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Well, that was unexpectedly brutal.
Scott has the thought as he follows Hollander out of the press room, pulling the door closed on voices still calling questions after them, even as the communications team tries to shut the whole thing down.
Hollander stops a few steps down the hall and sinks back against the wall, eyes sliding shut like the effort of holding himself together has finally caught up to him. He takes a slow breath before opening them again and meeting Scott’s gaze. “What the hell was that?”
Scott almost laughs, except nothing about it is funny.
Because the truth is, the whole thing has been set in motion long before either of them stepped behind a microphone.
It’s the first playoff media run—Admirals versus Metros—the league capitalizing on shared captain press to generate buzz for the season. A new social media initiative meant to get more people talking about hockey, whatever that meant. So far, it’s only produced a handful of monotonous soundbites that blur together—except maybe when Rozanov, or somehow worse, Kent, ends up behind a microphone.
Seriously, there are only so many ways you can say the same thing about an upcoming game and keep it interesting.
Only this time-
God, what a mess.
“They didn’t ask one question about the actual game,” Shane says. “Not one fucking question. We’re both having amazing seasons, the Admirals had a shout out last game, and all they cared about was - was whether or not...fuck.”
Maybe it was naïve to think the MHL had finally stopped treating Scott like a diversity mascot. Maybe he should have realized that walking into a press conference as the only out player in the league, sitting beside the only other hockey player rumored to be gay, was basically chumming the water. Maybe he should have anticipated the frenzy and done more to shield Hollander before any of this reached a microphone.
But he’d walked into the building expecting the usual fanfare. What’s the mindset going into the first playoff game? What are the keys to winning on Saturday? How do you build momentum after such a grueling season?
Cromwell had practically told Scott the league didn’t need his personal life infecting the game.
But Cromwell hadn’t anticipated Hollander.
So instead of questions about line-ups and strengths, they’d been:
Hollander, there’s been steady rumblings online that you’ve come out as gay. Any comment on that?
“I’m focused on the playoffs right now,” Shane said, voice even but thinner than usual. “We’ve got a tough series ahead of us, and that’s where my head is at.”
Hunter, you were the first active player in the league to come out. Do you feel responsible for paving the way for moments like this?
Scott exhaled slowly through his nose, pointedly not looking at Holladner before answering. “While I love the idea of anyone looking at what happened that night and feeling seen, that’s an individual decision, and it’s never something you can make for someone else. Right now we’re both here because we have one hell of a game in front of us, and that’s what deserves the attention.”
Shane, can you clarify your relationship status? Fans are curious.
“I’ve always kept my personal life private. That hasn’t changed.”
Is the league supporting you through this process?
“The Metros are great,” Shane said quickly. “We’re focused on winning Saturday night.”
Scott adds, a little drier, “And we’re planning to make that difficult.”
No one took the bait.
Would you consider making a statement before the playoffs begin?
“The only statement I have to give,” Shane said, jaw tightening just slightly, “is the one I’ll make on the ice. We’re dedicated to bringing home another Cup.”
“Too bad it’s coming back with The Admirals.”
Hunter, what advice would you give Shane if he is struggling with his identity?
Scott’s expression stilled. “And speculation about anyone’s personal life isn’t something I’m going to participate in. What I will participate in is stopping Hollander and the Metros from winning again.”
“That’s not happening, Hunter.”
To be clear, you’re not denying recent reports-”
Scott leaned towards the microphone, cutting off the reporter. “I think we’re drifting pretty far from playoffs,” he says. “I think I can speak for both of us when I say we’re both dedicating most of our time to making sure our teams are ready to face off this weekend. Maybe we can focus on more game-related questions after we square off. Thank you.”
Hollander took the invitation to leave, Scott on his heels.
Here’s the thing: coming out was one of the best decisions of Scott’s life, but it didn’t miraculously erase the deep-rooted terror, the years of pain that still followed a step behind him, whispering that everything he loved could still be taken away from him. Scott can look up into the rafters and see banners he helped bring home and still somehow feel the quiet warning underneath them: Do you really think you can keep both loves of your life?
Because even after setting records and securing the Cup, even after years of proving he belonged on the ice long before Hollander and Rozanov exploded into the league, hockey had never really just been hockey to him. Hockey was his identity. Something that kept him going when he didn’t think he could get up in the mornings. It shaped when he woke up, what he ate, who he talked to, how he lived his whole damn life.
And then pieces of it started being taken by his coaches, by fans and sponsors and headlines and statistic breakdowns.
And maybe it took him a little too long to realize those pieces were tiny fragments of himself that he was trading away in exchange for being allowed to stay.
And the reality is, he was too scared to take any of them back.
Until he finally started feeling himself crack.
And well.
But Scott got to choose.
Scott got to look into a crowd and decide that one person mattered more than the roar of hundreds. He got to choose to finally, finally look at the man he loved and say: You’re worth it. Even if I wake up tomorrow and this is the last time I’m ever on the rink, I still choose you. I love you, I love you, I love you.
And even that was different because as much as he would rather have someone cough in his face on the subway than ever give Rozanov the satisfaction of knowing that his chrips have started digging under his skin, the damn Russian isn’t exactly wrong. Even though he really, honest to god, isn’t that much older, he is in a different phase of his career, and that makes all the difference.
Hollander is still in his prime, with so much hockey still in front of him, and it wouldn’t be fair to pretend that kind of risk doesn’t feel insurmountable.
Plus, and here’s the real damn kicker, Hollander hasn’t actually come out and said he was gay.
Not even Scott knows if the rumors are true. All he has are growing whispers during away games: Have you heard about Hollander? And: I’m telling you, I heard it straight from Drapeau. And: Heard he’s nasty off the rink. And the same curiosity bleeding into his own locker room, teammates asking, So, do you think Hollander is gay? Like actually gay? Like, proximity gives him some kind of special knowledge.
And sure, Scott thought about the e-mail, but it was so professional, so devoid of any context that he simply filed it away with all the other well-wishes from men who didn’t want to appear overly bothered by his confession.
And yet, the media had taken those whispers and molded them into something sharp and ugly enough to split Hollander open and expose him from the inside.
Scott sighs and leans against the opposite wall. His phone buzzes—Kip, probably—but he ignores it. The press conference was his only obligation today. A rest day tomorrow. Then the game.
He knows he should go home and spend one of his few nights off with Kip because even though they live together, Scott had been on the road, and even when he has been home, so much of his day is dominated by training, physio, and interviews, and by the time he gets home he’s exhausted, and then Kip wakes up early to study, and wow, he keeps forgetting how hard it is to miss someone even when they’re so close to you.
So, really, he should pat Hollander on the shoulder, say goodnight, and go home to dinner. To his boyfriend.
But in all the years Scott has known him, he’s never seen Hollander like this.
And maybe that shouldn’t confirm anything, but -
But if Hollander wanted to, management was still in the conference room, and no one else was in the building, so if he did want to get something off of his chest, Scott could be here for that.
“I don’t remember the last time I just got to play hockey.” Hollander presses his palms into his eyes, holding them there for a second before letting them fall. As far as confessions go, it’s not the one Scott was expecting. “It’s all I ever cared about growing up, and I still love it, I’m always going to, but now it’s turned into optics and setting good examples and being a good role model and captain and -”
He exhales, a frayed, tired sound, and Scott feels it echo in his bones. Scott had been the Golden Boy for three years before two new prodigies busted onto the scene and eclipsed everyone in the league. And okay, maybe that’s being a little dramatic, but Scott remembers the relief, even if it came with a bruised ego, when eyes suddenly shifted to Hollander, and he had a little more room to just breathe.
“I don’t understand why I can’t just be a good player,” Hollander continues. “Not a good Asian-Canadian player. Not a -” His hand lifts in a vague, helpless gesture, as if refusing to say it might keep the rumor from rolling through more locker rooms and press conferences. “And now it’s this, this whole thing. It’s not that I don’t get it. I remember what it meant when I looked at the ice and saw someone who looked like me, or what it would have meant if someone had...if someone.” The thought falters before it can finish. “But—”
“But you don’t want it replacing your identity.” Scott will never regret coming out -never- but he’d be lying if it didn’t fundamentally change the shape of who he was in the MHL. And sometimes he misses the version of himself who had simply been the captain of the Admirals. Not the gay captain of the Admirals. Not the gay hockey player turned commodity at league events. Just someone who could be seen and applauded or ignored without it potentially meaning anything more.
“I get it,” Scott says quietly, the words careful, placed like steps on thin ice. “And you don’t have to tell me anything you’re not ready to say. I just…” He hesitates, searching for a version of the question that doesn’t feel like an accusation. “I remember what it felt like to carry it alone.”
The silence that follows is small, but it shifts something in the space between them.
Shane nods—a fraction too long, like his body is expelling the tremors rocking through him.
“I am,” he says, voice rough at the edges. “Gay—I mean. I told my team.” He swallows. “I knew it wouldn’t stay in the locker room. Not with the way some of them looked at me. But I guess I still thought they’d keep it private, you know? Protect me after everything we’ve been through together.”
“Hollander-” but Hollander’s phone is buzzing, and he looks at the screen before pushing off the wall.
“I should go, I should - sorry, I - I think I just need some air.” He manages a tight, apologetic smile before pushing the door open and slipping out into the hallway.
And maybe Scott should just let him go. Give Hollander the space he needs to sort everything out, but Scott remembers what it felt like, standing in a hallway like this with too much inside him and nowhere to put it. He remembers how lonely he felt, with literally no one around that could understand him. So he takes a few breaths before he pushes himself off the wall and follows through the staff-only corridor that Hollander disappeared into.
Shane turns the corner towards the service exit, likely trying to duck out before the press can crowd around him out back. At least Scott can potentially make himself a buffer. Give Hollander a chance to get to his car as he offers himself up to the press instead, but when he begins turning the corner, he sees someone else is already there.
Rozanov.
Emotionally catastrophic Rozanov. Who feels like the worst possible person for Hollander to fall apart in front of.
Scott expects a chirp, something cold, cutting, and precise, because he’s never known Rozanov to pass on exploiting a vulnerability, but then he remembers whispered room numbers, pointed avoidance - a number of half-noticed thoughts that made him feel like maybe he wasn’t as alone in the league after all, like Rozanov has been waiting there all along.
Scott freezes on instinct, retreating half a step before the movement can echo down the empty corridor. The hallway bends just enough that the shadow of the corner keeps him out of sight, close enough to hear, hidden enough that neither of them looks his way.
The chirp never comes.
Instead, Rozanov opens his arms.
And Hollander walks straight into them.
Rozanov is ferocious on the ice. He’s fearless and brutal and almost too excited to take a hit if it means scoring and gloating anyway. But this, this is something else completely.
There’s nothing sharp in him now. No bravado, no edge, just the quiet steadiness of his hands as they hold Hollander close, and the unguarded softness in his face, as if the rest of the world has fallen away completely.
Scott hates how quickly understanding settles into his chest as he watches Hollander fold into Rozanov’s embrace. He hates how obvious this feels. And he especially hates that part of him has maybe always known and even taken advantage of it on a particularly bad day.
Rozanov doesn’t say anything at first. Just holds him. One hand firm at the center of Hollander’s back, the other sliding up until they’re threaded carefully into black hair.
“Fuck,” Hollander breathes into the curve of Rozanov’s neck, voice thin enough that Scott has to strain to hear it. “I didn’t say it. It would have been so easy to just say yes, but I couldn’t make myself. Not like that.”
Rozanov presses a brief kiss into Hollander’s hair, then another against his temple. His voice, when it comes, is gentle. “It’s okay, moya lyubov. You owe stupid reporters nothing.”
“I didn’t think it would feel like that. I knew it would happen eventually, I just— not like that. Not today. We’re going into the playoffs for fucksake, and all they care about is who I might be sleeping with.”
“Wait until they find out you’re sleeping with the best hockey player in the world. Whole world will shut down.”
“Ilya,” Shane laughs around the warning, a soft, quiet thing.
“It is only questions,” Rozanov murmurs. “Let stupid reporters ask stupid questions. They will forget the moment you give them something better to talk about, like when you bring boring Montreal another Cup.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” Shane says, moving his head to look up at Rozanov. “It’s never just questions. It’s everything that comes after. The stories, the headlines. Why can’t it just be about hockey? I just want to play and be good. Shouldn’t that be enough?”
Rozanov’s thumb starts moving, slow circles against Hollander’s shoulder, steady and repetitive. “You will still play,” he says. “You will still win, moya lyubov.”
“I know.” The words come out tired. “I just thought I’d have more time. After playoffs, maybe. After the season, when it wouldn’t feel like I was dragging the whole team into something messy. It’s hard enough convincing them I’m still the same person they’ve been playing with for years. I guess I just wanted to do it right. I want it to be my choice, not something pulled out of me in a room full of cameras.”
Rozanov leans back just enough to look at Hollander, and Scott braces for impatience, for that familiar edge of arrogance he shows the rest of the world. But it isn’t there. It’s probably never there with Hollander. There’s only a soft tenderness he didn’t think Rozanov capable of.
“It will still be your choice,” he says.
“I hate that this even has to matter,” Shane says, voice rougher now. “Other guys just show up with girlfriends, or wives, or whatever, and nobody asks them to explain themselves. Nobody turns it into a headline or a statement or some big symbolic moment. They just get to live their lives. Why can’t we just exist without everyone feeling like we owe them an explanation?”
Scott feels the echo of that question like an old bruise. Remembers subway platforms with Kip and camera flashes, and the way his hand trembled the first time they held it in public. But he remembers choosing anyway.
Rozanov doesn’t answer immediately. He keeps his hand at the back of Shane’s neck, patient in a way Scott has never seen from him before.
“Because you are not other guys,” he says at last.
“Please don’t remind me I’m the problem.”
“No. You are never a problem, Shane.” Rozanov’s voice sharpens. “The league is problem. Not you.”
Shane’s breath stutters. “I want to do this. I do. And I want to tell people a bout us, I just— fuck, it’s hard.”
“I know.”
“I wish it was different.”
Rozanov’s hand continues to grip his neck, firm and steady. When he speaks again, his voice is low and unwavering. “You are Shane fucking Hollander. Nothing in your life was ever going to be small. You do not get ordinary, solnyshko, because you are the best. So Sports Daily picks up a rumor on Twitter. No one reads them anyway.”
“Except the room full of reporters that cared more about who I might be looking at in the locker room rather than the playoff game happening. And god, poor Hunter. He’s never going to want to do an interview with me ever again.”
Rozanov smiles then, sharp and predatory. “If this is all it takes to never talk to Scott Hunter again, I’ll make announcement tomorrow. I, Ilya Rozanov, am bisexual and in love with boring Shane Hollander. Yes, is true, I have given up beautiful women in every city for boring puzzles in his boring home with his boring family.”
Shane shoves him gently, but his hand lingers at Rozanov’s chest, like letting go isn’t an option for either of them. “It’s your family, too, asshole. And Hunter isn’t that bad.”
And all at once, Scott understands how utterly wrong he was.
This was never a hookup. Never something reckless or temporary. And somehow, for the first time, Rozanov doesn’t look like an asshole at all. Just a man holding the person he loves like the world might try to pry him away.
Because being gay is one thing. The league barely survived Scott announcing it to the world, and fans are still reeling from its impact. This - Hollander and Rozanov - is an entirely different beast. Two of the MHL’s biggest players, a rivalry that’s been the forefront of hockey for nearly a decade, Scott’s almost worried how they’ll survive it. Because as much as he knows he’s changed things, the changes have been quiet, appropriately tucked into the parameters of the league. If this gets out, Scott knows Cromwell will not be kind.
Scott remembers what it felt like to have Kip ripped out of his hands by fear and silence and a world that insisted love like his had to be hidden. Remembers the hollow space it left behind, the way he couldn’t breathe around the pain, and he wouldn’t wish that kind of loss on anyone.
Not even on Rozanov.
“I didn’t even thank him,” Hollander adds quietly, embarrassed. “Hunter, I mean. He kept trying to deflect all the questions and ended the interview when he couldn’t.”
Rozanov’s mouth curves slightly. “Hunter is big boy. He’ll survive your lack of manners or maybe just forget because he’s old and senile.”
And what the actual fuck, Rozanov.
“You’re such a dick,” Shane mutters, and yes, yes, he is. “But he didn’t have to step in like that.”
Rozanov places his index finger under Hollander’s chin and gently lifts his head before kissing him. “Maybe I do not hate him as much today,” Rozanov says. Then, "Do you regret it? Telling team? Me moving to Ottawa?"
"Never." No hesitation, just a steel resolve Hollander doesn't even have to think about. "All I want is to be with you, I just wish it didn't feel like a constant struggle. But I'm okay with that. So long as I get to have you, everything is worth it. I feel like you're the only decision I've made recently that doesn't require a spreadsheet."
Rozanov groans. "Shane please, no more spreadsheets."
"You love my spreadsheets."
"I love you, even if you like spreadsheets and think Hunter is good man."
Scott looks at the way Rozanov holds Hollander—steady and protective, ready to protect him from all the oncoming impacts, and he understands with a certainty that surprises him how real this is, how much there is to lose, and how much he wants to help them protect it, however he can.