Chapter Text
Shane drifted slowly and pleasantly into consciousness, and for a moment everything felt right with the world. He was warm, and soft, and he could feel the heavy weight of a body behind him, and an arm draped over him. There was a pleasant ache in his legs and back after he and Ilya’s enthusiastic celebration of their winning season opener last night.
The alarm was still chirping from the bedside table, and he felt the momentary temptation to turn it off, roll over and drift back into sleep with his husband.
But he needed to do his morning workout… But they didn’t have practice today, and the only thing on their schedule was a meeting with Farah in the afternoon…
Maybe, Shane concluded, another hour? They could still go through their morning routine with plenty of time.
Wow, Hollander, he could practically hear his husband murmur to him, Another hour? Marriage has turned you into wild and crazy guy.
A smile quirked on his lips. Maybe Ilya would be willing to trade some of their cardio for more ‘celebration’. Wild and crazy indeed.
He began to reach out for the alarm that had begun to chime again, louder this time when–
That was not what his or Ilya’s alarm sounded like.
Shane’s eyes snapped open, fully awake in an instant, as if doused in ice water because… Because…
This wasn’t their bed. The sheets weren’t the right, deep blue instead of their neutral cream, too slippery, different thread count.
His eyes flicked around…
This wasn’t their room. The walls weren’t the wood paneling he had chosen himself. There was a closet in front of him, instead of on the other side of the room where it was meant to be. The bedside table where the phone– Not his phone– was still chiming did not have their framed wedding photo.
And– And– as Shane began to shift, to sit up, he felt the body behind him, arm over him, again, and that wasn’t Ilya. That wasn’t his husband behind him, Shane knew Ilya, Shane could have recognized Ilya blindfolded, in the dark, by touch alone, he knew Ilya Rozanov’s body as well as he knew his own–
Shane looked down at himself. This… He wasn’t…
Shane wasn’t in his own body.
Whoever the man behind him was, if the alarm didn’t wake him, Shane’s (was he Shane Hollander? Who was this supposed to be?) panic attack definitely did the trick.
Shane was curled in own himself, gasping for breath, eyes screwed shut, trying desperately to avoid looking at the flesh that was not his, the body so out of his control, when he heard sheets shuffling behind him, a muffled sleep-groggy voice– not Ilya, he realized detachedly, but still Russian– cleared its throat.
“Sweetheart…? You are panicking… Come here…”
Shane couldn’t, he just could’t, how was he supposed to tell this kind stranger he was actually not this body’s proper inhabitant, that he had no fucking idea what is going on…
There was more shuffling, and then a sudden, abrupt stop, a shaky inhale, an almost growl…
“Who the fuck are you. The fuck is this. Что ты, блять, наделал?”
Shane felt himself be grabbed by the shoulders, flipped back, until he was pinned flat on his back on this strange foreign bed, the figure towering over him, just as strange and foreign, glaring down at him.
“I don’t know what you think you are playing with”, he snarled, the Russian accent deepened by the rage, “I don’t know how you pull this off, but you will tell me where is my husband, you will tell me where is Shane Hollander-”
Shane drew in a deep gasp of air, his first since the panic gripped his body, and a thought occurred.
If this happened to him, why couldn’t it have happened to Ilya too?
“Maybe is curse.”
It was about 30 minutes later, they were both sitting on the strange bed. After Shane had rattled off every possible private detail about he and Ilya’s life he could think of, watching as the stranger’s face his husband was wearing morphed from anger, to confusion, to incredulous acceptance, Shane had stumbled around until he found an ensuite- morning breath was as terrible in a stranger’s mouth as his own. He has desperately tried not to look at his not-self in the mirror, but despite his best efforts still snatched a few glimpses- curling hair, hazel eyes, and this was a white dude, which not thinking about that, thank you.
Then realising how naked they both were, they had scrambled to clothe themselves. (whoever these strangers were, they had clearly engaged in similar activities to theirs the previous evening) The clothing in the closet had clearly been fitted to Shane’s borrowed body, while Ilya found a set crumpled on the floor that fit his borrowed, taller frame.
(He was similarly trying not to look at Ilya. It was almost a feeling of vertigo, knowing it was Ilya but seeing dark hair and eyes, and a lankier frame)
Shane cleared his throat, hating the new voice coming from the mouth that was not his. “A curse?”
Ilya was quiet for a moment, and Shane imagined he was nodding not-his-head, before he said “A curse, yes. You have heard stories, I am sure.”
Shane dragged a hand over his face. “How? They’re just fucking stories, and- and no one’s even reported a curse rumour since the late 90s, and I’ve never heard of something like this– This isn’t people joking about a center from Anaheim quaking like a duck during the playoffs, or a San Jose goalie from thinking he was a shark before opening night, or- or someone growing a vagina–”
Hockey curses weren’t real, they were just excuses for when someone slipped up, or the stress of the game got to their heads, or someone wanted to invent some embarrassing gossip.
Right?
“I know, Shane!” Ilya snapped back. “I don’t know how else to explain this.”
The ‘this’ in question was the T-Shirt Shane had discovered while digging through the closet, the words ‘Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey Club” clearly emblazoned across the front.
Shane had frozen stockstill before whipping around to show Ilya, because the last time they checked they had gone to bed in a world where the Pittsburgh Puffins had been established in 1967.
But there it was, the Penguins, complete with an uncanny valley version of the Puffins logo they both knew and sometimes mocked, the two equally goofy birds swapped with each other.
Shane had desperately tried to convince himself that it was some sort of spoof fan wear, but the closet revealed a lot more clothing, with the same team name, same logo. Official gear. Team gear. He had received enough over his career to recognize it.
Which led them here, seated on this stranger’s bed, who Shane was desperately trying not to think about the fact, might live in an alternate dimension.
If Ilya was right, and this was a curse, instead of some sort of nightmare or shared delusion, why couldn’t whoever decided to start dealing out actual curses have just paid the witch to de-age them back into toddlers? That would be so much easier to deal with.
Ilya sighed and went back to fiddling with the phone he had found in the jeans belonging to his not-body, and managed to unlock it. Thank goodness for facial recognition, Shane supposed. Currently his husband was typing various things into an internet search, scowling all the while.
Shane swallowed down the panic that was beginning to crawl its way back up this throat, scooted over to peer at the screen as well.
“I try searching MHL.” Ilya explained. Shane fought back a shudder, still uncomfortable with the wrongness of the voice.
“Nothing comes up.” His husband continued. “Does not exist. I try major hockey league instead, and this comes up. I think is name of league here.”
Shane squinted at the screen. “NHL? National Hockey League? Are there… no Canadian teams?”
“No, there are.”
“Why ‘National’ then?” Shane frowned. “That makes no sense. There are two nations–”
“I am not disagreeing with you, sweetheart, but I think we have other things to worry about.”
Shane shoved his husband’s not-body, but still took a deep breath. Okay. Okay. So they probably were in an alternate universe. Fuck. Fuck.
Ilya clicked the link to wikipedia, and scrolled through the article.
“None of these teams have same names,” He told Shane, his voice carefully casual, and Shane recognised it as Ilya’s ‘my husband is about to start freaking out and I am trying redirect his attention’ voice.
Fine, whatever. Having another panic attack in an alternate dimension, in another person’s body wasn’t going to help anything. Shane allowed himself to be redirected.
“Boston Bruins,” Ilya continued, reading down a list. “Is not so different, means same thing, basically. Chicago Blackhawks- Oooohhhhh, that is probably not okay.”
Shane glanced the logo onscreen and winced. Yeah, that should really be changed.
“...Edmonton Oilers– What does this even mean? Montreal… Canadiens?” Ilya snorted. “This is how this world’s Montreal team operates? They say ‘we are so good and smug we name ourselves after all of Canada?’”
Shane couldn’t help but huff an almost laugh. “It’s the French spelling, maybe that has something to do with it. Keep going, who are some other ones?”
“Ah, New York Rangers. That is also not so different. And New York Islanders? Wait.” Ilya scrolled back up. “And Buffalo Sabres? New York has three teams? Where do they fit them all?”
“What about Ottawa?” If Shane can keep his focus on this world’s hockey teams, he can keep the nugget of panic locked away firmly in his chest, and maybe also think of some sort of plan to unfuck their current situation. “Are they the Ottawa Pegasi, or something?”
(Nothing had occurred to him yet)
“Ottawa…” Ilya scrolled down a bit further. “Ottawa… Senators. The Sens. Hm. Their logo is better, also. Not fantastic but…”
Shane properly laughed that time. “It would be hard for the logo to be worse. Are they still the gayest team in the league?”
“Ah! This is a good question. Let me look…”
Shane closed his eyes, as Ilya types in the search bar. When they are saying nothing, just sitting here, he can almost pretend that they are home on a perfectly normal morning. Almost.
His husband hummed in concern, and Shane was dragged back into their nightmare of a reality.
Ilya’s not-face was frowning as he squinted at the phone, before looking at Shane. He fought the urge to flinch away from the foreign features, and forced himself to meet the stranger’s eyes.
“There are none.” Ilya said. “I looked, and there aren’t any queer players.”
Shane felt a swoop in his stomach. “Scott Hunter didn’t come out here?”
Ilya shook his head, mouth tightened like Ilya always did when preparing to deliver bad news. “I looked him up, and then us too. Sweetheart, we don’t exist here. Or if we do, we don’t play hockey.”
Shane stared at him mute, in shock. Even if they had been transported into other people’s bodies, he had been running on the assumption that there was another Shane and another Ilya around somewhere. The faint outline of a plan forming in his mind had been based around finding their alternates, rattling off enough personal facts that they believed their ludicrous story, and getting their help.
He felt that plan crumble to dust in the back of his mind.
“So,” He knotted his hands into his hair, twitching at the texture, different from what he was used to, “So, no Scott Hunter, no us, and no one else who’s come out either?”
Ilya grimaced. “No. It does not say so.”
“Fuck.”
“Yes, I agree.”
Shane never wanted to go through something similar to being outed ever again, in fact, he didn’t think he'd wish such an experience on his worst enemy. Now that it was past however, now that they were married, were on the same team, he could admit the utter relief of not having to hide anymore. It would have been much better, being able to come out over the summer like they planned, but a relief all the same.
If he was reading this situation correctly (and he didn’t think there was a possible other way to read it) then this hockey player, whoever he was, was in the same situation as he had been for the past decade. Shane shuddered. Another reason they had to fix this as soon as possible.
And the other man, whose body Ilya was occupying, was he like Kip? No, Shane didn’t think so. Even as he tried to not look, he had seen the athletic build and muscled body, and his instincts screamed that this was another athlete, another hockey player. Still, there was no way of telling the seriousness of the situation the two of them had been dropped into. Was this a hookup? A hidden relationship?
And if they were professional hockey players, what time of year was this? What were their schedules? Was Shane about to ruin someone’s career? Was-
“Shane– Shane! Hey, look at me.” Ilya’s not-voice interrupted the panicked spiral Shane hadn’t even realized he had fallen into. “Breathe, yes? Copy me.”
Shane managed to follow Ilya’s pattern of exaggerated breathing, the blinding fear once again sinking into a pit in his chest.
“Sorry,” he gasped out. “Sorry.”
“No, Shane. This is… This is reasonable thing to freak out about.” Ilya replied, still keeping his breathing deep and even. “You may be thinking, ‘Wow, how is Ilya so calm about this’, but I am very scared, also.”
He got hold of Shane’s chin and tilted his head up, and even with the unfamiliar eyes, Shane was able to take some comfort knowing it was Ilya behind them.
“But we are going to be brave about this, huh? There will be a way to fix this, and get us back where we are meant to be.”
The situation still seems huge and insurmountable, but Shane still found himself nodding along to his husband's voice. No matter the circumstances, Ilya was able to calm him like no one else he’d ever met.
They sst there for a moment, just breathing, leaning against each other, the wheels in Shane’s mind already beginning to spin on another plan when the quiet was interrupted by the phone on the nightstand, which Shane had barely touched other than to silence the alarm, chirped, and the screen lit up momentarily, signalling a text message.
Shane glanced at Ilya, who gestured at the phone in turn, so he hesitantly reached over to pick it up. The screen had unfortunately already gone dark again, and Shane tapped the power button. He was half hoping that would be the end of it, they would be faced with a password, and would have to give up, but it also had facial recognition apparently, and opened to a home screen with a Pittsburgh Penguins logo as the background.
Shane took another deep breath, and opened the notifications tab.
The text in and of itself wasn’t a complicated thing. “Leaving now, see you at rink in 20, you’re already there, right?”.
Shane sort of expected the panic to rise once again at the realization that whoever this person is in fact expected outside of his home today, but he must have finally exhausted himself, because all his mind could conjure is a faint ‘oh, that’s not good’.
Ilya leans over his shoulder this time, mouthing the text to himself. “...Tanger? What kind of name…”
“I think it’s a nickname.” Shane replied, a bit numbly. “I know you have Hayes as ‘Hazy’ in your phone. You still have me as fucking ‘Jane’ in your phone.”
Ilya’s not-face twitches into a smirk, before settling, Shane can feel him searching his face. “You don’t have to go. Could say you are sick, or something. Give us more time for a solution.”
Shane desperately wanted to agree, because hunkering down, refusing to set foot outside, and continuing to keep plotting out a solution was the smart, rational thing to do. An excuse of food poisoning, or gastroenteritis would probably buy at least 24 hours of safety.
On the other hand, Shane Hollander was what some might charitably refer to as a ‘hockey-head’, and the idea of playing hookie from practise, even while occupying another man’s body, even in another universe, was antithetical to his very existence.
Clearly they had known each other long enough that Ilya could read his expression, even when it was on someone else’s face, because his husband groaned, and said “Shane. You do not know who this ‘Tanger’ person is. Who this body’s relationship to them is. How this person is supposed to act. Where you are supposed to go to meet them. Or what this person’s name even is. And you want to go meet at rink?”
Well. When he put it like that.
He was reluctantly opening up the phone, ready to concoct a story about violently vomiting all night when something Ilya said nagged at him.
“We don’t even know what these guys’ names are.”
Ilya’s not-face twitched. “Yes, which is why the idea of going anywhere outside is crazy–”
“I know, I know. But listen.” Shane interrupted him. “We should- We have to figure that out. Because if something happened and we do have to leave, we can at least know their names so we don’t immediately fuck everything up.”
Ilya conceded the point, and Shane switched to the internet app, secretly thankful he didn’t have to lie to this mystery man’s likely teammate just yet.
He had just started typing in The Pittsburgh Penguins, ready to scroll through the team’s entire roster to find a matching face, when Ilya snatched the phone away from him. “Hey–”
“I have quicker solution.” Ilya said, bending over to type something else in.
Shane managed to catch it before Ilya finished, and felt himself flush red at the it: ‘best player on pittsburgh penguins’
“Ilya–”
“If my husband switches bodies with anyone, it will be excellent player, yes? Other player is not a possibility. Universe would accept nothing else.”
Shane squirmed at the words. If they were in their right bodies, that would have been an obvious precursor to a repeat of last night's activities, but Shane firmly steered his mind away from that. That was just– a step too far. He wasn’t going to do that in a stranger's body.
“If players were out, then I would search for Pittsburgh Penguin who is super gay–”
“Shut up–!”
Ilya crowed beside him, and Shane refocussed. “I was right, of course. Here is your mystery man!”
The phone was shoved back into Shane’s face, and when his eyes refocussed, he found himself looking back at the face he had caught glimpses of in the bathroom mirror, now probably lit, smiling a bit awkwardly, and wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey. Shane noted the C in the upper left corner before scrolling down.
“Sidney Crosby” He read out. The name meant nothing on his lips, but he wondered idly if in this world it carried the same weight as ‘Shane Hollander’ back home. “He’s from Canada– Uh, Cole Harbour?”
Ilya shrugged. “I have not heard of this place. Of course you would be dumped in the body of another Canadian hero though. Makes sense.”
Shane ignored how pleased Ilya’s backhanded praise made him. “I hadn’t heard of it either. It’s in… Nova Scotia? Probably pretty small. And I haven’t been to the East Coast much.”
“Of course not. There are no Hockey Teams there. Why would you go?”
Shane bristled, even if the statement held a bit of truth in it. Just for that though, he was going to book their next vacation in the Maritimes. He heard that PEI was supposed to be nice. Or Fundy National Park.
“Now,” Ilya continued, “we will find out who I am. Will be much easier, I just need to search ‘Best Hockey Player Ever”, and boom, mystery solved–”
He reached for the phone, and Shane pulled it away, trying to keep it from his grasp just for the principle of the thing. He moved to roll over, and his thumb slipped, scrolling further down the web page, onto a collection of photos.
“I don’t think you need to, I just solved it.”
“Hmm?”
Shane shoved the phone in his husband’s face. “There, have a look.”
Ilya frowned, focussing on the picture Shane had accidentally found, being the two men, both in hockey gear, and identical Pittsburgh Penguins jerseys, except for–
“Do you see him?” Shane asked, a bit brattily. “He’s the one in the Alternate Captain jersey.”
Ilya huffed, and pouted, though Shane knew it was actually because he had lost the opportunity for more joking, rather the team position of the body he was occupying. Ilya took the phone, and peered at the caption.
“Evgeni Malkin. Well. He is Russian, at least.”
And Shane just. Started laughing. Howling, really. Maybe it was the obvious pout in Ilya’s voice. Maybe it was that this was what his husband was really peeved about. Maybe it was the utter absurdity finally stacking itself up past the tipping point. He just tipped his head back, and cackled, leaning against Ilya. He could feel him shaking, and realized Ilya was laughing as well.
When he finally calmed down again, Shane lifted his hands, which were slightly shaky, to wipe his eyes.
“Fuck. Fuck, Ilya.”
“I know, is ridiculous. Clearly something has gone badly wrong–”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence because Shane shoved one of the pillow into his face, which led to Ilya shoving him back, and devolved into the two of them wrestling on the bed.
The match was… awkward, compared to how it usually went. This body wasn’t what Shane was used to. It was proportioned differently. It didn’t move quite how he was used to. Not to mention there was absolutely no way this would end the way wrestling usually did in their right bodies.
And then, just as he was about to get Ilya properly pinned down– Take that ‘best player!’- The phone buzzed again, and Shane froze.
Because right.
A meeting at a training rink. An NHL team. A Captain and Alternate Captain who weren’t there.
Because Shane and Ilya were somehow in their bodies.
Fuck.