Chapter Text
Sophie Carver has been the personal assistant to the Ottawa Centaurs for two years when Shane Hollander comes knocking on her hotel room door. She’s formed a professional bond with Shane because he has made her job so much easier since he enjoys schedules and plans and is always making sure that at least his husband is following them.
She also has to admire Shane on a personal level because he has proven very brave in face of blatant homophobia, and infinitely kind and patient to Ilya throughout his mental health issues. It’s truly admirable and Sophie is glad to be able to work for them (though she will never tell Ilya that because his ego is way too big).
Sophie was literally invited to their wedding and yet Sophie can not conjure a reason for Shane knocking on her hotel room door at 11 pm. Unless, Ilya did something really stupid and Shane needs her help getting him out of it.
Oh god, please please please don’t make her have to bail Ilya out of jail. It’s always been a fear that Ilya or Bergy or Bood might end up in jail for some drunken fighting or public intoxication, but Sophie really hopes that it’s not coming true today.
Anyways, after checking the peep hole and seeing Shane Hollander, Sophie is already catastrophizing on what Ilya might’ve done, so when she opens the door, the first thing she asks is, “What did Roz do?”
Shane just scoffs and asks, “what didn’t Roz do?”
It’s now that Sophie is taking Shane in. His eyes are red, like he’s been crying, but he’s also very tense and there’s a glare on his face that Sophie doesn’t even see him with when he’s playing against Montreal.
“Shane, what happened?” Sophie asks, stepping aside so Shane can enter.
“What didn’t happen? I just—” Shane cuts himself off, running a hand through his hair as he looks around Sophie’s hotel room and then back at Sophie, who is clearly confused.
“I’m sorry, I just— I can’t believe him” Shane sinks down onto the bed, running a hand down his face.
Sophie closes the door softly, in very uncharted territory because she’s never seen Shane like this. She’s seen Shane sad, frustrated, stressed, anxious, very in love (which is his default mode now that he’s with Ilya), competitive, smug, happy, but never angry.
But even angry feels like too weak of a word for the way Shane’s muscles are coiled like he’s ready to last out at someone.
He looks furious.
His head is now in his hands and such a posture would signal defeat, sadness, exhaustion, but every single part of Shane is tense. His shoulders are rising to his ears, his hands are slightly digging into his face with a need to clench into fists, and his legs are strung tight like he’s planning to stand upright any second now.
Sophie gets a bottle of water from the mini fridge before hesitantly sitting next to Shane on the bed.
She doesn’t hand it over yet, now very worried about accidentally setting off Shane’s anger. Out of everyone on the team, Sophie has never seen Shane angry before and she’s never seen Haas angry before (she honestly believes the kid is incapable of it). Still, Shane’s anger right now feels… scarier than when Ilya gets into a shouting match on the ice or when Troy yells at a homophobe in a bar.
“Do you…” Sophie stops herself for a minute before deciding she needs to finish. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
Shane is quiet for a long time and Sophie starts to become convinced that he’s not going to answer. His head stays in his hands, his body stays tense, and his breathing continues to be ragged. Sophie wouldn’t blame him for ignoring her, especially if he came to her hotel room because he just needed a break from everyone else.
“I would like to do anything else right now” Shane grits out.
Sophie glances around, trying to think of an activity that could make Shane feel better right now. When Sophie’s angry, she always goes on a run, because she has terrible endurance and after a few minutes, her anger is trumped by her lungs' desperate need for air. Shane definitely doesn’t have that problem, but maybe the train of thought isn’t the worst thing in the world.
“This place has a pretty nice gym. Do you wanna work out?” Sophie offers.
“Work out?” He looks up at her for the first time since coming into her room, and Sophie can tell that out of everything he thought Sophie would ask, that is the last one.
“Yeah… sometimes it can be nice to… you know… sweat it out” Sophie’s voice gets quieter as she talks because this is starting to sound really, really dumb.
Shane glances down at his black dress pants and the dress shirt he’s wearing before looking up at Sophie. “Do you still have those extra compression pants in case one of the rooks forget them?”
“Oh, um, yeah” Sophie responds, standing up to get them from her backpack.
Her luggage for traveling has exponentially increased as she’s started bringing extras of equipment and clothes that one of the guys might forget. So, it’s easy to find a pair of compression shorts that Sophie packed after LaPointe forgot to bring them to Boston one time.
“I can go into the bathroom while you get changed” Shane says, taking the shorts from her and disappearing into the bathroom before Sophie can fully process what she agreed to.
“Oh, okay, yeah” Sophie mumbles but the bathroom door is already closed and she’s regretting everything that’s ever happened to her and she’s especially regretting her big mouth.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sophie whispers under her breath to herself as she haphazardly pulls out her sports bra and leggings. “Shane motherfucking Hollander comes into your room angry and you think the best way to deal with it is to show him your very mediocre strength at the gym?”
Still, Sophie changes and puts her hair up into a claw clip and hates her life before knocking on the bathroom door. “You ready?”
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Shane seems a little calmer by the time they enter the gym, but not by much, and Sophie hopes that exercise will help and will make up for how much Sophie is going to embarrass herself during this.
“Let’s do burpees” Shane decides and Sophie does freeze for just a second, because this is really one of her shittiest ideas.
“Okay, yeah” Sophie agrees, even though she hasn’t done a burpee since high school during PE.
The gym is empty at 11 pm, and so Shane is able to find an empty space big enough for them to do the burpees. While Shane is removing his shirt, Sophie is drinking from the water she brought and wishing it was tequila, which would make this at least a little bit easier.
“Sets of ten?” Shane suggests though Sophie feels like it’s less of a suggestion and more of him telling her.
However, she’s more worried about being able to do ten burpees to begin with. Shane either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about her hesitation and immediately starts, with Sophie following after him.
Shane’s expression is serious and focused, like there’s a larger goal than just doing the burpees. Sophie is pretty focused on completing the burpees and she’s at least five behind Shane. His muscles coil and then release as he bounces back up from the pushup and starts the jumping jack. He’s almost bouncing off the floor rather than pushing himself off and that must be what happens after years of conditioning his body.
He must be doing an extension of it where he has to do five jumping jacks and then do five pushups to complete one burpee. Sophie is struggling through the bare minimum, being reminded of how weak her pushup form is. Sophie doesn’t know how many Shane is on but she’s sure that it’s past ten and yet he has not taken a break.
Sophie would follow his lead but she is very much not in shape and does take breaks after every set. Sophie’s completed her fifth set and Shane is still going at it. She takes a longer break, sitting down on the floor and watching him continue. He’s not touched the bottle of water that she brought him, and when Sophie moves it forward a little bit to be in his peripheral vision, he seems to pointedly ignore its existence.
There’s a sheen of sweat on his skin now, some of his hair falling into his face since he’s allowed his hair to grow out a little bit since joining the Centaurs. His muscles continue to flex and then relax, flex and then relax. Shane keeps going at it, occasionally adding another jumping jack and another pushup to his routine.
Shane is a professional athlete and Sophie has to remind herself of that, because she’s starting to get worried as his breathing becomes more ragged and his arms tremble a little bit as he continues. Still, how many burpees can even a body builder do before their body needs a break?
Sophie shifts forward, more on gut instinct than anything else because she’s not going to stop him, but part of her is becoming more and more worried that something is about to happen. Sophie can’t imagine what that thing would be but she still scoots a little closer to him, watching his muscles flex, and relax, flex, and relax.
It’s when he starts to do clap pushups that Sophie gets really worried. He must be passed 100 burpees now, with each of those burpees having increasingly harder variations and when he goes to do his second clap pushup, he just… collapses.
Sophie is moving before it even really happens and so she’s able to catch him slightly before he hits the ground so he doesn’t completely faceplant.
“God, Shane” Sophie exhales. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer and Sophie tenses, immediately moving to push Shane onto his back, which is harder given Shane is twice her size and she is not exactly used to dealing with 200 lbs of deadweight.
His eyes are open and he does seem somewhat present when Sophie manages to roll him over, but his eyes are staring off into space and Sophie grabs the water bottle and uses the hoodie she brought down to use as a pillow for his head.
“Breathe, Shane, you’re okay, just breathe” Sophie murmurs, kneeling beside his head.
“Got dizzy” Shane forces out and Sophie nods, knowing he needs water but she doesn’t trust his ability to sit up.
“Alright, that’s okay, let’s just lay here for a minute” Sophie responds, continuing to sit up for a moment before choosing to lay down beside him and soon both of them are staring up at the gym ceiling.
It’s quiet for a long moment, and Shane’s breathing starts to even out to Sophie’s relief. The gym lights are a little blinding but she doesn’t really notice, content to just lay here for a minute. The exhaustion from her own burpees, the fact that it’s midnight, and the anxiety from Shane almost passing out has her eager for some down time.
“It’s Troy” Shane finally mutters, which jolts Sophie awake a little bit since her eyes were creeping closed.
“Troy? I thought you were mad at Ilya” Sophie frowns, gazing up at the ceiling.
“It’s both” Shane sighs and Sophie gets the message, it’s about Ilya and Troy.
“If you’re worried about how close they got the year you weren’t here, you should know that Troy was crushing on you a lot more than Ilya and that Troy is really in love with Harris now, so—” Sophie starts. She had also seen how close Troy and Ilya got, so she could understand jealousy existing there.
“It’s not that, or… I’m not jealous of Troy for that” Shane responds, his tone kind of weird, like he struggled to get out what he wanted to say.
“But you are jealous of Troy for something?” Sophie questions, softly. “Because I’m kind of jealous of his abs, though I’m jealous of your abs too, so…”
Shane doesn’t respond for a while and Sophie does actually start to nod off again. Give her a break, it’s 11 pm and she never stays up late after that, plus she just did like 50 burpees and is now lying on the floor, of course she’s going to be sleepy. Finally, Shane mutters, “it’s petty and immature.”
“You wanna hear about my petty and immature reason for being jealous of my brother?” Sophie offers, knowing that when you feel like your emotions are stupid, it helps to hear that others feel the same way, so you feel less alienated.
“If you say his abs—” Shane starts and Sophie smiles at that, Shane Hollander doesn’t crack many jokes and she’s glad one was directed at her.
“No…” Sophie’s smile fades off her face. “No, um, our childhood was pretty rough. Our mom was a mess and our dad was never in the picture. I had to step in a lot, to raise him and all. I gave up so much when I found out he loved hockey. I never understood why he couldn’t fall in love with math or science which was taught in school for free, but he chose hockey.”
“I didn’t have any friends because I was busy taking him to practice and working a job to afford to pay for him to be on teams and to have all his equipment. I didn’t even go to my high school graduation so that I could drive him to Boston for some national junior hockey league championship.”
“Yet, he got it all. He got a supportive sister, he got onto an MHL team, he got onto his favorite MHL team with his favorite player as captain, he got a lot of money and is living his dream. Now, I’m in a job where I’m immersed by hockey even though I never cared for it, I’m living in a different country, surrounded by people I don’t really know, and I don’t even know what makes me happy, because I was so busy trying to keep him happy.” Sophie finishes.
“You sacrificed a lot and got to watch someone else reap the benefits” Shane summarizes.
Sophie nods. “And of course I’m happy for him that he’s succeeding, that’s the whole reason I did all of this, but I’m still jealous over it, over his perfect life that I worked tooth and nail for.”
“I was a golden boy in hockey. I saved Montreal, won them three cups, was Captain and treated everyone respectfully. I had no scandals, no reason to dislike, no reason to know me besides the fact that I could skate like hell even when half my team sucked. Hell, the fact I did so well covered up how bad the rest of the team was.”
“Then, the sex tape is released and everyone knows I’m gay and dating my supposed rival, and I’m shunned and half to join his team because no one else will take me now. I’m a traitor to everyone in Montreal and a gay who ruined hockey for everyone else. Brands dropped me and Montreal, who I considered family, kicked me out the second they could.” Shane starts. “Even though I did nothing wrong except love a man.”
“Troy… Troy Barrett was on a team with a rapist and homophobes and didn’t do a thing when they targeted me because they knew I was never going to fight them back on it. He just stood by and he moved to Ottawa and got to come out privately and with support from everyone around him. He gets to date his boyfriend without a care in the world and no one ostracizes him, he wasn’t kicked off his team and shamed for it.”
“He had Ilya there to support him and I know they’re friends. I know that Ilya needed support in Ottawa when I was still in Montreal and I’m glad he found it, but it feels unfair to expect me to become friends with Troy too when I remember what he said to him, when I remember what he did, even if everyone else seems to forget” Shane finishes.
Sophie knows some of the history, knows the general idea of what Troy was like before. Yet, she didn’t know the extent of it, and she definitely didn’t think about it from Shane’s perspective. Shane and Ilya gave up everything to love each other, hell, Ilya can’t even go back to Russia now without being prosecuted for being gay.
Troy, even with his shitty actions, got off pretty clean. It is unfair and Sophie feels herself getting kind of mad at Troy for Shane. However, something else also occurs to her.
“And you were fine with just remaining distant from Troy but Ilya wants you to be friends and you just can’t imagine ever befriending him” Sophie realizes.
“Exactly, and when Ilya invited me out tonight, I thought it was just the two of us at dinner but Ilya surprised me with this double date with Troy and Harris because he wants us to get along but I just can’t because I’m petty and immature and—”
“And feeling like Troy is rubbing salt in the wounds.” Sophie finishes.
She suddenly sits up and looks at Shane, who still seems content to stare up at the ceiling. She doesn’t judge him, knowing that he’s not good with emotional conversations, and certainly not emotional conversations with eye contact.
“That’s not dumb, Shane. I… I know how much you gave to hockey and especially to Montreal, and I would be shocked if you weren’t feeling jealous that Troy got off easy compared to you. Hell, I’ll get hateful DMs just because I follow you on social media… and Troy doesn’t,” Sophie murmurs. “And I love Ilya, but it was really shitty of him to force you to hang out with him, even if he doesn’t know the extent to which you’re struggling with this.”
Shane just nods before finally sitting up and looking at Sophie. “What should I do? What do you do about your brother?”
“I just pretend to be happy whenever he asks how I’m doing and hide any anger I feel at how well he’s doing” Sophie deadpans.
Her voice softens. “But I wouldn’t advise you going down that route. I think in the morning, you should talk to Ilya, make it clear that while you don’t care if he hangs out with Troy or not, it makes you uncomfortable and he has to respect that. I’m sure he will and your conflict with him will resolve quickly.”
“And with Troy?” Shane asks.
“Maybe, as time passes, and you heal from what happened in Montreal, you might feel more comfortable around Troy, but for now, you’re able to play with him on the ice and that’s all the professionalism you need, forcing anything else will only make it worse” Sophie murmurs.
Shane looks around the gym. “We should probably go to bed.”
“Or… we could do a midnight burger run and then go to bed, I’m really hungry” Sophie pouts. “You made me do so many burpees.”
“Burgers?” Shane raises an eyebrow, watching Sophie stand up.
“What? I saw a place down the block that I think has veggie burgers so it fulfills your bird food diet” Sophie replies as she grabs her phone and puts it in her pocket.
“There’s still carbs in the bread and everything…” Shane trails off because Sophie is already walking away, so he picks up their waters and follows after her.
So, the following morning, there is a blurry picture posted on social media of Shane Hollander and Sophie Carver sitting opposite of each other in an otherwise deserted questionable 24/7 burger joint wearing athletic clothes, with Shane looking at Sophie with a half disgusted, half amused expression while Sophie eats a large triple cheeseburger with absolutely no remorse.