Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Rose Landry, Shane Hollander & Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Rose Landry, Harris Drover, Zane Boodram, Wyatt Hayes, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Hayden Pike, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)

Additional Tags:

Jealous Shane Hollander, Possessive Shane Hollander, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Homophobia, Racism, Shane Hollander remembering who he is, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Shane has a personal vendetta against some lady and Ilya is oblivious, This Author hates AI, Eating Disorder Recovery, Good Fucking Hockey

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of My Regards

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-27 Completed: 2026-08-28 Words: 25,638 Chapters: 6/6

My Regards

Summary

After his life came crumbling down last season, Shane is healing. He's married to the love of his life, everyone knows, and he can finally lay claim to the man he once called his rival.
He didn't realize that his new rival would take the form of some busty blonde model from LA, though.

Notes

Hello! For those of you who follow my Supernatural work, I hope you don't mind the detour we're taking into the Game Changers universe :) As a Canadian hockey fan with a minor in Russian (seriously), I kinda HAD to.
Before we begin, a couple notes!

1) This is my first Game Changers work, and tbh this fandom kind of terrifies me. Please be kind, I'm just here to have a good time! If you don't like this fic, just click away (the AO3 rule of thumb is: don't like, don't read!). I do hope you enjoy it, though.

2) The language stuff...so. I do have a background in Russian studies, but that means very little at this point in my life (it's been a long time since I spoke Russian with any regularity). I did my absolute best with what Russian I remember, but I wasn't going to ask any of my russophone friends to check my work because I don't know them in a "hey I write smutty fanfiction" kind of way. So, sorry to any native speakers if there are errors!
Same goes for the Quebecois French - they taught us in elementary school, but by high school it was all French-French. Booo! Again, doing my best, I am not Quebecois (but like, shout out! Love you guys! Je me souviens etc etc).

TRANSLATIONS: I'm using a work skin that will hopefully allow you to click on the Russian and French text to get a translation! If it doesn't work, feel free to say something. I have never used a work skin before so who knows what might happen.

3) I was inspired to write this fic after hearing My Regards by Maisie Peters, and I went "omg that is so Shane-coded". And then the story sprang fully-formed from my forehead just like this. As AI becomes evermore ubiquitous in fanfic spaces, I just want to go on record and say that I have never used AI in any of my work, I do not know how to use AI, and I will never use AI. I am so staunchly anti-AI that it annoys my loved ones. I am here for the love of the game, and all my work/mistakes are my own.

Chapter 1: i really sympathize, i do i do

Chapter Notes

The thought of being openly gay in the public eye used to eat away at Shane, the all-consuming fear bringing forth a tension that only fed his reputation as the league’s hockey robot. But so much of that tension came from the strain of lying. Honesty and earnestness are built into his biology, and denying himself his true nature only made him that much more uptight. 

He thought, for sure, that coming out to the Montreal Metros would alleviate some of that tension, but…well. Their reactions left something to be desired, and that only led to more lying. He lied to Ilya, and to his parents, and to anyone who wasn’t there in the locker room with him—yes, of course they’re good about it. Yes, everything’s just like it always was. Yes, they’re all supportive. Of course they are. These guys are my brothers. 

Nevermind that most of the team avoided showering with him like homosexuality was a disease they could catch—save for Hayden and JJ and the rookies who still looked at him with stars in their eyes. Nevermind that his D-men seemed to take an interest in being literally anywhere but at Shane’s back. Nevermind that his conversations with the guys became abruptly more clipped as soon as he’d said the word gay, and even with time, those conversations never really got any warmer. 

And, okay. Shane is a logical guy. He knows that none of that shit was right. But the persistently self-punishing part of himself still told him to feel ashamed; that their treatment of him was his own fault; that they were right to ice him out. 

So, to save face in the eyes of his loved ones, he lied about it. He lied until lying became as familiar an outfit as his post-game suit. 

It is so freeing to lounge on the couch that is now as much his as it is Ilya’s, in the Ottawa house (that is now as much his as it is Ilya’s), with a warm fluffy dog by his feet (who is now almost as much his as she is Ilya’s). It is so freeing to be completely and utterly honest. He’s already filled Rose in on all the bullshit he’s been dealing with for the past year, which felt surprisingly good, and he’s relieved that he never has to hide anything from her ever again. 

So, when she asks him the same question that everyone in his life has been asking, Shane no longer feels manacled by the pressure to lie.  

“How are things going with the new team?” Her face is earnest on his phone’s screen, focused entirely on him as if the stylist behind her isn’t making some elaborate braid in her hair, tugging on her scalp in a way that actually looks kind of painful.

Shane is basically elated to tell her—to tell someone, to tell anyone—the truth. For once. 

“It’s actually going really well,” he says honestly (yay!!!), stretching out on the couch to get more comfortable and accidentally disturbing Anya, who gives him a withering look from her cushion. Shane apologizes to her with a scratch behind the ears before continuing his thought. “I thought it would be more difficult to adapt to the team’s play style, but Haas and Holmberg are awesome linemates. With a little more practice, we could really dominate.”

Rose laughs, fondly rolling her eyes in the way she does whenever he’s missing some obvious-to-everyone-but-Shane point. “Of course you’d focus on the hockey of it all,” she teases, and Shane feels a little ruffled by the callout (he’s a hockey player, of course he’s going to think about the hockey…?). “I meant socially, Shane. Is everyone being good about…everything?” Rose appears a little hesitant, bracing herself for whatever answer Shane’s going to give.

More honesty. Comfortable, comfortable honesty. He sees his own tentative smile in the tiny front-facing camera view. “Everyone is being great about everything,” he confirms. 

Most of the Centaurs were at the wedding just a few months ago, and while Shane still doesn’t know the guys very well, the energy on the team feels so much safer than it ever did in Montreal—even from before he came out to his team. He expected growing pains on the ice, awkwardness in the locker room, and being tolerated for Ilya’s sake and Ilya’s sake only, but…the other players’ treatment of him lands somewhere on a continuum between fellow human being and Shane Motherfucking Hollander. He’s Ilya’s husband, sure, but he’s not just Ilya’s husband: he feels their respect for the seasoned player he is, even without the C on his chest that he’d grown so accustomed to. Truthfully, it’s been nice to let go of the C. There’s less distance between him and his new teammates, this way—even though he is married to the captain. 

Lighting right up, Rose looks like she genuinely couldn’t be happier to hear it. Shane finds himself mirroring her expression. She’s a good friend.

“Well, it definitely shows on the ice,” she says coyly. “I watched the highlights from last night’s game—your assist to Ilya in the second period power play was fucking magical. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” she adds apologetically, as if her filming schedule is something she has any control over. Still, it was unfortunate to miss her while they were both in New York City. Ships in the night, that’s them.

“Maybe we actually would’ve won if you’d bothered to show up,” Shane ribs, laying the guilt on thick. “Some good luck charm you are, ma’am.”

Shane feels like he should be more upset about their loss in overtime to the Admirals, but it was only the second game of the regular season, and the final score was more than respectable at 4-5. He obviously hates to lose (he really fucking hates it), but he’s not losing much sleep over it. They fucking decimated Philly in their first game, anyway, and he’s already ahead of Ilya in the scoring race. So.

“Oh, please,” Rose scoffs. “As if you need luck. ‘Ooh, look at me, I’m Shane Hollander, I’m the best player in the NHL and maybe even the whole world!’” Rose mocks, putting on a deadpan voice that isn’t even close to Shane’s actual voice, thank you very much.  

“I can’t believe they ever cast you in anything. That’s a terrible impression of me,” Shane grumbles.

Unbothered by his harsh review of her performance, Rose doubles down—because she is never done. “‘I have three Stanley Cups! You could grate cheese on my abs! I’ve got a face that could launch a thousand ships! I play hockey with that sexy Russian stud in the Lamborghini ad, and I also happen to be wearing his ring!’ God, Shane. Leave some winning for the rest of us, you asshole,” she laments, but every word hits Shane like an embarrassing bus. 

“Shut up,” he says, trying to will away the blush he feels flooding into his cheeks. “And don’t let Ilya hear you say that about him,” he adds, a little quieter. One of the few things Shane can reliably hold over Ilya’s head is the fact that his gay ass managed to pull the Rose Landry, meanwhile the most famous person Ilya’s ever managed to bag is Shane. If Ilya were to overhear Rose calling him sexy…Shane would never escape it. Like, ever. See, sweetheart, I could have pulled her if I got there first. You’re not so special. Yeah, right. Rose doesn’t even like bad boys (Shane, unfortunately, can’t relate). 

She laughs animatedly, then quickly apologizes to her hairstylist for the crime of moving her head. “Come on, out with it,” she pries. “How does it feel to watch his ad and know you’re married to him?”

And Shane, God help him, can’t keep the self-satisfied smile off his stupid traitor face. “Good,” he admits in what is truly the understatement of the year. “Extra good.”

Extra, because everyone can see how hot his husband is. Everyone’s seen him on their screens, shirtless and dewy, stretching back on the hood of a luxurious gold sports car that’s worth more money than most viewers will ever see in their entire lives. Everyone’s looking, and salivating, and wanting. 

But Shane is the only one allowed to kiss that sharp jaw and lick that chiseled chest, and everybody knows that now. He never realized how stormy he used to feel whenever people sang their praises about Ilya’s hotness, while Shane was being loved and ravished by the guy all the time and yet couldn’t stake his claim without outing both of them and ruining their plan. If he’d known how good it would feel to be able to publicly mark his territory, Shane might’ve said fuck the plan a long time ago.  

“I bet,” Rose says suggestively, smirking like she knows exactly what’s going on in Shane’s pants when he thinks about it. “You know, the Lambo ad is drawing in more hockey viewership. Miles has a new boyfriend—Gabriel Fontanes, the model?” she offers like a question, as if there’s a universe in which Shane would know who the fuck that is. She rolls her eyes when he shakes his head. “Of course not. Well, he and a bunch of his model friends are now super invested in hockey all of a sudden. Diehard Centaurs fans in the making. They held watch parties for your last two games,” she laughs, rolling her eyes.  

Shane raises his eyebrows. “A bunch of LA models are watching Centaurs games? We haven’t even played the Monarchs yet.”

“I really don’t think they care about the Monarchs, Shane. I think they care more about ogling Ilya in the flesh, which they’ll definitely be doing in a few weeks when you play your away game in LA. They already bought tickets,” Rose says pointedly. “And safe to say they’ll be supporting the Centaurs. Particularly the captain and his smoking hot body.”

Shane huffs a laugh, not blaming them one bit. He himself is the world’s biggest supporter of his captain’s smoking hot body.

His captain. His captain. Wow. That never stops being hot as fuck. 

“I can sympathize,” he muses. “Miles should clarify that the hot body in question will stay hidden under several layers of gear, though. Wouldn’t wanna disappoint them.”

“Too bad. Maybe they can get a backstage pass and hit him up in the locker room afterwards.”

“Hey, watch it,” Shane warns without any heat, but still hating the mere suggestion. He notices his own scowl on the phone screen and is disappointed to note that angry kitten is an accurate description of it. He hates it when Ilya makes a greeeeat fucking observation. 

Rose basically cackles at his expression, and Shane briefly wonders why he puts up with so much abuse. “Oh, relax. No one’s trying to take him from you,” she placates. 

“Uh, you and I both know that that is not true,” Shane counters, because that’s the dumbest shit he’s ever heard. Ilya regularly gets hit on everywhere he goes, right in front of Shane, because he’s too sexy and too charming. 

“Okay, touché,” Rose relents, tilting her gaze up towards her hairstylist briefly, nodding before turning back to look at Shane. “Hey, sorry, I gotta get going. But you should follow Gabriel back on Instagram!” she encourages. “I think you’d get along really well. Let’s all get dinner or something, next time we’re all in the same place?”

Historically, Rose has had an uncanny knack for anticipating Shane’s compatibility with people, so he agrees easily. It never hurts to have friends outside of hockey, especially since learning that so many of his hockey friends were never really friends at all. 

“Yeah, for sure—now get back to work, slacker,” he teases with a grin, able to feel the sudden demand on her time through the phone screen.

Rose kisses the camera lens, making him chuckle, and then she’s gone—leaving behind the same warm glow that Shane has always felt after their conversations, since the first time they met (which could easily be mistaken for a crush, Shane thinks. Could’ve happened to anyone.). 

Shane takes a moment to look fondly at Anya, who seems to have fallen asleep with her head resting comfortably on his shin, and quickly decides that his workout can wait. He does have a heart, after all.

He takes the opportunity to look at some emails from his mom—Rolex wants another ad campaign—and then he does right by Rose and opens Instagram. It doesn’t take him too long to find Gabriel Fontanes in his follow-back list, so he obediently hits the button. Boom. Task complete. 

    Anya’s still snoozing, and Shane has time to kill. He’s really not a big Instagram snooper, but he feels like it’s socially acceptable in this scenario. It’s probably polite, even. Rose wants them to meet, and how embarrassing would it be if Shane showed up to this imaginary group dinner and knew nothing about the guy? He’s made that mistake before, and as it turns out, famous people can sometimes get a little upset if you don’t recognize them or their work. At the very least, Shane should know what Gabriel Fontanes looks like.

When he goes to his profile, Shane quickly discovers that Gabriel Fontanes is hot. While he presents more effeminate than Shane’s preferred type, he can appreciate that Gabriel’s hot in a way that’s more delicately beautiful than sexy. He guesses that makes sense, if he’s a model.

Go Miles, Shane thinks as he scrolls through Gabriel’s photos, angular cheekbones and soulful dark eyes galore, one outlandish outfit after another. His page is artistic in a way that Shane doesn’t really get, but he’s long since accepted that there are some spaces where a jock like him shouldn’t offer any opinions. 

He notices that Gabriel has recently posted a story, and while he assumes it will be mostly promotional material, Shane’s curiosity gets the better of him. 

He startles when he’s greeted by a video of his own team playing on a TV screen, Dykstra checking Vaughny into the boards in the Centaurs’ defensive zone. The camera moves away from the screen and pans the room, showing a group of extremely attractive people strewn across a bougie living room with drinks in their hands, some eyes more locked in on the TV screen than others. Rose wasn’t kidding. There’s even a caption: Ottawa Centaurs Official Fanclub, LA chapter 🐴🏒❤️

Shane smiles, part of him still not used to the fact that he’s part of the Centaurs now. He’s always been a fan (Ottawa was his team long before it became his team, okay? He’s a good hometown boy, through and through), but it’s so special to see so much love for the Cens and be able to personally receive it. Even if that love is new, coming from folks who probably wouldn’t be watching if the players weren’t hot as fuck. Hockey is for everyone, after all. Shane’s always said it, and he’d be the league’s biggest hypocrite if he didn’t. 

His smile falls away when the video plays all the way through and moves to the next image. It’s a photo of the same TV, now showing a close-up of his husband looking all sweaty and perfect. A gorgeous blonde woman in the world’s tiniest shorts is crouched next to the screen, making a kissy face at the still image of Ilya—and Shane faintly wishes she would leave him alone, but he’ll be honest: he gets it. Occupational hazard, being married to sex on skates. There are worse problems to have than a model thinking his husband’s good-looking.

Shane’s no better, after all. If he’d been viewing the game from a TV screen instead of playing in it, he definitely would’ve been watching with a hand down his pants. In comparison, this lady is pretty fucking tame. 

He notices a small-font caption in the corner of the screen, barely noticeable at first: Heaven’s in love!! @MissHeavenBlackwell

“You and me both, Heaven,” Shane mumbles to himself, shaking his head and going back to his homepage to doomscroll for a bit. 

Shane, who has much bigger priorities than whatever a bunch of models are doing in Los Angeles, promptly forgets all about it. 

He has no idea how big a problem he and Heaven Blackwell are about to have. 

Chapter End Notes

I love inventing fictional models and giving them the names I heard called out at the cafe where I was writing~

Chapter 2: he's mine, and it's headline news

Chapter Notes

Shane thinks this life will never get old, but if it does, he gives everyone his permission to knock some sense into him. After over a decade of hiding, of long distance, of stealing quick snatches of time together when their schedules allowed it…Shane gets to wake up with Ilya. Every day. He gets to take Anya out with Ilya. He gets to brush his teeth next to Ilya. And he gets to drive to practice with Ilya! Life seriously couldn’t be better.

…However. There’s something very suspicious about Ilya insisting on getting in the driver’s seat this morning, swearing up and down that he’ll stick to the speed limit and just wants Shane to be the passenger princess for once. Shane can smell the ulterior motive a mile away, but he doesn’t know what it is, so he acquiesces and dutifully holds Ilya’s hand over the centre console. 

That is, until he spies the golden arches and watches in disbelief as Ilya steers Shane’s car into the McDick’s drive-thru. 

“I fucking knew it!” Shane accuses, dropping Ilya’s hand in protest. 

Beautiful though his laugh is, it’s nothing more than a ragebait tactic right now. “What?” Ilya asks innocently, reaching for Shane’s hand again and absolutely not catching it. Not a fucking chance. 

“You cannot be serious,” Shane complains. 

“Yes, yell at me more, is hot,” Ilya invites with a wolfish grin as he pulls the car into the lineup behind a pick-up truck with Manitoba plates. 

“I can’t believe you actually eat that shit. It’s poison.”  

Ilya levels a look at him, patient and amused all at once. “Shane, I am from country with many nukes. My blood is made from bottom row of periodic table. McGriddle will not kill me.”

Shane falters, a little overcome by how much stronger his accent is first thing in the morning (cute cute cute), but trying hard to hold onto his indignance. 

“What? Ilya,” he says in a half-baked attempt at sternness, trying not to feel anxious about radiation exposure. Ilya’s from fucking Moscow, not Chernobyl. Jesus.

Taking advantage of Shane’s distraction, Ilya successfully grabs his hand again and holds on tightly, this time ready for Shane’s attempt to let go. 

“Ah, I know your beautiful body cannot handle this,” Ilya sighs, forcing Shane’s hand up so he can plant a kiss on his knuckles. “I am sorry we cannot all be radioactive. Your fresh Canadian air has made you chemically weak.”

Too stunned by the insanely specific chirp to craft a clever response, Shane gives up on his fight and just lets Ilya hold his hand. “Well…” he starts, struggling to find his footing in the conversation. “You of all people should care about my digestion if you want me to keep bottoming.” 

“It is an important reminder,” Ilya agrees, and this time Shane gets a kiss on the cheek. 

Ilya orders his stupid fucking McGriddle when he drives up to the speaker, but before he can close the order, Shane impulsively jumps in and asks for a coffee with milk. 

It’s worth it for the way Ilya looks at him proudly. He doesn’t say anything, but he does squeeze Shane’s leg affectionately, so Shane gets the message loud and clear.

Things have been…different, since Shane started with the Centaurs. It all began during his first meeting with the team dietician, Vikram, who was horrified when Shane described the macrobiotic diet he’d been on since his rookie season, as recommended by the Metros dietician way back then. He was similarly gobsmacked by how religiously Shane had been counting his macros and calories, and Shane will admit that he felt defensive when Vikram asked if Montreal was trying to kill him or if the unyielding restriction was entirely self-inflicted. To Shane, there had been nothing wrong with his diet. He was used to people making fun of him for it, but Ilya’s genuine concern about his relationship with food felt more like an attack than anything ever had. It started a lot of fights. 

Hearing it from a professional shook him to the core. Vikram explained that Shane should be consuming way more calories as an athlete of his calibre, and incorporating more carbs and healthy fats than he’d been instructed a decade ago—Shane, you’re a much bigger boy than you were as a rookie. To keep these muscles happy, you need more fuel, he said. Vikram then went on to say that Shane, when the timing around his games is right, should be eating heavier things like pasta and potatoes, and he should be eating lean red meats for strength and muscle repair. Things that he’d been needlessly afraid of for the better part of a decade. 

Shane could accept that once he wrapped his head around it, but the thing that spooked him the most was when Vikram advised him to keep one day per week free of tracking. It was like he had a microscope, looking straight into Shane’s fixation on nutrition and finding its shameful core of anxiety and control. A relaxed mind is important for a healthy body. I don’t want your diet to be preoccupying when your focus should be hockey. If that idea causes you anxiety, then I’m going to refer you to a food therapist. And then the son of a bitch did! 

Admittedly, the food therapist is helpful. When Shane started spiralling about what foods to pick on his no-tracking day, Carmen included Ilya in the conversation and suggested that he take the lead on it until Shane gets more comfortable. Shane, knowing how Ilya sometimes eats (case in point: McGriddle), was profoundly anxious about that idea, but there was no need. Ilya has been amazing and so unwaveringly kind about it, never feeding him anything that feels too scary. At restaurants, he picks something off the menu that he knows Shane will enjoy, not just tolerate, while still ensuring that the food is nourishing enough for a pro athlete. He’s been cooking a lot of Russian comfort food too, which is healthy and delicious. Shane finds it a hell of a lot easier to accept a meal with mysterious nutrition facts when he can frame it like…engaging in his husband’s culture. It makes Ilya happy, and that’s a good enough case for Shane. 

And Shane has to acknowledge that he feels better. Stronger. More energetic. He wonders how much untapped potential he’s been sitting on all this time, simply because his eating habits were too inflexible. It’s not something he wants to dwell on, but it’s definitely something to explore.

***

Practice goes well. It’s fun. 

That’s one of many things that surprised Shane about trading to the Centaurs: hockey is fun again. He never realized that it stopped being fun while playing for Montreal, but in hindsight, there’s only so much pressure a guy can put on himself before a task becomes bereft of joy, and he dragged that team to the top like the fucking Little Engine That Could. 

Coach Theriault’s main instruction to the team was always to get the puck to Hollander. It was an effective enough strategy (read: three Stanley Cups), but there’s something to be said for a team of players who have had to work their asses off to hold their own on the ice. Ilya built each and every Centaur up until they could stand on their own two skates, never allowing them to ride his coattails like the Metros did Shane’s. And it shows. 

Their starting line is lethal: Ilya Rozanov at centre, with Zane Boodram and Troy Barrett on his wings. Shane is starting to really click with his line, finding that Luca Haas is an unexpected menace with his shooting accuracy, and Alex Holmberg is quick enough to easily keep up, becoming evermore skilled at appearing exactly where Shane needs him to be. Nick Chouinard and Evan Dykstra are brick walls, LaPointe and Young just as effective on the defense, and Wyatt Hayes is a better goaltender than anyone Shane’s ever played with (astronomically better than fucking hungover swiss cheese Drapeau, that’s for sure). The whole damn roster is more or less solid, even the players who don’t get a lot of ice time yet, and Shane has been having a blast scrimmaging with them and running through drills. 

It’s not the same shit over and over, like it was with the Metros. Their practices are full of novelty, Coach Wiebe constantly throwing new things at them, and the way the team works together to adapt is…magic. For Shane, hockey is magic again, just like it was when he was little. Playing for the Centaurs has reminded Shane why he fell in love with the sport.

It’s also been a wonderful, glowing reminder of why he fell in love with his husband.

Ilya’s an incredible player and an even better captain. He works the team hard while still keeping morale up, knowing exactly what to say to boost each player’s confidence, and it’s clear that he has the respect of the entire room—and not just the team’s. It’s the whole staff. 

Shane never had the charisma nor the social currency to really hold the respect of his locker room. They respected him for his ability on the ice and the C on his chest, sure, but Shane could tell that many of them only listened to him out of obligation. And if Shane’s being completely real with himself, he didn’t care much for being captain. He hated the pre-game speeches (he wasn’t any good at them, and God knows how much Shane hates being bad at something). He hated having to talk to the media so much, all those cameras on him and all those repetitive questions. And as much as he liked strategizing and leading his team to their Cup wins, it was sort of…lonely, at the top. 

So, he’s perfectly content to wear an A on his chest alongside Bood. Hockey is a team sport, after all, and it’s nice to finally feel like the success of his team is a shared responsibility.

The locker room is fun, too. Shane’s never had much fun in a locker room before, always on edge, tensed to hear a slur that might hit a little too close to home for him to effectively shut it down. The Centaurs don’t use that sort of language, Shane’s learned. Instead, they play party music and dance around and laugh, buddy-buddy with each other. Shane was pleased to discover that the videos on their official social media page were never staged. 

“Alright, assholes, listen up!” Ilya shouts, clapping his hands together. Everyone stops what they’re doing, many sporting wet hair and in various states of undress, as they turn to look at their captain. Shane doesn’t have the luxury of looking, because Ilya’s wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, and Shane has to maintain some level of professionalism around here.  

“Tonight we sleep! No wild parties, no beautiful strippers, no blow,” Ilya instructs. “Tomorrow we fly to Calgary, we play game, and what happens?” 

“We give ‘em the same treatment we gave Nashville last night, baby!” Holmberg shouts, and the room erupts in cheers.

Ilya points at Holmberg, pride plain-as-day on his face. “Fucking right, Bergy! We destroy these assholes, Calgary cries even harder than Nashville. Because what do we want?”

“The Cup!” the room yells. 

“We keep this up and it’s ours, boys!” Bood announces, confidence to the max, and shit: he might be right. They crushed Nashville last night, 6-1, and they’ve officially broken their own points record for this time of the season. It’s not saying a whole lot, what with the team’s lacklustre history, but Shane fully believes that they can keep it up. He doesn’t want to get too cocky, but they have a real shot at the playoffs this season. 

The team goes back to business, some still stripping off their gear while others put their outside clothes on, and Ilya—now wearing a pair of joggers but still no shirt—sidles up next to Shane and puts a hand on the small of his back. 

“We see your parents for dinner tonight, yes?” he asks, so close that Shane can smell his shampoo.

“Uh huh,” Shane confirms, and he stiffens involuntarily when Ilya kisses his cheek, barely concealing a flinch. If Ilya notices, he doesn’t say anything. He just returns to his cubby and continues getting dressed like nothing happened.

Someone does notice, though. Wyatt, always with the goalie eyes, never misses a thing. Shane notices him noticing, and when they lock eyes across the room, Wyatt clearly takes it as an invitation to approach. 

“Hey man,” Wyatt greets him casually.

“Hi, Hazy,” Shane replies a little warily, unsure where this conversation is about to go.

Wyatt looks at him for a moment, contemplative, but ultimately decides not to beat around the bush. Shane appreciates it. “You know you can unclench, right?”

Shane blinks. “What?”

Wyatt sighs, looking at him with kind eyes. “Look, Hollzy. I’ve noticed that you’re kinda…in and out quickly. You don’t hang out in the locker room, you don’t interact much. You avoid Roz. I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to do any of that.”

Stunned, Shane can’t really form a sentence other than, “Oh.”

Cautiously, Wyatt keeps talking. “I, uh…I heard that the Metros were kind of weird about you being gay?” He says it like a question, but there is no question. He knows.

Shane nods, and—in a rare moment of vulnerability—he makes the decision to share a little more; to put a little trust in someone new. “Yeah, I, uh…I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable,” he admits. “They were uncomfortable, so I didn’t really shower with the guys after coming out. They were…they thought I would…look.” Shane says this last bit a little awkwardly, because it’s embarrassing, but also because he really doesn’t want to put the idea in anyone’s head if they haven’t already thought about it. 

To Shane’s absolute horror, Wyatt looks like he might cry. “Shane…are you serious?” he asks incredulously, brow furrowed.

Shane can only nod.

Wyatt appears profoundly sad, lets out a heavy breath, then fumbles for his phone and scrolls through what looks like a group chat. Shane isn’t sure if the conversation is done or not, and is just starting to wonder whether he should walk away when Wyatt hands Shane his phone.

“That’s our team chat without Cap,” he explains. “We don’t use it much—mostly we would just speculate about where he was disappearing to on days off. But I think you should read through this section.” 

Shane takes it tentatively, emboldened by Wyatt’s encouraging nod, and he takes a look.

Bood 🍗

Okay guys, I know we’re all awesome, but I need to get this down in writing.

When Hollander joins our team, he is safe and HE IS FAMILY. 

If I catch any of you being weird about him and Cap, it’s fucking over. Got it?

Wyatt

Obviously 💋

Baby Haasy 😇

Of course!!!! I’m looking forward to playing with him 😊

Berger 🍔

Nah im gonna be weird

When I roll out a fuckin red carpet for Hollander and fan him with palm leaves

Pointy 🦔

bruh im lowkey offended

we love Roz

he can only be respected for locking down SHANE FUCKING HOLLANDER 😩💦

Chou-Chou 🥬

Bood, are you kidding??? We get THE HOCKEY HUSBANDS.

They could touch tips at centre ice and I would applaud because WE ARE NEVER LOSING AGAIN 🙏

Troy Bolton 🕺🏻

☝️☝️☝️

Big Dyks 🍆

fr other teams wish they were us, everyone say THANK YOU MONTREAL!

Young’un 👼

THANK YOU MONTREAL! ❤️

Bood 🍗

Good. By the end of the week, I need confirmation from the rest of you that you’ve seen this message and agree to be chill, or else 🥊🥊

And then, one by one, the whole team chimes in. It spans a few hours based on the timestamps, but Shane is able to account for every single player on the Ottawa Centaurs, asserting their unwavering support for Shane and Ilya like it’s a given.

Like it’s so easy. Like the Montreal Metros could’ve done but didn’t. The team who got eleven years of his everything. 

Shane swallows down the lump in his throat and tries to blink away the burning sensation in his eyes as he scans the room, really surveying it for the first time. He’d been feeling like an outsider looking in since he got here, enjoying the energy through observation without really being part of it, because he’s got a lifetime of experience existing on the fringe. But now that Wyatt’s addressing it, here in this room…Shane thinks he might’ve brought that feeling on himself with his own assumptions and fears. He shied away when Ilya kissed his cheek, but did anyone else flinch?

Nope. No, the only person who had a problem with it was Shane. 

Oh.

“Thanks, Wyatt,” Shane says as he hands him the phone back, a bit thickly.

“Don’t thank me,” Wyatt tells him seriously. “We got you. And can I just say…” he trails off a bit coyly, glancing over at Ilya.

Shane lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Face splitting into a full-on grin, Wyatt claps him on the shoulder. “No one is delusional enough to think that you’re checking us out in the showers. Why the fuck would you do that when you’re married to Mister Lamborghini over there?” 

And Shane feels fucking vindicated, because that’s what he’s been wanting to say! The audacity of some of Montreal’s ugliest fucks, assuming Shane would voluntarily look at any of their weird dicks without throwing up in his mouth a little. Sure, Ilya Rozanov’s perfect naked ass gave him a shower boner back in 2010 (could’ve happened to anyone!), but for Shane, the Montreal Metros generally induced whatever the opposite of a boner is. But it’s not like he could’ve said that to any of them: he was their captain, and that probably wouldn’t have inspired good performance. 

All that being said, Shane feels an immense degree of gratitude towards Wyatt Hayes. He really does feel himself beginning to unclench, and just to prove a point to himself, he sticks around the locker room instead of waiting in the car for Ilya to finish talking with Wiebe. Exposure therapy or something, like how Carmen has been getting him to try small bites of the foods that make him anxious. 

Shane parks himself on the bench and puts his earbuds in, deciding to rewatch some of Calgary’s game highlights from this season in preparation for tomorrow’s game. It might be overkill—he’s watched their tape ad nauseum already—but this time around he notices that their second line right winger is favouring his left leg more than usual, suggesting an injury. That satisfies Shane enough for him to take a little break, and he finds himself on Instagram.

Rose posted a new story, so Shane dutifully opens it and watches a short video of her dancing around with one of her costars in what looks to be a club bathroom, both of them looking beautiful in ostentatious sparkly dresses as they sing along to some song about loving New York. Ever the dedicated best friend, Shane hits the heart button (lest she give him shit for watching her story without reacting, again).

When Rose’s story plays through, the next one to come up is from Gabriel Fontanes; a picture of him looking ethereal and glittery, and Shane reminisces on his life pre-Rose, back when he never really saw anything glittery on his social media feeds. He’s not complaining, it’s just that glitter’s not really popular with hockey players. 

However, if Gabriel’s next story is anything to go off of, hockey is getting more popular with glittery people. Shane’s surprised to find yet another video of someone’s living room (a different one, moodier lighting and darker fixtures this time) with last night’s Centaurs game playing on the TV screen. Shane watches with a smile as Bood makes a sneaky drop pass to Ilya, confounding Nashville’s defense beautifully and allowing Ilya to take possession without breaking stride. Even though Shane knows what’s about to happen, he stays completely transfixed as his husband dekes and executes The Rozanov perfectly, shooting the puck straight through the five-hole. Shane grins a little when Gabriel’s friends erupt into cheers, and then cheer even louder when there’s a closeup on Ilya. It’s illustrative of Shane’s internal reaction to his husband, honestly. 

The video starts to pan the room and shows about eight hot people in lounge clothes, and Shane recognizes Heaven Blackwell again. Just in time for her to announce, “God, he’s so fine, I need him.”

A voice from behind the camera—Gabriel’s, presumably—chuckles. “I think he’s taken, baby,” he says, and Shane preens a little. Thank you, Gabriel. You’re a pal. Free bench-side tickets to any game you want.

The camera continues to pan the room, away from Heaven, but he can still faintly hear her voice over the chatter of the rest of the room and—

“They call him Russia’s Greatest Fuck Machine; I really don’t think he’ll be taken for long.”

Do Shane’s ears fucking deceive him? Surely they do. Because he knows he did not just hear that bullshit.

He watches again, turning the volume up a little higher, and finds that his ears did not deceive him.

He watches one more time for good measure, just to really be sure, and oh fuuuuuuck no. Absolutely not. Nope. Nuh uh. 

Shane is, how to say…furious. The implication that a bisexual man would cheat on his spouse is problematic at best, and part of him wants to post some infographic about biphobia on his own story, but he’ll be perfectly honest with himself: it’s not about defending Ilya’s honour or whatever. It’s part of it, sure, but Shane is more than aware of the moniker and Ilya’s historical reputation as a lady killer. He doesn’t like it when people still view his husband that way, but he understands that some people aren’t exactly up-to-date on the latest hockey news beyond whether their hometown team won their last game. He can imagine that Russia’s Greatest Fuck Machine lives on in many a memory for old hockey fans. 

No, Shane’s issue is that Heaven is a new hockey fan, and in order to learn anything about Ilya, she would’ve had to google him. And Shane knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that searching Ilya+Rozanov yields about a dozen articles about his marriage to Shane before showing anything else about him. Articles that highlight the fact that they’ve been in a committed relationship for a vague “several years”. Many even note that Ilya has not been spotted leaving clubs with beautiful women on his arm since long before relocating to Ottawa.

So. Shane’s issue is not just the assumption about Ilya. 

It’s the fact that Heaven knows, and she doesn’t care.

This is when Shane begins to understand that he and Heaven Blackwell actually have a huge fucking problem.    

Chapter End Notes

Okay lmfao, the bit about Ilya's blood being radioactive/Ilya calling Shane "chemically weak" has been sitting in my notes app since 2017, because this was ACTUALLY SAID TO ME by a Russian pal back in the day - only instead of talking about McGriddles, we were talking about the cadmium paint on my friend's vintage Garfield mug. I am still not over that burn, so I had to draw inspiration from it.

Chapter 3: sorry, his kisses make me cocky

Chapter Notes

Warning for homophobic slurs! And a bit of racism. We are on the ice in this chapter, and some of the players Shane is facing have some nasty things to say.

Roadies to Los Angeles are never Shane’s favourite. The city’s just not his style, and its only saving grace is that he can usually see Rose. But Rose is still filming in New York, so as far as Shane’s concerned, LA sucks total ass and has absolutely no redeeming qualities. 

He might, maybe, perhaps be a little cranky about it because Heaven Blackwell is supposed to be here tonight, watching their away game against the Los Angeles Monarchs. Shane has been scowling at her memory ever since that comment she made about Ilya’s loyalty, and he has absolutely no desire to be reminded of her existence while he tries to do his job and play some good fucking hockey. So, when he steps onto the ice that night, he vows to keep his eyes off the stands completely. 

Shane is nothing if not focused when it comes to his game, so it’s easy enough for him to lock in and forget about it—and this season it’s proving easier than ever, simply for the fact that Shane needs to survive. Sure, there have been plenty of peaceful games this season, as peaceful as professional hockey can be—for example, the Admirals were great (Scott Hunter being the captain certainly helps), and Philly was perfectly respectful even when the Centaurs beat their asses. But some players and teams have definitely had an issue with Shane and Ilya being queer. And Troy, obviously. But there’s something about Shane and Ilya that really seems to trigger homophobes everywhere, and ohhhh boy does it ever show on the ice. 

From Shane’s very first shift against the Monarchs, it becomes clear that it’s going to be one of those games. When Shane skates up to the centre dot to face off against Rittberg, he’s already tensed to take it. 

“Fucking faggot,” Rittberg spits, and yep, there it is. Shane’s been playing against Rittberg since his rookie season, and it’s definitely not the first time he’s called him a fag (a real stand-up guy, clearly), but Shane realizes that it’s the first time that Rittberg has called him a fag while knowing that it’s true. 

And unfortunately, it stings. It stings in a way that Shane doesn’t expect, the slur having graduated from a basic and uncreative hockey chirp to an actual, genuine, targeted attack. While it’s historically been said to Shane with a bratty sort of I’m-jealous-that-you’re-better-than-me quality to it, at this moment, all Shane can see in Rittberg’s beady little eyes is pure vitriol. 

Shane thinks he might be in danger. He says nothing, but his eyes dart over to Holmberg on his left wing. He doesn’t manage to catch his eye before the ref skates over, puck in hand, ready to drop. 

Fuelled by indignance, Shane absolutely wins the faceoff and gets the puck straight through Rittberg’s legs and over to Haas, who effortlessly catches it on his blade and takes off towards the Monarchs’ defensive zone. Shane rips around Rittberg at lightning speed and follows Haas over the blue line, positioning himself to receive the backhand pass that he knows is coming his way, when suddenly—SHIT.

An aggressive force hits Shane from behind, square on his upper back, and he is abruptly falling forward. Muscle memory has him bending his knees and angling his body to land on the side of his thigh, oof, but the momentum carries him about fifteen extra feet across the ice, his stick clattering somewhere in his wake. 

He hears the ref’s whistle and takes stock of his body the moment he stops skidding. He’s not dazed, thank God. His thigh absorbed most of the impact, and that will definitely be a gnarly bruise, but by all accounts it was a pretty clean fall. His head is fine. His elbows and wrists are fine. His knees are fine. His back is—okay, what the fuck was that? Was that a cross-check? That felt like a stick. 

Shane gets on all fours and puts a skate up, finding that he’s able to get back on his feet just fine, and Haas is instantly at his side.

“Shane! Are you okay?” he frets, concern plastered all over his boyish face. 

Shane rolls his shoulders and doesn’t find anything out of sorts, nothing sticky, none of his joints or muscles protesting the movement. His pads clearly did their job. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he reassures the poor kid. “Who the fuck—?” 

“Rittberg fucking cross-checked you from behind,” Holmberg tells him huffily, appearing at Shane’s other side, and Shane feels a flare of rage as he whirls around to spot the asshole, now cornered by the imposing Evan Dykstra, who looks like he’d be about two seconds away from dropping gloves if it weren’t for the ref’s hand on his chest, warning him. It doesn’t stop him from verbally tearing Rittberg a new one, though.

It makes Shane oddly emotional, seeing that. He remembers how detached he felt from his defense back in Montreal, when they abandoned him and threw him to the sharks like his safety didn’t matter anymore. Shane was resigned to it at the time, but seeing Dykstra so incensed pulls the injustice into razor sharp focus. 

Rittberg doesn’t get pummelled by Dykstra or by anyone else, but he does get a two-minute minor penalty—and a big shiny target on his back, implied by Ilya’s livid-yet-resolute expression, impossible to ignore as it appears on the jumbotron. That seems to be the new MO of every arena: magnify a Hollander-Rozanov’s reaction when the other Hollander-Rozanov gets hit. Shane’s been schooling his features on the bench all season. Ilya’s a bit more expressive.

When Shane skates over to the bench with the rest of his line, Wiebe checks in on him—though it’s not so much genuine concern as it is a social nicety. He knows Shane well enough by now, even this early in the season. 

“Put me on the powerplay, I’m okay,” Shane reassures him, and he must look okay, because he’s allowed to skate back out to the Monarchs’ defensive zone without any pushback, flanked by Ilya and Troy (a fucking nightmare of a trio for all opposing teams, Shane is delighted to report). 

“Was a safe fall, Hollander. Good job,” Ilya tells him seriously, bumping their shoulders together. “You are okay, yes?”

Shane bumps him back, smiling in a way that’s probably way too fond for a workplace environment, but what can you do? 

“I’ll be even better when we get a puck in the fucking net,” Shane tells him, and a downright evil expression finds its way onto Ilya’s face. It’s hot, and Shane feels a warm curl in his stomach that’s about to get him through this game like rocket fuel on meth. Ilya has a way of lighting a fire in his blood; of making him feel completely inevitable on the ice. LA is about to be sad; so sad in their own barn. Shane could not give less of a shit. 

He gets into position at the faceoff circle across from Heselwood, who would be a pretty good player if he weren’t so sloooooooow. Part of Shane wants to feel a little bad for always skating circles around the guy—but this is professional hockey, so Shane actually can’t convince himself to feel bad at all. If Heselwood wants to keep up then he should simply get better at skating.

Shane’s not in the mood to make friends, but Heselwood—God help him, Ilya’s right there, does he really want to do this?—decides that he’d like to converse. Can’t even get two minutes of peace around here.  

“Cocksucker,” Heselwood snarls, and Shane expects it to land the same way Rittberg’s words did earlier, but it just…doesn’t? And that fact kind of baffles Shane, forcing him to make quick work of searching within himself for an explanation. 

Because, okay. So. Here’s the thing. The word cocksucker just doesn’t hit the way it used to, back when Shane was a rookie and terrified that someone would find out that he’d actually sucked a cock before and—to make matters so much worse—fucking loved it; couldn’t get enough of it. Back then, he had a lot of shame about that. And he still carries a bucketload of shame about being gay in general, don’t get him wrong, there’s a lot to unpack there. But sucking cock is…another thing that Shane is really good at; a skill he’s honed over time; something he’s put a lot of effort into perfecting.

Shane is nearly as good at sucking Ilya’s cock as he is at hockey. And goddammit, he’s tired of being ashamed of it. It’s stupid. It’s stupid because he busted his ass for his entire career to embody the Model Minority™ and maintain his captaincy, hiding the best thing in his life to hang onto something so fragile and soul-eating. Well, guess what: he did all that and he still became the persona non grata in his own goddamn locker room. 

Something clicks in Shane’s brain at that moment. He doesn’t have the C anymore, so he can’t lose it. His current team already knows about the thing that’s caused him so much shame, and they still have his back. Nothing he does here can turn out worse than the hell he’s already been through. 

So Heselwood calls Shane a cocksucker and Shane kind of…snaps? A little? That wonderful brain-to-mouth filter that he’s been relying on for the past eleven years simply disintegrates into nothing, and Shane allows himself to be, for once, the asshole that his husband has always known him to be.

“Mm, yeah, you dream of this mouth, eh?” Shane says drily, locking eyes with Heselwood and watching a flash of disgust flicker behind his visor. The reaction makes Shane grin, so he continues. “You’re gonna have to go head-to-head with my husband for it, bud. Good fucking luck.”

Shane hears a familiar burst of surprised laughter to his right and knows that Ilya’s definitely gonna fuck him about this later.  

Heselwood doesn’t seem to know what to do with that, scrambling for a comeback that doesn’t involve “no, Mr. Hollander, please don’t suck my innocent heterosexual cock”. Visibly grasping at straws, Heselwood lands on something that’s gotten just a bit too old for Shane’s taste. It stopped being clever about five hundred billion racist assholes ago.  

“You fucking—can you even see the puck?” Heselwood tries, and Shane rolls his eyes. Being better-acquainted with the puck than literally anyone else in the league, he can obviously see it very well. 

“Look at my stats and get some original fucking material,” Shane advises helpfully, and then the puck drops.

Shane wins the faceoff because of course he does; he’s Shane motherfucking Hollander. He gets the puck over to Troy, who quickly carries it around the back of the net and passes to Ilya. Shane skates on autopilot, positioning himself for a clear shot on net, trusting that Ilya will somehow get the puck to him despite all the sticks beginning to swarm. 

And Ilya trusts that Shane will be exactly where he needs him to be. He sauces the puck into the air, sending it sailing over the action as Shane winds up, swinging his stick back before striking forward. His blade meets the airborne puck with a sharply satisfying thwack, and the slapshot sends it sinking top-shelf over the goaltender’s right shoulder. Nine seconds into the power play. First goal of the night. A beauty, off of a sexy assist from his husband, whose cock is officially not safe from the intentions of this cocksucker. 

The crowd groans; Los Angeles is not very happy with the Ottawa Centaurs, but Shane can’t pay their disappointment any mind when he’s being dogpiled by his team, pounded on the back, affectionately rubbed on the helmet, first Ilya and then Troy and then Dykstra and Chouinard.

“Fucking beautiful play, boys!” Troy shouts, rightly so, and Shane’s entire body is sparking with the unique adrenaline of reading his teammates’ minds on the ice. 

“That was so fucking hot,” Ilya tells him in a low voice, eyes on fire, and Shane doesn’t even care if anyone overhears. He really can’t find it in himself to care about stuff like that anymore, and a distant part of him wonders how long this attitude will last; if tomorrow he’ll be a prude in public again, or if he’ll still feel the urge to announce to the arena exactly how many inches the best player in the league can take without choking.  

“Hey Heselwood!” Ilya calls out, getting the guy’s attention, and holyyyy. Heselwood looks pissed. Good.

“What the fuck do you want, Rozanov?” he spits, skating closer with his chest puffed out, and one of his linemates follows closely with a placating hand on his arm.

Ilya, the menace he is, chirps his heart out like his mother’s memory depends on it. “You see, that’s how cocksuckers get it done! You should try; maybe you actually score a goal, huh?”

“Fuck you!”

“Oh my God, that’s my job, stop trying to take it,” Shane snarks, like chirping is a sexually-transmitted skill that he caught from none other than Ilya Rozanov during their last fuck. “Give it up. You’ll never be as good.”

“At hockey or anything else, shithead!” Troy adds with a delighted grin that isn’t friendly at all, and Heselwood’s gloves hit the ice.

Troy’s drop too, and Ilya’s are about to, but one look from Shane and they stay the hell on. Not worth it. Not this early in the game, with only a one-point lead. 

It’s okay. It doesn’t actually come to serious blows; the refs get between Troy and Heselwood before it can get that far, and Shane soon finds himself on the bench sandwiched between Ilya and Luca Haas, drinking water and recovering from the rush of it all.

“So you are cheating on me,” Ilya says casually, looking at Shane with an eyebrow raised. 

Shane short-circuits, unable to figure out what he’s referring to. “What?!” he starts, confused and rather offended, thank you very much, Ilya. 

Ilya shrugs. “How did Heselwood know you wear glasses?”

This does not cure Shane’s confusion. “He doesn’t?”

“He chirped you about your terrible vision, no?”

Ohhhhh. Ilya overheard the comment about Shane’s ability to see the puck. 

Shane lets out a sigh. “It was about my eyes, Ilya. Not my vision.” Which isn’t terrible, by the way. Shane’s just a little farsighted. 

Ilya pauses, visibly trying to translate Shane’s words and pick apart the nuance, but he quickly gives up. “Shane, what the fuck does that mean?” he asks resignedly. 

Ever the patient husband, especially when it comes to their mostly-negligible language barrier, Shane does his best to explain. “The shape? Of my eyes? Because I’m Asian?” he offers, and when Ilya just looks more puzzled, Shane opts to give it to him straight. “He was being racist, Ilya.”

It’s like an iron gate swings shut behind Ilya’s eyes, and every bone in his body goes eerily still as he considers that, the cogs turning in his mind until they click into place. 

“Racist,” he repeats dangerously, finally getting it. "Как интересно.""How interesting."

Oh, Shane does not like the look of that expression. That’s the look of a man who’s going to end the game with busted knuckles and a bracelet’s worth of other players’ teeth. And the team really doesn’t need their captain incurring a suspension, okay? 

“Ilya…” Shane warns.

“So Heselwood dies.”

“Do. Not. Play. Dirty,” Shane says sternly, but then decides to loosen the leash just a little, for…fun. “Not this early, at least. Save it for when we have a healthy cushion on the scoreboard,” he allows.

Ilya looks like he wants to whine about it, but he clearly thinks better of it once he takes a really good look at Shane’s face and finds rigidity there. Instead of arguing, he opts to nod understandingly and give Shane’s leg an affectionate squeeze. 

Ilya turns away and begins commiserating with Bood, who’s sat on his other side, and Shane watches the look of outrage as it appears in Bood’s eyes. Of fucking course. Shane might have some sway with Ilya, but there’s nothing he can do about Zane Boodram when he wants to make a point. Classic Ilya Rozanov, outsourcing his rage to other players when Shane says no. 

That’s the man he married, and having willingly made his own choices in life, Shane knows when to pick his battles. Refusing to even touch the Bood-and-Ilya shitshow he knows is coming, Shane turns his attention to the jumbotron, which is cycling through closeups of fans in the stands to keep the crowd’s attention occupied during the brief break in play. There’s a bunch of cute kids in Monarchs jerseys, which makes Shane smile and think of the Pikes. There’s an elderly couple who look like they might be lifelong fans. And then there’s—

Shane’s smile drops like a rock off a cliff. Because that’s Heaven Blackwell. Heaven Blackwell in all her blonde bombshell glory, wearing a tiny little t-shirt. A tiny little t-shirt which reads ILYA ROZANOV, CALL ME! right across the chest. She notices her own image on the screen and waves delightedly before pointing to her shirt and winking, oblivious to the way Shane’s fists reflexively clench in his gloves. And likely not oblivious to the fact that she looks exactly like the type of woman who Ilya would’ve been photographed with a decade ago.

Now, Shane was raised by Yuna Hollander. He was raised right. He would never hit a woman or even say unkind things to her. 

Ever. 

Obviously. Jesus.

…Buuuut, Shane was also raised by men’s hockey, and while locker room misogyny never made much sense to him, he’s starting to think that he might like to dabble. Sorry to his mother and to Jackie Pike and to Rose Landry, but Shane would, frankly, like to deck this bitch. 

Shane takes a deep, cleansing breath and reminds himself that he can’t suck Ilya’s cock if he goes to jail tonight. Would be a shame after that sex-soaked powerplay.  

So instead of climbing up into the stands and using brute force to set Heaven Blackwell straight, Shane channels his irritation into his game. He knows he’s playing more aggressively than usual, and he knows he’s being weirdly quiet on the bench, but he can’t help his fuming. Ilya (and Bood, actually) keep checking in on him, asking if he’s alright, and Shane knows that they think he’s still upset about the racist chirp as if it’s something he hasn’t been hearing on a semi-regular basis, verbatim, since he was about ten years old. He doesn’t bother to correct them, because the truth is way more embarrassing. Besides, it’s no skin off Shane’s nose if Heselwood gets checked a little harder than usual. 

Ilya and Bood keep it more or less within the confines of professionalism for the rest of the game, but there’s a minute left on the clock when Ilya faces off against Heselwood one last time, and the beef breaches containment. Heselwood drops gloves, so Ilya drops gloves, then Bood and Troy both drop gloves, and suddenly the ice is full of gloves as both teams break out into a huge, nasty brawl, fists flying everywhere. It’s not exactly what Shane had in mind when he implied that Ilya could afford to get a little scrappy once their team had a comfortable lead—he was picturing more of a minor scuffle after a little roughing or hooking, not…this. The Centaurs bench is in uproar, loudly hitting their sticks against the boards, and Shane can tell that so many of their younger players desperately want to be in the thick of it. It’s a bad precedent to set. 

“ILYA GRIGORYEVICH!” Shane shouts, not in the mood to spend the evening staring at a gnarly black eye while trying to have sex. But there’s no way Ilya’s hearing him through all the brouhaha: Shane can’t even see him anymore; there are too many bodies in his line of sight. 

There’s blood on the ice by the time the brawl is broken up, and the game ends with more than one player sitting on a major penalty, but none with busted jaws or missing teeth. The Centaurs win 4-1 and Ilya skates away with an insignificant split lip and nothing more, so the irritated winds have more or less left Shane’s sails. Ilya Hollander-Rozanov, marked safe from the wrath of Shane Hollander-Rozanov. For tonight, at least.

Ilya stands at the entrance to the visitors’ tunnel as the team leaves the ice, offering each teammate his customary fist-bump with an affectionate I love you. Not Shane, though. Shane always gets a more professional send-off. 

“Good game, Hollander,” Ilya says seriously, like he does every time Shane steps off the rink. It usually amuses Shane—Ilya’s maliciously compliant response to Shane’s PDA aversion—but tonight, he remembers the fact that Heaven Blackwell is in the crowd wearing that stupid t-shirt, and he’s once again a livewire. 

Fuuuuuuck that.

“No, you fucking love me,” Shane growls, ripping his own helmet off and tilting Ilya’s back, getting around the cumbersome visor to kiss him possessively. Ilya makes a small noise of surprise but gets with the program quickly, pulling Shane closer and allowing him to deepen the kiss. Shane tastes the blood from Ilya’s busted lip, and he’s abruptly so fucking horny it puts him in a lightheaded tailspin. He’ll have to dissect that revelation later on, in the hotel room, when Shane can nip at it some more. 

“Ah. Yes, I fucking do,” Ilya says through a breathless laugh once they break apart, and Shane is satisfied to see that he looks ecstatic and a bit dazed by the attack. Not paying him another shred of attention, Shane continues forth into the tunnel and makes his way to the locker room, feeling rather vindictively accomplished and hoping that Heaven fucking watched and wept.

The locker room cellies are in full swing, Party Rock Anthem playing on the portable speaker, with many of the guys singing along obnoxiously and making plans to go out later. Shane’s happy for them, obviously—they won, he loves winning, of course he’s happy—but he can’t shake the irritation that still rocks his core. And it must show, because Ilya and Bood both approach him with poorly-concealed concern, treading lightly, trying to give him space while still communicating their willingness to offer support. It’s screamingly obvious to Shane that they still think he’s upset about the racism. 

He can never, ever, ever tell Ilya that he’s jealous. He’d never live it down. So Shane continues to bat their concern away, and is honestly relieved when they are both eventually summoned to talk to the media. Shane can imagine how that will go; all the different ways they’ll be asked to comment on tonight’s aggressive play style. Shane’s just relieved that he doesn’t have to be there, lying about the reason for his own. 

Because he’s got a masochistic streak a mile long, Shane pulls out his phone and opens Instagram. Gabriel Fontanes has posted a series of stories, all videos from the game with his group of friends tagged. Including Heaven Blackwell.

And Shane goes to her profile. Of course he does. Seeing her on the jumbotron simply wasn’t agonizing enough.

Shane’s chest rapidly fills with rage when he opens her latest story. There she fucking is, in her little t-shirt, flirting with his very happily married husband like it’s all a joke to her. He wants to maim and injure. He wants to explode her with his mind. He wants to put her down like a dog because she tagged Ilya in hopes that he would see it.

   Shane can’t even look at her smug prematurely-botoxed face anymore. Livid, he takes a screenshot and makes it someone else’s problem. 

Shane

[Image: Heaven Blackwell posing flirtatiously in a bathroom mirror, wearing a tight red crop top reading ILYA ROZANOV, CALL ME!, with @Rozanov81 tagged]

Rose.

Please tell Miles

To tell his boyfriend

To tell his D-LISTER FRIEND

That Ilya is marriedddddd

TO THE BEST FUCKING PLAYER IN THE NHL.

Rose 🌹

😂😂😂

Shane!! 

I love when you’re a bitch 💕

Shane

Rose Landry I am so serious.

Rose 🌹

This you? 🤔

[Video: Recording taken by a fan of Centaurs captain Ilya Rozanov posted up at the entrance to the visitor’s tunnel, congratulating each of his teammates as they step off the ice. Shane Hollander throws his helmet to the ground and crowds Rozanov against the boards, forcing an aggressively passionate kiss onto his mouth. Rozanov reciprocates enthusiastically as his own helmet falls off his head, shoving a hand up the back of Hollander’s jersey. There’s an eruption of supportive cheers from the nearby crowd. The fan behind the camera can be heard murmuring “oh, shit.”]

I think you made your point Shanebug ❤️

Shane

😠

Fine. Don’t help me.

I hope your next boyfriend is gay.

Rose 🌹

😱

Chapter End Notes

Pour one out for Rose.

Chapter 4: if you lay a hand on him, we're both getting arrested

Chapter Notes

The Ottawa Centaurs win their game against the Toronto Guardians on home ice, and in doing so, they find themselves under a microscope. Five consecutive games won; not a huge number, but it still has the media talking all kinds of talk. Sports writers are churning out thinkpieces about the salary cap and whether Shane should have been allowed to take the not-insignificant pay cut in order to play for the Centaurs. It’s as if they forgot that, up until literally last season, the Ottawa Centaurs were a league-wide joke and treated like a dumping ground for players who rock the boat. Now that the Cens are winning games in a big way (and dominating in the scoring race to boot), suddenly equitable distribution of star talent is an issue? Ha. Won’t someone alert Parliament. Shane thinks that, if a bunch of queers potentially winning the Cup is such an issue for so many players, then they should simply get better at hockey. He and the rest of the Centaurs are really doing the league a favour when you think about it: friction, motivation, leading by example, inspiring excellence, lighting a fire under other players’ asses. Something. After all, he and Ilya wouldn’t be the legendary players they are today without their rivalry, always pushing the other to be better.

That said, it’s bugging him. Five games is hardly a noteworthy win streak (Ilya led the Cens through a much longer streak last season, and Christ, the league-wide record is seventeen), yet it still draws speculation. Shane doesn’t know what the world wants from him: he and Ilya were accused of throwing games for each other when they were on opposing teams, but now that they’re on the same team, they’re too advantaged?? It’s annoying to think about, sure, but there’s also a part of Shane—however small it may be—that wonders if he’ll ever truly have a place in the league again. If he ever had a place to begin with. He knows he has the support of Centaurs fans, but he’s not immune to the pain that inevitably shows up when the rest of the world hates you.

As a person who needs to do things perfectly, Shane hates to feel like he can’t do anything right—and oh, he’s used to that feeling. Even in the thing he’s best at, he’s never felt adequate enough. He’s a hockey legend, one of the greatest of all time, a generational talent, but he’s never felt like he’s been doing it right. Shane has spent a lifetime feeling too weird, too awkward, too Asian, too gay to be a hockey star. If Shane were doing it right, he’d be charismatic, the life of the party, white, straight. 

It was always his undeniable talent that carved out his place in the sport. And now, apparently, his talent is what’s unpalatable to the league. Too weird, too awkward, too Asian, too gay, and now too talented. Shane stays winning hockey games, but he can’t seem to win at being a hockey player. So what is he supposed to do? Where is he supposed to go? He’s either with Ilya or against him, and neither seem to be acceptable. Everyone’s mad at him.

He must look miserable, lost in thought on Bood’s outdoor sofa, mindlessly swirling his half-empty can of ginger ale as the Centaurs and their families mill about and socialize—because Harris is suddenly there, plunking himself down on the cushion next to Shane without any ceremony. 

“Hey Shane,” Harris greets him with an edge of purpose, not his typical sunny self. “You doing okay?”

As if Harris is a lighthouse on a foggy night, Chiron and Anya both traipse across the patio towards him and position themselves by his and Shane’s knees, Anya resting her chin on the cushion between the two of them and Chiron opting to flop down on Harris’s feet. Shane begins to scratch Anya’s head just the way she likes it, smiling when her eyes close happily. He should’ve thought about getting a dog a long time ago, the way Anya can reduce his anxiety with one simple touch. 

“Yeah, I’m good, just…” Shane trails off, trying to decide if he wants to even try to explain the mess inside his head. 

Harris doesn’t need him to. He glances at Shane with a half-smile and a shrug. “Yeah. There’s a lot of noise,” he acknowledges sagely, knowing the online tempest better than anyone. 

“A fuckton of noise,” Shane agrees with a sigh. Anya glances up at him with sad eyes, ever tuned in to his mood, but she relaxes again when Shane starts scritching under her chin.

Harris looks sympathetic, but he pulls his phone out and starts navigating through the Centaurs Twitter page without paying any mind to the way Shane’s stomach twists to see it. 

“Did you see this article?” Harris asks, handing over his phone.

Shane doesn’t want to take it. “Uh…Harris, I don’t really wanna look at that stuff anymore. It doesn’t help me to know that the world is mad at me,” he tries to explain, as kindly as possible.

Harris shakes his head and doesn’t pull his phone away, instead pushing it closer to Shane insistently. “That’s not what this is. Mainstream sports media has things to say, Shane, but the fans generally have different things to say. You might be surprised at how few people are actually upset with you right now, buddy. This is a piece from a pretty big publication, and it’s starting to go viral. Read it?” Harris very nearly pleads, and his vagueness both scares and intrigues Shane. 

Shane stares at him for a moment and only finds sincerity and kindness there. Harris is great; Shane knows this. Harris would never try to hurt him. In fact, Harris has been fucking phenomenal about protecting Shane from the worst of the media storm, having figured out early on how much it tends to affect him. He’s a good guy.

So, Shane opts to trust him, and he takes the phone. 

Traitorous trade, or betrayed?: How the Montreal Metros lost Shane Hollander

by Eileen Turner

October 15, 2021

By now, hockey fans everywhere have been rattled by the news of Shane Hollander, former captain of the Montreal Metros, and his shockingly abrupt trade to the Ottawa Centaurs. While the trading of star talent is always big news, it’s the circumstances under which Hollander’s trade occurred that have taken the hockey world by storm. 

In March of this year, the world was rocked when a FanMail video from Metros winger Hayden Pike was posted online by its recipient. At first glance, the video seems to be a fairly innocuous birthday wish. Upon closer look, fans were shocked to discover background footage of Shane Hollander and his longtime rival, Ottawa Centaurs captain Ilya Rozanov, in a (shall we say passionate?) embrace. The hockey world exploded, first with confusion and then with outrage, as both the fans and the NHL organization began to question the integrity of Hollander and Rozanov—especially after the pair confirmed that they are in a “committed, romantic relationship, and have been for several years” [source]. Were they throwing games for each other? For how long? This line of questioning caught fire when Hollander, during a playoffs game, tripped while battling Rozanov for the puck and cost the Montreal Metros their spot in the race for the Stanley Cup.  

Of course, anyone with eyes can see that it simply isn’t true: Hollander and Rozanov are both known for being excruciatingly unforgiving with other players on the ice, but especially with each other (as illustrated by this slow-motion replay of Hollander’s visibly accidental trip, in which viewers can see him frantically scrambling to stop the puck with his gloves even after falling). Furthermore, anyone with a penchant for statistics will know that Hollander and Rozanov have consistently played some of their best hockey against each other (save for a short stint in the tail end of 2016, during which time Hollander was publicly dating Hollywood star Rose Landry). To question their integrity is, largely, bogus—though, of course, many still did and still do. 

When the news of Hollander’s trade to the Ottawa Centaurs broke, there was an uproar that shook Montreal to its city limits. Fans everywhere burned their Hollander jerseys, some feeling betrayed by his disloyalty to the team that drafted him, and others feeling betrayed for a myriad of other (homophobic?) reasons. Regardless of how you spin it, it’s safe to say that Montreal’s opinion of Shane Hollander shifted from worship to condemnation seemingly overnight. 

The generally-accepted story is that Hollander made the choice to waive his no-trade clause and moved to Ottawa to share a team with his now-husband (he and Rozanov married in July, which you can read more about here). Statements from Montreal’s front office have more or less confirmed that this is the case, noting that they are “in support of Hollander’s decision” and “looking forward to carrying on the Metros’ legacy with fresh talent” [source]. At first look, their words might appear to hold positive regard for their former captain—but at second glance, don’t they seem to imply that they are glad to see Hollander go? Hollander, their longtime captain who whipped a crumbling team into shape and led them to three Stanley Cups? Isn’t it strange that the Montreal Metros have not once acknowledged Hollander’s key role in the legacy that they reference? 

Diehard Hollander fans certainly thought so. Recent chatter (largely from Montreal fans) suggests that Hollander shouldn’t have been permitted to take such a significant pay cut to join the Ottawa Centaurs alongside his husband, citing “equitable distribution of star talent” [source]. Hollander supporters have been quick to call this argument out for what it is: jealousy. The Ottawa Centaurs have had a fantastic season thus far, winning six out of their seven games with a five-game streak in the mix. The Montreal Metros have, to put it bluntly, crashed and burned without Hollander. 

The speculation about fairness has only reignited Montreal’s bitterness about Hollander’s betrayal, and it’s been so loud that Twitter sleuths have begun to investigate the issue. What they’ve found is eye-opening. 

When Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov confirmed the truth of their romantic relationship, the Ottawa Centaurs organization put out an official statement in support of their captain and Hollander (as did Rozanov’s former team, the Boston Raiders, amidst several other teams in the NHL), acknowledging the importance of inclusion in professional sports. 

The Montreal Metros did not. 

More interestingly, Twitter sleuths used a social media analytics bot account (@NHLfollowtracker) to view which NHL players have followed/unfollowed each other across various social media platforms—and when. They discovered that, in the immediate wake of Hollander and Rozanov’s outing, most of the players on the Montreal Metros unfollowed Hollander on social media (save for veterans Hayden Pike and Jean-Jacques “JJ” Boiziau, and rookies Noah Lemieux, Hendrik Hansson, and Dima Vdovin). Hollander, who is not known for his active social media presence, unfollowed most of the Metros players in kind—several months later. Even more interestingly, many of the Ottawa Centaurs players unfollowed (and in some cases, blocked) the Metros players that they had previously followed, and some started following Pike and Boiziau. 

It is fairly obvious, from these analytics, that the Montreal Metros did not feel betrayed by Hollander’s alleged “choice” to leave their team—rather, it seems that their bad blood began the moment their captain was outed as gay and in a relationship with Rozanov. This is only bolstered by their play style after Hollander returned to the rink after being benched (yes, he was benched for several games!): it was as if Hollander was playing alone on the ice, left vulnerable to hits and abandoned by his teammates. By the time he infamously tripped, Hollander was playing visibly injured and shaky on his legs from long, punishing shifts on the ice. It’s a blink-and-you-might-miss-it detail, but once pointed out, it’s impossible to ignore. 

All of this to say: did Shane Hollander really betray Montreal? Was it really his choice to leave the team that he helped rebuild from his very first season in the NHL; the team he led to three Stanley Cups; the team he once called his family?

Or was he unwelcome to stay?

Who betrayed who?

Eileen Turner [view profile]

Shane is overwhelmed by the time he finishes reading, his fingers knotted in Anya’s fur to ground himself. He reads the last line a couple times. A few more times.

Who betrayed who?

He feels sick, but only in the way that an introverted person being seen for the first time can feel sick. This writer—Eileen Turner—sees him. She sees everything for what it is. She wrote it down, published it, and Shane can’t believe it. 

A few deep breaths, and Shane finds his voice again. “You said this is going viral?” he verifies, chancing a glance at Harris, who has been watching him carefully this whole time.

Harris offers a small smile. “Yep. And the social media outcry has been…wow. Shane, the fans are pissed, but not at you. Montreal is getting flayed alive.”

“Really?” Shane’s voice sounds weird, a thread of hope stitching itself through his heart, mending some of what Montreal ripped apart. 

And now Harris is smiling big; all rosy cheeks and sparkly eyes. “Yes, really. It’s good, Shane. It’s really, really good. Obviously there are still some assholes, but I’m seeing way more folks pissed on your behalf than I’m seeing assholes. If you want to go online again, it’s safe for you to do so.” Harris pauses thoughtfully. “And the memes are really funny.”

Shane’s been avoiding the internet, obviously, which has been positive for his mental health, but he’s admittedly missed watching game highlights from the official Centaurs accounts (Harris is good at his job, okay?). So when Harris leaves him to make his social rounds, Shane cautiously reaches for his phone and opens Twitter for the first time in days.

His feed is, as Harris suggested it might be, full of memes about Montreal fumbling Shane due to their homophobia. Memes about Shane being the GOAT. Memes about Montreal digging their own grave. And—hilariously—memes about the Centaurs eventually winning the Cup through the power of friendship and gay sex. 

Shane wonders if they know exactly how much the promise of gay sex improves his game. He’s always played better with the imminent promise of Ilya’s dick in his hand, his mouth, his ass. Ha. He ends up giving a few of the memes a like; just the ones that make him chuckle. 

Game highlights, though. Harris’s game highlight clips are what he’s really looking for, here. Shane searches for the Ottawa Centaurs official account and is pleased to see that Harris has been hard at work with the footage from their game against Toronto, and oh. Oh. Ohhhh yeah.

There’s Ilya’s hat trick. His sexy, sexy hat trick. Shane clicks play on the video faster than he’s ever done probably anything ever. ROZ, dva, tri! That’s a hatty for Captain Roz!, Harris wrote. 

The video splices all three of Ilya’s goals together, in quick succession. One for each period, one two three, each one even more impressive than the last. Seeing them back-to-back like that, Shane notices Ilya’s palpable increase in energy; his body finding its groove through the game, always so wildly effortless by the third period. It would look like recklessness on any other player. 

Not his Ilya. Not his powerhouse of a husband. On Ilya, it’s just ease and ecstasy, the drug-like ecstasy of winning.

After that third goal, Shane watches (again!) as hats rain down on the ice. Ilya, skating away from the net in victory, drops down to do a series of prisyadka kicks before sliding across the ice on one knee, punching the air. His goal song—Welcome to Russia by DLB—blares through the arena.

Это бэнгеры с окраинThese are bangers from the outskirts
На расстроенной гитареOn an out-of-tune guitar
Бас ебашит как базукаThe bass hits like a bazooka
Welcome to Russia, сука!Welcome to Russia, bitch!

Shane’s seen Ilya do it before (it’s his signature celly for hat tricks, and this is definitely not Ilya’s first career hat trick), but he’ll never not be impressed by his husband's balance and agility. He’ll never not be turned on by the suggestive wink Ilya gives the camera as he slides by. By the gloating. It’s so hot. 

“What a fucking asshole,” Shane chuckles to himself, a huge smile on his face. He married the fuck out of that asshole, and he’d do it again. A million times. He wishes he could.

There are hundreds of comments on the tweet, but right at the top is one from the man himself.

Ilya Hollander-Rozanov ❤️🐴🖤

@Rozanov81

[Replying to @OttawaCentaurs] 

От имени России, добро пожаловать в гребаную Оттаву, сука! 👊😈On behalf of Russia, welcome to fucking Ottawa, bitch! 👊😈

Shane laughs, shaking his head at his husband’s antics. Shane would have to pry Ilya’s cocky Russian asshole persona out of his cold dead hands, if he ever wanted to (which he doesn’t: that’s the guy he fell in love with, persona and all). He goes to type a comment himself.

Shane Hollander-Rozanov 🏒

@shanehollander24

[Replying to @Rozanov81] 

Мой талантливый муж ❤️My talented husband ❤️

It’s happenstance, pure happenstance, the way he sees it. 

Shane posts his reply and, like it's a punishment sent from hell specifically to torment Shane, his eyes are assaulted by the most unpleasant, disgusting, abhorrent tweet that has ever been tweeted in the history of earth. Right underneath Shane’s! Touching Shane’s tweet like the two could ever belong in the same universe. Body running hot, he wants to vomit and throw himself into traffic and, and, and—

Heaven Blackwell 💫😇💘

@MissHeavenBlackwell 

[Replying to @Rozanov81]

Sexy goals 💕 Check your DMs 😉

His DMs? Check his DMs?!?!

Forget vomiting and throwing himself into traffic. Shane wants to burn a bitch alive. What are these hearts? What is this…winky face? What could that possibly mean?! Shane hits that report tweet button without even thinking, selecting tweet is disrespectful/offensive as the reason because it fucking is, okay? Jesus!

Now, Shane is a fast skater. The fastest, actually, despite what Ilya might say. But he has never been faster than he is when he gets to his feet (startling poor Anya, sorry Anya) and beelines over to Ilya, fuelled by rage and jealousy and a thirst for the blood of one specific model based in Los Angeles. 

Ilya, obscenely beautiful like a Greek god and deep in conversation with Troy, doesn’t look at Shane when he approaches—he does, however, angle his body and extend his arm slightly, welcoming Shane into his personal space, sensing him rather than seeing him. Shane slots himself in there, placing a hand on the small of Ilya’s back and leans into his ear.

“Baby, can I see your phone?” he asks sweetly, not letting his voice betray his mood, because the last thing he needs from his husband is questions. 

Adequately distracted by Troy, Ilya reaches into his pocket and obediently hands his phone over to Shane, automatic like it was only his body that heard the request, not his mind. Shane takes it happily, pleased with how easy that was, and punches in Ilya’s passcode (1410, the same as Shane’s own). 

He navigates through the phone quickly and efficiently, needing to get in and out before Ilya realizes what he’s doing. Ilya’s phone is a bit of a mess, his apps sorted based on vibes rather than any real organizational strategy. It makes Shane a little bit crazy, but he’s familiar enough with the lay of the land that he finds Twitter easily. 

Ilya has a lot of DMs that he’s never opened and will probably never open. Shane wonders if he has anything filtered and thinks probably not. But Shane will be damned if he lets this go; if he lets a DM from Heaven Blackwell sit in Ilya’s inbox any longer. He punches her name into the search bar and—aha. There she fucking is. 

Message from Heaven Blackwell 💫😇💘

@MissHeavenBlackwell

Heyyy Rozy :) I’m a huge fan! I’ll be at your game in Vegas in a few weeks. Would love to get drinks and maybe more..? 💕😉

Okay! Alright! That’s it!

Shane decides that Heaven Blackwell is not allowed to exist in Ilya’s line of sight anymore. He’s calling it off now. No more access. It’s done. 

So, on Ilya’s behalf, he deletes the message. On Ilya’s behalf, he blocks her. 

Feeling satisfied with himself, like he’s solved the problem once and for all, Shane closes the app and hands the phone back to his husband. Ilya absentmindedly takes it and shoves it into his pocket, eyes still on Troy, not asking any questions because he is Shane’s beautiful, perfect, amazing husband who is so well-behaved and wonderful.

And only Shane’s.   

Loving him more than anything, Shane snuggles closer into Ilya’s side and kisses his cheek. Shane’s husband’s cheek. 

His, his, his. 

Chapter End Notes

I had no intention of writing a news article, it just sort of happened and who am I to stop it? (Friendly reminder this is the fake NHL and I do not care how salaries/trades/free agency work in the real NHL, do not use my fake NHL story as an educational tool because you will be misinformed!)

Also, Ilya tweeting "welcome to fucking Ottawa, bitch" is cracking me up, like it's some kind of rough-and-tumble neighbourhood??? You better watch out, or Mark Carney's gonna beat you up behind a museum.

AND! Ilya's celly is inspired by Evgeny Kuznetsov's bird dance. I felt it was necessary for Ilya to lean into the dance of his people (and I actually saw a guy do prisyadka kicks on ice many many years ago, which was insane). Do you see the vision? I hope you see the vision.

Chapter 5: my regards

Chapter Notes

OKAY OKAY, yes, I know that Ottawa and Montreal would have played each other in the preseason, but this is MY world and I get to pick the timeline. Just walk with me, baby.

In this chapter: more homophobic slurs! Some real talk about racial issues in hockey (I wish the source material had done this a little more; maybe we'll get it in Unrivaled)! Some dick-related body shaming (I don't condone it but hockey players definitely do)! An incredible hockey game that I wish was realistic! And a smattering of smut!

This is a very long chapter lol, sorry, it just kept right on going!

Shane is about to play his first ever game against the Montreal Metros and he feels sick. 

That’s not to say he doesn’t feel ready. He does. He’s spent the entire season reviewing tape, watching Montreal’s team dynamics play out with the new additions to their roster—and, of course, watching them flounder around the gaping hole in their first line where Shane Hollander used to dominate. They’ve moved Gagnon up to first, now, and it’s not going well: Gagnon is a strong skater, but he fails to understand that you have to shoot the puck in order for it to go into the net. Their new second line centre is a recent acquisition from Tampa, Bobby Dickson, and Shane’s already familiar with his play style. He’s trying to prove himself this season, cocky as all hell, but his weaknesses are loud. Dickson always broadcasts his next move like an amber alert, and his reactions are slow. All of this to say, after careful review, Shane has determined that Montreal is not a threat. Stylistically, at least.

The Centaurs have been taking the impending match very seriously, not daring to get overconfident. Shane has shared literally everything he knows about each player; their weaknesses and tells on the ice. And Shane knows everything, having captained those guys and catalogued their every move for literal years. Drapeau’s knees are starting to go, though he’d never admit it, so shots through the five-hole are a safer bet than aiming top shelf. Wherever Couillard goes, you can count on Roy being there not long after—stuck like glue, no element of surprise ever. Andropov is incapable of deking left, so if he heads left, then left is exactly where he’s going. And God love him—it felt like a betrayal of the highest regard just to share it with his new team—but Hayden Pike’s ability to keep up with Shane only translates to helping him put pucks in the net: whenever they’d scrimmage against each other, Shane would skate circles around him. Which means, he’s no match for quickfooted Ilya, Holmberg, or LaPointe either. The Centaurs have taken every idiosyncrasy to heart and have created the most elaborate playbook known to man, specifically designed to torture Montreal. 

A lot of that playbook is banking on the Metros’ vendetta against Shane, though. He fully expects to be swarmed by homing missiles with the appearance of hockey players who he once called family. Shane has a suspicion that he’s going to leave the ice all battered and bruised tonight. That is, if they can catch him.

Shane doesn’t intend to be caught.

Everyone in the locker room has been giving him space since he and Ilya arrived, and Shane wonders if they can read the tension in his body, or if Ilya gave them instruction to keep their distance. Shane Hollander Turbo Anxiety 101. Shane can imagine Ilya standing behind a lectern and giving the Centaurs a formal lesson, PowerPoint slides and all. 

Whatever the team might be seeing, Ilya obviously sees it best. As Shane sits on the bench and adjusts his socks (again, again, and again), he promptly finds his husband warm by his side. Ilya silently places a large hand on Shane’s upper back and his other on Shane’s chest, applying counterpressure, sandwiching him firmly.

It has the same effect as a weighted blanket, and Shane instantly feels more grounded. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting Ilya squish him for a little while longer. 

“Has mama Yuna texted you?” Ilya asks quietly after a moment, relaxing the force of his hands but keeping them where they are. “She is telling me to murder Montreal if they fuck with you.”

Shane huffs a laugh and shrugs, because he hasn’t checked his messages in a couple hours. Deciding to leave his socks alone (they’re fine, they’re fine), Shane reaches across the bench to retrieve his phone, abandoned there some time ago when he started suiting up. 

There is a message from his mother, just a simple note wishing him good luck and letting him know that she will be wearing Shane’s jersey tonight, while Dad will be wearing Ilya’s. He sends her a short reply, hoping that she can’t read his stress in so few words. 

Shane also has texts from Hayden and JJ. He tackles Hayden’s first as Ilya resumes his own process of getting dressed. He stays close, though, strapping his shin guards on with his thigh grazing Shane’s. 

Hayden

The guys are talking about Rozanov

They’re trying to guess what he’s gonna be like on the ice tonight

Shane

Any leading theories?

Hayden

Some guys think it’ll be a lot of fighting

Others are expecting mind games

I don’t know what to expect. I’m so tired of this shit.

Shane

Call that a Russian roulette ;) 

Hayden

Man, fuck you :( 

The exchange with Hayden isn’t quite as grounding as Ilya’s physical touch, but there’s something about it that allows Shane to settle inside his own skin a little further. He’s never skated on the same ice as Hayden without talking to him first, and it’s been disconcerting to imagine their first interactions being from opposite sides of the red line. Having a chat beforehand is just the type of normal that Shane needs.

He’s just as grateful to hear from JJ for the same reason.

JJ

Capitaine! Ça va être bizarre de jouer contre toi, chu dan marde…go easy on us, we don’t have our star player anymore 🙁
Capitain! It'll be weird to play against you, I'm in deep shit…go easy on us, we don’t have our star player anymore 🙁

Shane

Not a chance, attache ta tuque PISSOUUUNot a chance, buckle up PUSSYYYYY

JJ

Nous le méritons…We deserve it...

Shane’s response comes quickly to him, but there’s a feeling in his stomach that all but undoes the peace that Hayden’s message brought him. Because underneath his quip, all Shane can think is oh, go EASY on you?? Like how you accused me of going easy on Ilya last season??

And he’s forgiven JJ, he really has. They’ve made up. JJ’s been trying hard to make amends. But the comment hits a raw nerve and Shane can’t prevent his scowl…or his audible scoff, which does a fine job of capturing Ilya’s attention. 

“Всё в порядке, котёнок?”"Is everything okay, kitten?" Ilya asks, brow furrowed, scrutinizing Shane’s face in that X-ray vision way of his, like he’s looking straight into Shane’s troubled mind. 

Shane chucks his phone back onto the bench with a dull thwack and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, it’s just JJ. It’s whatever,” he explains—or rather, doesn’t explain. He’ll fill Ilya in later; it does no good to get into it right before a game. 

Unfortunately, the exchange has also gotten the attention of their surrounding teammates, including Wyatt. 

“Boiziau? I thought you guys were chill,” Wyatt says, confusion in his voice with his jersey halfway on. “Are there still hard feelings?”

“No—well, kinda,” Shane admits, because he’s getting way too comfortable in this locker room these days, oversharing left right and centre. And he should feel embarrassed or timid by the way the locker room goes quiet with curiosity at his admission, but he’s not. It’s so clear that the guys have been waiting for Shane to divulge anything about how all the shit went down in Montreal, but they’ve been respectful enough not to ask. Shane suspects that Ilya warned them not to bring it up, and while he appreciates that…there’s something to be said for having this team's support. Every time Shane gets a little vulnerable, it’s rewarded rather than punished. Which is new.

Maybe he’s becoming an addict to their positive regard, but he finds himself talking. He finds himself telling the Ottawa Centaurs that, after he tripped on the ice that fateful night, JJ was the first of his teammates to suggest that he had tripped on purpose. While the Centaurs knew that those accusations existed—and they were very ruffled by the implication that Ottawa couldn’t win on their own good merit, thank you very much—they had no idea that one of Shane’s closest friends had been the one to say it first. 

You could hear a pin drop in that locker room, the moment Shane admits it. The faces of his teammates vary from sadness, sympathy, anger, shock, everything. Ilya is almost…deflated at his side, rubbing a soothing circle onto Shane’s back, already having processed his feelings on the matter of JJ and already at Shane’s metaphorical side about it. It tires him out almost as much as it tires Shane out, just reliving the whole emotional shitstorm. 

Bood is the one to break the silence. “Hollzy…” he begins thoughtfully, on his feet by his own cubby, directly across from Shane’s. “It was just you and JJ, right? Just the two of you?”

Shane gives him a baffled look. “What do you mean?”

And that’s when Bood really locks in, facing Shane with a demeanour so steady and careful and serious, it’s like he’s a doctor about to deliver bad news. “The only Metros who aren’t white.”

Ilya’s intake of breath next to him is a good reflection of how Shane feels, hearing that. Because while true, Shane doesn’t really see how it’s relevant—and yet it feels relevant in some twisty nebulous way that he can’t quite pin down. It’s felt relevant for a long time, and something in his bones exhales at the mere suggestion of another person feeling it too. Zane Boodram. Another person who isn’t white. 

Shane nods silently, and something seems to click into place for Bood. 

“I’m guessing it hurts because he’s your friend,” Bood begins, “but maybe it also hurts because Boiziau was the only other person on your team who knew how hard it is for guys like us to be considered valuable, and then he went ahead and questioned your integrity in front of white people. Cardinal sin, man. Not cool.”

Somewhere in the back of Shane’s mind, he recalls Ilya mentioning that Bood has an associate’s degree in sociology and is wicked smart about…stuff like this. But he can hardly take stock of that fact, because he feels like he just got punched in the stomach with the truth. JJ questioned Shane’s integrity in front of people who had already previously decided, even subconsciously, that Shane had to earn his right to be there because guys with features like his do not belong in hockey. Shane had earned his right through perfection, both on the ice and off of it. 

And then he fucked up. Both on the ice and off of it.

Bood’s words have Shane zoning out, but Ilya brings him back to himself through a gentle squeeze to the shoulder. “Uh…yeah. You nailed it,” Shane tells Bood, a touch grateful. “It was like…the moment he said that, everyone got on board immediately. I felt like they’d all been waiting for a reason to oust me, and JJ just…gave them one.” Fuck. It’s a thought that still hurts really fucking bad.

Bood snorts. “Well, yeah. White people are always looking to other minorities to cast the first stone. Gives them permission to be assholes, guilt-free. Of course they dogpiled on you after that; Boiziau basically said it was okay.”

And Shane’s head drops into his hands, because he thinks if he doesn’t hold onto it, his mind might blow wide open. That’s it. Bood put it into words.  

Shane is able to point to the why; why the pain of his team turning on him was so intense in a way that somehow didn’t feel quite like homophobia (at least not entirely). Shane had felt vulnerable and exposed and dehumanized, so other, and he realizes now that he might’ve always felt that way if it weren’t for JJ—because JJ was the other non-white player, and because he never had an issue with Shane being gay. In fact, before he knew about Ilya, he would frequently try to set Shane up with other guys. JJ made him feel like a person. JJ wasn’t just his friend: he was his ally. 

If Comeau or Drapeau or whoever else had been the one to suggest that Shane threw the game for Ilya…whatever. Shane can’t say he’d have been terribly surprised. If Hayden had been the one to say it…well, that would’ve fucking sucked, but Hayden is, at his core, a white bread boy. Shane has caught him making a few well-intentioned but misguided mistakes on issues of race before, so it would have been pretty easy to call it a clueless misstep. But JJ knew better. He always knew that Shane’s position as captain of the Montreal Metros—hell, his position as a hockey player in general—could be called into question at the smallest oops. And he did it anyway.

 Shane has busted his ass his entire life, censored himself, perfected his image, perfected himself, because his mom always made it very clear how precarious his place in the NHL is. He had to prove himself worthy of his spot on the roster every single day, but one word from JJ and it all came crumbling down—because the Metros were waiting for someone to imply Asian fags don’t belong here (we always knew perfect Shane Hollander didn’t belong here), just like how plenty of bigoted fucks are always waiting for their minority friends’ permission to say slurs. 

He forgives JJ. Despite it all, Shane finds that he really does. Or he really wants to. But he knows that he and JJ will have to talk about it a little deeper than they already have, and that’s okay. 

“Fuck, Bood,” Shane finally sighs, lifting his head and addressing him directly. “You’re a fucking genius.”

Bood laughs heartily. “Not a genius, just a guy who gets it. Look around Hollzy,” he pauses, gesturing to the very Caucasian room. “It’s you and me, man. I will never allow that kind of thing to happen on this team—not that it would, because everyone in this room knows exactly who the fuck Shane Hollander is.” 

There’s a few scattered shouts of approval, the guys obviously agreeing, but Bood’s not done. He crosses the room to stand directly in front of Shane, and with Shane’s silent permission, he pulls him to his feet. Shane’s never been so close to Bood off the rink, but he almost feels…parented, the way that his strong hands clasp his shoulders, protective and proud. They’re practically the same age, but the way Bood regards Shane is all paternal. 

“Shane,” he says seriously. “I know we don’t know you super well yet, but we respect you because you’re a fucking legend, and we love you because Cap loves you, and that’s good enough for us.” 

OOF.

The whole room explodes in a cacophony of cheers, and next thing Shane knows, he’s the eye of a tornado, the centrepoint of a swarm of very enthusiastic hockey players who want to play the best game of their lives and destroy the Montreal Metros almost as much as Shane does—because Shane does. Because they have his back—literally; Shane is being squeezed from all sides, Ilya to his left, kissing the side of his head repeatedly as the team smothers him in the purest affection that a group of men can bestow. 

Shane’s been doing a great job of fighting back tears all day, tamping down his fear of facing the team he once called home; the guys he hasn’t seen since before he married the love of his life—the guys who hate that he did. But he finds that he’s totally fine with letting the tears spill in the endlessly supportive arms of the Ottawa Centaurs. 

***

The ice sucks. 

From the moment Shane steps onto it for warm-ups, he senses a lot of animus from the other side of the rink, thick and miasmic like the smoke of burned bridges. Even standing at the centre line to say hi to Hayden and JJ sucks: they both look so defeated, tired of the game they’re about to play before it even begins, like the puck drop will be a death knell. Shane gives them both hugs and invites them to come out with the Centaurs after the game, even though it’s hard to look at JJ the same way. He thinks JJ will listen, when Shane eventually feels ready to talk about all the shit that Bood helped articulate. He knows that JJ wants to repair this, and that much is apparent by the way he looks fucking miserable in Montreal colours. Embarrassed, even.

A few of the Metros whiz past, glaring daggers at Shane as he chats with Hayden and JJ, and Shane finds himself glaring back. 

“Damn, Shane,” Hayden comments, eyebrows raised. “I hope I never give you a reason to look at me like that.” 

“How fucked are we, Capitaine?” JJ asks quietly. “Your team does not look happy to see us.”

Shane glances over his shoulder, watching as his teammates stretch and skate around, warming up their legs. Ilya and Troy are posted up near the bench, heads together, periodically glancing towards the Metros’ side with suspiciously scheming eyes. That look would worry Shane if they were playing any other team, but he’s of the opinion that the Metros have earned exactly what’s coming to them, so he really doesn’t care at all. Let them do their worst. 

Shane chuckles. “You’re not winning this one, boys,” he tells them with absolute certainty, more than happy to take the wind out of Montreal's already-flaccid sails. “Thanks for coming, though. Nice to see you.” 

Hayden groans defeatedly, head tilted back, and JJ huffs a laugh while eyeing Ilya across the ice. “You really are starting to sound like him,” he comments. 

Wow. Shane snorts. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” he concedes, and he decides at that moment that he has no problem sounding like Ilya. Maybe there was a time when it was a halfway decent chirp: oh no, good boy Shane Hollander sounds like the league’s most notorious asshole, how horrible! Ha.

But Shane doesn’t have his golden boy reputation anymore. It was burned to a crisp when the entire world saw Shane sucking face with his very male rival. What he does have is his GOAT reputation, and he intends to be that. 

So he’ll do whatever he can in order to be that tonight. He will play hard, he will be cocky, he will act like the best because he is. Fuck humility. That shit never did him any good in the end, anyway. 

Needless to say, the Montreal Metros are hooped. 

The game begins with Ilya facing off against Gagnon, and it’s pretty clear that Montreal is way more interested in targeting his husband than they are in stopping the puck from getting in their net. Hayden is the only forward on his line who’s actually attempting to play the game, listlessly trying to chase the puck as his linemen chase Ilya. Ilya gets the puck over to Bood, and Bood gets it to Troy, and Troy gets it right between Drapeau’s legs and into the back of the net. Twenty seconds into the first period. 

Ottawa erupts with noise, loud as if they already won the game. But it’s only just begun. 

Shane’s first shift on the ice begins with a faceoff in the Centaurs’ defensive zone, the result of an offside, and he feels a twinge of interest as the Metros swap out their first line for their second. Shane hasn’t faced off against Bobby Dickson in a long time, and he definitely hasn’t experienced him as a cog in the machine of the Metros. He has, however, reviewed his tape with the dedication of a detective trying to solve a life-or-death case, and he’s definitely not scared of the guy. He’s not really anything to Shane.

“If it isn’t the cocksucker,” Dickson greets Shane, his fake-friendly tone dripping with mockery and disdain. Shane’s so used to the word by now, he doesn’t flinch.

He does, however, remember an interesting tidbit as told to him by Hayden and JJ once before—just speaking of cocks. 

Baby Dickson, they called him. Because Bobby Dickson has a baby dick. By Hayden’s accounts, he had never seen anything like it before. JJ verbally hoped, for the sake of Dickson’s girlfriend, that he’s just a grower and not a shower.    

Baby Dickson can’t bring cocks into the conversation without some comeuppance from little old Shane, husband of the famously well-endowed and expert chirper Ilya Rozanov. Shane can feel bad about ratting Hayden and JJ out as gossipy bitches later—or not at all, actually. Hayden outed him to the world and JJ betrayed him, so Shane thinks they can just call it even. 

“That an invitation?” Shane asks, delighting in the way Dickson’s brow furrows, obviously not having expected any response beyond Shane’s typical wordless stoicism. 

“It’ll be easy,” Shane continues casually, doing his best to sound bored. “My husband’s fucking huge, and word on the street says that you’re barely packing a mouthful.” 

He barely gets the chance to bask in the beauty of Dickson’s shocked rage, because the puck drops and Shane is gone. 

He was right to assume that there would be a target on his back from the moment he skated onto the rink, because the Metros are after Shane, nipping at his heels like cattle dogs as he zips around the ice. But to Shane, it’s like they aren’t even there. He knows the Metros better than anything, because there was a time when he lived and breathed their gameplay, and he helped mold them into the players that they are today. It’s actually quite simple for Shane: he can instinctively predict where they will be, so he just goes where they won’t be. Maybe mindreading isn’t real, but this is the closest thing to it. 

Shane weaves around bodies like it’s nothing, uncaught, passing and deking and skating faster and more dynamically than any of the Metros have ever seen him skate. They barely even graze him, because the Centaurs defensemen have made it their mission to protect him with their lives. It’s how Shane scores his first goal of the night off an assist from Luca. Easy. 

His first goal.

Fuelled by the satisfyingly enraged expressions on his former teammate’s faces, Shane promises himself that there will be more.

***

More, there are. By the end of the first period, Shane has a hat trick. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, no muss no fuss. 

The score is 4-1 for the Centaurs, and the locker room is positively vibrating with it as the team takes their first intermission. It’s not a bad lead at all, and Coach Wiebe gives a frankly moving speech about how this team—principled, talented, and above all else, friends—can do just about anything with enough grit. He wants to see more excellent hockey tonight, and Shane has absolutely no problem giving that to him. 

“Hey,” Ilya says, approaching the bench where Shane’s resting and hydrating. “Eat. Please.”

The peanut butter protein bar he offers is a favourite in the Hollander-Rozanov household, and much-needed if Shane plans to make it through the second period with any energy at all. He takes it gratefully, and Ilya’s got that delightfully self-satisfied look on his face that makes Shane want to stand on a chair and announce, Ilya Rozanov likes a boyyyyy! 

When Ilya sits down next to him, glowing with exhilaration and smelling kind of ripe with his curls all drenched in sweat, Shane acknowledges that he might like a boy, too. 

“От души,”"Much appreciated," Shane thanks him, doing his best to open the packaging without taking his eyes off his husband. 

Always enamoured by Shane’s butchered attempts at Russian, Ilya beams. “Всё для тебя,”"Anything for you," he says, and then, “Very nice hat trick. So sexy.” 

Shane glares at him. “Behave,” he warns around his mouthful of protein bar. 

The way Ilya’s eyes twinkle tells Shane that Ilya has absolutely no intention of behaving tonight. “Is sexy, but is not so impressive,” he continues, deliberately bored, ragebaiting the hell out of Shane. “Anyone can get hat trick. I have done it many times. Boring.”

“Fuck off. Two periods left. You know I’m ending the night with a dick trick, Rozanov,” Shane bites back. Four goals, he can definitely manage. 

Ilya shakes his head, laughing lightly. “No, Shane.”

Shane is about to tell him to fuck off again, because that’s how their favourite little game is played, but Ilya clarifies his point. 

“You end tonight with a double hatty.”

He says it like it’s inevitable. He says it like it’s something that occurs frequently for Shane; frequently in the NHL. He says it like six goals will be an easy feat. 

“Ilya,” Shane says carefully, staring his husband down. “No one’s done that since Darryl Sittler in 1976.”

Staring back with just as much intensity, Ilya speaks with a confident authority. “And tonight, Shane Hollander does it for the first time in nearly fifty years.”

His words hit Shane somewhere deep, plunging through him, the impossible possibility seating itself within the core of him. Ilya’s expression is suspended somewhere between assertive team captain and ride-or-die husband, and there’s so much fire in it, Shane feels it beginning to burn in his blood and join in his heartbeat. You can. You can. You can. 

“It’s point hoarding. Showboating,” Shane points out, always the first to rain on his own parade, his modesty a habit ingrained like muscle memory. 

Ilya groans, throwing his head back in the way he does whenever Shane doth protest too much, like nooo Ilya, you can’t suck my dick while I’m on the phone with Hayden. Noooo (yes). 

“Господи помоги,”"God help me," Ilya huffs, looking at the ceiling before standing up and clapping his hands. “Everyone, shut up!”

The locker room goes quiet, all team members—Coach Wiebe included—turning to face Ilya, all wondering what he could possibly want this time. 

When he’s satisfied that he has everyone’s attention, Ilya commences his five hundredth speech of the night. “We all fucking hate Montreal, yes?”

That’s a resounding yes from the locker room.

“Yes, they are terrible team, no pretty freckled captain winning them cups anymore, so sad.” Ilya punctuates this point with an exaggerated pout before continuing. “But nobody in this room fucking hates Montreal more than my beautiful husband, Shane Hollander. You have heard of him, yes? He just scored hat trick.”

“Ilya, stop,” Shane grumbles in a way that definitely means Ilya, keep going. 

“So my question for you fuckers,” Ilya continues, raising the volume of his voice, “is if you would like to see Shane Hollander wipe the fucking floor with Montreal and score two hat tricks?”

“Fuck. Yes.” Bood’s response comes quickly, but his is not the only one. 

Troy. “Hell yes.”

Haasy. “I would die happy.”

Hayes. “YESSSSSS!” 

Holmberg. “Puck to Hollander. You got it, Cap.”

It’s yes, yes, yes. From everybody, except…

“Hollander,” Coach Wiebe says, taking a few paces towards Shane and Ilya, a curious look on his face. “Do you want to do this?”

Does he?

Shane is a pragmatic player. If there is a clear scoring opportunity for another player, it makes no sense for Shane to usurp that opportunity, even if he knows that he could easily get the point himself. As long as the puck gets in the net with the least amount of fuss, Shane is happy. It’s good sportsmanship.

But fuck. When his life and career all went to shit last season, all Shane wanted was to remind everyone of how good he is at hockey. How he’s a generational talent. How he owns hockey. Because for a while there, it seemed like literally everyone in the world forgot. 

So yeah. Shane really wants to do this.

“Yes, Coach,” he answers resolutely, giving Wiebe one firm nod. 

And Wiebe smiles at him, endlessly supportive. “Alright. If you want to try, I’m willing to give you the ice time. But the second you start looking wiped, you’re done. I’m not wearing out one of my star players this early in the season, got it?”

“Yes, Coach.”

Like sunlight breaking through a cloud, Wiebe’s smile grows bigger until it becomes screamingly obvious that he wants to see a double hat trick from Shane just as much as any hockey fan would. “Then let’s get back out there and remind Montreal exactly what they lost.”

“Погнали!”"Let's roll!" Ilya shouts, and the noise in the room is like a thunderstorm directly overhead. Maybe even louder. Definitely more exhilarating. 

But not as exhilarating as the kiss Shane gets directly on his mouth, Ilya firmly gripping either side of his jaw, going in so deep and hungry it all but knocks the wind out of Shane.

“For good luck,” Ilya murmurs when they pull apart.

“Don’t need it. But I want it,” Shane tells him seriously and, at risk of making himself so dizzy that he won’t be able to balance on his skates, he goes in for another. 

***

So.

There’s a reason why so many NHL records are frozen in the 20th century. Goalies have better ways of blocking the lower half of the net, salary caps and the league’s growth have encouraged better distribution of talent, coaches are more interested in protecting star players from injury, and defense is generally better. Darryl Sittler’s legendary recordsetting 10-point game in 1976 (six goals, four assists) is impossible to beat. 

And Shane doesn’t do it. That would be crazy. Tonight, Sittler maintains the all-time record at 10, and then there’s twelve other players with 8-point games under their belt. 

But…Shane Hollander finds his name nestled comfortably beneath Darryl Sittler’s as the first player in NHL history to play a 9-point game. Six goals, three assists. The first to score a double hat trick since Sittler in 1976. The first to do it in nearly fifty years. 

Nothing can bring Shane down. Not the endless flashing cameras, not the swarm of microphones in his face, not the crushing pressure to perfectly employ his media training. For the first time in his life, Shane does not give even one single fuck about his public image in front of the media scrum. Because his hockey speaks for its damn self.

“Shane! Incredible showing from you on the ice tonight!” one reporter—he thinks her name was Caroline—pipes up. “I’m sure you’re aware that you’re now responsible for the first double hat trick the NHL has seen in 45 years. How does it feel?”

No room for lies now. “It feels fucking amazing,” Shane says emphatically, then quickly pulls an apologetic face at the F-bomb, because he’s not completely without decorum. “Sorry.”

Maybe-Caroline laughs, thank goodness. “I bet it does. To what do you attribute your success on the scoreboard tonight?” 

Shane pushes his sweaty hair off of his forehead and doesn’t even need to think. “No one scores a double hat trick without a good team behind them, creating those scoring opportunities. I quite literally couldn’t have done it without my linemates and defensemen backing me up. They all wanted to see it happen tonight, and together we did it.”

Another reporter speaks up. “Shane, we’ve seen you skating faster than ever this season, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen you move like that. You were like a tornado out there! What can you tell us about your training regimen in general, and what factors might have helped you skate your best tonight?” 

Shane can’t quell his smile, because someone fucking noticed. Shane is faster this season. And he has Vikram and Carmen to thank for that. “I have to give due credit to the Centaurs dietician for my speed and stamina,” he begins, not wanting to get into the whole maybe I’ve had some disordered eating habits for my entire NHL career thing, but still wanting to answer the question honestly. “He pointed out that my diet plan wasn’t optimal for my performance, so I’ve been eating a lot better these past few months. I’ve gained, like, nine pounds of”—clappable material? Meat for Ilya to rock? Shane searches for a different way to express it without saying how voluptuous his ass has gotten. “—uh, muscle, especially in my lower body, so I’m stronger than ever on my skates with a more powerful stride. And I definitely feel more energetic, so the longer shifts aren’t really bothering me as much as they would’ve even last season.”

“Do you think that the Metros were surprised by the changes in your behaviour on the ice tonight?”

AHAHAHA! Surprised?! They were terrified! Shane has never in his life seen his former teammates look so frightened, once the hatred lost its will to burn after Shane’s fourth goal. The first hat trick pissed them off, but the moment the Centaurs rallied behind Shane and his desire to score three more, Shane could tell that the reality of the situation began to sink in: when you are not playing with Shane Hollander, then you have to play against Shane Hollander. Bet they didn’t think about that when they said good riddance. 

Instead of saying all that, Shane just chuckles in a way that he hopes doesn’t sound too evil. “Well, they seemed pretty surprised to me,” he says, understating it to a borderline-comical degree. 

“Do you think that you had a unique advantage for this match-up, having captained the Montreal Metros for so many years?”

“Sure,” Shane agrees with a shrug. “I know the way they play. It was easy to work around them. I always study other teams’ tape before I play them, but I’ve had years of hands-on experience with the Metros.”

“Do you feel like you proved something to the Metros tonight?”

Shane freezes at that question, a little offended, the full weight of it slamming into him. Did he prove something? Like what? That he’s a good hockey player? That he’s the best hockey player? Give your fucking head a shake.
The question is, obviously, loaded. It’s meant to give him pause. So Shane handles it as gingerly as he would a firearm. 

“I had nothing to prove to the Metros,” he says seriously, deliberately, looking straight into the nearest camera. “Most of those guys played with me for years; some for over a decade. They know exactly what I’m capable of. If my performance tonight has taken anyone by surprise, then they clearly weren’t paying attention.”

A chuckle ripples through the scrum, and Shane hopes (to no avail) that this will be the end of the questions. But they have more. Of course they have more. Shane will be answering questions about tonight until the day he dies, probably. 

“Shane, would you like to comment on the speculations that your trade to Ottawa was due in part to poor treatment from the Montreal Metros?” 

Ugh. There it is. 

“No thanks,” Shane replies plainly. 

“Is there anything you’d like to say to your former teammates?”

“No.” 

“Not even ‘good game’?”

“Not one word.”

“Can you speak on the aggression displayed by the Metros during tonight’s game?”

Actually, Shane would really love to speak on that. In fact, he thinks he might like to tell the press exactly what he thinks about their sloppy performance and he thinks he might like to do it in French—

“Okay! Thank you! That’s it for Shane tonight!” Harris interrupts, and Shane doesn’t know if Harris even has the authority to do that, but he’s grateful for the rescue nonetheless. He was one lapse in judgement away from saying something very uncouth about the Metros, and what’s more: he would’ve enjoyed saying it. Harris was smart to redirect him. 

Harris ushers him back in the direction of the locker room, a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t wanna have to deal with the internet if you got mean,” he says quietly. “You looked like you were about to get mean. Not that I wouldn’t want to see you get mean, of course, but…”

“No, you’re right,” Shane acquiesces. “My publicist would’ve been upset if I’d said what I was about to say.” His mom probably would’ve been fine with it, at least. 

“Which was?” Harris grins evilly, egging him on. 

And Shane can’t help grinning ear-to-ear, mirroring Harris’s expression. “Les Métros devaient jouer de manière agressive, car ils savaient qu'ils ne pouvaient pas intimider les Ottawa Centaurs par leur seul talent. Ces crosseurs auraient au moins pu s'organiser.”"The Metros had to play aggressively because they knew they couldn't intimidate the Ottawa Centaurs on talent alone. Those jerkoffs could've at least been organized about it." 

Harris pauses for a moment with that oh God time to activate my dormant French immersion language skills look on his face, visibly translating Shane’s words, but it becomes clear that he doesn’t need any help when he bursts into a fit of booming laughter. Harris’s laugh is loud as hell, Shane’s noticed, but unlike most loud things, he finds he doesn’t mind it at all. 

“And you’d say it in French?” Harris asks incredulously, still laughing. 

“Of course. I’d want their fans to understand me; it’s a respect thing,” Shane quips.

And before Shane knows it, he’s engulfed in a huge bear hug, the vibrations from Harris’s nonstop laughter rocking through him. “Fuck, Shane. You really are the fucking greatest of all time. I’m so glad you’re one of ours.”

Shane stiffens for a moment, hyperaware of how sweaty he is and how bad he must smell, but he soon relaxes when Harris gives no sign of being perturbed by it. He guesses Harris is probably used to it, with Troy, and if he’s anything like Shane…maybe he doesn’t mind it at all. 

Speaking of which. Shane hopes Ilya hasn’t showered yet. 

***

Shane has three Stanley cups, and those cellies were insane. Champagne everywhere, in his eyes, drenching his clothes. Some disgusting mystery cocktail of different alcoholic liquids, right down his throat, straight from the silver bowl of the Cup—the best thing he’s ever tasted. And euphoria, total euphoria like he was on every single feel-good drug known to man. No feeling had ever compared, and Shane never thought any feeling could compare. 

But now he has an idea of what it could be like to win the Cup with his husband. Now, Shane knows what it’s like to slam into him in the locker room, both of them sticky sweaty messes, kissing each other within an inch of their lives. He knows what it’s like for his team to cheer them on. He knows what it’s like for his team to really, truly support him, backed by their love for Shane rather than their love for Hollander, number 24. 

It’s an addictive feeling, and if Shane wanted the Cup with the Centaurs before…it’s nothing compared to how he wants it now. He’s starving for it. Ravenous. He wants it, he wants it, he wants it bad. He wants this feeling tenfold. He wants this feeling for the whole fucking team, whose efforts on the ice tonight hoisted Shane to glory. Shane will do everything in his power to repay them for this. Everything, because they fucking deserve it.

The atmosphere at Monk’s is off-the-walls crazy. Shane’s already done a couple rounds of shots with Hayden and JJ, who are both so flabbergasted by Shane’s accomplishment, they aren’t even mad that the Centaurs crushed the Metros 10-3. He’s on his third floradora. Every single Centaur is rip-roaring drunk, they’re singing karaoke, they’re befriending fans, Holmberg literally gave some girl the shirt off his back and Young is practicing handstands on a pool table. The staff might be breaking liquor laws by continuing to serve them, but who in their right mind would say a damn word? It’s fucking Ottawa, the nation’s capital, the hockey town to end all hockey towns, and there isn’t a single soul in this bar who isn’t completely insane about the game they just played. 

No one is more insane about it than Shane. He just played the best hockey of his life. Six goals, three assists. That alone would’ve been enough to get him all riled up, but consider the following: one of Shane’s beautiful goals was scored off a flawless fucking assist from Ilya. And also consider: Ilya scored two devastating powerplay goals, both assisted by Shane. 

Good hockey makes Shane horny. His own, yes, but his husband’s? The hottest man in the universe and second-best player in the NHL, receiving Shane’s passes like he was born to do it and sinking goals from them like hey no big deal? Shane could’ve jumped him right there. Jersey up, breezers down, jock cup removed with his teeth, right on the ice, let’s fucking go. Do it in front of the Montreal bench and the city of Ottawa and God and everybody. Jumbotron. Let them watch. 

Fuck, Shane’s horny. And Ilya’s so scrumptious. He guesses that’s probably how he ended up in Ilya’s lap, straddling him on a barstool in a shocking feat of balance, impressive for a man as drunk as he is. And if Shane’s got a perverted hand up Ilya’s shirt, that’s his business and his business only.

“Мой чемпион,”"My champion," Ilya growls in his ear as Shane attacks his neck with wet kisses. “Ты меня возбуждаешь, блядь.”"You're making me hard, fuck."

Shane’s drunk as hell and his Russian’s still spotty, but he understands those words probably better than small talk about the weather. 

“Sorryyyyy…” he apologizes, not sorry at all, because same here, Ilya, and shittttt it feels so good to press up against him like this. 

“Пофиг,”"I don't give a shit," Ilya whispers, nipping at Shane’s earlobe, which goes straight down south, and Shane has no choice but to roll his hips and chase the spark of pleasure it inspires, mmm, so good, and suddenly it seems like a really great idea to slide his aforementioned perverted hand down Ilya’s firm stomach and straight to the fly on his pants. 

“Excuse me,” Ilya murmurs, not moving to stop Shane, but giving him a questioning eyebrow nonetheless. “You really want to do this here, hm?”

“I wanna go home,” Shane decides, diving in for a sloppy kiss, all hungry-like because he sort of wants to eat Ilya for dinner, here. “Can’t take it anymore. Want you. Now.”

“Okay okay, yes, fuck,” Ilya agrees easily, eagerly, no time wasted as he fumbles with his phone to order an Uber. 

More kisses, Ilya’s tongue between Shane’s teeth, and Shane is totally happy to wrap his legs around Ilya’s waist as he gets to his feet, clinging to him like a koala. He’s hazily aware of Wyatt and Bood standing by the front entrance, asking them if they’re headed out, and haha, well. Aroused enough to delight in it and inebriated enough to announce it, Shane happily provides his team with information about his plans for the rest of the night. 

“Yeah boys, my husband’s gonna take me home and then straight to beddddd!” he tells them cheerily, talking over Ilya’s shoulder. “Because I’m the fuuuuucking GOAT!”

“Yeah you are!” Wyatt agrees wholeheartedly, glass raised, and a small sober part of Shane cannot believe that he just said—eh, who the fuck cares. Not Shane. Not right now. 

Not the Centaurs within earshot, either. They give Shane and Ilya a round of applause as they exit the bar.

***

It’s pretty cool because the Uber driver knows who they are and he tells Shane that he’s a living legend. They take a selfie with him and they sign the back of his Loblaws receipt and he lets them make out in the backseat of his car. 

***

Shane is only faintly aware of Anya asleep in her doggy bed by the living room fireplace when they stumble in through the front door, because Ilya has him drowning in sloppy drunken kisses, pushing him backwards towards the stairwell, frantic enough to upend the coat rack and knock the picture frames on the wall askew. Shane could do it here, right here at the foot of the stairs—no, on the stairs, even, bruises be damned—but Ilya scoops him up in his big arms and Shane nearly shoots off like a rocket as he’s carried off to bed.

***

Harder, Shane wants everything harder, always harder. Ilya’s fingers tangled in his hair, tug harder. Ilya’s other hand between Shane’s shoulder blades, pushing him down into the mattress, push harder. Ilya’s mouth, tongue, teeth on the skin behind his ear, suck and bite harder. Ilya’s hips slamming into the meat of Shane’s ass, perfect massive cock rearranging his guts, fuck him harder. Shane might be crying, he might be begging, it’s difficult to tell through the fuzz of the alcohol. Ilya delivers; gives him everything he wants; perfect husband. 

***

“На спине, пожалуйста,”"On your back, please," Ilya growls, pulling out of Shane like it pains him to do so, and Shane whines with zero dignity at the loss of him, but he scrambles to follow his husband’s instructions to the letter. “I want to look in your eyes when I make you come.”

“Oh my God, Ilya,” Shane groans, collapsing back into the pillows and hooking a leg over Ilya’s broad sculpted shoulder, feeling tremendously vulnerable and cracked open under his reverent burning gaze. “Please, I want, please—yessssss, fuck!” Shane practically sobs as Ilya finds his way back home, sinks back in, where he has always belonged.  

“Бля!”"Fuck!" Ilya gasps lowly, perfectly debauched and overwhelmed by Shane squeezing around him; God Shane loves looking at the sweat on his brow, watching the stutter of his breath, the love in his eyes. “So fucking pretty, Shane, fuck…”

And Ilya dives down to attack his neck, an apex predator going straight for the jugular, sucking hard on Shane’s Adam’s apple and drawing an animalistic groan from his throat. Shane’s body lights up like a black sky in a storm, a firecracker bursting in his core, nails scrambling for purchase on Ilya’s back, frenetically dragging over his skin. Ilya’s mouth begins to assault Shane’s with a series of biting kisses, deliciously bruising and invasive, and Shane flushes up to the tips as the heat in his belly rises and spreads to push up against every edge of him, like it’s trying to reach Ilya’s skin, to burst through Shane’s own and fuse the two of them together. 

“Fuckfuckfuck baby I’m”—Shane gasps pathetically, some nonsense tumbling out his mouth as every point of tension in his body uncoils at once, beautifully, blessedly, almost painfully with the relief it provides—and a dizzy memory enters Shane’s periphery, that very first time Ilya laid claim to his ass, as he comes all over his own chest, completely untouched.

And Ilya, so gorgeously turned on and so very enraptured, grounds himself in Shane’s gaze for just a fraction of a moment before he’s totally gone, too. Shane feels impossibly fuller as Ilya spills inside of him in a series of hot wet pulses, syncing to their exhausted heartbeats, and the weightiness of the rush does something crazy to Shane’s body because he’s abruptly coming again with a whimper—and maybe he’d be embarrassed about that if he weren’t still drunk. 

They gasp for breath together, going limp and boneless in each other’s arms, and the dead weight of Ilya squishing Shane into the mattress has him feeling happy and safe and so, so loved. 

“Наконец-то,”"Finally," Ilya pants, turning his head to kiss Shane’s pec lovingly. “Чуть не сдох.”"I almost died."

Some combination of his inebriation, sex-stupidity, and limited Russian prevents Shane from understanding what the fuck that means, but Ilya sounds pretty starry-eyed about it, so it’s probably a good thing. 

“I love youuuuu…” Shane murmurs, dropping a drawn-out kiss into Ilya’s hair. He’s sweaty, and he smells really good.

Ilya makes some muffled, unintelligible noise against Shane’s chest.

“Hmm?” Shane asks, his hand finding its way onto the back of Ilya’s neck to coax his face up and—aw, there he is. Flushed, sleepy little cutie. Shane traces his thumb over that heavenly Cupid’s bow.

“Love you too,” Ilya clarifies, accent thick and syrupy, eyes half-lidded. “You are…hm. Fuck. You are exceptional, Shane Hollander.”

Shane huffs a laugh, butterflies in his stomach. “That’s Hollander-Rozanov to you.”

That hyphen represents so much, tying them together indefinitely, like they have always been tied together. Every tabloid, Hollander and Rozanov. Now, every legal document…Hollander-Rozanov. Shane’s head spins with it, and it has nothing to do with how much he’s had to drink tonight.

And Ilya’s eyelids fall closed when he hears it, brow furrowing, and a tear slides out. “I can’t believe you are my husband,” he whispers, getting sentimental in the way he always does when he’s drunk. “The man who just played that game…married to me. Loves me. I am so proud to share your name and your life.”

Shane’s sure that Ilya can hear the way his heart stutters, resting on his chest like that. “Ilya…” he chides, blinking away the sudden itchiness in his eyes. “Everything I’ve ever done has either been to one-up you or impress you—you know that? You make me better; you always have. Wouldn’t have worked as hard for everything I’ve accomplished if you hadn’t done it all first. But being married to you is my favourite accomplishment, ‘cause everyyyyyone wants you, but you just want me. I fucking won.” 

And he carries that win with him everywhere he goes, labelled with it forever. Hollander-Rozanov. 

That hyphen is Shane’s favourite trophy.

***

The post-orgasmic glow has Ilya conked out, splat, pancaked face-down against Shane’s chest—but Shane is somehow still too wired from the night, adrenaline and booze coursing through him every time he thinks about the 9-point game he played. If he hadn’t secured a spot in the Hall of Fame before, he certainly has now. He sort of can’t believe he did that, but he can also totally believe it: Shane’s humility has always been at least fifty percent subterfuge. He’s fucking good, and he knows it.

So sue him for watching his own highlights! Sue him for scrolling through Twitter and liking all the posts from fans losing their fucking minds! Shane’s earned the right to gloat, he thinks!   

Amidst all the celebratory tweets from Cens fans, Shane’s eyes snag on an outlier in his Twitter mentions from @scoringGrace24…about Shane being married. Or Ilya being married? He taps on the tweet to open the thread, and an all-too-familiar name that he’d very nearly forgotten ruffles his proverbial feathers.

Heaven Blackwell 💫😇💘

@MissHeavenBlackwell 

Can everyone spam @Rozanov81 and tell him to unblock and hit me up?? I’m gonna pull this man if it kills me 🤭😈

Grace 🖤🏒go cens!!!🏒❤️

@scoringGrace24

[Replying to @MissHeavenBlackwell]

 🙄 he’s literally married to @shanehollander24 

Heaven Blackwell 💫😇💘

@MissHeavenBlackwell 

[Replying to @scoringGrace24]

Yeah, idc girlypop. I’ve got something Hollzy can’t provide 🍑🍉🍈🐱💦 and I bet Rozy misses it

Grace 🖤🏒go cens!!!🏒❤️

@scoringGrace24

[Replying to @MissHeavenBlackwell]

Girl sit tf down, we all got tits and a pussy but only Shane Hollander has 3 cups and a double hat trick (the ONLY living player btw), Roz DOES NOT WANT YOU. Stay blocked.

Shane’s irritation is momentarily interrupted by Grace’s point: of all the players who have scored double hatties, only two are still alive. Red Berensen only ever won the Cup once, and Sittler never won it at all. Huh! Pretty cool. Free tickets for Grace, he mentally notes.

But circling back to his arch fucking nemesis: what the hell, Heaven. 

So that’s what she wants to say. Fine.

Shane is sick and tired of people implying that Ilya would ever cheat on him. So fucking sick of it. Everyone does—even some of his friends have made comments, and it’s insulting to both of them. Like a bisexual man is incapable of committing; like Ilya’s eyes are even capable of wandering when he’s got Shane locked down in his bed. And for the record, Shane thinks he’s a perfectly fine hole, thank you very much. His bussy is as good as any pussy, and his tits are as good as any woman’s. Their smoking hot sex life would indicate that Ilya certainly agrees.

Beyond that, they’re in love. They’ve been in love for years; that absolutely unshakable, inevitable kind of love that is so deeply entrenched it becomes an identity. Shane is not Shane if he does not love Ilya, and Ilya is not Ilya if he does not love Shane. They’ve worked harder than they’ve ever worked at anything, just to be together and share a bed every night. Just to lie here like this, warm and toasty and tangled in each other. No hot piece of ass could ever undo that; undo something the two of them have been painstakingly forging since they were literal teenagers.

He wishes everyone could see it. He especially wishes Heaven Blackwell could see it, because maybe then she’d leave his husband alone.

Wait.

Does he not have the power to let her know how taken Ilya is, right at his fingertips? He’s on Twitter, he has an account! Has he not been interacting with fan tweets all evening? He could totally interact with Heaven’s and just. Y’know. Clear up a few things. Yeah!

Perking up, Shane goes to take a picture of him and Ilya, just as they are, curled up together. And it’s kind of a sweet photo, Shane thinks. Like, that’s his baby! Ilya the snuggle bear, right on his chest! We are a cute couple, Shane decides. Look how much we love each other. Aw. Ilyaaaa.

Shane replies to Heaven’s original tweet and attaches the picture, and he thinks he does a really good job not being mean about it. PR friendly! His agent will be proud.

Satisfied with his work, Shane puts his phone down for the night and reaches for the bedside lamp, finally ready to go to sleep now that he’s solved that little problem once and for all.

Yayyyyy, Shane thinks happily as he closes his eyes and nuzzles into Ilya, and he’s quickly out like a light.

Chapter End Notes

I dream of witnessing an NHL double hat trick some day. Is this game realistic? Probably not. Would ANY team be able to pull this off with a new player so early in the season? Almost certainly not. HOWEVER. This is my world and my magical hockey boys are making it happen, babeyyyy.
And I stand by my headcanon that Shane's hockey would get even better if he unclenched on the food thing. I like to imagine Shane getting so fuckin STRONG once he starts feeding himself a bit more kindly. <3

And I just wanna establish that I do love JJ as a character, I think he has such a good heart and sometimes we as humans put our foot in our mouth when we're upset/hurt. And sometimes that has catastrophic consequences. But I think his friendship with Shane is sososo important (even just thematically), and I'm really curious to see if Rachel addresses some more of the fallout/hurt feelings in Unrivaled. There's a goldmine of emotion here, ma'am!

Chapter 6: ...from his bedroom

Chapter Notes

A few things roll into Shane’s awareness, one at a time. First, the light behind his eyelids is way too fucking bright. Second, the bed is shaking and it’s fucking annoying. Third, his head is pounding, and there’s a really irritating noise coming from somewhere next to him and it isn’t fucking helping Shane’s situation. 

“Ilya,” Shane groans, realizing that the horrible grating noise is, in fact, his husband’s stupid laughter. Shane buries his face in the pillow to block out the light and feels homicidal. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Next thing Shane knows, he’s being crowded by a big warm body and peppered with kisses (peppered like Drapeau in the goal net last night, he faintly recalls. Haha.). Overstimulated but too exhausted to put up much of a fight, Shane squirms and attempts to become one with the bedding.

“I love you so fucking much,” Ilya tells him delightedly between smooches. “You are so fucking funny. Oh my God, I love you.”

Shane is so confused he can’t even tap into his confusion, but he at least has the wherewithal to make that known. “What the fuck are you talking about, asshole?” he grumbles. 

Ilya, to his credit, stops attacking Shane’s personal space and gives him a little bit of distance, understanding that Shane might actually start swinging if he doesn’t get some respite from the sensory overwhelm. He keeps a gentle hand on Shane’s upper back, an acceptable amount of pressure. 

“What do you remember from last night?” Ilya asks, keeping his voice low and smooth and hangover-friendly. 

Shane’s brain feels like a pool of wet sludge, and retrieving information is like trying to swim through it with his eyes open. Still, there are some things that he’s pretty sure he’d remember even through a traumatic brain injury.

“I scored a double hatty,” Shane tells him, and he thinks he’ll be saying that to his unfailingly competitive husband a lot in their future. “And I talked to the press. And we got drunk,” he adds with a wince, realizing he doesn’t recall much past his second floradora. Maybe little flickers: signing a fan’s forearm so she could tattoo it later, saying hi to Jackie on Hayden’s FaceTime call, kissing Ilya in the bar. And in the Uber. And, well…Shane uses his deductive reasoning skills to figure out what probably happened next. His ass feels a little used.

“We fucked,” Shane adds, dim little snippets coming to mind, but mostly the generally explosive feeling of insatiable horniness fuelled by victory. He wishes he remembered more. Their celebration sex always goes crazy. 

“Mm. We did,” Ilya confirms, and Shane gets a fond kiss on his hair. “But do you remember anything after that?”

Shane tries to think, but there’s a black hole where the after should be. “No,” he mumbles into the pillow, forgetting to be concerned about the implication of Ilya asking in the first place. 

Ilya hums, and Shane can tell he’s holding back more laughter. “You were active on Twitter last night.”

Instant dread. Dread dread dread. Shane’s head lifts off the pillow abruptly, an electric current of anxiety and adrenaline reanimating him like Frankenstein’s monster, and he locks eyes with his husband in alarm. Ilya has the good sense to keep a straight face, but there’s a twitch in the corner of his mouth giving him away. 

“What?!” Shane squawks, scrambling over Ilya’s body to reach his phone on the nightstand (when the fuck did he end up on Ilya’s side of the bed, anyway?). Shane grabs it and is horrified to see a kajillion text messages and missed calls from his agent, and his mother, and—oh no—from Harris. None of this bodes well. 

“Shitshitshit, what the fuck did I do?!” Shane panics, still strewn uncomfortably over Ilya’s lap, and Ilya places a placating hand on his back. 

“Hmm, nothing bad,” Ilya tells him thoughtfully, but Shane doesn’t believe that tone for a second. “But I wonder if the name Heaven Blackwell means anything to my beautiful husband.” 

Shane freezes, caught, staring at the overloaded lock screen on his phone until it goes black, embarrassment seeping into every inch of him. 

“It’s strange,” Ilya continues, like an asshole. “I have never heard of her, but somehow, I already have her blocked on Twitter. Do you know anything about that?”

Blushing like he’s never blushed before, Shane doesn’t dare look his husband in the eye. “She was pissing me the fuck off,” he grumbles, abashed. “She’s been obsessed with you for weeks.”

Ilya chuckles, planting a kiss on Shane’s temple. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

That’s when Shane finally looks at him, at the soft fondness on his heartbreakingly handsome face, and throws daggers with his eyes. “You would’ve loved it way too much,” he says with a scowl that he knows is probably giving angry kitten, but he has a point to make. “And she looks just like all the other clout-chasing models and influencers you used to fuck, so excuse me for wanting to keep your attention away from that one”—

Shane’s diatribe is interrupted by Ilya’s mouth on his own, giving him a big love-stuffed kiss, affectionate as hell. “Shane,” Ilya chides, shaking his head. “Тебя я люблю.”"It's you who I love."

And Shane knows that. He never had a doubt; not really. Would Ilya’s life be easier if he were married to a woman? Sure. Yes. Probably. But a man doesn’t take the path of highest resistance, move to the worst team in the league in a new country, give up his homeland forever, and marry a rival hockey player (a male one) because he just fucking felt like it one day. No, Ilya did all of that because he wanted to be with Shane more than anything. Anything. So yeah, maybe Heaven Blackwell pissed Shane off and perfectly appealed to his jealous side, but he never really considered her a threat. 

“Yeah, I know,” Shane concedes, toying with his phone, debating the merit of running outside and throwing it off the balcony. 

As if reading his mind, Ilya takes Shane’s phone and places it back on the nightstand, then shuffles them both around until they’re in a more comfortable position against the pillows, pressed together, Ilya’s arm around Shane’s shoulders. 

“You want to see how funny you are?” Ilya asks, and Shane notices that he still has his own phone in hand. Ugh. 

Resigned to his fate, Shane nods warily with a knot in his stomach. “Okay.”

And Ilya shows him.

It’s an article. They wrote a fucking gossip article about Shane’s Twitter activity. He scored a double hat trick and he ruined it by, what, being jealous? Shit. Racy new photo of hockey husbands Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov!, it says. Fuck. Shane’s blood runs cold and he just hopes that it’s not a picture of his dick. Or Ilya’s dick. 

Ilya scrolls past the text quickly and stops at the main event; the offending tweet that’s gotten Shane so much attention this morning. First, he sees the post from Heaven, and he thinks he actually vaguely remembers it. He remembers the flare of anger in his stomach, at least.

Heaven Blackwell 💫😇💘

@MissHeavenBlackwell 

Can everyone spam @Rozanov81 and tell him to unblock and hit me up?? I’m gonna pull this man if it kills me 🤭😈

Ugh. Annoying. And yet, Shane’s more baffled by the desperation, here: how the fuck does a person get blocked and still not take the hint? Someone needs to have a genuine, real conversation with Heaven about boundaries and consent and no means no. Jesus. She should really be embarrassed.

But maybe not as embarrassed as Shane should be, because…oh, wow.   

Shane Hollander-Rozanov 🏒

@shanehollander24

[Replying to @MissHeavenBlackwell] 

Best of luck. My regards.

And the…the photo. 

Oh, no. 

It’s a selfie. Shane and Ilya, shirtless in rumpled bedsheets, hair mussed up in a way that screams we just had wild sex!!! Shane’s there, looking into the camera all glowy with a fucked-out haze in his eyes, but his jaw is set in an indignant sort of way—and the untrained eye might miss the ghost of a smirk on his mouth, but Shane sees it clear as day. Ilya is splayed across Shane’s bare chest, muscular back to the camera, but still identifiable by his wild curls and the loon tattoo on his bicep. 

And maybe that would be okay. A little embarrassing, a little uncouth, but okay. It’s not okay, though. 

Ilya looks like he got mauled by a cougar, courtesy of Shane’s fingernails, angry red scratches all over the expanse of his back. And Shane’s collarbone and neck are covered in hickeys and bruises shaped like Ilya’s bite. Like it’s the pièce de résistance, there’s a fucking huge dark red bruise right over his Adam’s apple, impossible to miss and probably impossible to cover up. 

“Ilya!” Shane gasps, enraged and mortified and a little turned on, lifting a hand to his throat like that will help. “What the fuck?!” 

Ilya scoffs. “Don’t act like you’re so innocent. At least hickeys do not really hurt. I will be in agony for days, thanks to your sharp claws,” he laments dramatically. “It will sting every time I shower. I will not be able to wear a shirt.” 

Shane rolls his eyes. “You’re a baby,” he accuses, and because he’s one petty motherfucker, Shane leans down and latches his teeth onto the side of Ilya’s neck, sucking hard, placing his own mark there for the world to see. If Ilya’s the reason that Shane has to go out in public looking like a total whore, then it’s the least Ilya can do. 

“Ah,” Ilya chuckles, letting it happen. “You like it.”

Yes I do. “No, I fucking don’t.” 

“You do,” Ilya says, sounding bored, and he kisses Shane. “You like marking me, you like when I mark you. Is not a bad thing. People expect this from us, anyway.”

Shane furrows his brow, staring at his husband with a bit of anxiety tingling in his chest, really hoping that the world isn’t thinking about their sex life all the time. “Do they?”

“Sure,” Ilya says with a shrug, feigning a casual tone, but the fox-like grin touching his face is enough to reveal his true intentions. “Since our rookie season, that’s all they wrote. Hollander and Rozanov, always at each other’s throats. Is normal for us, yes?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Ah, is a nice compliment, but no. Wrong. I am Ilya.”

Shane groans at the terrible joke and makes a point to whack his wonderful husband with a pillow. A couple times. Ilya takes cover under the blanket, and Shane decides that he’s actually okay with the sound of his raucous laughter, even when it irritates his hangover headache like this. 

“My husband is so terrible,” Ilya whines, resurfacing when he deems it safe, hair a mess and pretty eyes sparkling. “First he is rude to innocent woman online”—

“Innocent?!” Shane scoffs indignantly.

“Yes, very understandable behaviour for her, because I am so sexy and irresistible”—

“Uh huh. Right.”

“Ah, and there he goes again!” Ilya sighs, melodramatic. “So rude to man he asked to marry! Scratches him and bites him and hits him with pillow, and now this!”

Rolling his eyes, Shane rolls on top of Ilya and pins him, all the better to glare at him. “Shut the fuck up. You love it,” he reminds him snarkily. 

And Ilya’s teasing gaze softens in a way that makes Shane’s stomach flip over; would make his knees wobble if he’d been standing up. Like a revelation from on high, Shane understands his feelings of animosity towards Heaven Blackwell both more and less than ever. More, because how dare she try to get in on something so sacred? Less, because how could Shane ever even visualize Ilya’s loving gaze wandering astray? 

It’s not possible. And as embarrassed as he is by his own online antics, Shane finds acceptance coming to him more easily than he would’ve expected. It’s not the worst thing in the world if the public gets to see exactly how much they belong to each other—even as raunchy as the display might have been. Shane supposes it makes up for eleven years’ worth of hiding. 

Go big or home, as they say. 

“I love it very much,” Ilya admits, giving him a smile that only Shane ever gets to see. “And I love you.”

Shane’s heart flutters, and he hopes Ilya knows that the smile he gives in return is for husband eyes only. “I love you too.”

They kiss for a moment, soft and sweet, but Ilya pulls off and the devilish glint in his eye spells trouble. 

“Maybe busty blonde model from LA needs lesson; we could set up chair in the corner and let her watch me lick your tight little”—

“ILYA!”

Chapter End Notes

(UPDATE: Okay readers, I hear you! I do! I had NO IDEA that this story would get as many hits as it has - thank you so much, I'm so overwhelmed with love and affection - and I'm extremely grateful that so many of you want a part 2 with reactions!! So, I'm going to put this in a series and you can subscribe if you'd like to be notified when part 2 is up. Thank you for your readership I love you all!!)

In typical Me fashion, what was intended to be a quick lighthearted under-10k work became whatever the hell this is. I felt like it wasn't possible to write about Shane's first couple months with the Centaurs without digging at least a little bit into themes of identity, belonging, and change. I love to keep my little fanfic guys happy even when the circumstances are sad (save for that one Major Character Death fic I wrote, sorry to my Destiel fans), so I felt it would be nice for Shane to be sort of baffled and discombobulated by how very supported he is, by Ilya and his new teammates and his fans, even. I wanted to illustrate that all aspects of him - his sexuality and his race and Who He Is As A Person - are well looked after in this new phase of life, even when other players and the general public have all kinds of shit to say. That would be nice for Shane Hollander, character of all time.
Realistically, I think Shane will struggle a lot more with the transition. But I hope he is okay <3

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed this little detour into the Game Changers universe with me! If you made it this far, please know how very much I appreciate you. Blessing upon you! :)