Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Hayden Pike, Patrice Drapeau, Gilbert Comeau, olsson

Additional Tags:

Inspired by Heated Rivalry (TV), Coming Out, coming out to friends/teammates, Secret Relationship, Idiots in Love, Autistic Shane Hollander, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, chaos gremlin teammates, 21 questions gone wrong, Hollander did not think this through, Poor Life Choices, emotional support pizza, texting your secret boyfriend mid-interrogation, The montreal metros dont suck, Supportive Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of 21 Questions Saga

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-01 Words: 3,425 Chapters: 1/1

21 Questions

Summary

Hollander didn't realise that letting his teammates play twenty-one questions about who he was dating would be so intense. Within minutes the entire room of adult men goes from supporting him coming out as gay, to NHL-level detectives. Hollander watches in real time as they connect the dots: Same league... Rival team... European...

"Oh my god is it-"

or

Hollander comes out, gets accepted (I'm choosing to ignore canon) and is then immediately roasted for having the worst possible taste in men (affectionately.)

Notes

Hey! I wrote this in all of two hours on a whim, I don't know why... Hope we enjoy!

Shane Hollander’s apartment in Montreal was- to say the least, aggressively tidy. Not sterile, he did live there after all, but everything had its right place. His skates were always lined up neatly by the door, his sticks had their own cupboard in the corridor that also housed his gear bag, the kitchen counter was always clear apart from a coffee maker and a single mug. Even the fluffy throw blanket on the couch looked like it had been folded with intention. 

Which is why the current state of the place was so surreal- he was starting to think that inviting people over had been a mistake. It had started small, just him and Hayden. Then of course Hayden had said to JJ, then Comeau found out and so did Drapeau and Olsson. 

Shane was getting together a tray of water glasses in the kitchen, then spotted the chaos ensuing in his suddenly full living room through the doorway - “Hey- HEY- Don’t drop that,” Shane yelled from where he was standing.

“I’ve got it!” Hayden called back, already halfway through nearly knocking over one of Shane’s carefully collected mosaic lamps. 

“That is glass Hayden-” 

“It’s fine!”

It was very clearly not fine, but Shane let it slide. This was maybe getting to be a bit much, too loud- too many variables. He gripped the counter for a moment- he could do this. He’d faced down playoff games, media scrums and screaming crowds- sometimes all at the same time. So this shouldn’t be any harder.

“Hey Holly, why does everything in here look so expensive,” JJ asked, standing suspiciously in the middle of the living room- almost as though he was afraid to touch anything.

“Because our beloved Captain is secretly eighty years old,” Hayden playfully responded as he finally set the lamp down on its designated table rather than cradling it in his arms, and Shane felt his heart rate drop slowly back to a more normal level.

“Are you actually planning on joining us or are you going to stand in there all night?” called Drapeau, (who was always called as such, same with Comeau, their first names were just not said,)

“I’m not-” Shane walked out of the kitchen with the tray of plates and glasses that rattled together when he moved, stopping short with a clink when he saw his friends both hovering awkwardly, “You can sit down you know,”

JJ gestured in the vague direction of the couch, “Are we allowed?”

Shane stared at him incredulously as he put the tray down, “It’s a couch JJ,” 

“It looks like a display couch…”

Drapeau took the leap of faith, sprawling himself across it before raising a thumbs up in a true goalie fashion “Can confirm, I’ve tested it now, it’s safe,”

Comeau stood by the window, looking out onto the street that was now bathed with a golden pink light, while Jason hovered near the coffee table, moving a coaster into perfect alignment as though he was trying to respect the vibe of the place.

“You guys are being weird,” Shane said, crossing his arms and staring around at his teammates. 

“You’re the one who invited everyone over and then started stress cleaning ten minutes before we got here,”  Comeau replied. 

Shane was immediately taken aback, “I always clean,” 

Hayden grinned across the room at his best friend and Shane immediately knew he was about to be lovingly undermined, “You wiped the counter down twice while we were watching you,”

Shane ignored him and then was saved by the bell, literally- “Foods here!” That at least broke the strange tension in the room. 

---

Soon enough, the apartment looked less like a catalogue and more like a normal hangout session for a bunch of young males. Shane’s gaze flicked over everything, catalouging the disorder. Pizza boxes were strewn across the dark wood coffee table, and beer was either balanced around the edge of the carpet or gripped in hands. He did notice that the drinks on the table were sweating onto coasters, so at least that was something.

JJ had finally sat down, albeit he had done so carefully- almost like the couch might still choose to reject him. Hayden was the opposite, he was lounging back like he owned the place and paid rent. 

It was rowdy, and familiar. Which made what Shane needed to say sit even heavier in his chest. He had finally sat down, stopping his rapid hosting for just a moment.

“Right, Hollywoods sat, now it’s a party!” Hayden exclaimed, pulling Shane into a side hug.

Comeau furrowed his brow, “It was already a party,”

Hayden stuck his tongue out at him, “Debatable,”

Shane tried to relax into it, tried so hard to let the noise wash over him instead of grate against his nerves. This was just a normal hangout, this was what they did, but throughout it all something was pressing at him. Something that he had been carrying for years. Weeks of almost-saying-it. Of stopping himself, or just deciding not now, not here, not like this. Except now there were here, in his space, with his people, and the secret suddenly felt louder than the room.

It took almost an hour, an hour of conversation, of hockey talk, of hunting down specific moments of recent games to replay on the tv and then critique. Drapeau was arguing with  Comeau about something meaningless, while JJ was laughing too loudly about something Hayden had said. 

Shane barely heard any of it, as he moved towards the kitchen counter.

One thing was just repeating in his mind that he knew could ruin all of this, just say it. But every time the words caught in his throat. Just say it, or you’re never going to.

Finally, he got it out, “Guys,” It wasn’t loud, but there was something in the roughness of his tone that cut through the noise.

The room quieted in pieces, Comeau looked over first, ever perceptive. Then Olsson. Drapeau paused mid-sentence, Hayden and JJ both turning from their conversation, five pairs of eyes now solely on him. 

Shane suddenly wished he had planned this better. He could of planned for the attention, the expectation, the point of no return- but he hadn’t.

He stayed standing by the kitchen island, fingers tapping a few times against the counter before he forced his hand flat. “I uh-” He stopped, taking a deep breath before starting again, “There’s something I should probably tell you,” 

Hayden tilted his head playfully, “Sounds ominous,”  Comeau kicked him, gesturing for Shane to go on, but his thoughts were racing- you don’t have to do this now, you can wait, keep it separate. He could keep the hockey here, and keep everything else- somewhere else. Controlled and contained. Safe. Except it didn’t feel safe anymore, it felt like lying.

“It’s not-” Shane exhaled shakily, “It’s not bad,”

JJ frowned at him “You’re making it sound bad,” 

“It’s not bad,” Shane felt his voice come out a little sharper. He was desperate for these guys to know, to know him properly. These were his friends and realistically- they wouldn’t take it badly. 

“Just say it Shane,” Comeau’s voice cut through the overthinking smoothly, and Shane looked up at them all, eyes flicking between them.

This was his team, these were the people that had been a constant in his life since his teen years, and he didn’t have a lot of that. This was part of his family, he wanted them to know. 

“I’m gay,” 

The silence settled differently after the fact- not empty, or uncomfortable, just still. Processing. 

“Oh,” JJ said first, and for a split second Shane’s mind went to all of the worst places- the worst case scenarios. Too much, wrong time, shouldn’t have…

Hayden blinked, “Okay…?” he nodded once, like Shane had just confirmed something in a play. 

Olsson nodded, “Alright,”

Drapeau leaned back into the couch “That tracks,”

Shane stared at him, almost taken aback by the statement, “That tracks?” 

Drapeau shrugged and waved a hand in the air dismissively, “I don’t know, you just have a vibe,” 

Shane outright laughed, along with Hayden, relief settling deep into his bones, “I do not have the vibe.”

Hayden was giggling at the utter dismay on Shane’s face. The glee he got from the fact that he had required a new thing to ragebait Shane with was scary. “You definitely have the vibe,” he agreed. 

That was it. No explosion. No tension. No shift in the room like he had broken something he would never be able to fix.

Shane startled when Comeau stood up, walking over with no hesitation, and pulled Shane into a quick but solid hug, “Thank you for telling us,” he said simply.

That loosened off the knot in Shane's chest, something that he had been working up for years was now a weight off his shoulders. “Thats it?” he asked hesitantly.

Hayden gave him a look, “What were you expecting Shane? A press conference?” he smiled reassuringly, “You’re still you, that’s what matters to us.” Shane felt a spike of emotion in his throat, those words coming from his best friend meant the most.

 “Yeah,” Olsson added, “It doesn’t change anything,”

JJ nodded, "Literally nothing, you are still our Captain Shane, whether you like it up-” Hayden slapped a hand over JJ’s mouth. Trying not to burst into fits of laughter. It certainly broke up the serious moment. 

Corey pointed at him, “Except we now get to interrogate you about your love life as you’ve been dodging it for the better part of seven years.” 

Shane grimaced, “There it is,” he knew there would be a catch, but he supposed this was better than so many of the scenarios he had imagined, although they didn’t know who he was dating yet. 

He could have shut it down, he should have stopped it there, but the relief of finally saying the first part out loud made everything else seem possible too. “Okay,” Shane said slowly.

 Comeau narrowed his eyes, pulling Shane round so he could sit on the sofa with them. His living room had been re-arranged to facilitate conversation by this point in the evening, so he could see everyone, waiting. “Important question then, important follow up,” Shane groaned “No,”

“Are you seeing someone,” Hayden waggled his eyebrows. 

Shane hesitated, and that was all it took. The reaction was instant, “I KNEW IT,” everyone jumped out of their skin at Hayden’s volume. “I did,” he said, shrugging, not regretting anything he had just done to everyone else's ears.

“Wait seriously?” 

“I share a hotel room with the guy- he’s worse at sneaking out than my 3 year olds.” Shane made an indignant noise, and shot Hayden a look. Hayden raised his hands up in surrender, “I don’t take back what I said,” 

Corey grinned and sat forward in his seat, “Oh, this is going to be good,” and so the grilling began.

“No details,” 

“Absolutely details,”Drapeau shot back immediately. 

“Yeah, you can’t drop that and not elaborate,”

Shane sighed, about to-

“Is he hot?” Hayden asked,

Shane immediately felt a flush rise on his cheeks, “None of your business,” 

“That’s a yes,” JJ whispered to Hayden dramatically. 

Shane dragged a hand down his face, reluctant. He could say no, find a way to deflect, could keep that part separate, but he was tired of separating it. “Fine, so- I am… seeing someone,” Shane absconded, the reaction still hadn’t calmed down.

There was a round of rowdy shouting before shane shushed them, “Okay okay, You want details?” They all leant forward, Shane making eye contact with each of them one by one, and if it hadn’t been him they were about to grill he might have found it funny. Five fully grown men hanging onto a strand of gossip. This was spiralling, fast, rapidly falling out of his control. So naturally, he made it worse

“We’ll do twenty-one questions,”

Drapeau lit up at the suggestion “Yes,”

Olsson groaned, “Oh no…” 

Shane clapped his hands together bringing their attention back to him, like he had control of the situation (he definitely did not) “There are rules,” there was a collective groan at that, but they patiently waited, “You get twenty one yes or no questions and that’s it.” 

“But you have to answer honestly,”  Comeau said, and at that Shane hesitated, Bad Idea.

“...I do, yes.” That was the beginning of the end.

“Question one,” JJ said, tapping his fingers on his beer contemplatively, “Do we know him?”

Shane blinked, he should lie, instead he was trying to calculate what the reaction would be, “...yes,” he cringed away from the answer as the room exploded. 

“WAIT–”

“Already??” 

“SHANE–” 

“HOLLY–”

Shane pressed his lips together, too late to back out now…

“Okay okay,” Hayden said sitting forward “Is he an athlete?”

Shane visibly cringed again and Hayden’s jaw dropped, but still waited for the verbal confirmation “...yes,” 

Corey slapped his hands on the couch “No way. This is brilliant.”

JJ paused, “Same sport?”

Shane stared at the ceiling- this was his idea? Why did he think this was a good idea? Maybe the ground could just swallow him whole now, please and thank you. He sighed and looked back at his friends “...yes,” 

 Comeau leaned back slowly, evaluating the look on Shane’s face, “Same league?” 

“...yes,” Shane said weakly.

“SHANE,” Came back the shocked reply in unison.

“It could still be a lot of people…” he trailed off, not knowing how to elaborate further, he could feel it unraveling, piece by piece, every answer narrowing it down. 

“Okay, question five- same team,”

Shane pulled a disgusted face, “No, ew,” “

“So different team,” JJ said immediately.

Hayden's eyes suddenly lit up, “Rival team?”

Shane closed his eyes, steeling himself, “...yes.” 

The energy in the room shifted completely- far less teasing now, more holy shit.

“You are dating someone we play against,” Jason said incredulously.

“It’s complicated,” Shane muttered.

“That’s not complicated,” Drapeau said, “That’s insane,” 

Something in his was screaming to tell them to stop, to end the game- but Shane stayed where he was, because some part of him- some tired, reckless part- wanted it out. 

So he watched on as they kept going, with more of an urgency now.

“Canadian?” - “No,” 

“American?” - “No,” 

“European?” - “...yes,” 

“Oh my god,” Hayden sat up in his seat at an almost violent speed, pointing at Shane, his heart was pounding now, he could hear blood rushing in his ears, they were close. “It’s one of the Russians?”

Shane said nothing.

JJ tutted, “You have to answer,”

Shane sighed, relenting, “...yes,” 

By now everyone was fully invested- leaning forward, talking over each other, and piecing things together like it was a puzzle that they really really wanted to solve. Shane really hadn’t thought they would get this far this quickly. They were very very close to the answer. 

He could see  Comeau sat back from the conversation, watching him, thinking.

“You play him a lot?”  Comeau said finally,

Shane kept his eyes directed to the ceiling, “..yes,” 

“Like all the time?” 

“...Yes,” 

Drapeau frowned, “You chirp him constantly,”

Hayden jumped in “That’s not a question!” Drapeau looked taken aback, “It’s relevant!”

Comeau suddenly sat up straighter in his seat, “Oh,”

Olsson turned, “What?”

Comeau didn’t look away from Shane, “There’s only one guy that fits all of this,”

It clicked for Hayden next, his face doing what looked like a full reset, “No way. No, no.” 

JJ looked between them, “Wait, who?”

Shane covered his face and groaned, “Oh don’t, just get it over with,” 

“Is it-”  Comeau started and then stopped, no one wanted to say it in case they were wrong and got laughed out of the building.

Drapeau swallowed, “It's not- is it? Holly-” 

Shane dropped his hands into his lap, resigned, “Just say it,” 

“Is it… Rozanov?” Comeau finished, silence.

Shane took a deep breath, opened his eyes, looked at them, at his team, at his friends, and felt the moment he couldn’t take back pass through his hands, “Yes, it is,” 

All six of them reacted at once. Chaos, immediate, loud, overlapping, chaos.

“WHAT,” 

“ARE YOU SERIOUS?-

“SHANE”

“OF ALL PEOPLE-”

JJ actually stood up, “You’re dating him??”

Shane felt something strange bubble up under the panic, not regret, something lighter, “In my defense–” Shane spoke, because apparently he was doing this, “It didn’t start like-”

He was immediately cut off by Comeau, “There is no defense,” 

“You fight him every game!” Hayden added,

“Not every game-” Shane said softly,

Multiple people turned on him, “MOST OF THEM.”

Olsson shook his head, half laughing now, “This is unreal, jesus Hollander,”

Hayden eyed Shane suspiciously “You’ve been keeping this from us?” 

Shane sighed, “It wasn’t-” he stopped, “It just wasn’t the right time, Ilya and I-”

he was cut off again by Hayden hiding his face in the couch, a woeful muffled, “Of course he calls him Ilya,” coming from where he was pressed into the pillows. 

Comeau cut in quietly, “How long?” Shane hesitated, that question made this feel a little more real “...A while,” 

JJ stared at him accusingly, “That is not an answer,” 

The room slowly dissolved into chaos- questions,

“How does that even work–” 

“Does anyone know??” 

“Are you insane…”  Shane laughed, actually laughed- because yeah, maybe he was.

Filled with disbelief, overlapping voices, but underneath it all, something else had settled in. Acceptance, warm and grounding in Shane’s chest. Even if it came wrapped in a heavy dose of, WHAT THE HELL SHANE. 

Eventually  Comeau raised his voice over the noise, “Okay, one thing,” everyone quieted- well as quiet as you could get a group of boys who had just found out that their captain was dating their rival team's captain. 

Comeau turned to Shane then, “Does he treat you right?” The question landed differently, no one had ever asked him that about Ilya before.

Everything else fell away, the noise and the chaos fading to nothing as the answer appeared easily on his lips “Yes,” 

Comeau nodded once, “Then I don’t care who it is,” 

Drapeau threw his hands up “I still care! It’s HIM!”

JJ sat back down, shaking his head and laughing at Drapeau, “This is going to be a disaster,”

Hayden grinned, “I can’t wait!”

Olsson just laughed, “We are definitely meeting him.”

“Absolutely not.” Shane said immediately, but he was smiling, just a little.

“I still have concerns!” Drapeau shook his fist at them all. Laughter broke out again, the tension cracking and shifting. Settling into something entirely new. Shane leaned back slightly, exhaling, his apartment was still a mess, still loud- still full. But the secret wasn’t sitting in his chest anymore.

-

Later after the noise picked back up and the attention shifted off him- still talking, still arguing, still very much his teammates- that didn't hate him. Shane left them, slipping into the kitchen and pulling out his phone. A message from Ilya already waiting for him.

Ilya

You are quiet tonight.

Ilya 

You tell them? 

Shane huffed quietly at the message that had appeared on his phone just after he unlocked it. He would never get him to admit it, but he knew Ilya had been watching and waiting for him to read the message before he sent his next one.

Shane 

Yeah, told some of the team,

Ilya

And?

Shane glanced back towards the sofa where they were all chatting, listened to the wave of noise, it felt like looking at the life he’d just opened up. 

Shane 

They guessed it was you

The little bubbles popped up, taking a few seconds.

Ilya

Of course, I am obvious choice.

Ilya

I will have to be extra careful next time Bears play in Montreal

Shane rolled his eyes, 

Shane 

They also think I’ve lost my mind. 

The reply came fast 

Ilya 

You have, you chose me.

Shane leaned back against the counter, the noise of the room behind him, the quiet certainty of that message in his hand. 

Shane

Yeah… 

Ilya

Do they have problem?

Ilya

Are you still having to hide?

Ilya

you regret telling them?

Shane smiled, small but real, imagining Ilya's furrowed brow at the idea of Shane still having to keep secrets. 

Shane

No, not about this, :)

Shane

I may have lied, Drapeau is not happy 

Ilya

Drapeau is a crab

                                                                                 Ilya

 You still okay with this?

Shane

I would always choose you, and now we don’t have to hide.