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The night before Shane lands in Boston, he finds himself at the Metros’ practice rink, carving paths of muffled prophecy across the glossy ice. The deep cuts of sound that spill from his blades are incomprehensible to anyone but him, as they flicker in and out as if a radio on the fritz. Despite the occasional voices he gets, Shane keeps his head up, ignoring them for the most part, only glancing down whenever he catches a flicker of his own name.
It's nowhere near as clarity-inducing as he had secretly hoped for; no sound he can pin to Ilya's kitchen, to his living room. There's not even a discordant chime of the movie they're watching tomorrow, though the three Boston rooks had seemed to come to some sort of a consensus with Marleau a week ago, and everyone else—minus himself and Ilya—had agreed.
Shane has little hope that anyone will actually watch it; he thinks they're going to be far more fixated on him and Ilya.
And what a thought that is.
Ilya had said that they’d get a moment to themselves after the game and before the rest of his team would spill into his home; an odd piece of time, especially since the Metros have a rare evening in Boston after an afternoon game. He tries to remember the last time they've had such a stretch of lingering in another city, and he can't; something that makes his mouth dry out a little when he thinks about it.
He has a feeling that Ilya is going to use their alone time to try to settle his nerves, but he doesn't know if that means talking or if they'll fall back onto their tried and true method of just fucking. Both work for him, even if he knows that he should be more responsible and angle for the talking. It's just—he misses Ilya already, is mourning that he'll have to say goodbye, which is so fucking stupid, that he's trying to ignore it in the hopes that it won't drag him down.
And, beside all that, he's not even sure what he can even let himself feel in these moments before, too anxious already to be able to think of a single feasible game plan; too hesitant to invite that future thread, despite the marks he's carving into the ice now. And it does help, knowing he has a break between performances, because of course it does, because how could it not—and that it'll be him and Ilya, together. Just knowing they're already a little team is a relief.
But that doesn't stop Shane from spiraling, even as he fights the urge, not with so much potential on the line.
The group chat with Boston hasn't gone quiet so much as turned to a simmer, with texts appearing every so often, every couple of hours. Shane doesn’t let himself get dragged into the thick of things, unless it's with Ilya, or one of the rooks, but it's nice to have a chat that’s full of kinder things; a relief he hadn't known to search for.
He's just bad at it, at the texting, at the whole ‘being personable’ outside of his relentless media training. He catches quips between his teeth with the same instinct that he plays hockey; with dogged, grinding practice reshaped into a pillar of personality. He has made himself pliant and coachable, the player most likely to be pulled off the bench and put before the media. He doesn't make mistakes, and he doesn't get distracted.
Except for Ilya.
Ilya functions, at his base, distracting level, like a fucking curse. He's curled his fingers around Shane's brain and done the impossible: Ilya wipes nearly all of his careful, smart sense out of his head. Ilya makes him want to be cocky and showboaty and chirp back, makes him want to be something other than a paradigm of virtue; he makes him want to be unpalatable for once in his life.
He'd thought, all those years ago after their first chilly meeting, that Ilya had cursed him; a notion he can only laugh at in the years since. He'd thought that the resulting nerves and flutteriness were the deliberate misfortune of some sort of charmbag, had restlessly searched his pockets for some sign of the stuffed sachet he was sure would read obfuscation. Of course, now, he knows that influence like that would be incomprehensible to Ilya—when he wins, he needs it to be clean; just like Shane does—but back then, his brain had been fogged through with the cloud of unwieldy desire, scorched to ash with mugwort-bitter revelations he had ended up denying for almost a fucking decade.
Ilya, when he'd confessed his suspicions of their original meeting by accident two weeks ago—caught on the devastating lure of spooning his whole soul into Ilya's mouth, letting him drink down the core of him, and inhaling the bright sparks of Ilya's burning soul in return—had laughed for so fucking long. Even Shane had reluctantly laughed along, the ridiculousness of the situation and the clear genuineness of Ilya's glittering amusement getting to him. He'd only been able to stop laughing when Ilya had turned a shade of red so vibrant that Shane had debated calling Marleau for a fucking wellness check, before Ilya had unfurled from his haphazard ball of delight. He had settled into a smug lounge across the tiny screen of Shane's phone, his lips curled into a crooked, boyish grin so charmingly gleeful that Shane's whole body had stuttered, breathless at the thought of this man being even slightly into him.
You sound like what the government fears, no? But instead—I am so irresistible that you thought I had charmbagged you, Ilya had said, his face beautiful and unguarded, laughter still thick in his voice. What, you think I need cheap magic to help seduce you? He had shaken his head, his eyes low-lidded, and Shane felt himself twitch from where he was soft against his thigh, already worn through with spent pleasure, drowsy and warm with contentment at their new reality. Sweetheart, I hate to say it, but you are very easy.
For you, Shane had said, embarrassingly honest and pink-cheeked as he had studiously avoided Ilya's perceptive gaze. And that's not—I had heard rumors, okay? That certain teams would do anything to win, and I didn't—I didn't think it was like an actual charm, but like something to make me unfocused? He had shrugged, still looking away from Ilya. Before the NHL, it wasn't super uncommon to find one of those in my bag after games.
Ilya had inhaled, but Shane had shaken his head just once, unwilling to talk about the long days of his late teen years, where he had weighed himself down with the collected charmbags—thirteen in total, in the end. Which, of course, had made him wonder if it had been jointly planned by his surly teammates; had made him wonder just who he could trust. But, still, he had stuffed them into his jacket, pressing the full force of distraction, distraction, distraction against his sweaty, aching ribs and skated until he was wobbly from confusion, his mind constantly drifting. By the end of his little experiment, he had skated with them enough that his body still knows what to do even when his brain is stuck on fuzzy static.
It had been extra useful, unbelievably so, when he'd accepted the A from Montreal, the future folding up neatly into that empty spot of blankness from all his hard-won steadiness, able to be shuttered away with ease until he was out of a game.
I did not, Ilya had said, as if it needed clarification almost a decade later, as if Shane hadn't really known that underneath his swirling fear the first time he'd even thought about it. His mouth had curled, glints of amusement still shining through as he had cooed, is so silly of you to try to pretend you did not want me immediately, hm?
And Shane had flushed, warmth curling under his breastbone, an ache of greed calcifying in his heart—he will always want the most from Ilya, he knows—as the rest of the call had taken a decidedly familiar turn.
It had felt easy in that moment to admit to the sin of wanting even before they had hooked up that first time. It had been safe, understandably so; Ilya knows him, has curled his palm around his body, has pushed him to new heights, has been a constant in Shane's world since he was seventeen (before seventeen, if he's being honest, remembering the grainy footage he'd seen before they'd met, the dazzling domination on the ice evident in all the ways people spoke about him, even through fuzzy translations for the english media)—if not in reality, then absolutely in his thoughts.
But to unveil that for Boston feels—well, it's bizarre.
Shane hasn't even told Hayden or Jackie about being gay, about Ilya yet, hasn't even let any of his thoughts form around the subject as best he can, too wary of accidentally catching sight of his future. He knows—knows!—they both would be good to him. He knows that it's a ridiculous premise to even consider, with Jackie being fucking bi, and Hayden's staunch pride taping of his stick every year, even in the face of certain teammates' lasting disdain, and the way he always reposts Marleau's picked LGBT+ charity of the year.
He just—what if it's too much? What if this is the thing that tips them, that reveals the rejection or anger or frustration that he would choose such a stupid thing to do, as if he can just pick and choose who the fuck he falls in love with. He doesn't know what he'll do if they have a problem with Ilya—well, that's not true, but he's pretending he doesn't know. He won't be able to stand to see it played out for him if the future curdles as he fears it will.
But that's un-fucking-fair to both of them, and he knows it.
And still, he worries, and skates, and worries some more.
The buzz of fortune thickens in his eye, and Shane catches himself on the boards, the dull scrape of his blades neatly covered up by the thud of his thighs and hands.
Fizz pops across his tongue, the glint of the lights off the ice disappearing for a moment, before it all snaps back into view, the portent already leeching away.
Shane hates it when it does this, when it tries to tempt him into leaning more into it, into unlatching his stern control over the strings.
It's not enough that it already has him in its webs; no, it wants to consume him entirely, to vessel him in the way all contained prophet-points are desired.
In his paperwork, above his neatly signed bloodmarked signature, he had agreed to not let the pressure of prophecy turn him into an oracle, had agreed to the cinching of potential down to rinks and ice, culled into something manageable for Montreal.
It's a chokepoint, Montreal's previous captain Svegte had muttered, the day he handed him the A. You won't be anything more than a streetsweeper, Hollander. Okay, here’s my spiel. Really, there's just three things you gotta know. First off, everything you have to see comes from the ice, no more, no less. Second is thatcha'll only tell me if it's somethin’ important, kid. I don't give fuck if you see a liney getting sucked off in a taxi—only tell me if it affects the fuckin’ game. And third, if you look for fortune elsewhere outside the rink, outside of sleepin’, you'll get sucked in, and then we'll have to cut you loose. It'd probably be a shame, you have some real clean edges. He had patted him gruffly on the shoulder. Alright. Oh shit, actually—a fourth thing. Don't let it eat you on the ice, kid. It always goes after the good ones, but you just gotta be stronger than it. Alright. For real now. Uh. Good talk. Don't fuck it up. Let’s fuckin’ kick LA's ass.
It had been, at the time, supremely unhelpful.
But Shane had been reeling from the sudden gut-clenching relief of not being found out, and he had been so fucking guiltily thrilled at the same time; had been so queasily pleased and dreadfully grateful and utterly tangled in his own paralyzing emotions, that the vision had roared into his eyes before he had time to follow Svegte out, onto the ice. Starbursts of white had filled his vision before they had faded into a familiar golden chain against sweaty pectorals, the low, filthy groan of an accented voice undone with pleasure, a whisper of good boy in his ear, an echo he could only want to feel again but directly from Rozanov's hot, slick mouth; and Shane had known, right then and there, as shameful lust and bewildered delight had filled his veins, that he was fucking doomed.
Svegte had been right for the most part, Shane's found over these long few years.
The future is merciless, nipping at Shane's heels with the unruliness of a pent-up shark trying desperately to draw blood. It's a roaring wave of the unknown, broken down by rigorous standards that are then essentially force-fed through the preventative brunt slats of Montreal's wards, before again being pinned down and flattened to paper-thin fortunes.
In layman's terms, the team lawyer had said, his eyes dark and intent on Shanes, it culls until the fortune of many is only the team and their future. No unneeded distractions. Theriault hadn't even tried to walk Shane through it the first day. He hadn't wanted him to care about it; it wasn't hockey.
But Shane, for once, had listened to the warning tug deep in his sternum, and researched until he finally fucking understood just what he had signed himself away to; given that he already knew that he would be Captain one day, just from sheer nerve alone—no portent needed.
In the end, he had understood exactly what Svegte had meant when he'd said don't let it eat you.
Fortune, prophecy, future-telling, oracle murmurs—no one online could agree on a fucking name, but they all could agree on this point: that seeing the future is a slowly dying branch of magic regularly disregarded as lesser, even without the already relatively annoyed view most people take on magic.
The fortune-telling of the Metros is a glitter of portent pinned down and trapped between the regulation-level spells of the NHL and the might of Montreal's specifications; the brittle bones of what will come picked over by the vultures of his eyes. He, as the contract holder, is nothing more than the indemnitor, the sacrificial lamb, the offering to a magic that is failing.
And everyone knows that when the occult begins to falter, anyone who deals with it is just going to make it hungrier.
But he had wanted to sign with Montreal—because he loved hockey more than he loved most things, because that was his team, because he knew he could do it, because, selfishly, in his heart of hearts, he wanted to win—and then he had signed, before he understood fully—before he understood at all—and then, well, he had two months of brutal, spiraling fear and the stern eyes of a team that sometimes didn't seem to want to believe in him.
And then the A was his, and the heavy crown of Montreal had settled on his head, prideful and greedy.
Svegte had been wrong about some things, too. Shane didn't hold it against him; what was the point?
Because who could have predicted the bleedthrough of Ilya? Who could have known that Shane's own future would sneak out and into the air when he's alone, that the rinks and ice and careful control aren't needed when it's a vision of his—of Ilya? Who could have known that it doesn't hurt to see it, that the agony of his present seems so distant from what will come, that Shane—guilty and horridly curious; wrathfully hopeful—looks forward to the sputtering off-ice visions now?
Shane breathes in the chilled air. He breathes out.
The mumble of a crowd slithers out from under his blades, there and gone before he can clock familiar voices, any chants.
It was normal, at first. Or, well—it was normal enough that Shane could lie to himself about the Rozanov visions. They were always together initially, and Shane had thought nothing of the few glimpses he'd gotten away from the rink over the course of his first two years—keeping them to himself as he'd been instructed—before he'd overheard just how rare it was to see anything outside the rink.
In hindsight, now, he can come to terms with it; thinking he was anything other than irrefutably linked to Ilya was fucking stupid. But in the moment, he'd been so eager to dismiss the truth, so eager to avoid hope and anything emotional that he'd tossed it from his mind and forced himself to practice more, until his brain was buzzing at the rink, full of his team and nothing else.
Initially, it had been time-consuming to sort through the waves of portent, how much to share, when to talk to Theriault, and what it meant for the team. And yet, in the end, despite the demands for more from his orphic voyages from management, nothing ever gets done with the information. More often than not, now that he’s captain, it's Hayden and JJ just idly texting all of their visions—none of which are exceptionally helpful, although the drama of hearing bits of gossip is just more exciting than anything else.
Shane's just—it's so fucking stupid. Why keep the useless magic laced through Montreal if all it does is splinter under the weight? Why endanger the team with malicious prophecies if only one person seems to bear the brunt? Why force anyone to see the slices of deeply personal life Shane's glimpsing?
And yet, even with his heavy disdain for the whole fucking thing, he’s felt a slow creep of dread as it's slowed, in the past month. The visions, the dreams; they’ve faded away to mostly nothingness over the course of this year’s regular games. Now he just gets fuzzy bleedthroughs for the most part; the muffled heavy breathing of someone, a shout echoing off the ice, a loud burst of laughter as someone hollers, names with no context, flickers of emotions seeping through, a three-second glance at a team member's living room. It's even more nonsense than before.
The Rozanov visions have been the only ones keeping shape, but even then, they're short bursts, moments of indolence spread across his vision; they're nothing like what they were when sometimes he would catch forty-five seconds of their next hookup and spend the rest of the day pale with anger for giving in again and warm with a slick, vibrant need.
Distantly, a door shuts, the clang of it echoing across the ice, and Shane straightens from his lazy laps, eyeing the tunnel with faint trepidation.
There's no reason anyone else should be here; he shouldn't be here, but gradually the faint sound of voices reaches him, the familiar tenor of Hayden's voice, the almost-frantic pitch of another person's tone, before they fade from earshot again.
Behind Shane's eye, the ball of orphic tension throbs; abruptly, all he can taste is sour rot, bile in his teeth, slime across his tongue.
He'd gag if he weren't used to it, another tinge of the future—one that Shane knows intimately, and one of the only extraneous gifts he shares with both Hayden and JJ.
In the next twenty-four hours, someone is going to lie to him.
It's not an exceptionally rare taste, though it mostly occurs before he visits Hayden—something they both commiserate on—the future unable to understand the difference between a child fibbing or exaggerating something and an actual lie. Jade, in particular, likes to tell stories about things the trees whisper to her, and despite the fact that he knows the thread of boscage that lingers in Jackie's blood—apparently she's making it all up. Her stories about the bees she talks to, though, never ping as a lie in the aftermath of her stories, which Hayden always groans about, convinced she's going to raise an army of them in her room.
Though Shane always reminds him, she could still be lying, because the warning only sometimes happens. It's as if a static blur of what is true slips through the buzz of potential for a split second, enough to fill his mouth with dread, before slipping away. It's as frustratingly ethereal as the rest of the minor side effects that prophecy gives him; the audio of futures in the lines of skates—only heard when he's alone—, the throbbing in his right pinky whenever the flight they're going to take is going to be turbulent, the other bits and pieces that have shifted into being over the course of the past few years.
So, really, he always ends their am-I-a-bad-dad-if-my-kid-lies-about-talking-to-trees-and-might-be-a-hedgewitch talks with Hayd, who fucking knows? Not me for fucking sure, but she's like almost four, Hayden. She has her entire life to decide if she wants to be a fucking hedge.
Hayden always widens his eyes pleadingly at him after he says the same shit he always does, as if he's supposed to reach in and unspool the future, as if it's salt he can tip across the rink and read an exacting account of just who Jade Pike will be in twenty years, instead of the free-fall of nonsense that it actually is.
The future doesn't trickle down in malleable fortunes; no, it sputters out of the fog as if wrenched into being, the sharp pop of his soul briefly displaced. And Hayden knows that, the dickhead, since he's a fucking alternate; he could look too, even though it really wouldn’t do anything for either of them, since Jade’s not on their fucking team.
He sighs, coming to a hard stop, the rink falling silent.
God, what he wouldn't do to just be released from all this weight—though, that teeters dangerously into betrayal, and he's far too worried about potential kickback to actually think it through. There's just so much he has to keep track of, and, really, he's been meaning to sit down with the rookies and talk to them about the hex team conundrum and—
Shane, someone whispers into his ear from right behind him, shattering all of his thoughts.
All the hair on the back of his neck stands up as he freezes, straining for another hint of sound.
He's never heard something so precise, so present in the room with him from any of his visions, has never had just an audio bubble up when he was out of motion. He turns, half-expecting Hayden to be there, a sheepish look on his face, but when he twists to glance behind him, no one's there.
He blinks, unease sliding through his veins, and skates back, the familiar sound of his feet on ice filling the space, before he stops, the scrape of his noise shifting back down to nothing. The silence feels larger than usual, a strange, tense frozenness to the arena.
He bites back his instinctive urge to call hello, and instead covers his mouth, muffling the quiet, startled pant of his breathing.
His eyes dart up behind the glass, searching for motion in the rows of seats, listening for a hint of feet or muffled giggles, someone hiding for some stupid reason.
But only silence ripples out from the rink; the world around him is cold and quiet, empty of anything.
He presses his hand to his mouth even tighter, his fingers clinging to his jaw as his gaze drifts to the top of the stands, squinting at the darkened eaves. The soft folds of darkness on the upper floors offer no answer as something heavy pools in his chest. His stomach roils, a dull ache rising from his center as he stares up at the darkest part of the room, intently searching for any shift, any flutter of something.
Even with all the quiet, he has the unnerving feeling that he's being stalked from the shadows.
“Shane?” Hayden calls from the tunnel, startling him from his narrow-eyed scan as he forcefully swallows down a shrill scream. “You good, buddy?”
“Jesus fuck, Hayd,” Shane bites out, whirling on him. He thinks he’s going to vomit from the stress as he doubles over for a beat, clutching at his chest before he snaps his head up, glaring. “Holy shit, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Hayden pauses, his hands held up, wariness in his eyes, and Shane cuts off the rest of his words as someone emerges from beside him, Hardwin slinking out from behind his shoulders.
“Winnie?” Shane says, blinking at the rookie and skating closer, until he's at the edge of the rink. “You okay?”
Hardwin nods his head and then shrugs, before he glances helplessly at Hayden and dips his head, a quick, jerky headshake. “Uh,” he says, when Hayden just stares back at him, as Shane's head starts to throb, a headache kicking up. “Sorry to bother you, uh, Cap. There’s uh—I gotta talk to you about something. Uh. Pike can stay, ‘cause I told him I needed to find you first before he could know. Sorry. I wanted to—never mind, not important.”
Shane arches a brow, his head tipping to the side as Hardwin inhales unsteadily, before blowing all his breath out in a sharp huff.
“Okay, so you know how like four days ago you told us to be careful when we were playing sewerball because you didn't want to hear it about us breaking something again?” Shane can't even nod before Hardwin is rambling again, chewing on his lip, his whole face set into contrition. “So, we, uh, we weren't super careful.”
“I'm sorry,” Shane says, as pleasantly as he can. He can see Hayden wincing out of the corner of his eye and just barely stops himself from glaring at him too, forcing his face into something carefully neutral. Fucking rookies. “Did you just say that you weren't super careful, and I'm finding out four days after that you broke something?”
“We didn't break anything,” Hardwin hastens to assure him, nerves clear on his face. Somehow, it doesn’t help the pit that’s opened up in his stomach. “Lugs just kicked the ball super hard, and it knocked into a pipe and then sort of flew back and hit him really fucking hard—”
“Are you trying to give each other concussions? What, it doesn't happen enough for you on the ice, so you gotta make it happen in the halls?” Hayden asks, sounding concerned, but Shane’s fairly certain that can’t be the actual point of the story. Despite the jokes, Shane’s well aware that he’s not actually a mother for any of the rookies; they don't just randomly give him injury reports. “Did either of you report it to fucking medical?”
“He wasn't—I don't think he passed out, he just, like, had a goose egg, it's—that's not the—okay. I can text Lugs to get examined, but that's—no, it's this, that's the problem. It fell from the pipe being hit, I think, and, well—”
Shane leans in, watching as Hardwin tugs a tiny bag out of his pocket, holding it out for Shane to take.
“Oh, fuck,” Hayden says as soon as he gets a glimpse. “Shane—”
“I know,” Shane says, absentminded as he plucks the dusty, dark navy velvet sachet out of Hardwin's hand. Lodestone, the charmbag reads, and fuck, if that doesn't just ruin Shane's entire fucking year. This entire fucking season. His life, maybe, if he’s feeling exceptionally dramatic and bitchy, which he is, as he holds the stupid fucking thing in his hand.
He fucking hates magic.
“Where…?”
“Back corner by the walk-through entrance,” Hardwin answers immediately. “It was behind that big red pipe.”
“Does anyone else know about—”
“No,” Hardwin shakes his head, cutting him off, his mouth a wry line. “I thought about the hex team, but, well—I didn't, I heard—there's a rumor it'll be open season on Lugs and I if we push it and I didn't want to, uh, push it.”
“The four days?” Shane asks, carefully hooking his fingers into the tiny rope, cinching it closed, ignoring Hayden's noise of concern.
Hardwin shrugs, a faint blush running across his cheekbones. “I uh, I sort of forgot after shoving it in my pocket, and then when I remembered, we were in practice two days ago, and Cap, Hollzy, sometimes you're really hard to get ahold of. And I didn't—it felt weird to just text you about it.” He flushes even deeper at Shane's look, and shrugs again. “And I didn't know whose it was, aside from not yours or Pike's or JJ's, since you can't fucking charmbag anyone, so I didn't want to ask in front of the team, and I—it felt weird to think about leaving a voice memo or calling, too. Figured you’d want to see it, too.”
Shane hums, staring at the assortment of various herbs and crystals stuffed into the bag, before he reties it back up.
“Theriault's not gonna care,” Hayden says, into the silence. “It's not about the game, right?”
Shane sighs, annoyance biting deep and sharp. “I don't know, Hayd—I'm not a fucking hedge, or the hex team or whatever.” He pauses, his eyes darting from Hayden's apologetic face to the dark eaves and back, his neck prickling. “But—shit. I don't think so. And, I mean, we're at the practice rink, so it can't be tampering on the ice, because who the fuck is noticeably good at here and then not elsewhere.” He shrugs helplessly, grimacing when he meets Hayden's eyes, another knot of worry emerging. “But if they're up here, who's to say they're not in the fucking Bell Centre? But also, no one is fantastic at home and then shit elsewhere. So. That means—well. I don't know, but it could be a lot of things.”
“Like game sabotage?” Hardwin whispers, his face pale as Shane glances over at him. “What the fuck?”
Shane shakes his head. “Game sabotage can’t be stuffed into charm bags,” he says, watching Hayden's shoulders slump in relief. He bites back a frown—because does no one read their fucking paperwork—but continues, “Like minor game sabotage could, I guess, but no one’s doing that for our practice rink. No, this is—this is targeted. This is someone who wants something enough to find a way to get in through the fucking wards on the doors, and I don’t think it’s a curse, but—” He rolls his shoulders back, still staring at the tiny velvet bag. Another wave of wariness inches down his spine as his ears strain for any noise of others in the quiet behind his voice. “Again, I’m not a fucking hedge.”
The rink is silent for another beat before Hardwin shakes his head. “I guess, I’m just—I’m fucking confused,” he says. “What the fuck is even the point of it? I thought everyone here hated magic. No offense, Cap, Pike. But like, no one’s ever brought up magic in a positive light, even when they’re playing around with it, and like I have no problem with it—my sister tested into the goddamn Soothsayers for protective wards, but everyone here treats it like fucking shit.” He casts a baleful eye at the pouch. “And someone’s still running around, actually using it? Like, not as a stupid prank? Because that’s—” He gestures at the bag. “That looks way more serious than a fucking ouija board, or the stupid tongue twister hexes Drapeau likes to set on us. Or did like, another team pay for someone to break in and—I don't know, fucking curse us, man?”
“No,” Shane says, shaking his head, biting back the urge to argue about how fucking serious all magic is; he knows by now it’s an argument he’ll never win, given how poorly nearly the whole team takes it when he tries to get them to knock it off with the ‘pranks’. “It—no one else should be able to get in unless they were approved by management, and how badly do people want to curse us that they'd make a fake job to get in?” He pauses, his brow furrowing. “I don't think so, but—well, the alternative is…”
Hayden snorts, clapping a hand to Winnie’s back. “Welcome to the Metros,” he says cheerfully, an edge in his voice. “Nothing makes sense here, bud. Most of us just try to play hockey and ignore the rest of it.” He pauses for a beat. “And congrats to your sister. The Soothsayers are impressive.”
Hardwin waves off his words, shrugging. “It’s—yeah, it’s whatever. But, like. Should I ask her to check it out? Try to figure out what the fuck it does?”
“No,” Shane says, his mind running a million kilometers an hour. He casts another long gaze around the rink, his brow furrowing before he curls his hand around the sachet and shoves it in his pocket. “No. We burn it. Check to see if it’s been replaced in a few days.” He shrugs. “Keep an eye out for anything else weird.”
“So we're… not telling people?” Hayden says after a moment of silence. “Like—not even the hex team? Isn't this literally their job?”
“No, their job is facility protection and outside curse prevention, even if they're fucking shit at it,” Shane says as evenly as he can, “Since half the time they can't even manage that. And they didn't agree to mediate internal team problems—they actually signed to not help with anything like that.” He glances down at the ice, shifting his weight. “For now, say nothing. If you find another, give it to me, I'll handle it.”
Hardwin pauses in his nods of agreement, his mouth pulling into a thin line. “JJ?”
“I'll fill him in,” Shane mutters, pinching at the bridge of his nose. He pauses, glancing at Hardwin, and sighs. “You did the right thing, Winnie,” he murmurs, dropping his hand from his face to pat him on the shoulder, tension unspooling from the kid's spine. “I'm not mad at you or anything—this is fucked, and you did everything right.”
“I should've given you the bag four days ago,” Hardwin says, his cheeks pink as he glances away from Shane. Shane pats him once more before he lets his hand drop, careful not to so much as shift on the ice. “Sorry, Cap.”
Shane sighs again. “Kid, you're fine. I'd rather know about this now than find out later.”
Hayden makes a faint noise of realization. “Wait, is this why you made us trek all the way over to that fucking pipe? I thought you had stashed something here and was so fucking baffled when you just stared at the pipe and didn't do anything.”
Hardwin scrubs a hand over his face, the tips of his ears fire engine red. “I wanted to see if someone had put another,” he says, as Shane's whole body jolts in warning.
“Don't do it again,” Shane snaps, before swallowing down bile as the tug of foreboding grows. He glances at Hardwin, meeting his eyes. “Winnie, whatever the fuck is happening here isn't good, okay? Don't go looking for trouble when we don't know what the trouble is.”
“Okay, Cap,” Hardwin says, holding his hands up, his face vaguely surprised. “I didn't mean to, uh, upset you.”
Shane grimaces. “I just don't want something bad to happen to you,” he says awkwardly. “And I haven't—it's not something that—I've seen or anything. I just—there's a feeling.” He pauses, turning his head just to glance over his shoulder, another creeping sweep of augury climbing up his spine, before he refocuses, ignoring Hayden's concerned look. “Whatever the fuck this is—it's like a rot,” he murmurs. “And I don't—if there are people on our team running around playing with magic, it's not something they actually understand, okay? People aren't supposed to charmbag buildings, unless they want to tempt the whole place into madness. They aren't made to sit and pump out charm for so long; it turns the magic sour.”
Hardwin blinks at him. “How the hell do you know all this, Cap?” He flushes at Hayden’s arched brow even as Shane shrugs, unconcerned with the question.
“When you get a whole legacy of magic speared straight through you, you either understand it enough to know its limits, or you die under the weight,” Shane mutters. “And portent gets burned into us, stitched into our blood until our contract’s up, so it pays to know just what other kinds of transmundane bullshit can be leveled at you.”
“Have people tried to, like, actually curse you before and not just the team?” Hardwin blurts out. He slaps a hand over his mouth, his eyes rounding as if he can't believe he just asked his question.
At his side, Hayden snorts, tossing an arm over his shoulders. “You need to listen to the locker room gossip more,” he says, shaking his head fondly when Shane meets his eyes. “C'mon, Winnie, I'll drive you back to my place and tell you about the late, great 2012 curse that turned everything Cap ate into fucking cat food for twenty-four hours. It was nasty as shit until the hex team got it under control.” He mimes vomiting. “The smell haunted us for fucking weeks.”
Shane rolls his eyes, but grins when Hardwin turns his apologetic face towards him. “I'm not offended, kid. It's not like I'm not asked that like five times a season in pressers.”
“It's still rude to pry,” Hardwin mutters, his cheeks rosy with embarrassment. “Sorry, Cap.”
Shane shrugs, unbothered by his curiosity. He's not going to answer it; he never has. It would give too much away to the world, and the ones the team knows about are only the ones he couldn't hide.
But, even with journalists knowing he's not going to answer, it's not an unfamiliar question; in fact, it's one the press loves to launch at him the moment his attention wavers. It sticks against his ribs, sometimes, that gritty distance that still wavers between him and the rest of the league. Even within the two other teams, there's still an odd break. Though Hunter deals with the underhanded questions stoically, all of New York gets pissy if anyone so much as mentions magic and hockey in the same breath; it saves him from having to answer anything when his teammates jump down journalists' throats. And for Toronto, well, no one really wants to deal with whatever the fuck they have going on, not with the hyena-glint of wildness in Kent's eyes and the dangerous aura that clings to most of them.
So, bitterly, Shane is accustomed to the prying questions; to the feeble lies doled out by the Metros’ PR team only for them to be spit back in his face as cannon fodder the next day.
It doesn’t help that the team is mostly protected against the serious curses; it just makes the minor curses he gets tagged with even more humiliating and unbearable, since he should be free from them. He would be, if the hex team took their job fucking seriously, but Theriault mostly gives them free rein to dick around since he doesn’t care unless it’s a serious curse.
And as if that isn’t enough, Shane knows that asking about the current very serious stitch-lip curse he’s under will only be turned back on him, since there’s no feasible reason for him to try to talk about the specific visions with anyone off the team, unless he’s a goddamn traitor.
And management has nothing good to say about traitors.
“You're fine, Winnie,” Shane says, meeting his eyes and letting his mouth curl into a small but genuine smile. Hardwin smiles back, still looking upset with himself, but lets Hayden guide him toward the exit, quietly falling in line under his arm.
“See you tomorrow,” Hayden calls over his shoulder, his voice bouncing off the floor and into the cavernous rink. “Let me know if you want me to do something about this shit.”
“Will do,” Shane calls back, his words sour in his mouth. Abruptly, he wonders if he's the liar, if he's the goddamn trip wire he keeps tugging on. “Night, Hayd, Winnie.”
Both of them call back goodbyes, their voices fading quickly as they round the corner at the end of the hall and disappear from view.
For a long, quiet moment, Shane stands at the edge of the rink before he twists to stare at the lines he's carved across the ice.
Tomorrow beckons; the immense force of the future, a blank slate for him.
Nerves zip down his spine as his hand darts to his pocket, touching the velvet bag through his jeans.
Fuck, he thinks, rolling the endless possibilities around in his head. There’s so much that could be, and here he is, hobbled by the uselessness of his own gifts, by the weight of a crown that’s turned to shackles.
His eyes drift back up to the dark eaves and hold, searching for something that he doesn’t quite understand, as the quiet of the arena presses in.
He breathes in. He breathes out.
Nothing moves as he slowly drags his gaze away, the animal fear that had gripped him earlier lingering on the edges of his nerves. Instead, growing from within, from deep inside his sternum, a warning tug rises.
Go, it urges, leave now.
For the second time in his life, he listens to that untenable ache and turns from the emptiness, pretending he doesn’t hear the echo of someone else breathing in every step he takes.