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Hayden is a little embarrassed at how long it takes him to realize there’s actually something behind JJ’s random and increasingly strange insults this season.
In Hayden’s defense, JJ’s new habit of dropping chirps that sound like they’ve come straight out of Shakespeare just seems like another round of JJ being his usual weird, over the top self. And hey, if he wants to call the opposing team a bunch of “malicious gnomes” or “mud-licking wretches”, he can have at it.
It definitely hits another level when they play Miami, and he actually gets Nick Blanchard to take a swing at his face, which is incredible, given that he’s the reigning Lady Byng winner for the last two years. “What the fuck did you say to him?” Hayden asks as they’re setting up for the resulting powerplay.
“I called him a diseased toad,” JJ says, shrugging elaborately. “Apparently he took offense.”
And so it goes, JJ calling everyone belly-crawling bootlickers, imbeciles, pinheads, and when he’s especially worked up, telling them to go fuck a goat.
Some of their teammates are confused, but Hayden’s happy to chalk it all up to “one of those JJ things”, like his strong opinions on barbecue, or how his record collection is so large that he’s having special shelves installed at his place.
So he doesn’t think anything of it, until the game against the Admirals. Hayden’s on edge right from the flight into New York, and not because he’s afraid of playing New York (even if they’re the defending champions and Montreal is definitely in a “retooling” phase this year) but because he just…really doesn’t want to hear or see any bullshit when it comes to Scott Hunter.
Hayden thinks he would’ve tried to be a good guy about Scott Hunter coming out no matter what, that he’d have followed Shane’s lead in discouraging any nasty talk in the locker room. But ever since Shane came out to him this summer, ever since Hayden realized that the nasty comments about Hunter from other Metros were nasty comments they’d probably make about Shane if they knew—
He’s on edge. Hayden’s probably going to keep being on edge right through the end of the season or until his teammates get their heads out of their collective asses, whichever comes first.
It’s a bad feeling, looking at his teammates this way. Hayden has played with all sorts of guys throughout his career, guys he liked, guys he didn’t like, but he’d never looked at his teammates before and thought, clear as day, I don’t trust you.
Hayden’s been accused of being too optimistic sometimes, but he’s not an idiot. If the team were to find out about Shane not only being gay, but in a relationship with Ilya Rozanov, it would be a problem. He honestly can’t believe how chill Shane is about it, knowing deep down that the teammates he trains with and plays with and won two Cups with, that a good chunk of them could turn on him if he were to ever say to them, “I’m gay.”
All you can do is be there for him, Jackie had said to him before the season started, and Hayden’s trying. He’s stomping down on the bullshit harder, he’s keeping the vets in line in the way that Shane, even with the C on his chest, can’t, to the point where he’s overheard Drapeau mutter, who the fuck shoved the stick up Pike’s ass and can we hire someone to pull it out?
Hayden had felt no guilt about promptly turning back and telling Drapeau to fuck off if he couldn’t handle a little criticism without getting his feelings hurt. Drapeau had turned brick red and glowered at him, but he had shut the fuck up and stopped calling one of their rookies a fairy, which was what Hayden wanted.
Hayden hopes it’s making a difference. But if any one of their teammates are going to say any bullshit, it’s going to be during the game against New York, when they’re facing the only openly gay player in the league.
So of course in the locker room before warmups, Gil Comeau looks up from his half-tied skates and asks, smirking, “You think if we check Hunter into the boards, we’ll be called homophobes?”
Hayden opens his mouth, already fuming, but JJ gets there first. “Give it a rest, Gil, fuck,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You talk so much about Scott Hunter, maybe you wish it was you he kissed on the ice last season.”
“Fuck you,” Comeau shoots back.
“It’s a fair question,” Drapeau says next. “You saw how Miami got dragged for what their captain said—”
“Because Campbell’s a fucking moron,” JJ says, huffing. “Play stupid games, win stupid trophies.”
“JJ’s right,” Hayden cuts in loudly.
Comeau rolls his eyes. “Of course you’d say that,” he mutters.
Shane steps in, which Hayden appreciates but also winces at, because what is it costing Shane to keep his face blank and his voice so calm while Comeau and Drapeau complain about how they’re not allowed to be as shitty about Scott Hunter as they want to be? “Campbell put his team in a hard spot,” he says evenly, looking at all of them. “The league has a lot of eyeballs on us this year, we all know why.”
There’s a lot of nods and muttering at this.
“I can’t tell you guys what to think,” Shane says next, and Hayden wonders if he’s imagining the faint pause before Shane says this. “But I can tell you that if I spend the next week in front of the media playing clean-up because of some stupid shit you said, or if you cause enough of a distraction that it affects the team on the ice, I will not be fucking happy. Clear?”
“Clear,” everyone repeats in unison. And Hayden catches JJ’s eye, and gives him a little nod, hoping JJ picks up on what Hayden’s trying to signal.
JJ gives a little nod of his own back, and during the intermission between the second and third periods, JJ sits next to him and says quietly, “Hey. I was thinking of going to that gay bar that Hunter and the Admirals go to after games. Didn’t want to make a big deal of it, not with these imbeciles always talking nonsense, but if you want to come…”
“Yeah, I’m in,” Hayden says without hesitating. He nudges JJ with his elbow. “Good idea, man.”
“I have many good ideas,” JJ says, grinning, but lowers his voice again. “You think le capitaine would come?”
“Yeah,” Hayden says, and hopes that JJ doesn’t read into his brief pause before answering. “Let me ask, but I think he’ll be in.”
*
The Kingfisher is the first gay bar that Hayden’s been to, and he hopes it doesn’t show as he, JJ, and Shane walk through the doors. He’s surprised for a moment at how…ordinary the place seems, and then feels embarrassed, what the fuck was he expecting? But really, it’s like any other casual bar Hayden’s been to in his life, plus some rainbow flags on the walls.
After greeting some of the Admirals players, Hayden snags them a booth in the back while Shane places an order at the bar.
“Hey, thanks for earlier,” Hayden says to JJ. “Backing me up in the locker room with Gilly and Drapes, I mean.”
“Of course,” JJ says, but his shrug is a little too elaborate to truly be casual. “Can’t stay quiet, not when they were being so ridiculous.”
Hayden snorts. “Yeah, but there are plenty of guys who do stay quiet, so.”
JJ grimaces. “Yeah, well, I’m trying to get better about that.”
“Better about what?” Shane asks, approaching their booth with two pints of beer for Hayden and JJ, and what looks like a club soda for himself.
“JJ was just explaining how he’s trying to speak up more in the locker room,” Hayden explains.
Shane nods as he settles in next to Hayden, and then he asks, “Is this why you’re using all those new insults instead of just calling people cocksuckers?”
“Wait, what?” Hayden says, but at the same time, JJ’s asking, “Capitaine, you noticed?”
Shane gives them one of his tiny smiles. “I mean, it was pretty obvious, at least to me,” he says. “This is the season you decide to swallow a thesaurus and use it to be a pest on the ice? Come on.”
There was another very obvious reason why Shane would’ve immediately noticed that JJ’s stopped using that particular slur, and Hayden feels like an asshole once he realizes. Fuck. How long had Shane been pretending like that was fine, that everything was fine?
But he knows the answer: Shane’s had to pretend for as long as Hayden’s known him.
His throat dry, Hayden quickly gulps at his pint before saying, “I think it’s cool. We’re here tonight for a reason, right? Showing support for Hunter, making sure we create a better culture in the locker room.”
“It’s not just because of Hunter,” JJ admits after a moment. He makes a point of glancing around to make sure no one’s close enough to hear before continuing. “You know my cousin, Yvette?”
“Sure,” Shane says, but in that blank way where he’s obviously lying. Both JJ and Hayden look at him, and Shane huffs. “You have a lot of cousins!”
“The one with the nose ring and shaved head,” JJ says patiently.
“Oh yeah, I remember her,” Shane says. “The statistician. She had a lot of good thoughts about integrating statistical analysis into hockey, and where the benefits and pitfalls could be.”
JJ blinks. “When did you have a chance to talk to Yvette about math? And why did you talk to Yvette about math?”
“During the moms’ trip last year,” Shane says. “She came with your mom, remember? My mom and I sat with her at the breakfast table when we were in Edmonton, it was a fun conversation. You two were still sleeping in,” he says, with a touch of judgment.
“Some of us like sleeping, Shane,” Hayden protests. “Especially when we have the chance to sleep in without being woken up by four loud children for once.”
“Some of us just like sleeping,” JJ says, unashamed.
Shane rolls his eyes and says, “Never mind that, what does Yvette have to do with this?”
“So, Hunter kisses his boyfriend at the Finals, the world goes mad, non? I was at a watch party with my family, grandparents, aunts, cousins—everybody.”
Having met JJ’s large French-Canadian and Haitian family, Hayden knows that the watch party would’ve been bursting at the seams. “How’d your family take it?”
JJ lets out a long breath, holding his hand out flat and wiggling it back and forth. “Most were surprised. I said “good for him”, my uncle wondered if his teammates knew he would do that, but then my imbecile cousin Theo starts talking bullshit, saying Hunter’s a liar, calling him selfish—and then Yvette just tears into him. And after she finishes calling him twelve kinds of stupid, she wraps up by telling us all that she’s a lesbian, and that she’s been dating her roommate Jen for the past three years. Three years!”
“Three years, eh?” Hand to God, Hayden doesn’t mean anything by it, but he catches the look Shane gives him, and winces. “I just mean…that’s a lot, JJ.”
JJ puffs his cheeks out. “It was. So much yelling—more at Theo, but even so, it was a lot. I asked Yvette why she didn’t say anything to me. The old folks, I understand not telling them, but me—we’re close, yes?”
He takes a deep breath. “And Yvette, she tells me that she couldn’t say anything to me, not when I’m a hockey player who calls everyone a cocksucker to insult them.”
Hayden has to look at Shane, and Shane’s face is so carefully blank that it hurts. It’s the same look that Shane wears when the press start digging in too hard about his Japanese heritage, when their teammates grill him about his dating life. It’s the look Shane wears when all of his focus is making sure you can’t read a single emotion on his face.
And JJ’s continuing, saying earnestly, so clearly remorseful, “I never meant it like that, you know? But Yvette—tabarnak—Yvette says she can’t be expected to know if I mean it when I say it. All she knows is that I’ll say it about people I dislike. So.” He shrugs. “I’m upgrading my vocabulary.”
“Good for you, man,” Hayden says sincerely. Shane doesn’t say anything, but he holds up his fist for a fistbump with JJ, and just for a second, in the lighting, Shane’s dark eyes are shining.
“Anyway,” JJ says, with a tone of ‘please let the talk about feelings be over now’, “I see what you’re doing in the locker room, and I’m with you. I think we can get Miitka to join in too.”
“Dude, that’d be awesome,” Hayden says, relieved. He’s determined to keep speaking up, but JJ’s popular in the room, and it’ll add weight to what Hayden’s trying to do.
“Theriault’s backing you guys?” JJ asks next, looking from Hayden to Shane. Shane’s drinking his club soda, and he doesn’t say anything, he just gives JJ a look.
“Tabarnak,” JJ swore, but he didn’t look surprised either. “Fucking figures, eh?”
Shane made a face. “It’s not ideal,” he said, which was an understatement. “Coach agrees the team shouldn’t be assholes about Hunter in public, but that’s all it is—managing the optics. The locker room, what happens on the ice… winning trumps everything.”
And hasn’t that always been the case so far as Montreal’s concerned? Bring us trophies and adulation, and so long as you’re not fucking up in public we couldn’t give less of a shit about you and what you do.
Fuck, Hayden hates having to be this cynical.
“Y’all look grim as hell, dudes,” Carter Vaughn says, grinning as he approaches their booth. “Lots of sour faces for the guys that won 3-2 in overtime tonight.”
“Nah, we’re good,” Hayden says, sharing a look with JJ and Shane that has them silently in agreement not to discuss what’s happening in the Metros’ locker room with Vaughn or any of the other Admirals here. The Metros’ culture is heavy on ‘keeping things in-house’, and Hayden doesn’t feel like testing that tonight.
The night ends up being a pretty good one after that —Hayden gets to enjoy watching Shane wipe the table with everyone at darts, JJ gets caught up in an earnest discussion on playlists and DJing with one of Kip Grady’s friends, and Hayden has several delicious cocktails, all varying shades of the rainbow. They take a bunch of pictures with Scott Hunter and the other Admirals that’ll be posted on Twitter and Instagram, and Hayden mentally sets a reminder to retweet the ones he sees on his official account.
And later, in their hotel room, when Shane’s still going through his nighttime skin care routine (which is different from his daytime routine in ways Hayden does not understand) and Hayden’s just finished his daily Facetime call with Jackie and the kids, Shane says, “I think I’m going to tell JJ.”
Hayden’s been expecting this, but it’s still good to hear. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Shane says, wiping his face with a cotton ball (what the fuck is that supposed to do? No wait, the cotton ball has something on it, that’s why Shane’s face is so shiny). “Not until the roadie’s over, obviously. I’ll head over to his place, we’ll hang out and listen to some music, and I’ll tell him. That way, if it goes badly, I can just leave.”
“It’s not going to go badly,” Hayden says, reassuringly. Then he second-guesses himself (is that invalidating?) and so he adds, “And if it does go badly, I’m gonna kick his ass. And then I’m gonna call Jackie and she’ll kick his ass.”
Shane turns away from the bathroom mirror to look skeptically at Hayden, but his mouth’s twitching with amusement, so Hayden knows he’s hit the right note. “Please don’t threaten to take out our top defenseman, thanks,” he says drily.
“Sorry, those are the best friend rules,” Hayden shrugs. But then he sobers up and adds, “It’s gonna be okay, buddy. You heard JJ tonight.”
Shane takes a breath. “You’re right,” he agrees, and turns back to finish his routine.
Hayden waits, then asks as casually as possible, “You going to tell him about Ilya?” (He’s very proud of himself for saying ‘Ilya’ instead of ‘Rozanov’, he can’t lie.)
Shane pauses. “Yeah.”
Hayden shouldn’t say it, he knows he shouldn’t, and yet—
“Can you take a picture of his face when he hears the news? I just wanna keep it, you know, for future blackmail material.”
He probably should’ve been expecting the used cotton ball flung at his face.
*
The day of Shane and JJ’s hangout, Hayden spends the entire afternoon with his phone in his hand, waiting to hear how it’s going.
He’d meant what he said to Shane, he wouldn’t have said it would be all right if he didn’t think so, and yet…sometimes Hayden feels like a kid who’s been prescribed glasses without knowing his vision was fucked up, looking at a world that is brand-new to him, but totally normal to everyone else.
Hayden’s not entirely naive, and being the right winger on Shane’s line means hearing the supremely fucked-up shit some people will say to get under Shane’s skin—and not just the garbage they fling at everyone, but stuff they are saying about Shane—his race, his mom. He’s thrown hands over it a time or two, had a quiet word with a ref to keep an eye out.
But the shit that’s come out of people’s mouths since Scott Hunter came out…not just the garden-variety homophobia, but the players who think it’s totally normal to say out loud that Scott Hunter’s sinful, that he’s setting a bad example…some of the nicest players that Hayden thought he knew, the guys who don’t cheat on their wives, who remember the names of all the staff and have followed Shane’s lead in easing up on hazing rookies, are the exact same guys who will say, out loud, that Scott Hunter is going to hell because of who he loves.
It’s all so fucked up. And if JJ ends up somehow disappointing Shane after all, Hayden is absolutely going to wreck his shit.
Eventually, Jackie takes pity on him and takes custody of his phone, sending him off to do household chores so he can burn off his nervous energy. He’s vacuumed almost the entire house before Jackie comes up the stairs, his phone in hand and saying, “Shane’s on the line.” She mouths silently, he’s okay, and Hayden’s already sighing in relief before he’s even brought the phone to his ear.
“Hey buddy! Everything go okay?”
“Yeah, it went fine,” Shane says, and thank fuck, thank fuck, Hayden can hear that he means it. “Even if JJ still insists on making me listen to the latest Drake album.”
“You’re a disgrace to Canada,” Hayden hears JJ holler in the background, and without missing a beat Shane shoots back, “I think the Olympic gold medal I helped win for Canada would beg to differ!”
Hayden laughs so hard he’s nearly bent over double, and not just because of Shane’s chirp game, but out of sheer relief.
Years ago, JJ decided he would take custody of Shane’s musical education, dramatically declaring that he simply couldn’t let Shane continue to walk around not knowing a single Drake song. Hayden knows it’s become a semi-regular thing, Shane going over to JJ’s place and listening to whatever JJ decides will be playing on his wildly expensive sound system. Shane continues to disappoint JJ by not rocking with Drake’s music, but they’ve bonded over Stromae. After their second Cup win, footage of JJ and Shane drunkenly singing to Papaoutai while Hayden wore sunglasses and shimmied in the background (sue him, he didn’t know the lyrics!) went viral.
This is all just so normal—Shane’s subtle teasing, JJ’s over the top reactions, Hayden being called upon to be the tiebreaker. It’s okay. They’re going to be okay.
Hayden was right, and Shane’s going to be okay.
“I can’t lie, man, I don’t think this new album is some of Drake’s best work,” Hayden says once Shane puts him on speakerphone, and that just sets JJ off even more, Hayden helplessly snickering while Shane continues to wind JJ up. Hayden thinks he can hear the relief in Shane’s voice too, maybe that’s why he’s reminding JJ that Drake’s constant lamenting over women is getting kind of old, especially when he screwed things up with Serena Williams of all people.
“How the fuck do you know that Drake fumbled Serena Williams?” JJ demands. “Since when do you pay attention to celebrity couples?”
“He does have a point, Shane,” Hayden agrees.
“I can know things,” Shane retorts. “And I know that a guy who can’t lock down the best female tennis player of all time shouldn’t get to complain about women doing him dirty.”
“I thought the whole point of your big gay revelation is that you don’t want to lock down any woman,” JJ says.
“No, but I did lock down Ilya Rozanov,” Shane says smugly.
Both JJ and Hayden groan. “Calice de Crisse!” JJ bursts out. “Mon ami, I beg of you…if you must date Rozanov, please at least acknowledge that he is the one dating up!”
“Fucking thank you,” Hayden vehemently agrees.
“You guys are ridiculous,” Shane tells them, but Hayden can hear the smile in his voice.
Even with how well things have seemingly turned out, Hayden isn’t surprised when JJ shows up at his door later that evening. Hayden hands him a beer and waits, and he isn’t disappointed.
“So Shane is gay,” JJ says slowly, sitting on Hayden’s couch. “And really, I should have seen that coming—no straight guy is that calm about Rose Landry dumping him—and it’s cool, I swear to God, but—”
“But he’s dating Ilya Rozanov?” Hayden offers.
“Ilya Rozanov!” JJ bursts out, clearly having held this to himself all day.
Hayden closes his eyes. “I know.”
“Shane can do so much better!”
“I know.”
“Are we sure he hasn’t been hypnotized?”
“Hynopsis wouldn’t last this long,” Hayden says mournfully. “I checked.”
“And we have to get along with Rozanov now?” JJ says, aghast. He looks like Ruby and Emma when they’re told they have to eat their green beans.
Hayden nods. “Jackie says if he makes Shane happy, then we have to find a way to get along with Rozanov.” He pauses, and says, “And he really makes Shane happy. Even Yuna likes him.”
That makes JJ’s jaw drop. “Even Yuna?”
“He passed the Yuna Hollander test!” Hayden says, throwing his hands up in disbelief. If anybody could’ve been trusted to hold the line against Ilya Rozanov, hated Boston Raider, it should have been Shane’s mom, good grief.
JJ broods over this. “And he’s really serious about Shane?”
“Shane says so,” Hayden says. “They finally became exclusive this summer.”
“After secretly fucking like bunnies throughout their entire careers,” JJ says, clearly still stunned. Hayden doesn’t blame him. “This, while Rozanov’s acting like the biggest manwhore on the East Coast…what if he breaks Shane’s heart?”
“We wreck his shit on the ice,” Hayden says emphatically.
JJ shakes his head. “Not good enough. Shane says you’re having him over for dinner the next time Boston’s in town, yes? I should be there too, give him the shovel talk.”
Hayden isn’t at all opposed to this, and yet… he asks, doubtfully, “Wouldn’t giving him the shovel talk be, like, homophobic somehow?”
“I don’t think so,” JJ says, but adds, “I can check with Yvette, maybe?”
“Yeah, do that,” Hayden says. It’s ridiculous, and Jackie will laugh at him when she hears, but Hayden would feel better if they could at least give Ilya Rozanov the shovel talk, make it clear that if Rozanov disappoints or hurts Shane in any way, they will absolutely ruin that smug fucker.
JJ nods in agreement, then sighs. “Going to be weird keeping this secret.”
Hayden sits up in alarm. “Dude, you have to. If this gets out—”
JJ flaps a hand at him. “Of course I will keep this secret, do I look crazy? It’s just…” He makes a face. “The next time Gilly calls someone a, a fag or whatever, I will actually want to hit him. I can’t believe Shane hasn’t done it already.”
“We gotta get a grip on the locker room talk,” Hayden says, grimacing. “Maybe if we both went to the coaches, things could get better.”
“Maybe,” JJ concedes, but he looks skeptical, and it’s hard to blame him.
“We have to try,” Hayden insists.
JJ nods. “We will. You and me,” he says, gesturing at the space between them. “We will have Shane’s back in this, yes?”
“Fuck yeah, we will,” Hayden agrees, and gives JJ a fistbump. JJ grins at him, all confidence, and Hayden feels his own optimism rising, because yeah…they’ve got this. They helped win two Stanley Cups for Montreal after no Canadian team had won the Cup in over twenty years, having Shane’s back in and out of the locker room will be a breeze by comparison.
*
Hayden will be wrong about that, it turns out, and the bitterness of that will stick with him for years, long after Theriault is fired, long after Comeau and Drapeau and the players like them leave the Metros. But even in the midst of all of it, the media frenzy, the angry fans, the split locker room, watching Shane play in another team’s uniform… Hayden will have been right about JJ, and they will have had Shane’s back through all of it, and when Shane marries the man he's loved since he was a teenager, Hayden and JJ are both there as groomsman, making speeches at the wedding reception.
(They end up bickering for half the night about whose speech was better. Shane refuses to deliver a verdict, and Ilya, the little shit, says that JJ's speech was funnier but Hayden gets bonus points because, in his words, "I really did not think he would get through his speech without sobbing like a baby. Low bar, I know, but congratulations on clearing it, Pike.")