Chapter Text
Shane tried not to remember how differently everyone on his team treated him after he presented. He had lived his entire life as an omega. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when he ended up missing school and practice for a few days. However, it had seemed like everyone was simply waiting, wishing even, for his presentation to never come. Him being an omega wasn’t real until his first heat came and went and threatened for more to follow: a life of them until menopause. He couldn’t be treated like the beta everyone chose to see him as anymore. He may have had a scent of ice that was so plain it wasn’t even worth noting. He may have had a frame and build that was nearly identical to all of the other boys on his team. He may not have been sweet or feminine or submissive like other omegas, but he somehow still was one. Him being so contrary to everything was supposed to mean he wasn’t an omega to begin with. To a bunch of teenage boys, being nothing was far better than being an omega.
It wasn’t until he was much older that Shane learned how much worse being nothing was. Still, his first heat made it undeniable that Shane was genuine omega. At least, he was one for the time being.
When his decisions on the ice began to get questioned, he didn’t try to think much of it. He ignored how people rolled their eyes, how they scoffed when he talked, and how they spoke about him behind his back in the locker room. It wasn’t something entirely new, but it had never been as intense or persistent before. He had gotten past slurs and hazing, so he had thought he could trudge his way through this too until he realized his place had fundamentally changed to those around him. He wasn’t a friend. He wasn’t a teammate. He wasn’t even a person. He had become nothing more than a cunt. His heat reminded the team that Shane had a vagina between his legs and behind his dick. Shane wasn’t much different than the girls at school and Shane saw how his teammates treated them. All respect for him had been lost in the course of a week. To him, nothing had changed. He was the same fifteen-year-old he had been six days prior, yet he was an outsider, a useless and annoying bitch that had to be reminded of his purpose.
“They’re trying to get into professional leagues, kid. You can’t blame them. With one heat, you could ruin their chances entirely,” his coach told him when he finally got sick of the treatment and went to what should’ve been the one person in his corner. The coach didn’t care about his chances of making it. As far as the man was concerned, Shane would be carrying one of his teammates’ pup at some point in the next few years if he kept up with hockey. It would be safer for everyone if he quit.
Shane didn’t even like men. He especially didn’t like any of the alphas or betas on his team, but it seemed like everyone thought it was inevitable that he would end up bent over and knotted in the locker room. It didn’t matter if he was gay or not. An omega would accept any knot and an alpha would fuck any pussy. Instinct didn’t care about the tidy boxes people had made with primary sexes, often indulging in what many deemed unnatural.
But that wasn't what Shane's instincts wanted at the moment. He was still a kid. His instincts wanted his pack. His omega wanted to be held and scented and kept comfortable in the nest he had worked so hard on. His first heat hadn’t been some sexfest like the alphas on his team liked to claim it was, making jokes about how he had asked them to spend it with him but they had to turn him down. They weren't disgusting queers like him after all.
Shane had actually enjoyed his heat until others started talking about it. He had spent it cuddling with his parents and refusing to allow them to leave his nest whenever he was awake. They had complimented his nest profusely, even as boring and unimpressive as Shane knew it was, and made sure he was comfortable. It had been a very vulnerable time, but it had made him closer with and more protective of his pack. He had felt so loved as he was surrounded by the flowery aroma of his mother and the calming ocean scent of his father. His omega knew that when he was older it would be safe to bring a pup into the world.
As good as the first went, Shane didn’t allow his second heat to pass until the hockey season was over and school was out for summer. Heats were meant to happen every four months. Three times a year wasn’t a lot. Three weeks out of fifty-two and yet it felt like eternity when it was what kept his peers from seeing him as a person. Omega men who managed to climb their way to the major and minor professional leagues were judged far more harshly for needing breaks for their cycles in comparison to their alpha counterparts. Getting on suppressants was the easiest choice Shane had ever made. Staying on them was trickier though.
He knew the downsides of suppressants. His mother had sat him down and managed to convince him to have at least one heat a year because it would significantly decrease his chance of developing scent gland cancer from suppressant usage. His mother was all for supporting his dreams, but it couldn’t be at the expense of his life. Scent gland cancer ran on her side of the family. It had killed both of her parents and she would not allow it to take her son too. His parents had also taught him about other potential risks of being on suppressants. His mother and father were both betas, but they wanted him and themselves to be adequately informed before making such a big decision.
It still hadn’t properly prepared him for what actually being on suppressants would be like. One of the initial side effects he experienced was weight gain due to fluid retention and increased appetite. For once in his life, he looked the part of a stereotypical omega. His face softened along with his stomach and hips, giving a curve to his waist that was far too feminine for his liking. His chest filling out hadn’t helped either and left him feeling embarrassed to change in front of the other guys. He had always had stronger and bigger thighs, but he was quick to stop thinking of them as muscular and to start thinking of them as fat. His body was no longer his. He couldn’t even recognize himself in the mirror. All he saw was a stranger that disgusted him more than anything.
As the doubt crept in, his hockey got worse. He wasn’t noticing obvious passes, he was missing shots children would be able to take, and no one acted like he was part of the team anymore. The insults got worse. He wasn’t just a bitch or dyke anymore. He was the chubby and pathetic omega who must have gotten pregnant after his first heat like some slut. That obviously explained the belly he had developed and why he was so clumsy on the ice. The father had to be another player because being a secret baby mama was the closest he would ever get to being in the MLH. His playing was shit. His strategy was awful. He tripped more often than he skated. He was weak.
There was nothing he could control: not people’s perception of him or even his own body. He was trying to fix everything, but it all kept getting worse. He spent months hating himself more than he hated those who looked down on him. If he simply did better, the jeers and rumors would go away. He would get back his dignity and finally be able to play hockey without feeling awful after. He loved hockey, the exhilaration and challenge of outsmarting those around him, but he couldn’t wait for practice to end during those months. He would look at the clock constantly, counting down the minutes until he could go home and curl up in his nest.
He had to be what changed because the world around him never would. The downward spiral of his life linked back to his presentation, to being an omega. He didn’t want to detest that part of himself, but he was beginning to think of it with apathy.
It wasn’t him. Not really.
By the time the 2009 International Prospect Cup rolled around, Shane Hollander had gotten things under control. He had started dieting and learning how to best maintain the physique he wanted. He learned how to live on suppressants, weaning himself off briefly every summer so that he could have one heat. His body needed that break for him to be healthy for the rest of the season. He dated an omega girl, Jessica, briefly and lost his virginity to her because that was what he was supposed to do. It took him a while to realize that, as much as the other guys liked to call him a faggot, they didn’t think he was actually gay. If he was, their treatment of him would’ve been much worse.
Shane did what he could to remind people that he was a man before he was an omega. He still nested. He scented his mom and dad whenever he was able to. He enjoyed certain aspects of being an omega, yet it was in private. Not all of the remarks against him went away, but it made some of the worst disappear.
He expected it when he became the token omega of the MLH because he was barely one. Someone who could almost pass as a beta was when they could allow an omega to be at the top and he could only be there if an alpha was the one who was his rival. There couldn’t be two omegas dominating the MLH.
What Shane had not expected was Ilya Rozanov.
Ilya was an omega that allowed the world to see him as an alpha without actively seeking it. He never declared that he was an alpha like some omega in a movie would. In fact, his stats had him as an undisclosed dynamic, yet people made their assumptions. Ilya was like Shane in a lot of ways. They were both trying to figure out what they could be in a world that wanted to take every choice away from them. Both were trying to gain control of their lives and bodies, even if Ilya’s circumstances were much harsher than Shane’s.
At fourteen, Ilya had been forced to have a hysterectomy. He no longer experienced heats and he believed he no longer had instincts.
Shane and Ilya were different in that Ilya was a far better omega than him. Ilya smelled beautiful and delicious, carrying the aroma of cinnamon apple. Ilya was pretty in a way Shane would never admit out loud with his blonde curls and the way his moles sprinkled his face under his blue eyes. He was amazing with pups. His nests may have been more disorganized than Shane’s, but they never failed to make him feel safe and guarded.
Ilya also had much better control of his body.
It didn’t keep betraying him like Shane’s did.
Ilya’s body hadn’t grown tumors that forced him to get rid of his scent glands and left him without a scent entirely.
Ilya’s body wasn’t in a constant state of panic because it could only sense nothingness from those around him.
Ilya’s body hadn’t become unrecognizable in the same way as when Shane started suppressants.
Ilya’s body hadn’t given birth to a pup he had never known he was carrying.
Shane loved his daughter, but he wished he had been given a choice in having her and hadn’t needed to give up everything for her to be a part of his life. He didn’t regret her though. He was stronger than he was as a teenager and he had no intention of quitting hockey any time soon. He could be a mother and a player, even if the league didn’t believe he could be.
Vesna was a surprise born just in time for him to miss the play-offs. If Shane hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought Ilya had purposely sabotaged him. Her name meant spring, but her nickname Vesnushka meant little freckle. Even if her freckles wouldn’t be coming in for a few years, Shane had thought it was an appropriate and cute nickname that Ilya would love.
His second child, Nikolai, was still somehow more of a surprise.