two rows behind, where Ilya was now sitting with Pava. Pava had pretty much conked out as soon as the wheels left the tarmac, despite the fact that the flight was only a little over an hour. He was leaning against the window, wrapped up in several supportive neck pillows and blankets.

Ilya on the other hand, was chatting with Cliff, who was just across the aisle. He couldn’t quite overhear what the conversation was about, but it seemed light, if the way the two were laughing was anything to go off of. Shane always liked Ilya’s smile. Not the cheeky one he did for the cameras, but the real, toothy one, that only came out amongst friends. And his eyes, a beautiful blue, with softness and ferocity and everything in between. Blue eyes that were suddenly locked on Shane.

Shane snapped his head back around to look at the seat in front of him.

“I don’t always sit with him,” Shane said, hoping he didn’t sound too defensive.

“Oh,” Mason said simply. “Okay.”

“He sits with Pava all the time,” Shane said. “Or with Cliff.”

“Ah,” Mason replied. “It’s weird, I never met a hockey player that didn’t like nicknames.”

“I think he’s just sensitive about it,” Shane reasoned.

“He lets you call him one though, huh?”

What the fuck was this? Interrogate Shane day?

“I guess.”

“Man,” the goalie mused. “I wonder what I gotta do to get in his good graces. Y’know I used to have a stutter when I was little? My mom made me go to speech therapy, but I swear to god saying that kid's name makes me feel like it's all coming back.”

Shane hoped that by not replying at all, this conversation would end sooner. When the hell had Mason become a talker? Shane thought that they shared common ground in their distaste of small talk.

“Anyway,” Mason said, getting to his feet. “I gotta go make Delly cry at poker,” he said, gesturing with his thumb to the back of the plane. “I’ll see you, yeah?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Shane replied, finally letting out a breath.

Even as Ilya approached the ice for warmups, the Centre Bell had been packed. He could tell from the noises from the crowd every time a new player took to the ice that the anticipation for their former captain to show his face was only growing.

“You could skip the warmups,” Ilya offered, hanging back at the edge of the tunnel just out of sight of the fans.

Shane gave him a look as if Ilya had just asked him to rip off his fingernails with pliers. “I can’t do that! If I go out there without properly warming up—”

“Okay, okay, then go out!” Ilya said. “You will miss it anyway if you stand here all day.” Ilya paused, letting his shoulder brush up lightly against Shane’s. “Is okay if you are nervous—”

“I’m fine,” Shane said. “I can do my job.”

Ilya frowned. “I know this.”

“Okay,” Shane huffed. “Then let’s go.”

Shane’s coldness caught him off guard, and Ilya was more than a few steps behind when he took to the ice.

The wall of sound was deafening as he passed the threshold. The roar rippled out from the fans leaning over the walls of the tunnel until it reached into the nosebleeds. Shane kept his head down as he circled their half of the ice, picking up a puck to carry with him for his first couple laps. He didn’t look up to acknowledge the crowd, nor the masses of fans pounding on the glasses and holding up signs.

Ilya lingered at the bench, eyes narrowed as he attempted to read his boyfriend’s body language. Shane moved robotically, his shoulders square, knees bent, perfect textbook posture for his drills.

Despite the league-wide jokes about Shane being a hockey robot, he wasn’t actually one to keep to himself during warmups. He usually skated around with his linemates, inserted himself into passing drills, and even got involved with the gossip during stretches. This, whatever he was doing now…this wasn’t Shane.

“Is he mad at you?”

Ilya heard the telltale sound of Pava skating to a stop next to him.

“No.”

“Is he mad at me?”

Ilya shot him an incredulous look. “Now why would he be mad at you?”

Pava shrugged. “Well, he’s mad at someone. That’s the face he makes when you put the empty tub of protein powder back in the cupboard and he’s pretending like he’s not mad.”

Ilya frowned, cocking his head to the side as he watched Shane circle the ice. “He’s not mad. He’s just…in Montreal.”

“Oh. Should I leave him alone?”

Ilya shook his head. “No, you might be the only one who can cheer him up. It’s hard to be mad at you.”

“You get mad at me all the time. Like when I told Margaret you couldn’t eat her weird vegan cookies because you don’t eat flour, so then she started making you personal tupperwares full of gluten free vegan cookies.”

Ilya rubbed a gloved hand over his face. “Why didn’t you just tell her I hate weird vegan food?”

“I didn’t want to hurt her feelings! And you’re the one that keeps accepting the cookies. You keep eating them all even though you hate them.”

“Well I can’t just throw them away! She makes them special for me, Pava!” Ilya waved his hands, dismissing the younger man. “Not the point. As long as you don’t trick Hollander into eating weird chickpea muffins and you will be fine, okay?”

“Okie,” Pava shrugged, wasting no time in skating over to where Shane had started his stretches.

Ilya watched from afar as the two men spoke. He wasn’t sure what Pava was saying, surely some ridiculous anecdote about the new Scooby-Doo live action, it had been taking up most of his attention lately. Whatever it was made Shane smile.

Why couldn’t Ilya make him smile? He was normally so good at it, dragging that perfect, perfect smile out of his boyfriend, usually accompanied by a “fuck you,” or a “fuck off.”

Ilya had a bad habit of blaming himself for things that were out of his control. He’d been trying to work on it, largely thanks to the incessant nagging of his newly minted therapist, Ksenia. He was this close to suggesting that she should bring a spray bottle into session to use on him any time he started spiralling. He was sure it would work better than some fuck-ass “cognitive restructuring” that she always suggested. The point was, Shane seemed to be pulling away from him. As a first step, he knew his instinct shouldn’t be to assume it was his fault.

That was much easier said than done.

“Shane!”

Shane nearly went toppling onto the red line as Hayden barrelled into him, spinning him around for a full rotation.

“Jesus, Hayd,” Shane laughed, pulling away. “You’re acting like I’ve returned from war.”

“You might as well,” Hayden replied. “You get my love letters?”

“Oh, was it yours that had all the lipstick smudges?”

“Fuck off,” Hayden laughed.

Shane paused, looking over Hayden’s shoulder. Along the red line was an assortment of Boston Bears, skating up to greet their former teammates. All three of them were being bombarded with hugs and slaps on the back as they were reunited.

Hayden was the only one coming up to see Shane.

“I’m sure I’m gonna be sick of you by the end of this series,” Hayden pressed on. “Four games straight and I’ll be tired of your ugly mug.”

“Oh yeah? After we sweep your ass?”

“As if,” Hayden said, giving Shane a shove. “You’ve never played against me before bud, your former A knows all your tricks.”

Former A, and current A, it seemed. The Voyageurs had never actually selected a new captain after Shane’s departure, choosing instead to instate Murray with the third A.

“You wanna come over after?” Hayden asked, his expression hopeful. “The girls miss you.”

Shane smiled, the mild guilt felt visible in the way it didn’t reach his eyes. He was relieved that Hayden seemed genuinely unbothered with it all, he knew that his leaving was still a sore spot.

“Sure,” Shane said. “Though I might be miserable if you beat us.”

“Ah, one of us will be miserable either way. And listen,” Hayden said, his voice growing more serious. “You can bring Rozanov too.”

Shane blinked. “Oh.”

“Just, I swear if he hits on Jackie again, he’s never stepping foot in this city again, not unless he wants to do it on crutches.”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “Okay, I’ll bring him along.”

Hayden smiled, though it looked a bit more like a grimace. He leaned forward to bonk his helmet against Shane’s before drifting backwards on his skates. “I’ll see you after the game, yeah?”

“See you.”

Shane lingered at center ice for a moment. His attention had been drawn just down the red line to where Delly and Svensson were standing, talking with Carmichael. Their reunion seemed to involve a lot of laughing and grabbing and shaking, everything typical of a group of rowdy hockey players who didn’t know how to say the words “I missed you,” and chose to convey it physically instead.

“Hi, Shane.”

Shane startled at the voice across from him. He lifted his gaze to find one of the rookies, Friesen. He was a defenseman, nineteen years old, with a slicked back flow. He was completely unremarkable, aside from his below average height. Shane wasn’t sure he’d ever had a full conversation with the kid, aside from the time he was paired with him for a passing drill and had to explain it five times over.

None of those things explained why he was coming over to talk to Shane right now.

“Hey, Freezie,” Shane replied warily.

Friesen tapped his stick on the ice, what seemed like a nervous tic. Shane had always got the feeling that the kid was a bit intimidated by him, and he was pretty sure that he heard someone mention that he used to have a Hollander poster in his bedroom. The kid also had an unfortunate habit of getting sucked into the more undesirable locker room talk, but he at least had the mind to look guilty whenever Shane called it out.

“Just wanted to say, uh, good luck.” He paused, furrowing his eyebrows. “Or, not good luck, ‘cause I wanna win, but, like, just, I hope you’re good, or…” he trailed off, a blank look in his eyes.

Shane decided to rescue him.

“I get you,” he nodded. “Thanks, seriously. You’ve been playing really well, your backcheck’s really improved.”

The kid seemed to light up at this. “Oh, yeah I’ve been working on it.” He looked behind him quickly, then turned back to Shane with a frown. “I gotta get back anyway, but, I just wanted to say…yeah.”

He cautiously held up a fist between them, and it took Shane a second to realize what he wanted him to do with it exactly. Friesen looked disproportionately relieved when Shane met it with his own.

When Shane left Montreal, it felt like his worst nightmare had come true. Everything he’d been building, lost, just like that.

As he watched Freisen skate away, he wondered. If that kid could still look at him like that, like he was still Shane Hollander, then maybe all wasn’t lost.

Team tributes weren’t uncommon.

They were usually done when big name players left the teams they’d been drafted to, and Shane would be no exception. What was rare, however, was tributes occurring during the playoffs.

Just over ten minutes into the first period, during a TV timeout, a series of cheers echoed throughout the stadium, drawing attention to the jumbotron.

“And with the second overall selection in the 2009 NHL draft, the Montreal Voyageurs are proud to select…Shane Hollander.”

Ilya raised his head to see Shane’s baby-faced eighteen year-old self looking back at him on the screen, wearing a small—but slightly miffed—smile as he pulled on his new blue and red sweater and cap.

“Hollander scores! The entire stadium is on their feet!”

The screen changed, Shane scoring his first goal. Shane completing his first career hat trick. His teammates piling onto him in celebration.

“And they’ve done it! Shane Hollander and the Montreal Voyageurs are your Stanley Cup Champions for the first time in sixteen years!

Ilya glanced to his right, where Shane sat just next to him on the bench. His eyes were locked on the screen, expression impenetrable, aside from the minute tremble in his bottom lip.

On the screen flashed more scenes from Shane’s career. Setting records at All-Stars. The Olympics. Visits to Children’s Hospitals. Signing autographs for fans. Tying up years of Shane’s life, his entire career, in a neat little bow, displayed in the course of ninety seconds to a stadium full of people all chanting his name and wearing his jersey.

“And surprise, surprise, it looks like they’re giving the people what they want tonight. Hollander and Rozanov, facing off for the first time ever. Today we are watching the start of what are bound to be some phenomenal careers.”

Ilya nudged Shane, tapping the toes of their skates together. He was sure that the broadcast cameras were lasered in on Shane’s expression, and Shane knew it too, if his stone-faced expression was anything to go off of, slowly but surely beginning to fracture as the video played on.

“Your Captain…Shaaaaane….Hooooollander!”

The music drew to a peak as a compilation of Shane’s greatest goals played, mashed together with footage of his celebrations with his teammates. Hayden, J.J., Drapeau, his former captain, his Olympic teammates.

The cheering of the crowd grew louder and louder as the video ended and Shane took to the ice, making his rounds with his stick raised in the air. The fans whooped, stomping their feet and shaking their jerseys in the air. Players from Montreal and Boston alike tapped their sticks on the ice.

The ovation must have gone on for over a minute. Shane completed two more laps around the ice, his expression slowly breaking down, before he retreated to the bench in an attempt to quell the cheers. This appeared to be ineffective, however, as the cameras continued to follow him.

Ilya placed a hand on Shane’s shoulder and pretended that he didn’t notice him tense through his shoulderpads.

The dressing room was dead silent at the second intermission.

The Voyageurs were up four, and Shane was playing like shit. He sat in his gear, head between his knees, breathing heavily.

“What the fuck am I watching out there?” LeClaire shouted, waving his clipboard around as if that would pull the blood from his face. “You look like my fuckin’ grandson on skates! And he still shits himself once an hour! Get your shit together and stop jerkin’ each other off out there.”

Shane slipped off his glove and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He flexed his fingers and pulled, just enough until the pain brought him back to Earth. He could see Ilya staring him down from across the room, sitting in his dingy visitor’s stall. Shane kept his eyes down.

“S’alright b’y,” Newf said, sounding more defeated than Shane had ever heard from the man. “There’s still time ta get ‘er made.”

“Yeah,” St-Simon said from Shane’s other side. “There’s still time. We’re gonna come back.”

They did not come back.

Shane saw it, despite Newf’s valiant attempt to hide it.

In the tunnel just before game two, as they filed onto the ice for warmups. A jersey, blue and red and plastered with the number 24. It was suspended over the exit of the tunnel, clutched at the shoulders by a fan practically hanging out of his seat in order to be visible through the short gap between the glass pane and the tunnel wall. It was completely unremarkable. Or it would be, if it weren’t for the fact that the patches reading HOLLANDER had been torn off and hastily painted over.

TRAITOR.

Newf tore the sweater out of the fan’s hands and threw it to the ground as they walked out, but the damage was done. Shane had seen. He kept his eyes down as he took to the ice, arena filling with a mix of boos and jeers as the Bears filed on.

Shane Hollander didn’t fight.

It had been a whole thing, actually, his first few years playing. Shane didn’t fight, he barely got involved in scrums, and he knew how to draw penalties. He was able to keep his temper in situations where others (Ilya included) would not. He argued with the refs.

His opponents, of course, didn’t like this. They thought he was taking the easy way out, playing soft. He had earned more than a few nicknames from the Boston crowd because of it. High-Chair Hollander. Shannon Hollander. The ever uncreative “Mrs. Hollander.” Ilya had found it funny, at first.

Sometimes he wondered why Shane didn’t just throw a few punches, bulk up his reputation a bit. It wouldn’t be hard.

The nicknames calmed down a bit after Shane’s bewildering post-game scrum with Hunter, and even more so after he won his first cup. Still, in high tension games like these, old habits died hard.

“Fuckin’ watch yourself Hollander,” Comeau shouted, grabbing at Shane’s helmet. A hoard had already gathered around their alternate, now turned into an unrecognizable mess of gloves and sticks flying across the ice. “Gonna go crying to mommy?”

Shane looked remarkably unbothered. He turned his head, trying to prevent himself from running into the goalie and causing even more of a ruckus. The other half of Montreal’s tandem was currently in net, some Fin who loved to dive. So much for keeping momentum on the power play.

That didn’t seem to deter Comeau, who only advanced on Shane, and happened to trip Newf in the process.

“Who’s fucking elbow…?”

“My hand’s stuck!”

Ilya had absolutely no qualms with asserting his dominance, moving to grab Comeau by the collar of his jersey. He wasn’t actually going to fight, he was just gonna yank him around a bit, maybe a slap or two, let him know that he couldn’t go around messing with his A.

“Try pushing me again,” Ilya threatened, looming in on Comeau. “See what fucking happens.”

By the time the scrum had been cleared up, Ilya had nearly forgotten about such an inconsequential encounter. That was, until Shane decided to remind him.

“Rozanov!” Shane called harshly, just as Ilya was skating back to the boards for some water. “I don’t need you to fight my fucking battles, okay? We can’t afford to be getting penalties just because you wanna prove you’re tough shit.”

Ilya raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “What, so I’m just supposed to let them go after you? They are treating you like punching bag.”

“You’re supposed to treat me like everyone else,” Shane said, lowering his voice. “Not go feral just ‘cause someone chirps me.”

“You think I would not do the same if it was Vickie? They single you out, is obvious, they will injure you.” Ilya huffed, frustrated, his English starting to fail him.

“Woah, guys,” Marly said, skating up in between them. “You forget you’re on the same team now?”

Shane frowned, dipping his head down. He gave Ilya one last stern look before skating off to the dot. Ilya took to the bench, Marly by his side.

“They’re too aggressive,” Ilya said, eyes locked on Shane. “They’re mad and they’re taking it out on him.”

“They’re aggressive with all of us,” Marly retorted.

Ilya gave his friend a look. “Not like him. It’s getting to him, it’s making him play like shit, and no one is doing anything about it.”

“Well, shit, dude, it’s not our fault. It’s not like I can get into a fuckin’ donnybrook in the playoffs. We’re makin’ hits, but you know Holly would kill us for getting thrown in the box.”

Ilya frowned. He knew that Marly was technically right. In any typical game, the way you’d make it clear not to mess with your guy would be to get in a fight. In the playoffs, that just wasn’t worth the risk. The best they could do was rough them up a little bit, but the team all seemed a bit too afraid to risk even that, not with Shane breathing down their necks. Despite the lack of emotional awareness on their team, even those idiots couldn’t miss the way Shane had been affected by playing his former team, despite the way he tried to shut it all out.

They were at a stalemate, and they were going to lose.

“Fucking fuck!” Ilya shouted, breaking his stick against the boards as he skated in at the buzzer.

Three games, three losses. Shane thought he was about to throw up. He couldn’t get the sounds of the home crowd out of his mind. Their groans, the sounds of the fans starting to leave well before the final buzzer.

He watched across the room as Pava tried to console his captain, some length of rapidfire Russian spoken in a low voice. Shane silently hoped that Ilya might look up, meet Shane’s eyes.

Ilya’s eyes stayed down.

Ilya watched it escalate from the bench.

It had been a rough game four, but that was inevitable when they were on the brink of elimination. Scrums seemed to happen after every other turnover, half of them resulting in multiple trips to the box. Montreal’s style of play had been so starkly different than anything they were used to during the regular season, it was an impressive feat, their ability to present as the aggressors when playing against Boston.

The only upside to this development was that Boston was much better practiced in the art of fuckery, which meant that they were more skilled in toeing the line that would result in more Montreal penalties than Boston.

The Bears’ expertise had seemed to dwindle after three losses. They were being reckless, and as they neared the end of the second period, it seemed that their recklessness was the reason they were down two points.

Ilya would never say he had lost hope at that point. But…it was coming pretty close.

“Oh shit.”

Ilya’s focus returned to the ice at Cliff’s remark. This had to be scrum number six of the game, and it was all beginning to get a bit old. Someone got too close to the goalie. A call was missed. Someone bumped into someone else. He couldn’t even remember how this one started, but he was sure to remember how it ended.

The scrum was no longer a scrum, but what seemed to be a pileup behind the net had now escalated into a proper wrestling match. Ilya couldn’t even tell where Shane had ended up, probably at the bottom of the pile.

What was more concerning was one of the pairs that had broken off from the crowd. Particularly, Cloutier and one of the guys from Montreal, Murray. The officials seemed mostly concerned about getting Doherty out of the mix or getting themselves unsandwiched from the pileup, leaving the duo concerningly unsupervised.

It happened in the blink of an eye. In one moment, they were chirping ferociously, in the next, a moment of hesitation. Then, before anyone had the chance to keep up, gloves were dropped.

“Uh oh,” Ilya said, eyebrows raised. This was not good. This was a sign of a team falling off the deep end. This was definitely something he was gonna have to yell at his team about at intermission.

Ilya remembered Murray when he played for LA. He certainly didn’t remember him for his skill, but he was no stranger to a fight. Luckily, Cloutier also had a reputation for dropping gloves, and while the two were well matched in size and experience, Cloutier seemed to be outdoing the Voyageur in pure rage.

“I was thinking we were not allowed to do this?” Pava asked, eyebrow raised. He was still sporting a split lip from a loose stick in a scrum during game three. Ilya had to talk him down from laying out the guy that did it.

“You’re not,” Ilya said. “Fuck, this is not good,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. The fight had wrapped up once the officials had finally gotten the good sense to break them apart just before Cloutier broke the man’s jaw, having already laid him out. Ilya was pretty sure he could see some spots of blood on the ice. He was definitely sure that the expression on Shane’s face was nothing short of murderous.

LeClaire beat him to it.

“What the fuck are we fucking doing?” He shouted. “This isn’t fuckin’ beer league! Are you fuckin’ forgetting what the fuck you’re fucking paid for?”

This was not good. LeClaire always swore like a sailor, but he was now averaging at two fucks per second.

When Ilya looked Cloutier’s way, he was sure he’d see him with his head down, waiting for the reprimand to end, but that was not the case. He had his arms crossed, his eyebrows raised, seemingly unaffected by the bombardment.

“What the fuck am I doing?” He replied. He shot a glance around the room, waving his helmet in his hand. “What the fuck are you all doing? We’re getting our dicks cut off out there! They’re making us look like a bunch’a pussies and we’re fuckin’ letting them!”

“Cloud, c’mon—” St-Simon started.

“No, fuck that,” Cloutier continued. “The fuck is wrong with you all? Why the hell are we letting them fuck us? Why? ‘Cause they’re Montreal and we don’t wanna hurt Holly’s precious feelings?”

Ilya could feel himself tense at that, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Marly twitch. From across the room, Shane frowned as Cloutier turned to him. Ilya should say something, he should be defending Shane.

Just as he made a move to stand, he was halted by Cloutier’s words.

“Holly, dude,” Cloutier said, some of the rage seeming to leave his body. “They’re mowing you the fuck down out there, and you’re just letting them.”

“I’m not gonna let them get a rise out of me,” Shane replied. “Getting thrown in the box isn’t gonna help anyone.”

“Oh, because letting them walk all over us has been working so well so far?” Cloutier scoffed.

“I can fight my own fucking battles, Cloud.”

“Fuck that!” Cloutier’s voice rose again. “Holly, you’re our fucking guy! I don’t care if you’re a fuckin’ Menno. You’re our guy, we should be standing the fuck up for you, not pussying around. Why the fuck am I the only one giving a shit?”

A wave of silence shrouded the room at that. Ilya noted several heads dropping to their feet, in shame, perhaps. Ilya felt it too, as he locked eyes with Shane. He had never done anything, he had never fought back. He knew Shane didn’t want him to, he didn’t want to make a scene, and Ilya didn’t want to do anything that would make him seem too involved. Shane definitely didn’t want that.

He felt his heart sink a bit. Ilya didn’t do anything. He was the captain, and he didn’t do anything. Because he was afraid…of what? That his teammates would see him sticking up for Shane and assume they were together? Was Ilya’s pacifism the reason no one else had acted? And was that the reason they were down three in the series?

Shane had told him to stay out of it, and Ilya had listened without another thought, because he was afraid, too. Afraid that he would let his emotions get in the way of his game. But it seemed like that happened anyway.

“What is Menno?” Pava asked, breaking the silence. “Like, eh…fish?”

“No, dude,” Delly said. “Like Mennonites. They’re like, Amish but not really. They wear little outfits sometimes.”

“Ah, I know this,” Pava said.

“What’re they called in Russia?” St-Simon asked.

“Mennonite,” Pava replied.

“Oh,” St-Simon replied, like he was hoping for something more exciting

“Well as fucking nice as this is,” LeClaire started up again, “we still have a period to go, two points to make up, and a penalty to kill, so I’d prefer it if none of you fucked off to the fucking box again. We need to fucking pull our shit together.”

“Cloud is right,” Ilya said, finally finding the strength to get to his feet. His voice rose as he spoke. “No more nice, no more careful. Montreal needs to be fucking scared of us, fucking regretting that they ever let Hollander go. I want to see them crying when they leave the Garden, I want to drag them back to Boston, and I want to eliminate them in their own fucking barn. Fucking fuck Montreal!”

The dressing room roared at that, finally, finally showing a spark. A glance at the team that he knew could win another cup. He was bombarded with whoops and pats on the back as the team prepared for period three, everyone finally taking the time to recharge and get fixed up by their trainers.

Ilya almost didn’t catch the way Shane slipped out of the room.

Shane lingered in the hallway, head resting against the wall, breathing hard.

“Shane?” Ilya asked. Shane could hear the hobbling sounds of his skates against the rubber mats.

Shane rubbed head back and forth against the painted brick of the wall, his eyes closed. He didn’t react when Ilya placed a hand on his back.

“Shane?” Ilya repeated.

“Yeah, I’m okay, just give me a sec,” Shane replied, unmoving.

Ilya moved his hand up to Shane’s neck. The sweat had mostly dried, but his skin was still clammy. He wondered if Ilya was grossed out. After a few moments, Shane let out a large exhale, before finally raising his head to look Ilya in the eye.

“I’m okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

“You’re not okay,” Ilya said. “You have not been okay, and I’m sorry I didn’t do anything.”

Shane let out a humourless laugh.

“What were you gonna do?” He asked. “Win me the series? You haven’t been doing a great job so far.”

Ilya didn’t respond, he just looked at Shane, silently encouraging him to say what he was bursting to say.

“You know, I always thought if I kept my head down and played well, they wouldn't care that I was gay. I really believed that they were good enough guys, that it wouldn't matter. But no, that's all it took to turn their backs on me. I won the fucking Art Ross again and that wasn’t enough to make them accept me.” He straightened suddenly, shaking his head with an incredulous laugh. “And you know what? Fuck that anyway. I shouldn't have to be the best in the fucking league. I should be able to be shit at hockey and still not be treated like shit. Just because I like men? Fuck that, fuck them.”

Ilya smiled. “Maybe we should start a club, yes? Support group for gay players and also for shitty players? Special membership discount if you are both. I will let Scott Hunter know.”

Shane appreciated that no matter what, he could always depend on Ilya to interject with an ill timed joke.

Still, he couldn't help but think. There were few people around the league that knew about him and accepted it. Marleau, Hayden, one or two of the young guys in Montreal. They had been fine, neutral. How much of that was fuelled by the fact that Shane was one of the best players in the league? If he was just average, if his talent wasn't undeniable, would they be able to look past his sexuality? Was that the only reason they were able to overcome it? Because the pros outweighed the cons? What about the next person to find out? Shane wasn't sure if he and Ilya would tell anyone directly, but he sensed that a couple of Bears had become suspicious, and he knew he also had rumours about him floating around the league. Would his reputation be enough for them?

What would happen when Shane got older? When he started to slow down? When he wasn't dominating anymore? Would that be all the reason the fans and the pundits needed to bring back the criticism in full force? Here's a list of all the ways Shane Hollander has failed his team this season, and oh, yeah, the gay thing certainly didn't help either, another ticked box.

When Scott Hunter came out, he did it moments after hoisting the Stanley Cup. It changed things for Shane in that moment. But would it have made a difference for some closeted third liner across the country? Probably not.

It was so fucked. Shane spent his whole life trying to be perfect, trying to give the scouts anything to talk about other than the fact he was the only Asian kid on his junior team. It was like God made him Asian in Canadian hockey, decided that wasn't enough, and also slapped on gay and socially awkward. Was there ever a chance for him to come out of this winning? Really?

“Fuck it,” Shane said. “Let them fucking speculate, I'm fucking done trying to be their perfect little Canadian boy. Fuck the guest bedroom.”

Ilya raised his eyebrows. Okay, maybe Shane's declaration was a bit dramatic. It's not like he was announcing a coming out, just finally moving his clothes into Ilya's dresser. It felt like a big revelation to him at least.

All this hiding, all this precaution, what good had it done him? Other than stressing him out?

“You want to go steady with me, Shane Hollander?” Ilya grinned.

Shane rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I know I’ve been…weird, and overly cautious. But, you’re right, who the fuck cares? Who the fuck cares if it looks like I’m staying in the guest bedroom, or that you and I are too close? They’re gonna say shit anyway. I already lost my captaincy, my team, any dreams of hanging up my jersey in Montreal. Why should I keep myself from being happy here just ‘cause I’m trying to hold onto what’s already gone?”

Ilya frowned at that, his expression downcast in a way that made Shane want to grab his face and kiss every inch of his skin. “I am sorry that you give up so much to be here with me. It’s not fair.”

Shane shook his head. “Ilya, you know I didn’t ask for a trade for you, right? I mean, I love you, and I wanted to be with you, but I moved here for me. Everything that happened…it’s not your fault.”

Ilya nodded, but his eyes didn’t quite meet Shane’s. “You left Montreal. You lost your Captaincy, your friends, your legacy, and I am terrible, terrible person, because I am happy about it. I am happy because you are here with me.”

Ilya’s hand slid down to Shane’s chest, and grasped at his jersey where the A was stitched on. Shane raised his hand to place it over Ilya’s.

“I’m happy too,” Shane said, hoping Ilya might actually believe him. “I’m happy that I finally have the chance to love hockey again.”

Ilya actually laughed aloud at that. “Hollander, the day that your greatest love is no longer hockey, is the day I will be truly worried about you.”

“Second greatest love,” Shane amended, a twinkle in his eye. “But you should know, I’ll be even happier if we win this series.”

Ilya smiled wide enough that Shane was pretty sure that more than one of his real teeth were sure to be visible. He knew Ilya had a retort ready on his tongue, something crude that was sure to make him turn red.

“What the fuck are you fucking doing?”

Shane nearly jumped a foot in the air at the sound of LeClaire’s voice, bellowing from where his head was poked out the dressing room door and into the hallway. It was then that he realized just how close together they had gotten as Ilya dropped his hand from Shane’s chest.

Shane looked to his coach, ready to say something, anything that would explain the position they were in. But when he looked at LeClaire, there was absolutely nothing on the older man’s face that suggested he thought anything out of the ordinary was happening.

“You can pick up your tea party when we drag ‘em back to Montreal. Get the fuck in here and listen to the motherfucking plays!”

With that, the door swung closed behind him with a resounding clang, and Ilya and Shane turned back to one another.

“Bears in seven?” Shane asked.

“Bears in seven.”

“Nice of you guys to bring us back to Montreal to take the series.”

Shane raised an eyebrow at the man across the dot. He always hated getting stuck at the faceoff circle, some holdup with Doherty’s equipment allowing the time for Tremblay to start his chirp routine that he surely had practiced in the mirror. He looked a little too smug about his promotion to first line. Shane didn’t give him the time of day.

“You’re not scared, are you Hollander?” Tremblay pushed on. “What, afraid your boyfriend’ll throw a fit if you lose? He only fuck you from behind when he’s upset?”

Shane clenched his teeth. Was that seriously the best he could come up with? He’d heard worse well before he even came out. Luckily, Shane had developed a foolproof plan for dealing with chirps. Ignoring them. It was the perfect solution, feeding into his polite and hockey robot persona, and it always resulted in the agitator eventually getting bored or reckless.

Tremblay was not discouraged yet. Shane remembered that Tremblay used to play third line for Edmonton before being traded to Montreal a year ago, but even then, they had never faced off during their careers. Looks like he was making the most of it.

“You gonna cry?” Tremblay said, not letting up even as the official finally arrived to drop the puck.

“Not over this,” Shane replied, winning the faceoff and passing it back to Cloutier.

Game five felt different. He could feel it as he zipped down the ice, the energy in the stadium, among the team, was completely different, driven by their victory in game four.

Only four times in NHL history had a team come back from three losses in the playoffs, but for the first time in his life, Shane didn’t give a fuck about the stats. They were going to come back, and they were going to fucking crush Montreal.

Shane collected the puck from Connors, and as easily as if he were going for a casual skate on the Rideau, he deked past three Voyageurs before sinking the puck in the back of the net.

“Shane Hollander.”

Shane’s eyes perked up from where they were trained on his phone. Both of his parents were back in Boston for game six, with plans to attend in Montreal if they went to game seven. They better make it to game seven.

When he looked up, he was met eye to eye by a woman with curly brown hair and stark green eyes. A woman he had only seen through his obsessive scrolling through instagram, or once across the ice for team photos.

“Svetlana?” Shane asked hesitantly.

“Ah, so he does talk about me,” she smiled. “I was starting to think he was hiding you from me. I think he still is.”

It was then that Shane caught Ilya out of the corner of his eye, emerging out of the trainers’ room after getting his ankle taped. Shane watched his eyes widen comically as he registered who exactly his boyfriend was talking to.

“Oh?” Shane asked, watching Ilya start speedwalking towards him. He was quickly halted as he was approached by Nick, the equipment manager, blocking him from proceeding down the tunnel. He watched from a distance as Ilya grew more and more manic trying to end the conversation to no avail.

“Yes,” Svetlana smiled. She was looking at Shane quizzically, like some book she was trying to figure out whether or not she wanted to purchase. “Every time I want to meet the famous Jane, it’s always, ‘she’s busy, she’s sick, she is scared of you.’”

Shane frowned. “I’m not scared of you.”

“You probably should be,” she said. “I’ve known Ilyusha for a very long time.”

Shane blinked at that. He knew that was true, that Svetlana had known Ilya since they were kids back in Moscow. She had always been his confidant, the first person he told about Shane, the person who was willing to marry him. Shane dug his fingernails into his palms.

“Of course, I’ve heard a lot about you,” Shane said, trying his best to sound diplomatic, like when he got trapped talking to the old man who worked at the post office. “You, uh, your dad was Sergei Vetrov, right? He won the Vezina.”

That made Svetlana smirk. “Yeah, I remember.”

Right, of course she knew that, it was her dad, after all. Shane had been a bit surprised at her lack of accent when Svetlana had first spoken, but he supposed it made sense if she had lived with her father in the States. It was then that Shane realized that he didn’t fully understand how exactly Ilya and Svetlana knew each other. They were both from Moscow, sure, but if Svetlana had grown up in Boston, when did they see each other? Did she grow up in Boston? Was Shane a bad boyfriend for never asking? A part of Shane wanted to know as little about Svetlana Vetrova as he possibly could.

“Well,” Svetlana said, breaking him out of his spiral. “I should be going up. Good luck tonight.”

“Up?” Shane asked, before he could think better of it. “Are you sitting with the WAGs?”

Svetlana actually laughed aloud at that. “No, Hollander. I’m in the staff suite, with the other scouts.”

“Yeah, right, obviously.”

“Ah what is this?” Ilya said, walking swiftly up to the pair as he finally broke free from Nick’s clutches. He may have sounded relaxed to any passersby, but Shane knew his boyfriend better than that. “My two favourite people in one place?”

Of course, as if awoken like a sleeper agent, Pava poked his head out of the stairwell door that Shane and Svetlana had been standing next to. “Chto ty skazal?” he said.

Ilya sighed. "Prekrati podslushivat, Pava.”

Pava pushed into the small circle they had formed, towering above them all. By round two, he had already grown quite an impressive beard, scruffy and unkempt in every direction.

“Which?” He asked. “You say two favourite. Which?”

“Yes, Ilyusha,” Svetlana grinned. “Which ones?”

Ilya raised his hands to his head, applying them like blinders for a horse. “Sveta I should never have let you around Pava, you make each other meaner.”

“I should probably get ready for warmups,” Shane interjected, suddenly eager to escape the gaggle of Russians.

“No, I’ll go,” Svetlana said, still smiling at Ilya. “I have some things to put together before the game. I’ll talk to you after, Ilyusha.”

She touched Ilya lightly on the shoulder, over his base layer. Her hand didn’t even touch his skin, and yet Shane still narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t jealous, obviously, he trusted Ilya, and Svetlana had never given him any reason not to trust her. He wasn’t jealous, he just had something in his eye.

Pava followed Svetlana off, insisting on walking her up to the suite. Ilya kept his eyes on them as they walked away.

“Sveta wants us to stay in the playoffs,” Ilya said. “She wants us to win, of course, but also the longer we play, the better chance she has to convince Pava to let her braid his hair.”

“Why was Svetlana down here?” Shane blurted out.

Ilya raised an eyebrow. “She wanted to see me before the game. And, really, she wanted to meet you very much. She is a fan, but she would not admit it.”

“Oh,” Shane replied, dumbly.

Ilya narrowed his eyes. “I thought you would get along, you are both stupid annoying about hockey. And you need more people you know in Boston, I thought she could be your emergency contact for Adrita—”

“What?” Shane blurted out. “You want me to make your ex-girlfriend my emergency contact?”

“She was never my girlfriend, and she is very—” Ilya cut himself off, a look of confusion morphing into a smile. “You are jealous.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are!” Ilya exclaimed, almost giddy with it. “No, no, this is good, now I don’t have to feel like a loser for hating Rose Landry.”

“What? Ilya, you don’t hate Rose. And also, that makes no sense, you know I’m—” he lowered his voice, “—I’m gay. It’s not the same with you and Svetlana.”

“Okay fine, well maybe I do not like the way Connors acts around you. Always touching you.”

Shane looked at him incredulously. “What are you talking about? The most he does is pat me on the shoulder.”

“His hand lingers too long. And what about Vickie? He is always trying to talk to you in French, what is he saying that he doesn’t want me to hear?”

“He just wants the practice—you’re just trying to rile me up, aren’t you?”

“Oh no, Hollander, this is very serious.” Ilya said, stepping a bit closer until his lips were only inches away from Shane’s ear. “You know, I think we need to work on your Russian. Maybe I have things I want to say to you in secret, too.”

Shane felt his cheeks heat as Ilya pulled away with a smirk. He took a few steps backwards, gazing up and down at Shane as he did so, before walking off towards the dressing room.

It took Shane a second to get his bearings back. By then, Ilya was already halfway down the hall.

“Pava does not need to be traumatized any further!” Shane called after him, ignoring the strange looks that were thrown his way.

Ilya didn’t respond, retreating down the hall with an extra sway in his step.

Ilya Rozanov was having the time of his life.

He would never say he was getting complacent, even up four points halfway through the third period, it would be bad practice to get complacent. At least, that’s what Shane would tell him.

Even though he wasn’t complacent, he was still having fun. He didn’t think he’d ever had fun during a playoff game, at least not until the final buzzer, when he could finally relax his muscles and let go of the metaphorical breath he had held since he entered the building.

Now, looking at the defeated and angry faces of the Montreal Voyageurs as he launched another one-timer into the net? How could he not be having fun?

The barn was absolutely exploding at the prospect of a reverse sweep. Ilya couldn’t remember his team ever having chemistry at this level since their cup run. Everything that went down with Cloutier and Murray seemed to have finally been what they needed to spur Shane into action. At last, they had Shane Fucking Hollander on their team, and it was fucking magical.

Ilya was almost sure that Dan the ref had something against him the way he kept booting Ilya out of the faceoff circle. He hardly even jumped the gun! He was trying to catch him out. Fucking Dan.

Getting the boot meant that Pava took his place at the dot, forcing Ilya to stand hip to hip with Hayden Pike.

“Ah Pike, the puck stays on the ice? You have forgotten?” Ilya said. The Voyageur had caused a delay of game penalty earlier in the period after knocking the puck over the glass.

“Fuck off,” Pike replied, elbowing Ilya in the gut as they waited for puck drop.

“Later, I hope so.”

Montreal won the faceoff, and Ilya watched Marly round up on the forecheck in an attempt to force a turnover. Ilya had intended to take his typical route up boards on defense, but was thwarted by Pike, who wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone.

Pike kept himself basically flush against Ilya, forcing his way in front and using his elbows every time Ilya tried to get by him. At this point in the game, they were exhausted, and Ilya was feeling a little irritable, so he really couldn’t be blamed when he took his stick and slashed Pike right on the ankles.

The whistle blew immediately, but that didn’t stop Montreal’s new first line centre (Whose name Ilya could never remember. It maybe started with Mc or Mac or something) from skating on over and slashing right back. And of course, Pava wasn’t going to let that slide.

Before he knew it, Pike’s arms were wrapped around his shoulders, yanking him around, Pava was caught up in a dance, and the rest of the shift descended on them like a mob. All it took was one unfortunate move from Pike to cause Ilya’s legs to shoot out from under him, sending him to the ground, and Hayden tumbling right on top of him, still not letting off on pressing his helmet into the ice.

All this was manageable. It was manageable, until Pava tripped over the prone bodies of the two men, sending his giant ass and the Montreal centre tumbling over them in their own wrestling match.

The newly developed circumstances left Ilya in a situation that involved too many skate blades too close to his face. He tried to move, tried to at least shield his neck, but he now had the weight of three NHL players pinning him down in three different places.

Maybe Shane actually did have a point when he was preaching the importance of neckguards. Maybe Ilya would’ve worn one if they didn’t look so stupid, like a weird-ass turtleneck.

Ilya’s new primary focus had been preventing getting his face chopped off, which was why he had noticed immediately when the arms that had been pressing his head into the ice had shifted, instead moving to either side of his helmet, forming a protective barrier over him.

Ilya waited it out from there, until the scrum had finally dispersed enough that he was free from the risk of any sharp object near his arteries. He felt the hold around him loosen, and was finally able to shift enough to see the body hovering above him.

“You care enough to protect my pretty face?” Ilya grinned.

Pike scowled, giving Ilya one last shove into the ice before getting to his feet. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I knew you were sweet for me, Pike.”

“I should’ve let you get stepped on.”

Pike tried to skate away, but Ilya followed him to the tunnel as the ref doled out their misconducts.

“I am very grateful,” Ilya continued, hands to his heart. “I will send you a signed head shot. So you will never forget your good deed.”

Pike continued down the tunnel, ignoring Ilya as he went. With five minutes left in the game, Ilya, Pike, Pava, and the Montreal center were all done for the night.

Ilya snuck a look at Shane as he went, expecting to see his Disappointed Captain Face. Instead, he was graced with one of his favourite sights in the world, Shane Hollander with a soft smile on his face.

“Dude, is my ass shrinking?”

St-Simon came up beside where Cloutier stood in front of the mirror. He was in just his jock and underwear, standing sideways as he examined himself. Unfortunately for Shane, this was nothing he hadn’t seen before.

“It looks…smaller,” Vickie admitted. “But it’s the playoffs, man, you’re gonna get skinny.”

“Bud, you were just complaining that your ass was too big,” Connors said from across the room.

“Well yeah, I said that then but,” Cloutier frowned. “I just realized that if my ass goes then none of my pants’ll fit.”

“Belt,” Delly replied, passing by on his way to the trainers’ room.

“Your pants don’t fit anyway,” Ilya chimed in. He was waltzing around the room without his shirt on, which had become a pregame routine in and of itself.

“Dude, they’re literally custom, I’ve got that gay-ass tailor in Back Bay—” he held up his hand, looking to Marleau, “—and before you start on you SJW shit, Marly, I meant it as a compliment, no straight guy should be sewing as a full time job.”

“Dude, that really isn’t better,” Marly said, looking defeated.

“It’s his girl that’s got him castrated,” Ellis laughed. He also liked to walk around shirtless, but it was significantly less appealing with him. He was very wiry, and getting a little too old to be pulling this shit. “What’s her name again? Something weird.”

Marly frowned. “It’s Noor, and it’s a normal name fuckwad.”

“Sounds like a cough.”

“It’s fucking Arabic.”

“Oh shit,” Cloutier said, looking genuine in his curiosity. “Really? She wear a scarf or something?”

“Is it extra hot when she takes it off?” Ellis asked, waggling his eyebrows and whipping his towel around.

“Okay,” Shane said, finally chiming in. “Let’s not.”

“You’re gonna need a scarf to clean your brains off the floor if you don’t shut your mouth,” Marly said, tension growing in his voice. It wasn’t the smoothest comeback, but he certainly got the point across.

“I have a fun idea,” Ilya chimed in, throwing his hands up in the air. “What if we stop insulting girlfriends and being racist?”

“Fucking come on,” Ellis said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not being racist, what, I can’t say anything anymore?”

“You did cross a line, dude,” St-Simon said, giving Ellis a disgusted look. “You can’t talk about the WAGs like that.”

“You ought nawt to joke about dese t’ings, b’y,” Newf chimed in. “Always ask yerself, what would Malala think?”

“Who the fuck is Malala?”

That caused a small uproar in the room.

“You don’t know who Malala is?” Delly asked, just returning from getting his shoulder taped. “What are we talking about?”

“Lots of people don’t know who Malala is,” Ellis argued, gesturing towards Pava.

Pava raised his eyebrows, scrunching up his face. “I know Malala. You think I cannot read?”

“Well, I dunno, I thought you guys don’t really have internet access in Russia. It’s all like, Soviet tech or something.”

“My grandmother is Bashkir.”

“That’s a made up word.”

“You are batting a thousand today, dude,” Doherty interjected.

“Where are you from, again?” Ilya asked.

“Vermont.”

“Really? See, I thought you must have lived under a rock in the wilderness. Would explain why you are so stupid.”

Delly shook his head. “This is what happens when you make disagreeing with podcasts your whole personality.”

“Why am I the one catching strays?” Ellis asked, incredulously, “Cloud hates the podcasts too.”

“But he’s less annoying about it,” Shane admitted.

Shane watched as the room descended on Ellis, ribbing him and roasting him until his chest was pink with the strength of his blush. He saw in real time as Delly learned that Malala was, in fact, still alive.

“I will talk to him,” Ilya said, taking a seat beside Shane in front of his stall. “He shouldn’t say shit like that, I’ll fix it.”

Shane shrugged. “No. I mean, it was fucked up, but, it looks like they’re handling it.”

The Bears weren’t perfect, not even close. They still said offensive shit every day, half the time Shane himself probably didn’t even realize when something was offensive. He definitely wasn’t perfect.

Still, it was nice to see that things were at least a little different, a little better than they were in Montreal. That when someone said the wrong thing, someone else tried to say the right thing.

“Game Seven,” Ilya said, pressing his arm up closer to Shane. This time, Shane didn’t move away. “When we win, I’m sure we will be dragged out all night long. Maybe I can convince you to dance?”

Shane laughed lightly. “Maybe if you score a goal.” He paused for a brief moment, tugging at the fabric of his base layer. “Actually…I was wondering if after the game we could go out, uh…there’s this bar here I used to go to. J.J. found it and used to take me, they have some stuff on the menu I can eat, and it’s lowkey. I guess…I kind of miss going there. I think the team would like it, they can still drink and party and whatever.” He shrugged, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

Ilya’s eyes brightened. “Of course we can go to your boring bar with plain chicken.” He tapped his sock foot against Shanes. “Next time we are in Montreal, when whole city does not want to kill us, you should give me the tour. Show me all your favourite places. Like, the bagel place with the dog.”

“I saw the dog outside of the bagel place. He didn’t live in the shop.”

“Well maybe he will come back.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway, you will give me a tour, yes?”

Shane smiled. “I’d like that.”

“But we might have to take Pava. He likes the bagels here.”

“Listen, Newf,” Shane said, skating up to his line with his glove raised up over his mouth. “I want you on puck, and I want you fucking things up behind the net, yeah? When the space clears, bring it up to me, I’ll hang back. Good?”

“Yes b’y,” Newf replied, “you stay where you’re at ‘til I come where you’re to.”

Shane blinked. “Okay.”

“Man,” Connors said, skating up to join the group. “Holly, if you clinch this series I’ll marry you myself. Change my name to Hollander, okay?”

“Sorry Connie, you’re not my type.”

“Don’t care,” he insisted. “I’ll put on a wedding dress and everything. Sweetheart neckline.”

“I’d glue my eyelids shut at the sight b’y,” Newf said.

Their line peeled off, with Shane setting himself up at the faceoff circle. Since game seven was taking place in Montreal, the Voyageurs had the advantage of placing their sticks second. Luckily for Shane, Tremblay had absolutely no tact during his faceoffs, always pushing aggression over strategy. Shane must’ve been averaging at 70% for his faceoff wins against the guy this series.

His aggression only increased at times like this. Fifteen minutes left in game seven, the score 1–0 to the Bears. The Voyageurs needed a point, but the Bears needed to hold their lead. Fifteen minutes might as well’ve been fifteen years, anything could happen.

He batted the puck back to St-Simon, who brought it back behind Doherty in an attempt to give the team a bit of a breather. He dribbled the puck back and forth against his stick, scanning the ice for a clear bath before finally taking up along the left side.

Shane hung back, waiting on the defense as Newf started to bring up the puck. The turnover happened in the blink of an eye, pressure in the neutral zone forced the puck against the boards, cleared by Comeau, taking it back past the blue line. Shane raced, skating backwards to try and block the puck. Comeau passed the puck to Hayden, lying in wait at the edge of the crease. The sigh of relief as Doherty blocked the first shot was quickly squashed as the rebound sunk into the back of the net.

The score was 1–1.

He heard Doherty’s slew of swears as Montreal piled up in celebration. Shane tried to stay calm, but he could feel his own anger getting the best of him as the crowd roared for a tied game. He could feel that half the cameras in this stadium were trained on his face, flushed red with rage and exertion.

Shane started skating back to the bench, prepared to ignore the agitated expressions of his teammates and their forced consolations. Instead, he was met with half the team leaning backwards off the bench, trying to catch a look at the screen on the floor of the visitors bench where LeClaire’s eyes were trained.

And oh, Shane hadn’t known LeClaire long, but he was familiar enough with that look on his face, the subtle shake of his head, and the determined way he waved the ref over.

“Interference?” Shane asked, hanging off the boards in front of Ilya and Pava.

“Offside,” Ilya offered. “But I don’t know, it’s very close.” His eyes were trained on the jumbotron, where they were replaying different angles of the play.

The eyes were on Hayden, it seemed, and whether or not the blade of his right skate had completely cleared the blue line before the puck had. Shane squinted as they slowed it down frame by frame.

“LeClaire’s challenging?” Shane asked, not so much a genuine question as an expression of shock. It was too close, too close to risk a penalty if it failed. But the video review had decided that was a chance they were willing to take.

The speaker boomed overhead as they announced Boston’s challenge, the crowd groaning at the prospect of their goal being overturned.

It took about a full minute of video review, both teams growing antsy. He was sure Hayden must be shaking in his skates right now, with so many eyes on him. He wouldn’t put it past Montreal to blame a loss on him if the goal was taken.

“They will overturn,” Pava said, sounding more sure than he had any right to be.

Ilya raised his eyebrows. “What, the ghost of Scooby-Doo tell you this?”

Pava frowned. “Scooby-Doo is not dead.”

Connors drifted over, pausing to waterfall his water bottle. “I dunno which way it’s gonna go but either way I’m gonna yell about it.”

They quartet turned to watch as Dan the ref took to the center line.

“After video review, at 14:09 the play was offside, no goal!”

The crowd groaned, but Shane barely noticed over the roar from his bench and the pocket of Boston fans sat behind. Connors grabbed him round the neck, screaming his head off and yanking him down to meet his 5’8” frame. Shane felt a laugh bubble out of him, they were still in it.

At three minutes left, Montreal pulled their goalie.

At two minutes, Shane scored on an empty net, assisted by Pava as he came off the bench with fresh legs.

At ten seconds, Montreal had surrendered, holding the puck behind the net as they waited for the clock to tick down.

Five seconds after the final buzzer went, Ilya wrapped him in his arms and kissed him on the helmet, before hoisting him off the ice and spinning him around.

Twenty minutes after the final buzzer rang, Shane stood in an empty hallway just off the visitor’s dressing room, and cried.

Chapter End Notes

Fun facts!

A lot of people are asking me if it’s realistic that Montreal would be performing so well even after losing Shane. It is true that after trading away star players, teams often see a drop in performance, and that’s exactly what happens to Montreal in TLG after Shane moves to Ottawa. However, in this case, Shane is traded away, and he’s traded for a lot. The trade gives Montreal significant draft picks, as well as defensive players. As well, prior to Shane being traded, his presence in Montreal created a lot of tension. I think it’s fair to say that after the trade, Montreal would have an improved team cohesion, and thus a boost in performance (partially out of spite). It should be said that star centers have an important part to play on hockey teams, as they’re often the ones creating dramatic scoring opportunities. I treated Montreal a bit like the Canadiens this year. They made it to the conference finals, however, they were regularly putting up just over half the shots on goal than their opponents during games, and they made it as far as they did thanks to their defence and stellar goaltending. This is why Montreal loses in round two, they’re a solid team post Shane, but don’t have the strength from their forwards to get the points they need. But I think it’s fair to say that Montreal wouldn’t devolve into chaos after Shane, after all, two years after Wayne Gretzky was traded, Edmonton won a Stanley Cup.

As for Shane in Boston, he doesn’t immediately skyrocket the team to the top of the league. It’s true that having two strong lines is very important, but in hockey, there are periods of time where neither Shane nor Ilya are on the ice at all. Strength across the board is important. I’ve also been emphasizing that Shane has been struggling to fit in with the team, and the ability to communicate and mesh with your linemates goes a long way in preventing turnovers, which create scoring chances for your opponent. Of course in this story, that improves over time, and Boston does significantly improve during their time in the playoffs. Some examples recently are Edmonton, who have two star forwards but didn’t make it past the first round of the playoffs this year as they were struggling with a decent defence, and trying to fight past a significant McDavid injury. The Florida Panthers, who won the Stanley Cup two years in a row, didn’t make the playoffs at all this year.

I put more fun facts and links in the comments, since I don't have room for all of it here.