Chapter Text
Montreal – Locker Room
Zane grins as the team piles back into the locker room, loud and boisterous, riding the clean high of a good first practice. It’s chaos in all the best ways. The door bangs open with an uneven rhythm. Skates clatter against the rubber mat. Dykstra is already arguing about whose playlist gets the speaker next while Dillon is mid-rant about zone entries and Barrett is heckling him for overcomplicating it. Zane loves it.
These early days are magical, stolen moments after the ice when everything feels possible and the season hasn’t taken its first bruise yet. He’s been in this room long enough to recognize the shape of a good year before it starts. And this year has all the signs that it’s going to be phenomenal. The mood is electric, and in no small part because their captain looks like it’s Christmas morning.
Ilya Rozanov doesn’t do quiet excitement and today Roz is talking a mile a minute, grinning from ear to ear. Zane watches him clap Hollander on the back with a private smile as they come in from the tunnel, both of them still half-charged from the ice, before spinning away, bounding between the various cliques of the team.
“Okay!” Zane calls across the room, loud enough to cut across the chatter. “I get it now, Hollander.”
Shane Hollander — the legend, the rival-turned-linemate, the worst nightmare they’ve had to game plan around for years — looks up, slightly startled, like he wasn’t expecting to be addressed directly.
“Get what?” Hollander asks.
Zane gestures broadly toward Ilya, who is currently shoving Barrett out of his own stall with one hand while arguing about a missed defensive read, all bright teeth and laughter.
“Why he’s been unbearable all summer,” Zane says. “Grinning like the damn Cheshire cat. You two on a line is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
It isn’t flattery. Watching them during practice it had felt borderline unsportsmanlike to have them on the same team. They don’t just anticipate each other — they read each other’s minds. Hollander shifts his weight and Rozanov is already cutting into the seam. Rozanov drifts wide and Hollander fills the gap without looking. Rozanov passes the puck to seemingly no one and like he teleported, Hollander is there. It’s surgical. Ruthless. And so completely effortless it takes your breath away to watch.
Roz scoffs dramatically from across the room. “Lies. I am always delight. Stop lying to my husband.”
“You’re a fucking menace,” Zane corrects easily. “And the two of you are going to leave the rest of us in the dirt the way you play.”
Barrett throws a glove at Ilya. “Can we at least pretend to compete? Or should we just stay out of your way and watch?”
Hollander huffs a quiet laugh. “That’s not the goal.”
There’s no arrogance in it. No smirk. Just simple sincerity.
Zane studies him for a moment. Up close, Hollander looks less like the myth Montreal built around him and more like a guy who wants to do his job well and go home afterward. There’s something steady about him. Not flashy, but controlled.
Zane likes him immediately.
“Don’t sweat it,” Zane says, leaning closer. “We’re glad you’re here, man.”
Hollander meets his eyes. For a second, the polish slips — gratitude flickers there, unguarded and honest. “Thanks, Bood,” he says. “Means a lot.”
Zane nods once and retreats to his stall, satisfied.
Slowly, the room shifts into its quieter post-practice rhythm. Pads hit the floor with heavy thuds. Velcro tears. Someone cranks the music louder. The smell of sweat and tape and sharp menthol rub fills the air. Around him, his team unwinds in overlapping conversations.
Dillon is dissecting a breakout with Chouinard, gesturing with his stick like he’s drawing diagrams in the air.
“I’m telling you, if you float high like that in a real game—”
“I didn’t float,” Chouinard protests.
“You floated.”
“I drifted.”
“That’s worse.”
At the far end, Barrett leans into the rookie corner, a good natured grin on his face.
“Haas,” he calls, towel slung over his shoulder. “You need help before practice tomorrow?”
Lucas Haas looks up, eyes wide in automatic defense. “For what?”
“For missing that seam at the end. It was embarrassing to watch.”
“I didn’t miss it!”
“You absolutely did.”
“I recovered.”
“After he bailed you out,” Barrett says, jerking his thumb toward Hollander.
Haas glances over, sheepish but grinning. “Thanks again.”
Hollander shakes his head lightly. “You were fine.” But he’s watching the interaction closely, a misplaced stiffness in his face as his eyes flicker between Haas and Barrett. It’s like he’s waiting for something.
“It’s not a big deal,” Haas mutters. “Coach didn’t even say anything.”
And that’s when Zane sees it. Hollander goes still just for a second. A breath too long before snapping back in.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice slightly tight. “Good.”
It’s nothing on its own, but Zane has been catching small things all day if he’s being honest. Little moments that are adding up to something he can’t quite place.
It had been the ‘Yes, sir,’ first. The word had landed wrong: too formal and automatic.
Wiebe had corrected him lightly — “Coach.” — and Hollander had nodded, “Right. Coach. Sorry.” And then he’d done it again ten minutes later.
If you notice the “sir,” Zane then realizes, you start noticing other things. The way Hollander answers every correction like it’s a test he could fail. The quick apologies stitched into plays that don’t require them. The way he stepped in beside the rookies during drills like he was intercepting something more serious than a missed pass.
Zane leans back against his stall, watching without staring.
Most new guys take up space instinctively. They sprawl. They stretch wide. They chirp back to establish footing. Hollander does none of that. He occupies exactly the space allotted and not an inch more.
And Roz. Rozanov is hovering. He’s happy, and being his usual loud asshole boisterous captain self. But he’s also definitely hovering.
It isn’t obvious but Zane has known the man long enough by now to read the slight tension in the set of his shoulders.
Ilya is laughing with Dillon, snipping at Barrett, arguing about music. But his attention has kept sliding back to Hollander like gravity all day.
“You okay?” Roz had asked under his breath at one point, low enough that most wouldn’t hear.
“I’m good,” Hollander replied immediately.
Zane hears the speed of the response, too fast to be fully true, and the tone in his voice. He’s been hearing that tone a lot today when he thinks back.
Hollander heads toward Dale, the equipment manager, to adjust something on his skates, and Zane takes the opportunity. He stands, crosses the room like he’s stretching his legs, and drops onto the bench beside Ilya’s stall without ceremony.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
Roz looks up immediately. Not defensive. Just alert.
“What?”
Zane watches Hollander out of the corner of his eye, making sure he’s out of earshot.
“He settling in okay?” It’s casual on the surface. It could mean anything — the systems, the city, the pace of practice.
Ilya’s mouth curves faintly. “Yes.”
Zane waits. He doesn’t rush his friend. He learned by now that with Rozy, silence works better than interrogation. Ilya will fill it if you give him space.
The towel around Ilya’s neck shifts as he exhales slowly.
“He is just… cautious.”
Zane hums. “That’s one word.”
Ilya’s eyes track Hollander across the room — the polite nods, the measured smile, the way he stands half a step back from the cluster around Dillon.
“Shane is always disciplined,” Ilya says carefully.
Zane nods. “I see that.”
“More than most.”
“Discipline’s good.”
“Da.”
But Ilya doesn’t look convinced by his own agreement. Zane leans back against the metal of the stall, lowering his voice another notch.
“I’m not asking because I think he’s a problem,” he says quietly. “You know that.”
“I know.”
“But I’m noticing things, the others are too.”
That makes Ilya glance at him sharply.
“In what way?”
“The guys are watching,” Zane says. “Not in a bad way. Just… trying to get a read on him.”
Ilya’s jaw tightens slightly. “They think he does not fit?”
“No,” Zane says immediately. “Not at all. It’s like he’s always been in the play. But, something’s off.” The words sit between them and it’s telling that Roz doesn’t deny it.
Zane continues, tone steady. “Dillon made a comment at the last water break. Barrett too.”
Ilya’s brows draw together. “They said something to you?”
“Not accusatory,” Zane says, immediately getting ahead of whatever threat Rozanov might be seeing. “Concerned.”
Ilya’s gaze softens slightly, then hardens again.
“He is fine,” Ilya says. It’s quick. Protective.
Zane doesn’t push back against that. He shifts instead.
“I want to check in,” he says. “Nothing heavy. Just make sure he knows we’re good.”
Ilya looks at him for a long second.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
Zane shrugs one shoulder. “It’s my job.”
It is, in a way but it goes beyond just the A on his chest. He’s the longest-tenured guy in the room. The one who hosts the team dinners and makes sure the rookies don’t eat alone on the road. The one who clocks mood shifts before they become fractures. He’s been doing this long enough to know that sometimes the smallest adjustments prevent bigger problems.
“I don’t want him thinking he has to prove something here,” Zane adds. “Not like that.”
Ilya’s expression flickers — something complicated and sharp passing through it.
“He does not,” Ilya says firmly.
“I know that,” Zane replies. “You know that.” Another beat.
“But he might not,” Zane finishes gently.
That’s the one that lands.
Ilya looks down at his hands for a moment, then back across the room at Hollander, who is laughing now at something Hayes has said, the sound bright and real.
“He has… habits,” Ilya says slowly. “From before. And last season was not good, for either of us.”
Zane nods once. “Yeah. Don’t think anyone in the league missed the season you two had.”
A faint smile touches Ilya’s mouth, then fades.
“He is different here than I expected,” Ilya admits. “More careful. More than his normal careful.”
Zane doesn’t ask what that means.
He may not know Hollander as well as Ilya but he can see the way the newest Centaur is bracing himself. He’s got eyes and Hollander straightens when a coach raises his voice — even if it’s not directed at him.
“It’s a new team,” Zane says quietly. “Takes time.”
“I know.” But it doesn’t sound settled.
Across the room, Hollander’s shoulders finally loosen as he shoves Hayes lightly in retaliation for something. It’s easy. Natural.
Then the music spikes louder. Someone drops a stick with a sharp crack against the bench.
Hollander flinches.
It’s small. Almost invisible. But Zane sees it.
He doesn’t need to look at Roz to know he saw it too. They don’t say anything for a long second.
The room is warm. Loud and safe in the way it has always been. Whatever Hollander is bracing for, it isn’t coming from here.
Zane watches their Captain watch his husband.
He won’t pry. He won’t force a conversation that isn’t ready to be had.
But he can stay close. He’ll keep checking in, the way he always has with Rozanov — in small ways that don’t feel like scrutiny.
If Hollander needs time, he’ll get time. And if Roz needs backup, he won’t have to ask. Zane has been on this team long enough to know that sometimes the best way to hold something together is simply to stay present.
He can do that.