Chapter Text
January 2014
“I hope next time we play you decide to show up,” Shane said, a little smile on his face like he was proud of himself.
Scott was having a shitty fucking week.
Like jot it down in the books as one of the worst stretches of days in his life and Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander were not making it better.
He’d been playing like he’d never learned to skate, every person who tried to talk to him felt like a drum pounding in his head and every person who tried to touch him felt like pins pressing into his skin. It was a slump. Every athlete had experienced a slump and, despite that fact, Scott was fairly certain that his slump was the worst slump of all time. He couldn’t see the other side, he couldn’t imagine steps in a process that would make this better, he could feel himself sinking into the inky black darkness, and he wasn’t even sure if he wanted it to stop.
He was sad, he was angry, he was bitter, and he decided the best way to deal with it would be to drag someone, anyone, down with him. It seriously fucking sucked that Shane Hollander – beautiful, rosy cheeked, Golden Boy Shane Hollander - had been unfortunate enough to be standing there when Scott finally snapped, “cheap,” he shot back.
He watched, from some strange distance, as Shane’s expression faltered, like he’d realized he’d somehow miss stepped but wasn’t sure how, “true,” Shane spat, clearly deciding to just barrel on ahead. The rational part of Scott’s brain knew that Shane moved through the world a little different than average; he recognized patterns no one else saw, he memorized stats like it was second nature, and he played hockey like it was what he was put on this Earth to do with a single-minded focus Scott wished he could replicate. That rational part of Scott’s mind was screaming at him that this was Shane’s attempt at fitting into a mold, that he was just chirping for the sake of chirping. It was tame, a comment that might’ve even been tinged with something like concern if Scott had allowed himself to analyze it, but the rational part of Scott’s brain had gone offline, had sunk somewhere deep into the recesses of his conscious never to be found again.
“You’re starting to sound like him,” Scott said and then that rational part of Scott’s brain came slamming back in as whatever was left of Shane’s smile fell.
“I’m sorry, what?” Shane said, his voice cracking slightly even as his shoulders squared, his spine straightened, and every muscle went taut.
Fight or flight, Scott’s brain supplied.
His rational mind, the part that still had Shane in his phone as ‘Rook’, the part that’d spent time trying to be someone Shane could trust in this League that chewed talent up and spit it out, the part that tried not to recognize how gorgeous Shane’s big brown eyes looked when his expression went soft, was scrambling for purchase, begging to be let back in. But the part of Scott’s brain that was stuck in a slump, the part that’d been itching for a fight, for anything that’d make him feel anything, won out by a landslide, “you fucking heard me, Hollander.”
Shane’s whole being went hard, lit with a fury Scott had never imagined he’d see, and the next thing he knew Shane’s fist was connecting with his jaw. Scott felt his head snap back and every nerve ending that’d gone dead as he sunk deeper into that lonely, quiet abyss lit up. It was reckless and stupid and so fucking shitty but Scott felt alive for the first time in weeks. He grabbed onto Shane’s jersey and landed a hit over his pads, his rational mind breathing out a sigh of relief that the beast that’d taken him over had at least known not to actually hurt Shane.
Shane’s mouth was still running, listing off a stream of insults that Scott wasn’t actually hearing, and then Hayden Pike was there. His arms wound around Shane’s waist, less like he was trying to pull him away from Scott and more like he was trying to pull him back into himself. It was that, the iron grip Hayden had on his friend’s jersey as he simply repeated Shane’s name over and over in a voice tinged with worry that was trying too hard to be soothing, that had Scott letting Carter and Cale drag him back without any sort of protest.
He watched Shane deflate, sinking back against Hayden with a haunted look in his eye, and just before J.J. Boiziau stepped in, blocking Scott’s view, he could’ve sworn he saw Shane’s lips form the words, “he knows.”
“What the fuck was that?” Carter asked, his voice hard in a way it rarely got.
Carter liked Shane, was always trying to tug him out of his shell during All Star games, had been talking about how excited he was to have the chance to see Shane more during the upcoming Olympics, and had openly admitted that Shane was at the top of the list of people he called when the noise in his head got too loud. They’d been friends since Shane’s first year at World Juniors and Scott knew they still texted often, that Carter might’ve been one of the only people Shane regularly communicated with outside of his team, and Carter (like the rest of the hockey-watching population) knew full well that Shane wouldn’t start a fight if he hadn’t been pushed to his breaking point.
Carter was clearly pissed, clearly aware that Scott was to blame, and clearly about to fight Scott himself if he didn’t like the next words out of Scott’s mouth.
“My fault,” Scott admitted quickly, “it was my fault.”
“Apologize,” Carter bit out before dropping his grip on Scott’s arm and skating away, his edges catching the ice with a fervor, like he couldn’t get away from Scott fast enough.
It wasn’t worth it.
Feeling alive for that split second in the heat of a fight was absolutely not worth putting that haunted look on Shane’s face or that anger in Carter’s frame.
* * *
February 2014
Shane threw himself on his shitty little twin bed in the Olympic Village, exhausted from the flight, keyed up with nerves, and buzzing with a low-level anger that hadn’t left since a month prior when Scott Hunter nearly blew up Shane’s life at center ice. None of this was helped by the fact that Rozanov hadn’t responded to him in weeks, nor was it helped by the research spiral Shane had gone down on Russian politics. He felt like there were bugs crawling under his skin, like one wrong move would end in disaster.
He knew he wasn’t being subtle. J.J. had been regarding him with concern for the past week of training and his worry had only become more apparent as Shane got more and more withdrawn the closer they got to touch down.
Carter would know what to do. He’d know how to hold Shane together without being asked, but Carter wasn’t here and Shane knew J.J. wanted to help, he just wasn’t sure how; he wasn’t sure how to mimic Carter without pressing the wrong buttons and sending Shane over an edge he’d never be able to crawl back from.
Greg Huff, their third roommate, was somewhere with the other Admirals and Shane was certain he’d come back with Carter in tow as soon as he found out Huff was rooming with Shane so he had very little time to pull it together. His best friend could obviously see him like this without Shane feeling so embarrassed he’d have no choice but to crawl into a hole and die, but Huff was nowhere near making that list.
“Capitaine,” J.J. said, his voice deliberately calm, “how do I make it better?”
“I feel like I’m vibrating out of my skin,” Shane responded, looking up at J.J. and knowing that his expression was a little wild. “Carter would climb into my bed and refuse to let go until I calmed down.”
There, he’d given J.J. the information and J.J. could respond however he wanted. Shane didn’t think he could ask, didn’t think he could tell J.J. that he needed to be physically anchored to Earth otherwise his brain was going to float off into that place nobody could reach. J.J. nodded once, very seriously, and then kicked off his shoes, pulled off his jacket that’d touched several different bus, plane, and airport seats over the past too many hours, and then climbed into bed next to Shane.
The beds were small, barely built for one person their size let alone two, but that maybe made it better. The limited space forced J.J. to press close to Shane, to drape himself half on top of Shane’s body, pressing him into the mattress with a solid line of contact along his side. J.J. slung an arm across Shane’s waist and Shane let himself curl toward his warmth.
This was stupid.
Of all the places for Shane to have a minor breakdown requiring physical contact he could currently only get from his male teammate, Russia was probably the least convenient.
And then J.J. made it about 600% worse when he asked, so quietly Shane wouldn’t have heard it if they weren’t pressed chest to chest, but with enough weight that Shane was certain it’d echoed to Moscow and back, “what does Hunter know, Shane?”
They hadn’t asked again after they left the ice a month prior.
Hayden and J.J. had simply moved on, had let Shane exist in his haunted anger without forcing him to face it, but they weren’t in Montréal right now. They weren’t in a controlled environment where Shane could let it all build up until the walls came crashing down, they were somewhere unknown, foreign and slightly dangerous, and J.J. was right to ask. He was right to force Shane to face it, to give a piece of the burden to someone else to hold so it wouldn’t drag him under.
“I’m gay,” Shane whispered.
J.J.’s grip on his waist tightened before he adjusted enough to wrap both arms around Shane, hauling him into a hug that felt like it was stitching every fractured piece of him back together. J.J. dropped a kiss into his hair and Shane just burrowed closer. J.J. didn’t ask how Scott knew, didn’t ask if Scott knew specifics, he didn’t ask Shane to explain, didn’t ask him to say more, to dig out more pieces of his rotten heart and put them on display, he simply held on.
“Okay,” he said after a minute, that Quebecois accent that felt like home curling softly around the syllables, thick with emotion, “who else knows?”
“You,” Shane answered.
And that was it.
Rozanov could probably guess, though he didn’t know the details. Scott was the same. He clearly knew something, but not everything, there was no way he could.
Shane hadn’t even admitted it in his own mind until he’d said the words out loud so, really, J.J. was the first person to know for certain, even before Shane himself.
“Okay,” J.J. said again. Shane felt him nod slightly and could just tell J.J. was formulating a plan. J.J. loved plans, though it was always a toss-up if they would end in disaster or success. “You stay safe here. If Hunter wants to talk, you don’t talk to him alone. Make sure Carter’s there or find me and bring me with. When we get back to Montréal, we can maybe talk more. Maybe you tell Carter, maybe we tell Hayden, maybe you don’t tell anyone. I won’t tell anyone, ever, Shane. We can take this secret to the grave, no problem. But I know now, you don’t have to hold it alone, okay?”
“Okay,” Shane echoed.
* * *
Scott watched Carter’s face light up when Huff mentioned he was rooming with Shane and J.J. and then he watched, with dread settling in his chest, as Carter remembered that Scott was standing there and immediately deflated.
Greg winced a little, his hands tucked in his pockets as he forced himself to meet Scott’s eye and said, “he’s keyed up, Scotty. I don’t know how it’d go if you walked in.”
“How keyed up? Like not talking, eyes distant keyed up or stomping and muttering?” Carter asked, like he somehow knew the scale. For all Scott knew, he probably did. There was a difference between being friends who called and texted and hung out when they were all in the same place and being friends who could pinpoint the exact amount of stress the other was under with a few seemingly random pieces of information, and Scott was starting to realize that Carter and Shane might just be the later.
“There hasn’t been any stomping or muttering. He’s playing too fast, though. Reckless, almost. It’s like there’s nothing behind his eyes, Vaughny.”
“Is he talking?” Carter asked, his tone urgent.
“Only when he has to.”
Carter rocked back on his heels a little, his eyes fluttering shut as he forced himself to take a breath, “J.J.’s with him?”
“Yes?”
“Okay,” Carter said, taking another breath and then clearing his throat, “he’ll be fine, you guys want to go explore? We’ll be busy here soon.”
Greg easily agreed, seemingly alright with Carter’s conclusion, but Scott felt anchored in place. There was something, some fluttering emotion hidden behind all the nothing he’d been feeling, that made him ache to see Shane with his own two eyes, to confirm for himself that he was truly alright.
“Later, Scott,” Carter said, gripping onto the sleeve of his jacket and tugging him along and, since Carter Vaughan was apparently New York’s foremost expert on Shane Hollander’s moods, Scott found that he could do nothing but follow.
* * *
Later didn’t come until a full week after the Opening Ceremonies.
Canada had won their first two games against Norway and Austria and the United States had won their first game against Slovakia and had another day before playing Denmark and Carter had dragged Scott’s pouting ass out onto the beach, which apparently existed in Russia.
Scott was very quickly realizing he had zero concept of how goddamn big Russia was. Maybe, if he’d been in a better mood over the past couple of months, he’d have taken the time to learn a thing or two. As it was, he was pissed at himself, pissed at hockey, and pissed at the world.
They were walking in silence, Scott stewing in self-pity and Carter simply putting up with it, when they noticed a familiar figure strolling along the sand, his hands in his pockets, looking impossibly soft and almost painfully adorable in the white fleece Team Canada had given all of their athletes. Scott was pretty sure Carter wasn’t thinking the same thoughts, but at least they were on the same page in terms of approaching, “Shane Holllanderrrrr!” Carter called out, a massive smile on his face as he picked up the pace, almost running in his excitement to get to Shane.
Shane whipped around and a matching smile spread across his face as he darted the last couple of steps forward and let Carter wrap him up in a massive hug, taking him clean off his feet and spinning him around once before setting him back down. Shane let out a laugh that went a long way toward pushing away the inky darkness Scott had found himself swimming through and Scott wondered, once more, why he was such a fucking idiot.
Fighting Shane to feel something, snipping at him until he got a rise like a middle schooler with a crush, had not been the way to go.
“Hey Scott,” Shane greeted, his smile turning forced.
“Shane,” he responded, trying to ignore the way Carter winced at whatever expression must’ve been on Scott’s face. “I’m so sorry, that was so fucked up, I didn’t mean-”
“Holy fucking shit,” Shane cut him off, “Jesus, Scott, not here. Are you stupid?”
Scott paused and just stared, trying to figure out what he was missing.
He’d pushed too far, telling Shane he sounded like a guy he hated, like the antithesis of himself, like the person who’d once skated a little too close to their bench at an All Star game to whisper –
Oh, holy fuck.
Scott was so stupid.
Scott was so monumentally stupid it was a wonder he found his own way out of bed each morning.
“Yes,” he answered, blinking a couple of times and wondering if he should maybe just walk into the ocean. “Yeah, I’m actually fucking stupid.”
Shane stared back and then looked skyward, whether he was praying for patience or hoping to be struck down was anyone’s guess, “you didn’t know.”
“I knew,” Scott corrected, “I just forgot.”
Shane looked back at him then, honey brown eyes glossy with unshed tears and Scott very quickly realized that he would never, not once in his remaining time on this Earth, win an argument with Shane Hollander if he was forced to contend with those eyes.
“Shane, I’m so sorry,” Scott repeated, genuinely incapable of saying anything else. Those eyes were lethal weapons, targeted directly at whatever shredding grip Scott had on his sanity.
“Well, there’s nothing to know now,” Shane said, blowing out a harsh breath, “I mean, there’s things to know about me but nothing else.”
Scott had to try far too hard not to smile at that admission.
He needed to get it the fuck together. Shane might be gay, or at least vaguely into men, and there might not be anything between the two most talked about players in the League at that very moment, but that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be something with Rozanov in the future after the uncertainty of their early 20s and whatever insane pressure Rozanov was under in his home country wore off, and it certainly didn’t mean that Shane would ever be into Scott.
Carter was staring at them like he wasn’t entirely sure they were all speaking the same language but could somehow tell that now was absolutely not the time to ask any clarifying questions.
“Anyone wanna watch figure skating?” Carter asked.
* * *
Shane was trying very hard to pretend that he hadn’t seen Scott Hunter - the stupidly hot man he’d had a poster of in his high school bedroom despite not even vaguely being a fan of the Admirals - visibly light up at the layered admission that there wasn’t anything going on between him and Rozanov.
It was pretty damn difficult not to think about, though, so he was beyond grateful that Carter had sat himself down between them and immediately started off on a tangent about everything he’d ever learned about figure skating. Which, apparently, was quite a lot.
Shane tried to stay focused on Carter’s ramblings, but his eyes were caught on a familiar outline, hidden in the shadows at the edge of the arena. Part of Shane wanted to run toward him, to rip his heart out and lay it at Rozanov’s feet, to ask why there’d been nothing but radio silence, to simply see with his own eyes that Rozanov was okay. But he’d been pushing his luck already. Telling J.J. he was gay while in the Olympic Village in Russia had probably taken at least 85% of his good Karma points and not at all subtly checking out Scott as he’d led them off the beach and toward the arena had more than likely drained the rest.
He couldn’t put himself at risk and, more than that, he couldn’t put Rozanov at risk.
It was starting to become clear that there wasn’t anything there beyond lust, or maybe that there couldn’t be anything there beyond lust and mutual respect, but Shane still cared about him as a person. He still wanted to see him succeed, he still wanted him to be safe, and approaching him now would only invite pain.
And maybe, just maybe, staying here and listening to Carter yap would save Shane from the heartache of Rozanov confirming this was nothing for just a little longer.
He felt someone poke his cheek and startled slightly before realizing it was just Scott, “yeah?” Shane asked, clearing his throat and turning toward Scott instead of that distant point on the horizon. Scott’s thumb ran across his jaw for a second before his arm rested more comfortably over the back of Carter’s seat and his hand settled on Shane’s shoulder, pinching the fabric of his fleece between his thumb and forefinger.
“This is soft,” Scott said, seemingly to himself before he cleared his own throat and looked up at Shane, “you mentioned you knew one of these skaters, which one was it again?”
Shane smiled, feeling himself light up with joy at the chance to talk about his friend, and watched Scott’s whole expression melt. Shane wasn’t really sure why, but he found he’d do anything to keep that soft look in Scott’s hazel eyes and that sweet smile on his lips, “Joseph Bell,” Shane answered, “Joe, I think he’s up next.”
* * *
As if Russia couldn’t get any worse, Ilya was forced to stand there and watch Scott Hunter toss his arm casually around Carter Vaughan’s shoulders to poke Hollander’s cheek to get his attention.
Ilya watched Hollander startle slightly before turning toward Hunter like a sunflower toward the sun.
It was nothing; so subtle that no one else would’ve noticed it. But Ilya knew what it was like to have Hollander look at him like that. He knew what it was like to draw Hollander’s full attention; he knew what it was like to hold the weight of that gaze in his hands. No one else would be able to see that moment and know that Hollander was harboring feelings.
Hunter’s whole face went soft and Ilya just knew he’d been subjected to the full force of Hollander’s big brown eyes. It was the freckles that made Ilya’s heart race, but those eyes were something incredible all on their own.
Hollander could keep a blank face better than most anyone Ilya had ever met, but his eyes very rarely followed along. But something had been wrong. For months, maybe, but at least since that fight with Hunter. Every interview, every close up on the ice, Hollander’s eyes had been as blank as his face. It was unsettling, to see eyes that were normally so full of emotion go quiet. He’d been playing just as well, if not better, than normal, but it was like his mind had been turned off.
He didn’t look like that now, though.
Even from the rafters, Ilya could tell that Hollander’s gaze was no longer blank.
Ilya wanted to know why. Wanted to know what had driven him out of his mind and what had reeled him back in. But Ilya didn’t have the right. He’d left months of text messages unanswered and he knew, without a doubt, that if Hollander approached him now he’d only drive the wedge further.
* * *
“You planning to show up?” Shane asked as Scott crouched down across from him for the first face-off of the Gold Medal Game. Scott couldn’t help but grin. Shane’s eyes were crinkled up with the force of his smile, he looked free in a way Scott had never seen, and Scott felt giddy with it.
“You’re on, Rook,” Scott shot back.
The game was tied 1-1, a goal each from Shane and Carter, until the final minutes of the third when Scott finally caught a pass from Carter, right in front of Canada’s goal, and snapped it straight into the top shelf. The goal light went off but Scott held off on his celebration until the final buzzer sounded four and a half minutes later.
He, strangely, didn’t want the week to end. He wanted to stay here, in this liminal space outside of the NHL schedule, where they weren’t stuck in the unending cycle of travel and exhaustion. But that was the life he’d signed up for, it was the debt he had to pay to play the sport he loved.
But he had a gold medal around his neck and an odd little feeling that his slump was finally in the rearview.