Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

As alternate captain for the Montreal Voyageurs, it was one of Hayden’s responsibilities to organise team bonding experiences on road trips. Usually the task would fall to the captain, but Shane Hollander was not the kind of person you wanted organising that. Shane happily let the responsibility fall to Hayden, and Hayden was more than happy to take it. For tonight’s entertainment, he had booked Conference Room 3 at their hotel to watch Vancouver host Ottawa for the first game of their seasons. Normally, it wouldn’t be a spectacle, but this would be Ilya Rozanov’s first game playing for the Ottawa Centaurs, one of - if not the - worst teams in the league. Nobody in the MLH except Rozanov himself knew why Rozanov had signed with the Centaurs, but it could only help Montreal. It meant they had a better chance in their game against Boston tomorrow. It meant that facing Rozanov wouldn’t be as much of a threat as it normally would.

Hayden made the announcement as the bus pulled into the parking lot. Gilbert Comeau asked if tomatoes were allowed. Yes, Hayden decided, tomatoes were allowed, but they were not permitted to be thrown at the screen. JJ Boiziau asked if popcorn was being provided. That was a stupid question - they were in Boston. They were ordering pizza - if you want popcorn you can fucking source your own. Patrice Drapeau asked if there was going to be a competition for best chirp. Absolutely the fuck there will be, Drapeau, great idea.

When everybody was checked into their rooms and had dropped their belongings off, the team slowly started to trickle into CR3. The room was buzzing with conversation, some relevant to the game, some not. Hayden and JJ were busy coordinating the pizza order when the room suddenly went silent, just the sound of the pre-game commentary continuing. Confused, Hayden looked up to see Shane looking oddly around the room. 

“What the fuck?” Drapeau vocalised after 30 seconds, the first team member brave enough to do so.

Comeau hit Drapeau on the shoulder and said something that Hayden, by nature of it being in French, did not understand.

“He said that obviously Shane broke up with Lily because he’s… gay…” JJ interpreted. JJ’s hesitation, combined with what he knew about Comeau as a person, meant Hayden got the feeling that JJ was sanitising the translation for him. “Although not as nice words. And clearly doesn’t remember that Shane can speak French. Or maybe he does and does not give a shit.”

Hayden frowned. “I don’t think they’ve broken up.”

Shane walked around the outside of the room and joined Hayden and JJ in the back corner. He slumped into a seat next to them and pulled out his phone. He sat there so casually, as though his presence at a team event in Boston wasn’t going to be headline news. He sent off a quick text, put his phone down, and looked up at the room. “Get over it and get over it quickly,” he sighed.

The rest of the team hurriedly went back to whatever they’d been talking about. Hayden and JJ turned to their friend, the pizza order abandoned.

“Okay, spill,” Hayden said. “Where’s Lily?”

“Who?” he asked.

“Fuck off with that shit,” JJ said. “You have not been at a single team event in Boston since 2011. And now you just want to pretend you never did that?”

Hayden sighed. “I will be honest, your announcement threw me a little bit. I thought you’d been seeing somebody called Lily for the past eight years. Sure, it would make sense you’re not seeing Lily since Lily is a girl. But I saw you make your Lily face at your phone while we were on the bus, so I know you’re still seeing Lily, which makes me suspect that Lily might actually be a man.”

“Are you not going because you don’t want these assholes to make comments about you having a boyfriend?” JJ asked. “Because, as you have already observed, they will make comments either way.”

“Lily is not my boyfriend,” Shane shrugged. Hayden could tell he was trying to stay nonchalant, but he wasn’t succeeding. He also, unfortunately, wasn’t lying either - at least, Shane was phrasing it in a way that meant Shane didn't see it as lying. Either way, Shane did not want to talk about this. “When Lily and I are in the same city, we meet up. When we’re not in the same city, we don’t. It’s simple. Lily is not currently in Boston. So I am here watching the game with you fucks.”

Hayden narrowed his eyes, but nodded. He didn’t mention that it was super fucking weird that this was the first time Lily had not been in Boston when they had been. “Okay. I won’t pry. Seven years is an awful long time to be hooking up with someone and not admitting you’re in a relationship with them, though.”

“Eight years,” Shane corrected reflexively. Hayden recognised the moment, three full seconds later, when Shane realised what words had come out of his mouth. “Shit. Forget I said that.”

JJ opened his mouth to comment, but the withering look on Shane’s face stopped him. 

“I have to finish this pizza order,” Hayden said, clearing his throat. Once he was finished with the pizza order, he sent a message to Jackie. 

Hayden
We are in Boston and Shane is not seeing Lily tonight.

I don’t know what to make of this.

Jackie’s response came just as the final siren sounded in the Vancouver/Ottawa game. 

Jackie
Of course he’s not? Lily’s not in Boston.

Hayden
What is that supposed to mean?

Jackie
Sweetie

Have you really not figured it out?

I love you but you can be a very stupid man.

Figured what out?, Hayden thought. He went to bed still wondering what on Earth Jackie could have been able to figure out when Hayden was the one who spent half his year with Shane. 

Montreal won their game against Boston, who were clearly scrambling to adjust to the absence of Rozanov, then flew back to Montreal the next morning. 

“What do you know about Lily?” Hayden asked his wife once he’d finished greeting Arthur and Amber.

Jackie raised an eyebrow. “I know nothing. I have suspicions, but I haven’t talked to Shane about it.”

“What are your suspicions, then?”

“Hayden,” she smiled. “I love you, but I am not going to gossip with you about your best friend’s love life. You don’t ask the right questions and it would drive me insane.”

“If you know who he is, you have to tell me. As my wife.”

“I don’t think speculating about your best friend’s secret boyfriend was something I agreed to in my marriage vows,” she said thoughtfully.

“Fine, I’ll figure it out myself,” he grumbled.

It had been two weeks since Boston, and Hayden had made absolutely no revelations regarding Lily, aside from the initial one that Lily was a man - and also probably not called Lily, now that he thought about it. He had been watching Shane as much as he could for a hint of anything. He’d got nothing. The only slightly strange thing was that he’d invited Shane to the zoo with the kids last week, and Shane had declined, saying he was headed to Ottawa to see his parents. That was strange because Hayden couldn’t remember him taking a short trip to Ottawa during the season before, or at any point during their careers together.

“What a game!” Hayden grinned after their win against the Admirals. “You going to come out with us?”

“No,” Shane said simply. 

“No?” JJ asked. “We’re in New York. You are going to sit in the hotel? In the city that never sleeps?”

“Uh, sure,” Shane shrugged. “What else is there to do?”

“Coming out with us,” Hayden repeated. He glances around the room. “Do you have other plans?”

“No,” Shane denies too quickly, shoving his phone into his pocket.

“Is Lily in town?” Hayden asked.  “Before you answer, remember that you’re not a good liar.”

He sighed. “Yeah, Lily is in town.”

JJ beamed. “You should invite him out with us. The Kingfisher is a gay bar, and we would love to meet your boyfriend.”

Shane frowned. “He’s not gay. Neither are you.”

Hayden and JJ frowned at each other. “If he has sex with you, then he’s more gay than we are,” JJ pointed out. “And gay bars aren’t just for gay people. I’m pretty sure they welcome anybody.”

Hayden sighed. “Okay, so your secret boyfriend travels for work, lives in Boston but is currently in New York, and is not totally gay but gay enough to have a boyfriend.”

“The term for that is bisexual,” Shane informed them. 

“Come out with us for like, an hour, at least, and then you can go see your mystery man,” JJ suggested. “I’m sure he’ll understand celebrating a win. And if he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve you.”

“Have either of you thought that my idea of celebrating a win might just be having mindblowing sex?” Shane asked.

Hayden had not, and it was clear from the look on JJ’s face that he hadn’t either. Shane looked between them, pulled out his phone, and sighed. “Fine, I’ll put him off for an hour.”

Ten minutes later, they had entered the Kingfisher, where they immediately spotted an eclectic group of hockey players surrounding a group of tables that had been pushed together in the back. There were five Admirals players - Hunter, Vaughn, Huff, Jalo and Bennett - with three Centaurs players - Rozanov, Boodram, and Chouinard. Hayden frowned; he hadn’t known that the Centaurs were going to be there. Logistically it made sense they could conceivably be there - they had played New Jersey that afternoon, and the train ride was easily doable. It just didn’t make sense to him that the newly minted captain of the Ottawa team would bring his As to a gay bar to hang out with Scott Hunter.

“Is that Hollander?” Rozanov boomed as they approached. “In a gay bar? I thought you were too boring for this.”

“I’m not here by choice,” Shane growled. “These assholes basically dragged me.”

“And who are these assholes?” he asked. 

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Hayden said. “We’ve been playing you for eight years, you know exactly who we are.”

“Spike, right?”

Shane put a hand on Hayden’s arm. “That’s enough, Rozanov,” he said. “Boodram, Chouinard,” he added, nodding at Rozanov’s teammates. “Good to see you.”

“Are you close to murdering him yet?” JJ asked, taking a seat next to Matti Jalo. “The Raiders never got up the nerve.”

The group of eleven chatted excitedly for a while, there were a couple of games of pool - Shane had absolutely refused to play against Rozanov, which was probably the only weird thing that happened - and then, after Shane’s promised hour of being there, he said his goodbyes to the group and left the bar. 

It took two minutes for them to realise that Shane had left his coat behind. JJ called him, only for the call to go straight to voicemail. Hunter suggested going to see if he was still trying to hail a cab - it could take a while in New York, especially with half of them also acting as Ubers. It surprised Hayden when Rozanov offered to do it. 

“Why would you do it?” 

“I am going out for cigarette,” Rozanov shrugged. “If he is there then I give it to him. If he is not, I bring it back inside.”

“He will murder you if it smells like cigarettes,” Hayden said. 

“I can’t believe you smoke,” JJ added. “You are an athlete. They are so bad for you.”

“I can’t believe that I smoke and I’m still the best player in the MLH,” he said. “Either I’m really fucking good or you’re all just terrible. Do not worry about Hollander’s coat.”

And then Rozanov left the bar, too. They did notice he’d left his phone on the table, but he was just going for a cigarette. He’d be back in - none of them actually knew how long it took to smoke a cigarette, but surely it wasn’t more than ten minutes. 

Which was why, forty-five minutes later, it was very strange that Ilya Rozanov had not returned to the bar. His phone was laying face-down on the table, undisturbed. “I’m going to go check and make sure he hasn’t been punched,” Hunter said. The others looked at each other awkwardly. Something definitely wasn’t right. 

It was confirmed when Hunter came back two minutes later saying there was no sign of Rozanov anywhere. There wasn’t any sign of Hollander either. 

“Hollander’s going to meet Lily,” JJ said, waving his hand away.

“Hollander’s got a girlfriend?” Vaughny asked. “In New York?”

“Lily’s from Boston,” Hayden said. “Travels a lot for work, and is apparently in town tonight. I assume he’s going to her hotel.”

“So we’re not worried about Hollander,” Hunter agreed. “But there’s no sign of Rozanov. That does worry me.”

“Why?” JJ asked. “Can he not take care of himself?”

Hunter turned to Boodram. “Would he go anywhere without his phone?”

“Absolutely not.”

“So where is he?” 

Shane had informed Ilya via text of the new plan, but when he had checked their messages before entering the bar, he had been able to see that Ilya hadn’t read them yet. It hadn’t been much of a plan, actually. It had been “hey, my friends know I’m meeting Lily after one hour, make an excuse and follow me to the hotel.” Ilya still hadn’t looked at it by the time Shane announced his departure, but it didn’t matter. Exactly two minutes later, Ilya exited the bar holding Shane Hollander’s coat. Shane had a 30 second head start on walking to the hotel he’d booked for the night. 

He propped the door open with his shoe and waited at the end of the bed. Ilya slipped in behind him, and there was no conversation, just clothes coming off and mouths on lips and jaws and throat hollows and nipples and abs and dicks. They didn’t need to speak to each other right now - they’d been talking to each other at the bar. After, when they had showered and were finally just curled up in each other in the bed, Ilya ran his fingers through Shane’s hair and kissed the crease next to his eye. “I didn’t know you were going to be at the bar,” he said. 

“I did text you,” Shane said. “You hid the surprise well, though.”

“I am much better liar than you,” he said. 

“And so modest, as well.”

“I do not know what this word means, but yes.”

Shane laughed and kissed his nose. “What did you tell your teammates?”

Ilya stilled beneath him. “Shit. I told them I was going for cigarette.”

“You shouldn’t be smoking.”

“I didn’t!” Ilya protested. “I only said it as excuse to leave bar! Said I would see if you were outside because you left your coat inside. I should text Bood, let him know that I am okay.” He got up out of the bed and sorted through their piles of clothes, carefully folding Shane’s while he gingerly picked up his own and piled them. His phone was not there. He tried to remember when he’d seen it last and - fuck. He had left it behind. “I left it on table at the bar.”

“Am I still in your phone as Jane?” Shane asked him.

“Yes, I have not got around to changing it yet. Why?”

“Call your phone from my phone. Your friends should be able to answer it, and you can tell them you’re okay.”

“Great,” Ilya said, nodding. He grabbed Shane’s phone off the top of the clothes pile and pressed the side button. “Oh, terrible. Your phone is out of battery. You have charger with you?”

“Why would I have my charger with me?”

“To charge your phone.”

“Do you have yours?”

“No. I was going to use yours. What is point of having very prepared boyfriend if I can not benefit from it?”

“Well… I mean we could go back to the bar and get it?”

“I could do that,” Ilya nodded. 

Shane felt like there was a ‘but’. “But?”

Ilya reached down and grasped Shane’s dick. “But I don’t think I would be able to leave a second time and I would really like to fuck you tonight. Multiple times. I am a big boy. I can look after myself. I think my teammates know this. I will be fine.”