Work Text:
It’s just a regular dinner with Hayden and Jackie. Nobody had mentioned anything special so Shane had shown up in his regular clothes with a bottle of Jackie’s favorite wine. Actually, this is their first dinner in a while because Jackie has spent the last few weeks fighting off a recurring sickness but she's finally feeling well again.
Jackie takes the bottle of wine and kisses his cheek before all but dragging him inside. She seems really happy, an unusual amount of happiness but, that’s probably just because she’s no longer sick. Shane supposes that would make sense.
They don’t open the wine, it sits alone on the kitchen island while they eat dinner. Well, Shane and Hayden eat, Jackie picks at her plate and consumes alternating sips of ice water and ginger ale. The behavior is odd but, since the couple has always been gracious about Shane’s own odd behavior, he doesn’t comment on it. Maybe Jackie’s stomach is still upset after having been sick for so long.
Shane can freely admit to himself that he’s jealous of what Hayden and Jackie have. They make it look so easy, it just isn’t fair. Shane talks to girls or maybe it’s more like they talk to him, talk at him is probably the most accurate way to describe it actually. Talking to girls has never been easy, not like it is with well, that doesn’t matter because it’s casual and it doesn’t mean anything. It is also simply, just not an option.
Jackie and Hayden accept a lot of things about him, his strangeness and his quirks but, he doesn’t think they would accept this particular attribute. Shane can’t risk finding out the answer to that question, he thinks maybe the couple are his only friends, he thinks he’d be lost without them.
They finish dinner and settle in the living room. Jackie settles on the couch and is seemingly buzzing with excitement. Such strange behavior from his friends tonight, Shane wonders if maybe he should be worried. Did they invite him to dinner to announce their breakup so they could have a sworn witness at the event?
Hayden appears in the threshold of the living room carrying a medium sized gift box with a big red bow on top. A box that he immediately hands to Shane and then with all the barely restrained excitement of a kid on Christmas morning, commands Shane to open it.
Lifting off the lid, he finds a strip of glossy pictures that seemingly depict two blob-like shapes and two pairs of identical pink ice skates.
“You guys, I think these might be a bit small for me” Shane says with a frown, letting the skates dangle from his hands by their laces.
“They’re for your nieces, someone has to teach them how to skate when they’re big enough” Jackie says, smiling as her hand settles over her stomach.
Shane looks at the skates again and then back at the ultrasound still laying in the box. There are two blobs, two blobs and two pairs of skates. Two blobs and two pairs of skates for two babies, if he had to guess. He is totally not freaking out, okay why is he freaking out over babies that aren’t his.
“And the three of you are okay, healthy?” Shane asks, looking up at Jackie once he finds it within himself to tear his eyes away from the ultrasound.
“We’re all perfectly healthy, the doctor doesn’t have any concerns and says we shouldn’t either” Jackie assures, smiling a bit when Shane still seems unconvinced.
“How credible is this doctor, do they have a name?” Shane asks, already picking up his phone to look up the credentials.
“Oh great, now there are two of you” Jackie says with a sigh, more affection than complaint.
“Hey, this is you and my nieces we’re talking about…twin pregnancies are high risk, I just want to make sure you’re all getting the best care” Shane defends, he doesn’t even know if it’s an okay thing to say but, it’s the truth.
When Shane gets home from dinner, he immediately dives into research. If he’s going to be an uncle, he’s going to be the best the world has ever seen.
He spends a lot of time with Hayden and Jackie over the next few months, most of his free time is taken up with helping them prepare. Painting the nursery, sitting on the floor of said nursery and studying an ever growing stack of instruction booklets while his friend struggles to build two identical cribs.
How many hockey players does it take to install two car seats? As it turns out, the answer is three players, four firemen and a very exhausted pregnant woman who stayed home to nap.
Shane is typically for the most part, a level-headed methodical guy. He is impulsive and reckless in exactly one area of his life. Though, with the impending arrival of his nieces, that impulsivity has trickled slowly into other areas. For reasons he does not understand, he has this need to buy anything and everything he sees that he thinks they might like. It’s like an itch he can’t scratch.
Though of course, he still does his due diligence. Sure, he wants to buy them anything and everything but, only the very best of anything and everything. He consults books and blogs, spends weeks sourcing the softest baby blankets and finding toys that can strike a balance between fun and enriching to their development.
His nieces and their mother can have whatever they want. Which is how Shane finds himself driving across town at ten pm on a rare stretch of free days. Jackie had called him roughly thirty minutes ago, absolutely crying her eyes out because all she wanted was a turkey sandwich with salt and vinegar chips. Apparently, pregnant women can’t have deli meat but, what is Shane supposed to do, say no?
Saying no to a pregnant woman has to be some kind of bad luck right, like seeing a bride before the wedding.
It takes some research but Shane finally figures it out. He knows logically that the chances of listeria are low but they aren’t zero and anything more than zero is too high of a risk. Would it be too weird to make Jackie eat the sandwich in a hospital parking lot in case the worst happens?
Maybe he could heat the turkey up to kill the bacteria and then let it cool down before making the sandwich.
Eleven pm finds Shane standing in Jackie’s kitchen, assembling what he’s pretty sure is a “safe to eat” turkey sandwich. Jackie (and the girls) is settled on the living room couch with a variety of salt and vinegar chips and an equal variety of hot sauces to dip them in. Shane hadn’t known there were so many different kinds of salt and vinegar chips so, in a panic he’d simply bought them all.
Eleven twenty five pm, Jackie has her sandwich and has somehow convinced Shane to stay the night and watch terrible reality tv or more specifically, something called “Vanderpump Rules”.
The twins are born early, at thirty four weeks and five days. Shane knows from research that pregnancies involving multiples deliver early all the time, he also knows that the hospital has a state of the art NICU.
There’s nothing to worry about really. All three girls are going to be just fine. Shane paces in the waiting room anyway.
Ruby and Jade Pike are born via c-section at 3:00 and 3:01 pm respectively.
Shane meets them for the first time, roughly four hours later at 7:03 pm.
Jackie Pike has always been fierce but, newly minted mother Jackie, that’s a whole new level. Shane notices it for the first time when he’s accompanying the new parents to the NICU. Jackie in a wheelchair, Hayden pushing it and Shane right beside them.
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s family only” a probably well-meaning nurse says, stopping Shane just short of the big double doors that separate the NICU from the rest of labor and delivery.
Jackie glares and grabs on to the sleeve of Shane’s hoodie, pulling him back to her side. “He is family, he’s my brother” she says it with such conviction that the nurse looks embarrassed.
“It’s 2013 for fucks sake, maybe you’re adopted…maybe I’m adopted, what does she know” Jackie mutters under her breath.
The twins, Ruby and Jade are in separate, well Shane isn’t sure of the correct term but they look like giant plastic boxes on wheels. They’re fine, perfectly healthy and five pounds each, they need oxygen and monitoring but should hopefully be able to go home when Jackie does.
Shane stares at them in awe, he has to admit that they’re pretty cute. Totally worthy of turkey sandwiches in the middle of the night.
“Would you like to hold them?” Jackie asks with a smile.
Shane hesitates, not because he doesn’t want to hold them. It’s just, he’s never held a baby before and his nieces are so new and fragile, what if he does something wrong and breaks one of their soft little bones or something. Sure, he’s practiced a bit but, with weighted teddy bears, not actual babies.
“Maybe we just start with one at a time” Hayden suggests good-naturedly as he gestures for Shane to sit down in the hospital-issued rocking chair that’s situated between both girls.
“Are you sure about this, you don’t want…like your parents to meet them first or something?” Shane asks as he settles himself in the chair.
“You’re kidding right, they’ve been waiting impatiently to meet their Uncle Shane, you think they showed up early for us?” Jackie asks, smiling softly as she watches her husband place Ruby in Shane’s arms.
Ruby Pike is only five pounds and she fits easily in his arms but it feels as if he’s just been handed the whole world. Shane can feel the universe shifting around him, things and feelings reorder themselves without his permission. His heart feels like a game of Tetris, things and people moving and flipping slightly to make room for two new additions. His parents shift to the left, hockey to the right, feelings he can’t name about a certain Russian down center. He wonders if maybe, you don’t get a say in what or who you love. Maybe love just happens to you.
Ruby fusses a bit, freeing one tiny hand from the swaddle she’s wrapped in. The tiny hand reaches out and wraps itself around one of Shane’s fingers and then, the baby lets out what Shane hopes is a sound of contentment.
The day Ruby and Jade are born is the day, time splits in two. There was before his nieces and now, there’s after.
It feels odd at first to mark time with the passing of milestones of others, though that might be the way of the world. The unspoken final push into adulthood.
The world keeps turning. Another hockey season, more clandestine meetings in hotel rooms with Rozanov. Time doesn’t stop, the girls grow faster than Shane or their parents would like them to. Then, Rozanov disappears, not literally of course but he stops responding to Shane’s messages. They talk briefly in Sochi but this Rozanov is not one that Shane recognizes, all sharp edges and cold, like new blades digging into arena ice for the first time.
“Of course he won, well he better enjoy it because we’re taking the cup next year and the year after” Shane confides to the girls, after the final game is over.
The rest of the team is still hanging out, drinking in the backyard. Shane had offered to put Ruby and Jade to bed and give Jackie a bit of a break. He has learned in the year or so that he’s been an uncle that babies are great secret keepers. Babies can’t talk and once they begin to, most people don’t believe a word kids say for a majority of their childhood.
“I have to see him in Vegas but nothing is happening…he’s ghosted me for almost six months” Shane tells the girls, who are moving more steadily towards sleep.
As it turns out, Uncle Shane is fucking liar. He holds out for all of thirty seconds and then folds like a goddamn lawn chair. A lot of things happen in Vegas, not that he’ll ever admit to any of it.
Just because Shane himself has no standards or self-worth doesn’t mean his nieces shouldn’t. They deserve better so obviously, they can never know.
The girls are two the first time Shane helps them lace up their tiny pink skates. They clutch each other’s hands and nervously survey the ice that’s laid out in front of them.
Shane skates backwards, holding their free hands in each one of his as they make slow, measured laps around the rink. Jackie is sitting in the stands, pregnant with her and Hayden’s third baby and absolutely forbidden to step foot on the ice.
Jackie takes pictures of the three of them and then the four of them once Hayden joins them on the ice. Later, she tells Shane how he’s apparently a “trending hashtag on hockey twitter”, whatever that means.
He googles it later and Jackie is right, #UncleShane is trending on all platforms. Absently, he wonders if Rozanov ihas seen the pictures.
When Jackie goes into labor for the second time, Shane watches the girls. It makes the most sense, he’s the only family close enough to them. He knows their routines and in a rare break of his own ingrained rigidness, has no problem dropping everything for his nieces.
Shane keeps everything as normal as possible but still, Jade and Ruby are impatient for their baby brother’s arrival. To be fair, they have been waiting nine whole months and that’s an incredibly long time for three year olds.
He wakes up the next morning to a text from Hayden. It’s a picture of Shane’s brand new nephew and a set time to bring the girls to the hospital.
They have breakfast and then Shane helps the girls get dressed in their matching “Big Sister” sweaters that Jackie had ordered months ago and laid out for this exact purpose.
On the way to the hospital, they stop off at a local flower shop and Shane has the girls pick out a bouquet of flowers for Jackie and the new baby.
This time around, things are different. There’s no pacing in a waiting room or a NICU to navigate. Just Shane, two toddlers and a ridiculously large bouquet of sunflowers.
“Okay girls, remember we have to be quiet, no running or screaming because there are other mommies and their babies trying to rest,” Shane explains, squatting down to get eye level with them.
“Where is our baby, Unca Shane?” Ruby asks, swiveling her head around and looking at every closed door, like she could find her new baby brother on instinct alone, for all Shane knew siblings could do that.
He finds the correct door and knocks on it gently. Shane opens it and then, like something straight out of Scooby Doo, all three of them peek their heads in and take in the scene in front of them. Jackie is sitting up in bed and smiling while a baby rests in a plastic bassinet next to her.
“Mama, we brings flowers an…an look, Unca Shane made our hairs pretty” Jade says in a whisper, showing off the matching braids as she and her sister peer down at their baby brother.
Shane looks down at the baby too and he feels things shifting around again, making more room in his heart for his nephew.
They get the girls settled next to each other on the little hospital couch and Hayden helps them hold the baby.
“Girls, this is your little brother, Arthur” Hayden introduces, smiling softly at the look of absolute awe on his daughters’ faces.
“Like the arrdvark?” Shane asks with a frown, taking a pause in his picture taking.
“Like my grandfather” Hayden answers, turning his head to give Shane a “what the fuck is wrong with you” look.
“That’s is our Unca Shane, he's so cool…like bestest hockey player evers, even daddy says” Ruby informs her baby brother.
“Would you like to know Arthur’s full name?” Jackie asks with a smile when Shane finally holds the baby for himself.
“You didn’t name him after yourself, did you?” Shane accuses, tearing his eyes away from the baby in his arms to look at Hayden.
“Shane, I’d like to formally introduce you to Arthur Shane Pike” Jackie tells him and Shane’s eyes fly up to meet hers.
For the record, Shane is not going to cry. His vision is just a little blurry, it’s just dust or allergies or something.
“Now I wish I would’ve gotten him a better welcome gift” Shane jokes, trying and failing to play off his emotions as he gestures vaguely in Jackie’s direction where a plush pastel green and yellow crocodile sits, or maybe it’s an alligator.
Four or so months after Arthur’s birth, Hayden drops the bomb that he’s going to be an Uncle again.
“You guys really have to get a new hobby” Shane chirps as they follow the girls through the maze that is the Montreal zoo.
“You’re supposed to say congratulations, buddy” Hayden reminds with a laugh
“I’m not congratulating you on a fourth kid when I’m literally holding your newborn” Shane teases, though there isn’t any heat behind the words.
Shane loves the kids and another niece or nephew is going to be great but Hayden and Jackie really do need to find something else to do with their alone time. Join a fucking book club, or something.
After that, Shane’s life slowly falls apart. Well, not slowly it’s a singular incident that he wishes he could take back as soon as he’s in an Uber and the reality of what he’s done fully hits him.
Then, he meets Rose. Rose Landry is fun and beautiful, she’s easy to talk to, Shane thinks maybe that she is actually the woman he’s been waiting for. So, he tries because he can do this. He can be like Ilya, he can be normal for once. It’s easy with Rose and it’s never been “easy” with a girl before so, that means she must be the one, right?
Six weeks and only a handful of dates in, Rose tells him he’s gay. That’s when he realizes that the only time things have ever come close to “easy” in his life is when he’s with Ilya. Except, he royally fucked that up and now, it’s too late.
Three days later, Shane distracts himself with dinner at Jackie and Hayden’s. You can’t spiral about being gay when you’re trying to follow twelve threads of conversation all given to you by your nieces, right?
Shane stays to help put the kids to bed and give Jackie a bit of a break. Which is how he finds himself rocking Arthur to sleep in the nursery while Hayden gives Ruby and Jade their bath and puts them to bed.
“Well buddy, I think Uncle Shane fucked up big time” he confides in his nephew, they’re alone and babies don’t tell secrets.
“Swear jar” Jackie says from the doorway as she steps into the room and closes the door.
She takes a now sleeping Arthur out of Shane’s arms and lays him in his crib before returning her full attention to her friend.
“So, what did you do?” Jackie asks gently.
Shane hesitates for a moment before looking up at her.”I can’t tell you, you’re going to hate me” he says, letting his eyes flit around the room because right now, eye contact is too much.
“Well, first of all, you can tell me anything and second, I named my kid after you so I’m pretty sure it’s now illegal to hate you” Jackie returns, settling herself on the floor.
“Shane, you’re kind of scaring me now, I promise that whatever it is, we’ll figure it out” She promises after a few minutes of silence.
Shane tries to calculate the risk in his head but it's too great. What if he tells Jackie and she tells Hayden and then they decide they don’t want Shane around the kids anymore.
But, it would be nice to tell someone
“You have to swear you won’t tell anyone, not even Hayden” Shane finally whispers in relent, holding out his pinky like he’s seen the girls do a million times.
“Cross my heart and hope to die” Jackie agrees, linking their pinkies without thought before patting for him to sit on the floor next to her.
Shane slides down to sit on the floor with her and then, suddenly becomes intrigued by the carpet. He should just tell her, but he can’t look at her and do it.
“Look, I’m going to tell you something and then I’m going to ask you for a favor but, this has to stay between us, okay?” He informs quietly.
“Okay, unless you need help like burying a body because, I feel like Yuna might be more equipped to handle something like that” Jackie says with a laugh in an attempt to keep things light.
“No….Jack, you cannot under any circumstances tell my mom” Shane warns, his head snapping up to meet her eyes.
“Oh my god, my mom…fuck, she’s going to hate me” he adds in a whisper of disbelief.
“That’s not possible,” Jackie says quietly.
“Jack, I’m gay” Shane finally admits, staring down at his hands. He has to admit that saying it out loud does make him feel a bit better.
“Okay, thank you for telling me” Jackie says simply, as if he’d just given her the season’s schedule and not detonated a bomb.
“You’re not going to yell at me or…kick me out, or something?” Shane asks, his head shooting up in surprise as he turns to look at her.
“Shane, sweetheart this doesn’t change anything, it’s a part of who you are…I loved you two minutes ago, why wouldn’t I love you now?” Jackie says, reaching out to squeeze his hand in support.
“And this favor, it wouldn’t happen to involve getting the attention of a certain flower from the good city of Boston, would it?” Jackie asked curiously.
“You know I always thought Lily might be a boy, otherwise you would’ve brought her home for dinner by now” she added.
“It isn’t like that, it’s casual” Shane defended weakly.
“Sure, Saturday you, me and the girls will go to the mall and help you with a whole new wardrobe, you want to spend all-stars getting his attention, I can help with that” Jackie promised.
“Don’t worry, you can pay me in turkey sandwiches and ice cream,” she added, kissing Shane’s cheek.
“When you walk into All-Stars weekend, he’s not going to know what hit him” Jackie promised.
“I never said it was another player,” Shane argued.
Jackie didn’t even credit that statement with a verbal response and just looked at him, or more like through him.
“What’s he like, is he cute…he’d better be nice to you” Jackie warned, dropping the smile for a minute and growing serious.
“What, I can be scary…I’ll start practicing my shovel talk, when I meet him I have to make sure he’s good enough” she added, feeling very pleased with herself.
“Though, if I help you with this you have to promise me something” Jackie said, finally getting up off the floor.
“Sure, anything you want” Shane promised as he followed after her.
“You can not fold in the first thirty seconds, I don’t care how hot he is…make him work for it” she instructed.
“I hate to disappoint you but, I think I’m the one who has to do some groveling…I may have, potentially walked out on him after he called me by my first name…maybe” Shane admitted shyly.
Jackie pauses in the doorway, just staring at this little brother of hers. “Christ, we’ve got some work to do” she says with a defeated sigh and a shake of her head.
As it turns out, shopping with the girls and letting Jackie treat him as a life-sized dress-up doll for the day is the most fun Shane thinks he’s had in a long time.
It happens over ice cream. Well, Ruby and Jade are having ice cream, Shane is eating frozen yogurt and Jackie is on her second turkey sandwich.
Shane should really know better than underestimate the women in his life, even the tiny ones.
“Are we dressing you up for Lily, Uncle Shane?” Jade asks, chasing a drip of melted ice cream down the side of its waffle cone.
“Is she pretty?” Ruby asks, before Shane can even recover from the shock of the first question.
“Who said it’s a girl, Lily can be a boy’s name too…it’s just a name” Jade defended and then, thankfully Shane didn’t have to say anything because the girls quickly descended into an argument between themselves.
All-stars weekend comes and Shane is too distracted by Ilya and wanting to show off for Ilya that he barely pays attention to the texts sent by Jackie. She asks for updates and praises his and Ilya’s “chemistry” on and off the ice.
He doesn’t even see the hit coming, doesn’t even remember it happening. One minute, he’s looking back at Ilya and then, the next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a hospital room.
Then, Ilya is there. Standing in his hospital room, holding his hand. Fuck, that makes his heart go crazy. Shane would like to go on record to say that he had an actual plan to ask Ilya to come to the cottage this summer.
Sure, was it a color-coded PowerPoint presentation complete with pictures and music and was there potentially a three-ring binder filled with itemized lists and contingency plans? Well, we’ll never know because Cliff Marleau had to come out of nowhere and fuck it all up.
With the stupid injury, Shane is out for the rest of the season. Not that it ends up mattering all that much, seeing as Montreal gets knocked out in the first round of playoffs.
He’s definitely most frustrated by the fact that the injury means he misses the birth of his third niece. The kids had to end up staying with Jackie’s parents, which Shane heard later was a total nightmare.
As an apology, Shane has a massive bouquet of sunflowers delivered to Jackie and a turkey sandwich from her favorite deli.
Regrettably, Shane doesn’t even meet his newest niece in person for the first time until the end of the summer. Jade and Ruby’s ballet camp has ended and that’s how Shane finds himself spending his last free Friday night before pre-season starts at a dance recital.
He didn’t expect pictures of him buying two identical bouquets of roses to go viral. Hell, he didn’t know there were pictures of him until he looks at his phone to shut it off prior to the performance and sees messages from Ilya
Lily
6:00pm:[Attached gossip article] Are the flowers for me, you shouldn’t have
6:02pm: You are having super secret sexy threesomes without me?
6:05pm: Do not tell me the flowers are for Miss Rose Landry
8:30pm: [attached Instagram post] The flowers are for tiny ladies, I will fall into hole and die now. Tell them I hope they danced pretty.
Jane
8:31pm: Don’t tell me you’re jealous of my nieces. See you next season, maybe if you win I’ll buy you you’re own flowers.