Chapter Text
Three days.
That was how long it had been since the post had gone up. Since the league’s carefully curated caption had detonated into something feral. Since his name had stopped being his and had become something he didn't know what to make of.
He felt wrung out, scraped hollow. His body ached the way it did after a bad flu, bones sore, muscles leaden, throat raw from too much shallow breathing. He hadn’t slept properly since the first night. Every time he drifted off, his dreams jerked sideways into noise: camera shutters, flashing lights, his own name shouted from a faceless crowd.
His home was supposed to be a place of quiet and solitude.
But right now, the silence in the apartment didn't feel peaceful. It felt like the drop in air pressure before a tornado touches down.
Shane stood in the center of the living room. He was wearing Voyageurs sweatpants and a training hoodie that smelled like detergent and cold sweat. He hadn’t showered in more than twenty-four hours. He hadn’t eaten since the Hollanov hashtag had started trending. There was a protein bar on the granite kitchen island that he had unwrapped three hours ago, taken one bite of, and abandoned because the act of chewing felt impossibly loud.
He felt hunted.
That was the only word for it. He felt the way a deer must feel when it steps into a clearing, the wind shifts, and it realizes it has been watched for a long, long time.
His phone sat on the coffee table. It was face up. It vibrated.
Buzz.
Two seconds later.
Buzz.
It was a relentless, rhythmic drumming that seemed to sync up with the erratic thumping of his heart. Every vibration was a notification. Every notification was a stranger taking a piece of him.
Shane paced to the window. He kept the blackout curtains drawn tight, leaving the room in a permanent, artificial twilight. He couldn’t risk opening them. What if there were photographers down on the cobblestones? What if someone had a telephoto lens?
You’re being paranoid, he told himself.
But he wasn't, was he? Not anymore.
Since the NHL’s marketing department had decided to set his life on fire, he wasn't an athlete. He was a character. He was a doll.
He walked back to the coffee table. He knew he shouldn't look. His agent, Farah, had called him five times this morning. “Go dark, Shane. Don’t post. Don’t like. Don’t even open the app. We’re meeting with the GMs tomorrow. Just… ride it out.”
Ride it out. Like it was a slump. Like it was a groin strain.
But you couldn't ride out a psychological autopsy.
Shane reached for the phone. His hand was trembling. It was a fine, high-frequency tremor that traveled all the way up his forearm. He hated it. He hated that his body was betraying him.
He unlocked the screen.
The screen lit up immediately, a glare in the dim room. He squinted, heart already thudding faster. For a moment he considered putting it back down. Pretending, for another hour, that the world hadn’t rearranged itself around him.
He didn’t. He opened his messages first, because that felt safer than the rest.
There were hundreds. Teammates. Old friends. People he hadn’t spoken to since juniors. The tone shifted as he scrolled, confusion, concern, forced neutrality, badly concealed curiosity. And something worse, that he didn't want to name.
You good?
Man, that was wild. As if you're gay for Roz. You aren't, right? Haha.
Call me when you can.
hollzy theyre saying you bend for rozanov dont worry we'll bash his teeth in. as if our cap would swallow cocks😂 i don't mind if you feed him yours tho 😂😂😂😂😂😂 thats what he deserves anyway
He didn’t answer any of them.
Social media was worse in some ways.
Twitter refreshed automatically, dragging him down into the sludge.
@ilyashugecock i’ve watched the handshake line from the 2013 games frame by frame and i am telling you right now: shane isn’t angry. shane is horny af. look at his throat. look at the swallow. he’s almost gagging for it
Shane felt a cold flush of nausea wash over him.
He remembered that handshake line. He remembered the smell of Rozanov’s sweat, heavy and sharp. He remembered the heat radiating off Rozanov’s body. And he remembered the crushing, suffocating jolt of desire for him.
He had thought it was not noticeable. He thought nobody could tell.
But the internet saw desire. And the terrifying thing was, they were right.
He sank down onto the couch, pulling his knees up to his chest. He felt small.
They were calling him gay. It was something he hadn't thought about. Not much anyway. Nor was it something he had the energy to figure out right now. But the whole world seemed to fixate on that.
He switched apps. He needed to see how bad it was. He opened Tumblr. It was only recently he had installed this app and a part of him was terrified to even look.
The first image on the tag made his breath hitch in his throat.
It was a "manip." Someone had taken a photo of Shane from a post-game interview, all sweaty, tired eyes, and they had edited it. They had softened his jawline. They had added a blush to his cheeks that wasn't there. They had made his eyes look wetter, wider.
And they had superimposed him onto a body that was visibly pregnant.
Shane dropped the phone on the cushion like it was radioactive.
"What the fuck," he whispered. The sound was thin and horrified in the empty room.
He stared at the phone. He couldn't look away. The caption read: #Omegaverse #Mpreg #Nest #Babygirl.
He didn't know these words. Omegaverse? Nest? With trembling fingers, he picked the phone back up. He googled it.
He read the first result. Then the second.
A cold, creeping horror started to crawl up his spine. It felt like body horror. It felt like watching a Cronenberg movie where the skin peels back to reveal something wrong underneath.
They weren't just writing him as gay. They were rewriting his biology.
These people... they saw him as a vessel.
They saw him as soft. They saw him as something to be bred. Oh, there were many images like that of Rozanov too, but all he could see was his own. At least for now.
Being soft or birthing babies was not something he looked down on, but this? This felt like a violation.
@hollanov_truth: Headcanon: Shane is so repressed because he’s fighting his biology. He’s trying to be an Alpha on the ice, but we all know he’s an Omega in the sheets. Look at how small he is next to Ilya. Look at how Ilya looms over him. Shane wants to be knotted so bad it’s making him crazy. He want Ilya to pound him in the bed so hard that it breaks.
Shane gagged. A physical, dry heave that racked his ribs.
Knotted.
He felt violated. It wasn't just the sexual graphicness, though that was bad enough, it was the animalistic violence of it. He still didn't fully understand what was being said with this omegaverse thing but the way he was being talked about was... uncomfortable.
He stood up and ran to the bathroom. He gripped the edges of the porcelain sink, staring at himself in the mirror.
Is that what they see?
He looked closer.
His eyes.
He was half-Japanese. His mother was Japanese-Canadian. He had her eyes. He had her dark hair. He had spent his entire life navigating the quiet, polite racism of hockey culture.
“You’re not big enough, Hollander.” “You’re too technical, not enough grit.” “Good Canadian boy, but... you know.”
He had worked twice as hard to be taken seriously. To be seen as a leader. To erase the "otherness" that made others comment. He had become the perfect, golden boy Canada could be proud of.
He walked back to the phone. He had to know. He had to see if they were doing that, too.
He scrolled.
@shanes_porcelain_doll: God, Shane is just so... pretty. Like, exotic pretty. He doesn't look like the other guys. He has that smooth, hairless skin. He’s like a little porcelain doll. No wonder Ilya wants to break him.
@wasian_prince_99: It’s the Wasian in him. He’s naturally submissive, you know? It’s in the genetics. He’s dainty. He’s meant to be taken care of by a big strong Russian bear.
Shane felt the room tilt.
Naturally submissive.
The tar in his throat turned into acid.
It felt like racism. It was dressed up as appreciation, but it was the same ugly thing he had heard in locker rooms since he was ten years old. It was the assumption that because he was Asian, he was weaker. That he was feminine. That he existed to be dominated by a white man.
It was not like people hadn't called him beautiful or handsome before. Even Rozanov liked his freckles. He knew people called him good looking. Subconsciously he also knew that people were not being malicious when they called him a babygirl.
He heard Jackie say something like 'any guy can be a babygirl but it takes a man to be a wife.' Still, when you combined everything, it had turned into a cocktail that made him want to puke.
Babygirl. Princess. Doll.
He wasn't a hockey player to them. He wasn't even a man.
He was a hole. A pretty, exotic hole for Ilya Rozanov to use.
Or as some others said, maybe he was the one who used Ilya Rozanov's hole.
The jury was out. People were debating which one among them received the other. And they were doing it enthusiastically. Each camp shouted their rationale, and he knew which one was what he heard the most.
Shane threw the phone across the room. It hit the opposite wall with a sickening crack and fell to the carpet.
He sank onto the floor, burying his face in his hands. He felt dirty. He felt like he needed to peel his skin off.
He thought about his mom. God, his mom. She was so proud. She collected every newspaper clipping. She had framed his draft photo. She told everyone at her church about her son, Shane Hollander.
If she saw this... if she saw people calling her son a breeding mare, would she think it was because of the genes she gave him? The shame was so heavy it felt like it was crushing his lungs.
The worst thing was, he liked Rozanov like that. He liked to be crushed under his weight. It drove him mad with lust when Rozanov took control in the bed. On the ice he wouldn't budge an inch, but in the sheets though?
And people could tell. People online took a deeper look at him and they could accurately tell he liked receiving Rozanov. But that didn't mean he wanted to be his broodmare. He didn't have those wants because of his heritage. He just wanted to have some sex. It was a matter of preference, not a matter of race.
"I can't do this," Shane whispered to the empty room. "I can't do this."
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He wasn't gay. He couldn't be gay. Because if he was gay, then these people were right. If he was gay, then he was weak. He was the submissive little doll they thought he was.
He had to be straight. He had to be. He had to find a girlfriend. He had to grow a beard. He had to fight someone in the first game of the season and break his own hand just to prove he could.
But even as he thought it, his mind betrayed him.
He thought of Rozanov.
He thought of Rozanov’s hands. Not knotting him, not breeding him, but holding him.
He thought of the way Rozanov looked at him in the hotel room in Vegas. Not just with domination, oh there was plenty of that. The way Rozanov looked at him would remain branded in his memory for eternity, but there was also something that neither of them wanted to talk about. Rozanov, who didn't make him feel small, but made him feel real.
The internet had twisted it into something grotesque. They had taken the only thing Shane had that was pure, this confusing, overwhelming connection with Rozanov, and they had dragged it through the sewer of some debate about who took whose cock.
What wrong had he done if he desired Ilya Rozanov? Yes, he liked having sex with him, he liked being a bit of submissive in the bed. But what business was it of the others?
He felt like walls were closing in on him.
His phone buzzed again from across the room. It was cracked, but still alive.
Shane stared at it. He needed it to stop. He needed to call the NHL. He needed to sue someone.
He crawled across the carpet. He picked up the broken phone. The screen was fractured, a spiderweb of glass over the display. There was a new notification.
It wasn't a tweet. It wasn't a Tumblr post.
It was a Google Alert.
New Result for: Ilya Rozanov + Video.
Shane frowned. Rozanov was in Boston. He was supposed to be hiding. He clicked the link.
It was a Russian site. The video was dark, grainy.
Shane’s blood ran cold.
It was Rozanov, just not the one he wanted to see.
He tapped play.
The video was loud.
Alexei Rozanov was drunk. He was sweating. He looked like a melted, ruined version of his much better brother.
He was screaming at the camera.
The words sounded like they were coming through a tunnel. He could barely make out what the dipshit on the screen was screaming. But something finally penetrated through the haze. He wished those words were never uttered.
“....He is a fucking f-,” Alexei snarled.
The word ripped through the silence of Shane’s home. It hung in the air, ugly and jagged, joining the words Omega and Doll and Submissive that were already choking him.
But this was different.
The internet called him those things because they wanted to own him.
Alexei Rozanov called his own brother that because he wanted to destroy him.
The video cut to black.
Shane sat there, frozen.
The game was over. The fun was over.
The internet thought they were writing a romance. They thought they were writing a kinky, fun, "Wasian Princess and Russian Bear" story. They didn't realize that for Shane, it was a psychological dismemberment.
And for Rozanov? For... Ilya?
Shane looked at the black screen.
Ilya was in Boston. Alone. Watching his own brother, his own blood, declare him dead to his country.
Shane felt a sudden, fierce surge of clarity cut through the fog of his own shame. It was the same clarity he felt on the ice when the game was on the line. The noise faded. The fear faded.
He wasn't an Omega. He wasn't a doll. He was the Captain of the Montreal Voyageurs. He was Shane Fucking Hollander.
And his.. his... whatever Ilya was... was in trouble.
Shane picked up the phone. He didn't open Twitter. He didn't check the trends. He opened his contacts.
He scrolled down, and stopped at "Lily."
Ilya.
Shane pressed the call button. He brought the phone to his ear. His heart was hammering against his ribs, painful and heavy.
Ring.
"Pick up," Shane whispered. His voice was hoarse. "Pick up, you asshole."
Ring.
He pictured Ilya in his Boston penthouse. Was he watching the video? Was he reading the comments calling him a "Daddy"? Was he drinking?
Was he... scared?
Ring.
"Please," Shane said to the empty air. "Don't be alone."
The line clicked.
The ringing stopped. There was silence on the other end. A heavy, shaky silence. Shane gripped the phone so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Ilya?" he breathed. For a long second, there was no answer. Just the sound of a ragged exhale on the other end of the line.
"...Hollander?" Ilya’s voice was rough. Quiet. Stripped of all the arrogance, all the bravado. He sounded young. He sounded terrified.
Shane closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the sofa. A tear leaked out and tracked hot down his cheek. He never wanted Ilya to sound like that. Never. For a moment, Shane wanted to torch the man who made Ilya sound like that.
"I saw it," Shane said.
"Yeah," Ilya whispered. "I know."
Silence stretched between them again. Heavy. Loaded.
"Did you see the other things?" Ilya asked suddenly. His voice shifted, sounding brittle. "The... stories?"
Shane closed his eyes tight. "Yeah. I saw them."
"They think I am... forceful," Ilya said. "They think I.... In the bedroom."
"I know," Shane said.
"I don't hurt you," Ilya whispered. It sounded like a plea. "I would never hurt you."
Shane felt his heart break. A clean, sharp fracture. Here was Ilya Rozanov, the Russian menace, the villain, the arrogant prick, terrified that Shane thought he was a monster because strangers on the internet wrote porn about them. "I know you don't," Shane said softly. "I know, Ilya. It's just... it's just stories. It's not real."
"Feels real," Ilya said. "It feels like they are inside my head. But they are wrong inside my head."
"They're wrong about me too," Shane said. He needed to distract him. He needed to make this shared. "They... Ilya, they think I can get pregnant. They think you can get pregnant too."
There was a pause. A long, baffled pause on the line.
"...What?"
"Pregnant," Shane said, his voice flat. "With a puppy. Because of... biology. Or wolves. I don't know."
"A puppy?" Ilya repeated. The despair in his voice cracked, letting in a sliver of genuine confusion. "That is... medically impossible. You are a man. You have no... thing, that makes babies. I mean grows babies. And humans don't make puppies."
"I know!" Shane shouted, the hysteria bubbling up again. "I know I have no equipment! But there are three thousand stories, Ilya! Three thousand stories about our uterus! Mostly mine, but yours too!"
On the other end of the line, Ilya made a noise. It was a snort. Then a chuckle. Then, a real, genuine laugh. It sounded a little hysterical, a little wet, but it was a laugh.
"Oh my god," Ilya gasped. "You? Pregnant? You would be boring mother. Hollander, boring!"
Shane slumped against the wall, sliding down until he hit the floor. He started laughing too. Somehow the comment managed to bring out some sort of morbid humor in him.
"I would be a great mother," Shane argued weakly. "I'm very organized. You on the other hand, your child will have no discipline."
"You would put the baby on a... schedule," Ilya said, stumbling on the word but his voice was gaining a little bit of its usual bite. "You would feed baby salad. Poor baby." He completely ignored his own pregnancies to make fun of Shane.
They sat there in the silence, connected by a satellite signal and the sheer, overwhelming absurdity of their lives. The world was burning down around them. Alexei had lit the match. The internet was pouring gasoline on it.
But for a second, in the dark, they were just Shane and Ilya.
"Hollander... Shane?" Ilya said after a moment. The laughter was gone.
"Yeah?"
"I am... I am scared." The admission hung in the air. Ilya Rozanov never admitted fear.
Shane pressed the phone closer to his ear, wishing he could reach through the speaker. "I know," Shane whispered. "Me too." The words Alexei Rozanov said, they shouldn't have been said about anyone. He had heard his fair share of that slur on the ice, but somehow when he heard this about Ilya, it made him so sad and enraged that he lost all thoughts for a second.
"What do we do?" Ilya asked. "We deny? Get girlfriends? I can marry Svetlana."
Shane looked at his reflection in the dark window. He looked at the empty apartment. He looked at the life he had built to be safe, which was now a prison.
He thought about the Wasian Princess comments. He thought about the repressed comments. He thought about how hard he had tried to be the Golden Boy of Canadian Hockey, and how it hadn't worked.
"I don't know." Shane had no idea how to solve this.
He really didn't.
But he didn't want Ilya to marry someone either.
And he also didn't know if he was allowed to say that.