Chapter 1: 1. Wyatt Hayes

As a goalie Wyatt prides himself on his perceptiveness and ability to see things others don’t notice, both on and off the ice. So he knows even before Shane has officially joined the team that the rookies are his, has known since the rookies charged into Montreal’s locker room with no fear to scream expletives at them. Knew in the moment he grabbed the back of Young’s jersey to stop him from launching at the Montreal players that Shane Hollander would be coming to Ottawa, and that the team rookies belonged to him. So Wyatt isn’t surprised when one morning he wakes up to an article titled ‘Shane Hollander Confirms Move to Ottawa’ being shared in the group chat. Wyatt is both surprised and expecting it when Shane officially joins the team at practice a week later and doesn’t immediately have an ‘A’ on his chest. He knew Bood and Roz had talked about offering it to him, but he also had a good enough idea of who Shane Hollander was at that point to know he wouldn’t accept the ‘A’ until he thought he deserved it. Still, ‘A’ or not, it’s clear to Wyatt that the rookies are Shane’s. He’s pretty sure Roz and Coach Wiebe are aware of it too, because of the way Roz smiles whenever Shane gives advice or corrections to the rookies and the way Coach Wiebe regularly pairs Shane off with them during practice, but he isn’t sure anyone else actually knows. Wyatt doesn’t think it really matters anyway, that the rookies look to Shane like he’s an alternate captain even when he isn’t and that Shane looks to the rookies like they’re his ducklings. It doesn’t affect anything, that Shane takes a little extra care with the rookies during practice and training and that he makes sure they’re drinking enough water at Bood’s BBQs and team outings. Wyatt thinks it’s good that Shane has the rookies, thinks it’s a pretty mutually beneficial relationship there. The rookies ready to jump at Shane’s defense and help to calm some of his ever buzzing anxiety about the world just by standing near him and Shane looking after them in turn. So Wyatt just smiles and shakes his head when he notices the rookies gravitating towards Shane during practice because Roz never calls them out on it, and Wyatt is pretty sure that’s for Shane’s sake, so he doesn’t say anything either. So Shane Hollander joins Ottawa, and the rookies are his, but it doesn’t really mean anything. At least not until their first game of the season, as Wyatt watches one of Chicago’s players slam Young hard into the boards while his back is turned. It leaves Young sort of tripping down to the ice as soon as the Chicago player has stepped away from him. The ref whistles and calls it for boarding, and the Chicago player skates off to the penalty box as Shane helps Young to his feet and checks with him, hand light on Young’s back the entire way to the bench. Wyatt watches, as Shane returns to the ice two minutes later as the Chicago player is let out of the penalty box. He sees the way Shane waits until he has the puck, keeps close enough that it can’t be called, and then shoulder checks the Chicago player as he steals the puck. It’s not hard or dirty, but it still manages to send the Chicago player tripping back into his own teammate and then tipping over into Ottawa’s bench. No penalty is called, because the hit was clean and it was Chicago’s own player that ended up knocking the other into the bench. Bood and Roz both shout as they get a lapful of Chicago’s left wing, and Shane glances back at them as he takes the puck up to Chicago’s net and passes it off to Luca at the last second so he can score. In that moment Wyatt decides Shane Hollander is the best player in the league – sorry, Roz – and that he’s so very happy he’s a goalie on his team and doesn’t have to play against him again. By the end of the game, the score 5-1 for Ottawa, Chicago has gotten six penalties for boarding and charging. Two against Young and Luca, and one each against Holmber and LaPointe. Wyatt has seen each hit happen, and he’s also seen the way Shane has drawn up each time, and the way he’s knocked the offending player into the boards the next time they’re on the ice together. Not one of them has been too hard or questionable in a way to draw a penalty, but Wyatt can see the way Shane is targeting the players who have hit the rookies and it makes him smile. “Welcome to Ottawa.” Wyatt says as he skates up to Shane after the game has ended, patting his shoulder. There’s a brief moment of understanding that passes between them as Shane realizes Wyatt knows what he’d been doing before he’s smiling and smacking a hand against Wyatt’s back. “Thanks.”

Chapter 2: 2. Troy Barrett

With 18 seconds left in the period, Troy takes to the ice for the last face off of the game. The score is 3-3, and Troy rolls his shoulder as he lowers himself towards the ice to watch the face off, praying they get this done and don’t have to go into overtime. Shane glances at him, meets his eyes for half a second and then nods as he focuses back for the face off, and Troy knows it’s coming to him if Shane wins. Shane hits the puck as soon as it drops, a clean shot straight to Troy who takes off with it down the ice. He passes it to Shane as he’s forced to go around the back of the net, and Shane keeps his eyes forward even as he hits the puck back to Young instead of to the goal. Young’s eyes widen comically enough that Troy can see it from where he’s standing near the net. Shane barely looks back to make sure Young has gotten the puck, chin turned just a little to watch over his shoulder. Troy worries for half a second, because Young’s been playing a little off since he scored an own goal during the first period. Then Young is pulling back and hitting the puck with a slapshot that sends it soaring past one of the Winnipeg defenseman and their goalie a second before the buzzer sounds signaling the end of the game. The entire rink freezes for a moment, and then Young is screaming at the top of his lungs and the refs are confirming the goal. “Damn.” Troy breathes out, bumping his shoulder into Shane’s. “Holy shit!” Young screams, skating across the ice and slamming into the two of them. “I scored! I just scored!” “You scored!” Shane cheers back, patting Young’s back as the younger player clings to the two of them and screams between their heads. “Holy fuck!” Holmber shouts as he collides with the group of them, and Young lets go of Shane and Troy to turn and properly hug Holmber, the two of them spinning in a little circle. “You just scored the game winner!” “I just scored the game winner!” Young screams back, yanking LaPointe into their hug when the other player skates near them, forcing him to spin in little circles with them. “I did it!” “You did it!” LaPointe agrees, slapping Young across the back. “That shit was insane!” “What were you going to do if he missed?” Troy asks quietly, nudging Shane with his shoulder as they watch the rookies lose it. “He wasn’t going to.” Shane says, sure and confident as he smiles at the rookies forcing Wyatt into their little celebration. Troy shakes his head, goes to pat Shane’s back and push him forward into the rookie’s celebration only for Shane to suddenly be gone. Troy turns, watches as Shane skates himself between the still spinning circle that is their rookies – and really, Troy’s surprised they’re still going – and Winnipeg’s forward who’d been moving towards them. Troy’s moving a second later, pushing closer in case he needs to step in. “Game’s over.” Shane says lowly, pressing his gloved hand lightly against the other player’s chest. “Let it go, man.” Winnipeg’s forward glares at him, and Shane tilts his head just slightly, a confirmation or a challenge Troy isn’t sure, but the Winnipeg player steps back and skates off to his bench. Shane stares after him until he’s off the ice, and only then does he turn back and step closer to the team, letting Luca yank him into the little rookie spinning circle and shoving lightly at Wyatt’s back to help him escape. “You good?” Wyatt asks Troy as he skates back to him, trying to keep himself out of reach of the rookies and Ilya. “Yeah.” Troy nods, shakes his head to clear his mind and then shoves Wyatt back towards the group as he skates forward. “Hey!” Wyatt complains, LaPointe and Ilya grabbing his arms so he can’t escape as Holmber yanks Troy into the group between himself and Young.

Chapter 3: 3. Zane Boodram

Zane glances around the locker room at the team as he and Ilya return from discussing strategy with Coach Wiebe. They have one period left, and so far the score is 4-1 for Arizona. It’s not unrecoverable, but it isn’t looking good. Chouinard and Dykstra are sitting together in front of their stalls, Wyatt standing a few feet over from them. Shane is kneeling in front of his stall, doing something with one of Luca’s skates, the rookies all squished together trying to sit only in front of Shane’s and Ilya’s stalls. “What’s up over there?” Zane whispers to Wyatt, nudging his shoulder against the goalies lightly because he knows he’s beating himself up over the score. “They’re changing their laces.” Wyatt answers, shrugging a little and bumping his shoulder back against Zane’s. “Hollander does when score needs big shift.” Ilya tells them both, pushing at them lightly so he can wrap an arm over each of their shoulders and stand between them. “Superstition?” Zane wonders, watching as Shane taps Luca’s knee and then scoots over to start changing the laces on LaPointe’s skates while Luca leans down to actually relace his skates. “Da.” Roz nods, tilting his head a little. “Rookies hands are broken? They cannot change their own laces?” “Young asked him to.” Wyatt says quietly, shrugs. “Hollzy looked happy to do it. He’s just starting the new ones.” “Are they almost done?” Zane checks, because he doesn’t really want to interrupt one of Shane’s intermission rituals but he also wants to check with the team about their line shift strategy Ilya had suggested. “LaPointe’s the last one.” Wyatt confirms, watching as Shane slides a little more over to start on LaPointe’s other shoe. “What’s the plan?” “Dyskstra and Haas switch lines with Barrett and LaPointe.” Bood answers, raises his voice just a little so the rest of the team can hear him too. “Dykstra and Haas are with me?” Shane checks, brows furrowing a little when Zane nods before his expression evens out. “Who’s starting?” “You.” Ilya answers, and Shane thinks about that for a moment too before nodding. Ilya nods back, shares a small smile with Shane that the rest of the team respectfully pretends they didn’t see and then turns to address the rest of the locker room again. “We are down by three, but that means nothing. Arizona is sad little team, we just let them have brief joy before we crush them, da?” “Their top scorer is starting the period out on a five minute penalty. We push hard and fast while we’ve got the advantage, yeah?” Bood continues, patting Wyatt’s shoulder. “I’ll block more shots.” Wyatt adds, and it startles a laugh from Young that eases the tension in the locker room. “Let’s go.” Shane says, knocking his helmet against Haas and Young’s who are closest to him. “Let’s go!” The rookies chorus, LaPointe and Holmber moving over so they can knock their helmets against Shane’s too before they file out of the locker room back towards the ice. Zane stares after them, watches the rookies who’d looked dead tired and exhausted as they came back out on the ice suddenly pumped up with energy again and smiles. He hangs back, waits until he can toss his arm over Shane’s shoulders as they step out of the locker room. He’s aware of Ilya and Wyatt walking just ahead of them, clearly eavesdropping on their conversation but trying not to be obvious. “You ready for this?” Zane asks, because he thinks if he pushes directly when asking Shane about taking the ‘A’ he’ll surely refuse. “We’ll crush Arizona." Shane says, and Zane doesn’t know if he’s purposefully ignoring the subtext Zane was trying for or if Shane just genuinely didn’t catch it. He doesn’t ask, as Shane tilts up a bit to smack his helmet against Zane’s before he takes to the ice. Zane watches him go and shakes his head, sitting on the bench as Shane smacks his fist against Dykstra’s and then heads to center ice for the face off. Zane watches as Shane slaps the puck down the ice as soon as it’s dropped, chasing after it and passing it smoothly to Haas who hits it back towards Holmber who knocks it top shelf. Zane pushes to his feet as one of Arizona’s defensemen skate up towards Haas and Holmber’s mini celebration, ready to call it out to the linesmen when Shane appears next to them. Staring pointedly until the Arizona player skates back to his own bench to switch out, and Zane wonders suddenly how many times before he’s missed Shane doing that, as the rookies barely react to Shane suddenly appearing next to them. Zane looks a little closer for the rest of the game, at the way Shane puts himself between the rookies and the opposing team after a goal and the way he skates a little more precisely as he checks an opposing player who hit one of the rookies. His hits are all clean and legal, but there’s a certain edge to them when he hits them after they’ve hit one of the younger players that is especially obvious as Arizona’s top scorer returns after serving his five minute penalty for slamming Holmber into the ice near the end of the second period and Shane checks him four times in his minute on the ice with textbook legal hits that are surely going to bruise. The game ends 6-4 for Ottawa, Haas scoring the last goal after Shane sets him up for it. Young and Holmber are on him seconds later, nearly taking Haas to the ice with their excitement before yanking him over to start spinning around. Zane laughs at them as he takes to the ice, skating straight over to Shane and clapping him on the back. He thinks now more than ever, after watching the way Shane defended their team so silently but surely, that Shane’s deserving of the ‘A’ on his jersey. Zane also thinks now more than ever that Shane might finally agree to it. “You ready to join me with this ‘A’ yet?” Zane questions, and he watches as Shane glances towards the spinning circle of rookies before nodding. “Yeah.” Shane agrees. “I think I am.”

Chapter 4: Evan Dykstra and Nick Chouinard

Evan’s stretching on the ice when he sees Hollander suddenly skate past him, an angry sort of pinch to his brows. Evan starts to push himself up, worried for half a second that Hollander is about to start something before Hollander stops in front of their bench and starts whispering to Coach Wiebe while waving his hands around. Evan’s just far enough away that he can’t actually hear what Shane’s saying, and he glances at Nick about a foot to his left and raises a brow. “There’s a group in the stands with offensive signs.” Nick whispers as he scoots closer to Evan, nudging their shoulders together and tilting his head slightly towards the group. Evan turns to follow his gaze, keeps his expression neutral and tries not to draw any extra attention to the group as he reads over the signs they’re holding up. The group is all decked out in Carolina jerseys, holding up signs decked out with various slurs and degrading phrases. There’s one likening Young to a pornstar, and another that reads ‘Barrett dethroned as team hole by Hollander’. Evan looks away before he does something stupid, pissed as he glances towards where Shane’s talking now with one of the linesmen. “I will go take those from them if someone else doesn’t.” Shane says, voice raising just a little before he lowers it again, whatever he says next is lost to Evan and Nick. “Haas!” Evan shouts when he sees the kid starting to turn towards that sign of the stands, pushing to his feet and waving the kid over. Shane turns instantly, eyes snapping across the ice before his shoulders relax a little at the realization that Evan’s shouting to keep the kid from seeing the signs. He turns back to Coach Wiebe and the linesmen, saying something else and then skating over to spray snow at Young and Holmber. “What is it?” Haas asks when he gets to them, Evan glancing to Nick for help because he didn’t actually have a reason to call the kid over except to make sure he didn’t see any of the signs. “There’s a kid over there who wants to trade you Swedish snacks for a puck.” Nick says, pointing to a sign on their side of the rink. “Oh!” Haas says, nodding quickly and then skating down the ice towards them. Evan drops his head, relieved, before glancing up towards the stands at where one of the arena staff is now asking the group for their signs. “Fuck them.” Nick just shakes his head and smiles, patting Evan on the shoulder and then skating over to talk with Wyatt. Evan looks to where Shane is stretching on the ice while Young, Holmber, and LaPointe try to copy him and shakes his head as well before heading after Nick. Their new alternate captain was a great addition to the team.

Chapter 5: +1 Everyone

Chapter Notes

NOTE: use of homophobic slur and a little bit of homophobic language in this one “Little gay boy, heard you were looking for some dick.” One of the Vegas players spits at Luca after he scores a goal, and Luca’s eyes widen with a sort of panic. “What?” He asks, and the Vegas player laughs at him, skating back down the ice towards his bench. “Young.” Shane warns, grabbing the back of Young’s jersey and then tossing an arm over Luca’s shoulders. “You okay?” “He just…” Luca starts, trails off because he’s not sure what to say. “Take a breath.” Shane reminds him, Young skating around Shane to press into Luca’s other side reassuringly. “We’ll destroy them.” Young says surely, wrapping his arm around Luca’s waist. “What do you think about being the first team to score three hat tricks in one game this century?” “We’re doing what?” Holmber asks as he stands up from where he’d been waiting on the bench for them. “Luca and I are going to get hat tricks.” Young declares, and Shane has to bite back his smile at how much like him Young sounds when he says that as Holmberg turns to glare back towards the ice. “Maybe we let Barrett get one too? Or Bood.” “Let me get what?” Bood asks as they step into the locker room, raising a brow at the group of them. “We’re going to be the first team this century to get three hat tricks in one game.” Young repeats for the locker room, throwing his arm up over Luca’s shoulders now. “Luca and I have already claimed two spots. We’re debating who gets to have the third.” “9?” LaPointe wonders, and Shane frowns as he turns to look at him. “He said something to you too?” Shane checks, and LaPointe sort of shrinks in on himself because the whole team is staring at him expectantly all of a sudden but he nods. “Tell me if he says anything else.” Ilya, who’d been about to say something, shuts his mouth when Shane says that, a calculative look in his eyes as he watches his husband. Shane doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, reaching out and tousling LaPointe’s helmet before stepping over to his stall. Ilya doesn’t say anything else on it, starting his breakdown of their play in the first period and discussing the best adjustments to their lines to pull off their triple hat trick dreams. The game ends 8-2 for Ottawa, Luca and Young both getting their hat tricks and Shane and Ilya with the other two goals. Young pouts a little about it on the ice, even as he lets LaPointe and Holmber yank him and Luca in for their spinning. “I really wanted that triple hat trick.” Young complains, and then he turns suddenly as air wooshes towards the back of his helmet. Shane’s already there, gloves on the ice and shoving hard at Vegas’ 9 so his punch swings off and doesn’t hit the back of Young’s helmet. Young stares wide eyed, Holmber and Luca both yanking him towards them as Shane grabs Vegas’ 9 by the front of his jersey and swings. “You’re such a fucking coward you tried to hit a kid from behind?” Shane shouts at him, adjusting his grip to slam Vegas’ 9 back towards the boards. “No, no, no.” Ilya smirks, skating between where Shane and Vegas’ 9 are fighting and one of the approaching Vegas players. “You are not part of this.” “I thought you’d at least be able to throw a punch.” Shane taunts, holding Vegas’ 9 in a choke hold and skating a lazy little circle as he tries to get out of it. “You tried to hit a kid because you knew you couldn’t fight? Is that it?” “Fuck you, fucking faggot!” Vegas’ 9 screams, managing to get out of Shane’s hold as he lets go of him. “You’re not really my type.” Shane tells him, landing another hard punch that has Vegas’ 9 doubling over, Ilya looks ridiculously proud. “Break it up!” One of the refs finally interrupts, and Shane skates back easily, hands up as he skates back over to the rookies. “You’re okay?” Shane checks, light as he grabs Young’s helmet and carefully pushes his face this way and that. “You pushed him before he hit me.” Young nods, and Shane smiles at him, lightly knocking his hand against each of the rookie’s helmets. “You played good.” Shane compliments, shoving Young’s shoulder lightly and then letting him and Holmber yank Shane over to start spinning again. “That’s so disrespectful.” Troy laughs softly to himself, cheering loudly as he pushes Wyatt into LaPointe and steps into the little spinning circle as well. Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!