Chapter Text
The sweat ran down the back of his neck, a reminder of how hard he’d been trying. And how little it had mattered.
“We’re six games into this season. A season he - he called - “need to win”. Those are his words.”
Sports pundits ran off at the mouth every day. He wasn’t sure why that one interview had stayed with him for weeks now. Maybe because it had been a bad start to what turned into a great day. The kind of day a guy didn’t forget.
“I am…very sorry about that.” The man smiled, trying to hide his concern that he’d upset a new customer. It was a beautiful smile. “How may I help you?”
Collapsing onto the bench in the locker room, Scott yanked off his helmet and tilted his head back, trying to remember how to breathe. How to think.
“You’re starting to sound like him.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Fuck.
“Yo, Hunter, what the fuck?” Dropping on to the bench next to him, Carter was staring at him, wide eyed. “What happened out there?”
The sharp sound of skates on ice as Hollander came to a stop a few feet away. “Hope next time we play you decide to show up.”
Swallowing around his calming emotions, Scott stared at the ceiling. “Nothing. Kid got under my skin.”
Carter laughed. “Uh…yeah. Hollander gets under everyone’s skin. His team has an obnoxious habit of winning.”
They did, but their captain didn’t usually chirp about it afterwards. That was someone else’s calling card.
“Hey, Hunter!” He could hear the cheeky grin in Rozanov’s voice. “Too bad you can’t play at home every night, right? Is better for you, huh?”
And that had been the thing. It wasn’t what Hollander had said; it was that he said it on the heels of losing to a guy Scott would have expected such a chirp from. Salt in the wound, even if he’d started to suspect Rozanov wasn’t the asshole he’d spent so many years carefully convincing everyone he was.
“You’re starting to sound like him.”
Fuck.
“Kid got under my skin,” Scott repeated. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as the rest of the team filed into the locker room. Frustration and confusion and “better luck next time”s filling the space as the guys started their post-game rituals and packing their gear.
For all that Carter Vaughn gave the impression of a man who was too cheerful to be clever, he was remarkably good at reading his own team. Sensing that this wasn’t laundry Scott wanted aired, he leaned in, speaking under the general noise. “That really all this is?”
Scott glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and said nothing.
“Because the Scotty I know can take a loss,” Carter went on. “Not always graciously - none of us can - but fighting the other team’s captain? Fighting Hollander?” Carter raised his eyebrows. “Kinda rude to hit a guy for saying ‘good game’.”
“He didn’t say good game,” Scott muttered.
Carter’s eyebrows rose a little higher. “No shit? Goody-two-shoes Hollander chirped at you? After a win like that?”
Losing 5-1 put most players in a bad mood.
Scott spat on the ground between his feet, ignoring the look of reprimand from Demeter for doing so in the locker room, and nodded. “And I wasn’t in the mood to be sportsmanlike about it.”
Sitting up, Carter laughed. Loudly enough to pull attention, except it was Carter, and he was always laughing. “Good for him!” He slapped Scott on the back with a grin. “I mean, not when it pisses the other guy off so badly he starts a fight after the game ends, but damn. I didn’t think Hollander had it in him.” A smaller laugh, almost a shrug of the shoulders. “That’s such a fucking Rozanov move, man!”
“You’re starting to sound like him.”
“Yeah,” Scott agreed softly. Almost more to himself.
Beside him, Carter rolled his eyes in an unnecessarily dramatic fashion. “Oh, is that what this is?” Too clever for his own good. “Rozanov beat us last night, and his dear sweet frenemy beat us even worse tonight?”
God, it sucked to have his pride prodded like this.
But it was Carter, and he was a friend, even as he leaned over to knock his shoulder against Scott’s. “Scotty, you can’t let those two tag team you. They’re enough trouble on their own.”
Seeing the opening for what it was, Scott dropped his head in defeat. His third in two days, the mean voice in the back of his head whispered. But this was a loss that didn’t sting nearly as much. Not when Carter wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true and was grinning like an idiot while he said it.
Grinning like an idiot and confirming that what had been obvious to Scott was not obvious to everyone else. At least, not in the same way.
And that was a good thing.
Whatever those two had going on, it shouldn’t be public knowledge unless they wanted it to be.
“You’re starting to sound like him.”
Though they could maybe be a little more subtle about it sometimes. Chirps on the ice weren’t the first time in the last few years Scott had clocked them. There was that change in how Rozanov flicked the puck. The way Hollander tied his skates these days. Nevermind the face offs that had the wrong kind of tension or the smiles when the other was mentioned that didn’t quite make sense for a rival they wanted to pummel into the ground.
But whatever they had, and however much losing had pissed him off this weekend in particular, Scott had crossed a line out there. It hadn’t been on purpose; the words had popped out before he knew what he was saying. But doubling down on them - that had been his temper getting the better of him, and he was better than that. Nobody made captain without being better than that.
He’d have to find a way to make it right. To let Hollander know in some small way that while Scott knew something, what he really knew was how to keep his mouth shut.
He’d been doing it for years, after all.
Just not tonight.
Carter shoulder-checked him again, a little harder this time. “Come on. Let’s get showered and packed up. Those consolation beers aren’t gonna drink themselves.”
Scott allowed himself a grin as he nodded. “No, they’re not.” And as Carter celebrated his second victory of the night, Scott sat up and started pulling off his jersey. They didn’t play the Metros again for a few weeks - that gave Scott enough time to come up with something subtle but sincere. Something that would, inevitably, confirm what Hollander certainly didn’t want him to know, but make it clear that it didn’t matter.
And it never would.