Archive of Our Own

The last person Hayden expected to get a call from at nine in the night was Ilya Rozanov. He’d just gotten done with putting Ruby and Jade to sleep, the girls insisting on three (three!) bedtime stories tonight. If there was one thing Hayden had learned from his years of being a father, it was that he had to pick and choose his battles to win the war. Bedtime stories were a battle he was willing to forfeit, so eight o’clock turned into nine, and he was beat.

He’d been looking forward to having a little wine with Jackie before they finally turned in, too. Just a glass of red, maybe half a movie, and then the comforting embrace of soft pillows and his wife’s arms.

Unfortunately, Roz seemed dead-set on being a nuisance. Like he was in every aspect of Hayden’s life, actually.

Hayden groaned as his phone rang, a quiet, bird-like ringer so that he wouldn’t accidentally startle his kids awake. Not after the triple-story-battle had just been won. Jackie glanced over with a huff, gesturing for him to pick up the phone as she paused the movie.

“What, Rozanov?” he grumbled, putting the man on speaker. “Why the fu— fudge sticks are you calling me now?”

Hayden’s eye twitched at Roz’s snickering and the way he repeated ‘fudge sticks’ to himself. It was, objectively, pretty funny, but Hayden would never, ever admit that to Roz. He tutted impatiently.

“Well, Pikey, Shane wanted to invite you and Boiziau and…” A paper rustled on the other side of the line, and Roz sighed. “Laine for the holiday party we’re hosting. He says to bring your families and your rookie, if the kid wants.”

“Our rookie?”

“Your rookie, Pike. The kid you keep doing media with, obviously. Lady Pike, hello, I know you are there. Is your husband always this stupid?”

Jackie snorted, waving away Hayden’s offended look. He was being attacked on all sides here! Not even his own wife was defending his honor! Shame, shame!

“We’d love to come, Ilya,” Jackie chuckled. “Should we find babysitters?”

Infuriatingly, Hayden could just see Roz’s little shrug-and-grin combo in his mind’s eye. Truly, he was surrounded by opponents. “No, no, bring the best Pikes! Is a family and friends event!”

“I’ll check with JJ and Lainey,” Hayden sighed, hanging his head in defeat as Jackie nudged him, nodding at the phone. “Lainey’s gonna be excited. He misses Shane.”

“Yes, yes, much to miss about Shane,” Roz said, and, ugh, he could just hear how smitten the man was. What-fucking-ever. “You would not be in this situation if your team was not so stupid, Pikey.”

“Believe me, buddy, I know.”

“What about your rookie? Shane said the kid sent him some really nice messages, so he wants to meet him.”

Hayden blinked. Huh. “Lonny? Seriously? He’s shyer than Shane was.”

“Da, seriously. I read the messages, they were very nice. I think he has a crush on Shane.”

“...Yeah, sure, I’ll ask him. Be ready for Shane to be hero worshipped,” he chuckled. “I know your thing is, like, calling everyone by their last names, but Shane’ll want you to know that Laine’s first name is August. And Lonny is Rivers London.”

Roz cackled, his laugh loud and rough and boisterous. Unfortunately, Hayden could feel the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips. It was hard not to laugh along with the guy, even if he didn’t like him. Jackie had already given in, stifling giggles behind her hand. Hayden rolled his eyes goodnaturedly, leaning over to kiss the back of her hand.

“His— What— What kind of name is that?” Roz bit out between bouts of laughter. “Fucking— Is he geography textbook?”

“Geo— oh my god, dude,” Hayden snorted. “He’s American.”

“No shit, Pikey! Only Americans are ridiculous enough to name their son Rivers London. Oh, Shane will have many words about that.” Roz took a deep breath, getting out the last of his giggles in the process. “Wow, no wonder he is your rookie! You are both equally ridiculous, I think.”

“Fuck off,” he grumbled, getting a look from Jackie. He raised a brow, pointedly glancing up at where their kids were, in fact, asleep. She frowned.

“Don’t you mean fudge off,” Roz snickered. “Ah, anyway, this is your warning that my team will also be there. Do your best to not murder them. Shane will be very sad.”

“You’re still hosting team events?” Jackie asked, leaning over, the corners of her eyes tight. Hayden reached over to smooth away some of the tension. “Look, Ilya, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the details, but… seriously? Come on! If anyone pulled something like that with Hayden, they’d be banned from my house until the end of time. Shane’s too precious—“

“Jackie, I know,” Roz groaned. “He is too good for these idiots, and I want to ban them from our house. I did, actually, I told them they were only allowed if someone was about to die. But Shane said I am being ridiculous, that we should host a holiday party like normal. I said no, he looked at me with his big, sad eyes, and… ugh. I am weak. I changed my answer to yes.”

Hayden groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Yeah, that sounded like their Shane. Not the “willingness” to socialize, no, but the insistence on proceeding normally. It was part of what made him a good captain: he didn’t let them wallow in their pity and losses. With Captain Hollander, it was a night of misery and then right back to business, with their sights now set on new goals. In fact, Shane’s constant pushing and progress-making was so pervasive, it changed Hayden as a person— he had his best friend and captain to thank for teaching him how to teach his kids to not give up.

He just wished Shane knew when he needed to give up.

Because, sure, brute forcing his way through a tough series of losses worked, but trying that on his emotions? On his social life? Yeah, no thank you. Hayden had seen the aftermath of Shane’s attempts to do that, from his frustration with “Lily” to his rejected attempts at trying to reconnect with the Metros. And, look, Hayden was no expert, but he was sure that the whole situation in Ottawa was even more complicated than Montreal, what with his husband also being his and Ottawa’s captain. Maybe Shane felt the need to make up the difference, be the captain at home so that Roz could take a break. That would be a very Shane thing to do…

Hayden jolted as Roz spoke again, voice a little more thoughtful and distant now. “That’s actually why I told Shane to invite his friends. I do not like how my team is treating him, but he keeps saying that it is fine and normal—“

“Bullshit,” Hayden scoffed. Roz chuckled wryly.

“Yes. He wants to, ah, make peace with the team. So fine, we can ‘make peace,’ and they have been doing better, but… I think sometimes Shane needs a reminder of what he is worth, do you understand?” Roz paused, sighing slightly. “I think, maybe if you and his other friends from Montreal are there, he will be a little more… angry.”

Privately, Hayden agreed entirely. He hated how sound Roz’s reasoning was, sure, but he’d conspire with the guy if it meant reminding Shane that he didn’t have to put up with absolute morons, actually. He still remembered, even though the game was weeks ago, the shattered, hollow look in his best friend’s eyes as he limped off the ice.

The Centaurs were lucky he had Ruby’s recital to go to the next day, because he would’ve broken his hands on their faces.

Outwardly, he said, “You want Shane to be angry at your team?”

Roz huffed out a laugh, something humorless and irritated. “Not exactly. I think… I think he needs to be angry at how he is treated. And that means being angry at my team.”

Hayden exchanged a glance with Jackie. Her lips were pursed, sadness and frustration dancing in her eyes. Hayden took a moment to admire his wife, lit from the side by the blue-white glow of the television, the hard set of her jaw and the way her nails scraped against the wine glass. He loved how she wore her heart on her sleeve around him.

Did others hate it?

(Did they hate Shane for it, for wearing his heart on his sleeve? They must have, because there was so little to hate about the guy.)

“He’s not going to be angry,” Jackie said finally, talking just to talk. “Not on his own behalf, at least. Or in the way you want.”

“I know. I’ll be angry enough for him.” Roz sighed heavily, papers rustling on his side of the line. “He will be home soon, and I need to fix my face before he sees me like this. Yes or no, Pikey?”

Hayden rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time this conversation. “Yes, obviously. I’ll text you what JJ, Lainey, and Lonny—”

“Rivers London.” 

“—say. What should we bring?”

“Ah, maybe those… those oatmeal bars. That he likes. Lady Pike, he talks about them every other day,” Roz chuckled. “Would you, by chance, give me your secret recipe?”

Jackie snorted, shaking her head fondly. “No chance. I’ve gotta keep Shane coming around somehow. Once we move from Montreal, then we’ll talk about sharing recipes.”

“If I get Dillon and the entire fourth line traded, we can open up cap space for the Metros’ second and third best players,” Roz hummed thoughtfully.

“Who the fu… fudge—”

Roz snorted. Oh god, Hayden was never going to live this down.

“—are the second and third best?”

“You and Boiziau, obviously. See, there was such a gap between Shane’s level and yours that you automatically got fourteenth place. Laine might be… sixth best. He will be sixth worst here, though, so Shane will say no.”

“What the fuck is your rating system?” Hayden grumbled, shaking his head. “Whatever. Goodnight, asshole. Give Shane our best wishes.”

“Obviously. Have dreams, Pikey. Sweet dreams to you, Jackie.”

Hayden frowned at his phone, watching the call disconnect. Why didn’t he get sweet dreams, huh?

Jackie yawned, turning the movie back on, volume even lower. She was thinking, a flurry of considerations dancing behind her eyes as she watched the screen. Hayden watched her.

He didn’t love the idea of Shane trying to make nice with his team after… whatever bullshit they were pulling, but he also knew better than to try and talk him out of it. No doubt Roz already tried, and if he couldn’t do it, Hayden stood no chance.

He wished he could say that this was a surprise, a show of forgiveness from his best friend. It wasn’t. Because even when he was mad, Shane Hollander always showed up for the people that needed him. It was equal parts wonderful and terrible. Hayden wished he wasn’t so weak to it. Maybe then he could’ve convinced Shane to just come over for holiday dinner with his family.

(Maybe then, Shane would remember that he had people who loved him for who he was and what he did. Not whatever bullshit the Centaurs were going to pull.)

“Hayd,” Jackie said after a while, voice sharp with a plan and thick with sleep. “Let’s make them regret it.”

That was how Hayden found himself driving two hours to Ottawa the next weekend. Laine was a few cars behind, stuck driving JJ, Lonny, and his own family. Hayden couldn’t imagine having to lug two extra people in his van; he barely had space for his own kids, and they were tiny! Jackie reached over, putting a gentle hand on his thigh.

“You’re strangling the wheel, babe,” she whispered. “We’re almost there. Please do not fly off the hinge, Hayd. I know both of us want to, but we can’t.”

He let out a slow breath, nodding as he loosened his grip on the wheel. “I know. I know. I’m just… God, how did that even happen? He’s Shane Hollander, married to Ilya Rozanov, and they still just— I can’t believe it, Jacks. I seriously can’t.”

He saw her nod sympathetically out of the corner of his eye, but she had that look in her eyes, the one that meant he wasn’t going to like what she was going to say.

“It happened the same way it happened to him in Montreal, I think,” she said gently. Never one to pull her punches, his wife. “I just hope that the WAGs aren’t involved this time.”

Hayden huffed. Yeah, he wasn’t sure how he was getting through this party without a screaming match.

As usual, Jackie picked up on that particular sentiment. She pinched his arm lightly. “Come on, deep breaths, Hayd. We’ve gotta play nice. We can’t be more trouble than the girls.”

“No way we’d be that bad,” he snorted, shaking his head even as he felt the uncomfortable prickle of truth settle behind his ribcage. He took the last turn they needed, only a few minutes out from Shane and Roz’s place.

They could be that bad. Would be, actually, if it came down to it. He knew Jackie was just as angry as him, for all that she kept herself away from hockey drama. She loved Shane like a little brother, like someone that was her responsibility. She’d confessed one night, after sex and showers and brushing their teeth, that she was worried about him moving to Ottawa.

He has his parents and Ilya, I know, she’d whispered into the hush of night, but what about friends? What about people who can take care of him when they can’t? I mean, I know everyone loves him, but they don’t love him, you know?

He knew.

Hayden wished he had an answer back then. Now that he does, he isn’t sure he’s all too fond of it.

“We totally would.”

“Nah, nope, I refuse to believe—” he raised his voice slightly, just enough to catch the girls’ attention, “—we’d be as naughty as Ruby and Jade!”

“Daddy!” Ruby whined, wiggling unhappily in her seat. “We aren’t naughty! You are!”

“Yeah, Daddy! You’re a meanie, too! We aren’t mean!” Jade added cruelly, blowing a raspberry for good measure. Hayden glanced in the rearview mirror, brow raised.

“And who do you think I learned it from, hm?”

That gave his girls a pause. Hayden supposed that was fair; they never had to think about who taught their daddy to be a meanie. Obviously, it was them, but they’d get there—

“Oh, Uncle Ilya, obviously,” Jackie said, unbothered. Well, unbothered, save for the amused twitch in the corner of her mouth. “You learned from the best, you know.”

“Oh!” the girls said in tandem, then giggled.

“Jinx! You owe me a pop!” Ruby crowed. Jade groaned dramatically, throwing her head back (as much as the carseat would allow, anyway).

“Ugh! Fine, you can get the first Fanta,” she grumbled. Hayden’s brows rose. Since when was she so cooperative?

“No pop until the food comes out,” he reminded them, getting a chorus of ‘yes, Daddy, we know’s for his effort. “And remember to play nice with Anya. Uncle August brought Emilia, too, so you guys can play.”

“I think Cassie and Boodram have a toddler, too,” Jackie piped up, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “He’s probably around Arthur’s age.”

“Okay!” Arthur piped up, quiet as usual. Hayden wasn’t sure what he was saying ‘okay’ to, but sure! Okay!

“I call dibs on Uncle Shane!” Jade said suddenly. “I wanna see him first.”

Ruby gasped, affronted. “No way! I’m older! Daddy, I wanna see Uncle Shane first.”

“Nuh uh, I’m older! Mommy, I’m older, right?”

“No you’re not! Uncle Ilya said— wait, what did Uncle Ilya say?”

“Um…”

Jackie, blessedly, cleared her throat. “We’ll all get to see Uncle Shane at the same time, girls. No calling dibs on your uncles.”

“Mommy, can I call dibs?” Arthur called, his tiny voice full of hope. Hayden glanced in the rearview mirror again, heart melting just a little as he saw his son leaned over to play with a sleeping Amber’s chubby hand. His kids were so cute.

“Sit properly, Artie,” she chided gently, “and no. No one is calling dibs. You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit, right?”

“Right,” Hayden echoed, his kids following suit with varying levels of despair.

Secretly, he knew Shane would probably call dibs on Amber and Arthur, especially since the girls would be a flurry of chaos running all around his backyard, but who was counting? Besides, technically he got dibs first. Seniority, and all.

Jackie pinched him, brow raised. “Quit that.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” he grumbled, biting back a grin.

“Uh huh.” Jackie went back to staring out the window, muttering about raising five kids.

“Daddy, are we there yet?” Ruby asked. Thankfully, they were actually there, and Hayden turned into Shane’s driveway triumphantly. The girls cheered.

The low thrum of music came from behind the house, the sound of chatter and the smell of food being carried over on the wind. Hayden turned off the car, getting out and stretching his legs. The girls were already unbuckling themselves, and he opened the doors to let them out, leaning in to undo Arthur’s seatbelt while Jackie handled Amber’s. They had gifts in the trunk—despite Shane’s repeated insistence that really, Hayden, you don’t have to!—, and by the time they unloaded everything, Laine and co. would be there as well.

They’d agreed, before driving over, that they’d be presenting a sort of… united front. Jackie was the one to suggest it to Catherine, Laine’s wife, and even though Cat didn’t care much for Shane, she did like Jackie, so that was the battle won. It did, however, mean that they had to wait for Laine to actually get there. Hayden busied himself with unloading the car as slowly as possible.

“We’re staying the night with them, right?” he asked, talking to talk. He knew they were, upon Shane’s (and, horrifyingly, Roz’s) insistence.

Jackie humored him. “We are. Lord knows I can’t do another two hour car ride with these rascals yet.”

Talking just to talk. Hayden wondered if that was what Shane had been doing these past few months, just biding his time and playing to play. It couldn’t have been fun. Shane thrived on competition, on the power that hockey and money brought him; being thrown into a situation like Ottawa, where none of his prestige and power mattered…

To say that Hayden was concerned was an understatement.

(And that wasn’t even mentioning the whole diet and mental health situation. Roz was vague, frustratingly so, and sure, Hayden respected him for protecting Shane’s privacy so fiercely, but it was Shane. Hayden’s best fucking friend. He deserved to know what was going on with the guy.

He wasn’t completely in the dark, thanks to Wyatt Hayes, but he didn’t particularly trust the man, even if all he got were hints from the questions he was still asking.)

Hayden glanced back at where Laine was parking his car, Lonny and JJ bounding out like they didn’t have to help unload it. Yeah, Shane was going to kill them all for bringing so many gifts.

Cat walked over to Jackie, giving her a one armed hug, baby Emilia asleep in her other arm. “Operation Ruin Ottawa is a go?”

Hayden’s brows rose. “What are we calling it?”

“You heard her, Pike!” Laine called, jogging over with bags in his hand. He bonked his head against Hayden’s. “They’ve got some audacity for treating us like we’re the problem.”

True enough. They were protective of Shane and Roz now, sure, but they still managed to brush off Shane’s actual friends just because they were Metros. As if Shane wouldn’t choose them over the Cens any day.

Hayden nodded. “Amen. Let’s go?”

“Let’s go!” JJ cheered, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Capitaine! Guess who?!”

The music paused for a moment. Laine cleared his throat. “Cap! Let us in, man!”

“Oh, yeah, one second!” Shane called, and wow, was it good to hear his voice again. The music started back up, a tad bit quieter, and suddenly the side gate to the backyard was rattling.

The twins were the first to run forward, Shane meeting them halfway with a bright smile on his face. Hayden watched fondly as he picked up one girl in each arm, smacking a loud kiss to their cheeks. Jade giggled, grabbing his face to do the same.

“Uncle Shane! We missed you!” Ruby said, doing her level best to burrow herself into Shane. “Why haven’t you visited?”

He sighed, big and dramatic. Hayden raised a brow. That was new, and definitely Roz’s influence. He wanted to be annoyed, yeah, but the looks on his family’s faces were just too fond. Fine, whatever.

“I’ve been busy, girls, sorry. I promise me and Uncle Ilya will visit soon, okay?”

Ruby nodded, then craned her neck to look over his shoulder. “Where are Uncle Ilya and Miss Anya?”

“They’re in the backyard, baby. You wanna go say hi?” Shane asked, already letting them down with a knowing grin. Jade and Ruby cheered, running in. Hayden shook his head.

“You let them be too naughty, buddy,” he grumbled, tugging Shane in for a hug. “How’ve you been?”

Shane huffed out a quiet laugh, squeezing him. “Better, I think. It’s still, y’know, weird. But I’m fine with the balance we have. Where are Arthur and Amber?”

“Oh my God, you only keep me around for my kids,” Hayden groaned, letting his best friend go just in time for Arthur to barrel into his legs.

Shane laughed delightedly, the same breathy, full sound Hayden had gotten used to. “You got me, Hayd. Hi, Arthur! You okay, buddy?”

Arthur nodded, having already tucked his head into Shane’s neck. He seemed content to not let go for the next few hours. Hayden had suspected as much, honestly; the girls loved Roz for his chaos and enthusiasm, but Arthur preferred Shane for his quietness, his ability to make people feel heard even if they weren’t talking.

(Amber preferred him and Jackie, but that was neither here nor there. Shane and Roz adored her.)

Shane chuckled fondly, turning to Laine with a grin. “August, how’s it going?”

Laine shrugged, walking forward to bonk his head against Shane’s as well. Hayden was beginning to suspect he had a favorite greeting.

“Same old, same old, cap. You haven’t gotten to meet Emi yet, right?” He beckoned Cat over, moving the blanket bundling his daughter just enough to show off her squished little face. “Jack and Allie said they had too many school projects to come, so they’re with a sitter, but Miss Emi was so excited to meet Uncle Shane.”

Shane blinked, eyes big and bright. “Uncle? Really?”

“Duh. If Boiz can be an uncle, you can too.” Laine leaned forward theatrically. “Plus, Cat already approved it.”

Shane nodded appreciatively at her, cooing over Emilia. She was a very cute baby, Hayden had to admit. Not cuter than Amber, obviously, but that was a given.

“Oi, what does that mean, Lainey?” JJ whined, throwing an arm around Shane. “Do you see how mean he is to me, Capitaine?”

“You’re a terrible influence, JJ,” Shane said cheerily, patting his shoulder affectionately. “That’s why you’re not allowed around the twins unsupervised.”

“Okay, look, the pancake batter was an isolated incident!”

Laine raised a brow. “And the cake batter incident? The crayon crisis? The toy hunt? The—“

“Lainey, shut up,” JJ begged, hanging his head. “At this rate, I’ll never get to meet Shane’s kids. Whenever they happen.”

Shane snorted fondly. “We’ll think about it, buddy. Now, I was promised a rookie?”

Hayden grinned. Shane loved terrorizing rookies, just a little bit. It wasn’t anything overt or terrible, really, but he was well aware of the effect he had on them. He was a living legend, and he used it to his full advantage. Hayden glanced over his shoulder, waggling his brows at Lonny. The kid’s eyes widened comically, and Jackie took that as the sign to tug him forward. Shane smiled.

“Oh my— uh, um, hi?” Lonny squeaked, flushing. “Holy sh— shiitake mushrooms. This is, like, so cool. It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Hollander.”

“Mr. Hollander,” JJ snickered, jostling Shane. “You’re getting old, Cap.”

Shane wrinkled his nose. “You can call me Shane off the ice, rook. Scrap the mister stuff.”

“Yes, sir,” he said sheepishly.

“…Enough with the sir stuff, too,” Shane sighed, shaking his head with a grin. “Come in, everyone. Jackie, Cat— I’ll introduce you two to the Ottawa WAGs, too. They’re great.”

“Sure, Shane,” Jackie said cheerily, tugging him down to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Where should we put the gifts?”

“Gifts? Oh God, Hayd,” he groaned, glaring at him over his shoulder. Hayden shrugged. “I told you guys to not bring anything.”

“What, and visit our captain empty handed?” Laine snarked, grinning as Shane’s glare turned on him. “Absolutely not. I’m a good Canadian boy, you see. I bring gifts for the hosts.”

“You’re a Canadian nightmare,” Shane grumbled, ushering them all in. “I’ll handle your bags. Hayden, can you introduce Ilya to London and Lainey?”

Hayden stuck his tongue out at him. “Fine.”

“Thanks, man.”

With that, Shane was off, juggling Arthur in one arm and half a dozen bags in the other. Hayden let out a slow breath, letting his gaze flick over the Centaurs and their WAGs. The women seemed fine, and Jackie was already dragging Cat over to mingle with them. Roz and Shane hadn’t had any complaints, at least.

The team, though, was another situation. They were eyeing Hayden and his friends suspiciously, hackles raised and everything but their teeth bared. Even Lonny wasn’t safe, the Centaurs’s rookies watching him like hawks. Somehow, unfortunately, Roz was their saving grace. He lit up, mischief dancing in his eyes, as he caught Hayden’s eye. He abandoned whatever conversation he was having with Boodram and Barrett, making his way over to them.

“Pikey and posse!” he said cheerily, ruffling Hayden’s hair (rude) and fist bumping JJ (rude, but only because Hayden never got fist bumps). “How was the drive? Your little terrors had many words to say about how long it was.”

“It’s not our fault your dumb ass moved two hours away,” Hayden snapped, rolling his eyes. “This is August Laine—“

“The so-so d-man, yes.”

“—and Rivers Londons.” Hayden punctuated the kid’s name with a warning glare that, hopefully, told Roz to say nothing, he’s terrified.

Roz raised a brow. “The River Thames, yes. Good to meet you two properly. Thames, you should get out of Montreal as soon as possible.”

“Thanks, Rozanov,” Laine sighed, clapping his shoulder goodnaturedly.

“Thames?” Lonny asked, voice pitching up. Hayden barely resisted smacking his forehead. Roz was not all that.

“The river in London?” Laine supplied, frowning. “Didn’t you just finish high school?”

Lonny blushed. “I, uh, well— geography wasn’t my… strongest subject?”

Laine looked pained. “Clearly.”

Roz watched on, amused, his eyes flicking back and forth between an exasperated Laine and an embarrassed Lonny. Thames. Whatever. Hayden glanced over Roz’s shoulder, watching Barrett watch them. He looked thoroughly displeased about having to see them, which was ironic, considering Shane and JJ spent the better part of their last hangout complaining about the man. Sometimes, Hayden was tempted to get on Roz’s case about being best friends with that fucker, but— well. Shane would have his head.

(He hasn’t had such good friends in years, Hayd, Shane would say.

To that, Hayden would respond, Yeah, but neither have you, and these new ‘friends’ of his aren’t treating you all that well, buddy.

And then Shane would have to smack him for being right.)

Roz leaned over slightly, shaking his head. Hayden relented, padding over to the porch chairs and flopping down. Laine, JJ, and Lonny were right behind him, sitting closer than necessary in a tense sort of silence. Laine cleared his throat.

“So, what now? We just… hang out with Shane?”

Hayden blinked at him. “Yeah.”. The Centaurs didn’t bother to talk to them, really, and Hayden was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure he would be able to play nice with them.

The thing was, as far as Hayden was concerned, that they hadn’t managed to figure out Roz and Shane. The thing was, those two would never shut up about each other if given the chance. If Shane was visiting by himself, every other word out of his mouth was Roz’s name; if Roz was there alone, then every other word out of his mouth was ‘Shane.’ He was a little flabbergasted that they’d managed to play with Shane for nearly a quarter of a season without realizing how disgustingly smitten those two were, without realizing that Shane would genuinely disappear into a forest before he purposefully hurt Roz.

That wasn’t even touching on the Shane Hollander of it all— he was a modern hockey god, a standard to aspire towards. Hayden couldn’t comprehend—or maybe he refused to, who knows—why the Centaurs wouldn’t do everything in their power to make hockey as fun for Shane as possible. Why Roz wouldn’t do everything in his power to make hockey fun for Shane again.

He was jolted out of his thoughts as Shane reappeared next to him, plopping down a chilled six pack on the little glass table in front of them. Arthur was still clinging to him, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. Hayden smiled, knowing he had that dopey look on his face that always made Jackie laugh at him.

“There’s the man of the hour!” JJ exclaimed, grabbing a beer and pretending to toast Shane with it. “You’re a busy, busy man, Capitaine. Can’t spare a moment for your poor friends.”

Shane smiled sheepishly, settling next to Hayden. “Well, you know. Adjusting to a new team and all. And married life.”

Lonny was still staring at him, all sorts of starstruck. “Mr. Holl— I mean, Shane, I just wanted to say, uh, thank you. To both you and Rozanov. My sisters, they’re both queer and they love hockey, but they kinda stopped watching because, y’know, the league sucked so much.” He swallowed roughly, and Hayden watched in real time as Shane melted under the onslaught of Lonny’s big blue eyes. “But then with your and Rozanov’s and Hunter’s initiatives, they feel better about watching again. So. Yeah. Thank you.”

“Yeah, it’s, um, no problem. Our pleasure and all,” Shane said awkwardly, shrugging. “We’re hoping to make the league better for the next generation of players. We want to prevent Crowell from trying the stupid shit he tried with me and Ilya on less protected players, at least.”

Lonny nodded, hooked on Shane’s every word. “Wow. No, yeah, that’s great. If I can help in any way, I’d love to.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, London.”

“Oh, please, Rivers is fine!”

The corner of Shane’s mouth twitched, and Hayden suddenly remembered Roz saying that Shane would have a lot to say about his name. Oh no, he was being serious.

“Sure thing, Rivers.” He glanced around at the group of them, lips pursed. “I know we didn’t really want to talk hockey—“

Hayden blinked. What the fuck? Shane always wanted to talk hockey, any and every aspect of it. He never didn’t want to talk hockey, and now, after a few months with fucking Ottawa, he suddenly got tired of it?

He caught JJ’s eye, the same confusion-irritation-concern dancing in his gaze.

What had they done? What had Roz kept from him?

“—but I need to know how Montreal’s been. Your stats are abysmal now.”

Laine raised a brow, tiredly amused. “No shit, Cap. You were the heart of the team, and Comeau doesn’t know how to lead us if his life depended on it.”

“I know that, Lainey. I mean, like, the culture. Where’s the unified front, huh?” he asked, something mean and petty underpinning his voice. Behind Laine and JJ, where Dykstra was busy chatting to that shit winger, Dillon, Hayden saw their eyes widen at Shane’s attitude.

Hayden felt a sudden surge of satisfaction; they’d fucked up so bad that Shane had protected himself the best he could, which meant keeping his attitude and true self hidden. This was still just for them, and that shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. Then again, Hayden was always a little selfish.

“Oh, that’s terrible, too,” Laine said offhandedly. The man didn’t pull his punches, that was for sure. “There’s constant arguments, not a single team event has been planned, half the rookies and younger players are committing a mutiny, and no one trusts each other.”

Shane grimaced. Hayden put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey man, it was bound to fall apart some day. They’re terrible teammates.”

“You shouldn’t talk about them like that,” Shane protested, but it was weak. “They’re your teammates.”

“Yeah, and all of us hate them,” Hayden snorted. “Besides, I’m a free agent after next season. I’m leaving, man.”

Laine hummed, brows raised. “Or, and hear me out, Cap, we trade away all of the idiots on the team to free up cap space. Would you come back then?”

Laine meant it as a joke. They all knew that, and Shane’s answering laugh and dig about long distance was enough to confirm it. But Hayden… well, he missed playing with his best friend. That was all.

He smiled slightly. “We can give up a few draft picks and boot Theriault, too. It’ll free up space for Rozy. Hell, you two could figure out a way to be co-captains. And you’d be getting paid properly again.”

“You just want your A back,” Shane chuckled, and Hayden laughed, but the tension in the corner of Shane’s eyes was enough to give him away. “But, no, I think I’m done with Montreal. Plus, I seriously can’t do long distance again. We barely go half the day without touching— hey, hey, JJ, what’s with the look?”

JJ stopped waggling his eyebrows, shrugging innocently. “Nothing, Capitaine. Listen, how about—“

“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but you two have to stop calling me captain,” Shane said suddenly, the hand holding Arthur tightening just slightly. His brows were drawn down, something just left of upset in the curve of his mouth. “I’m not— I’m not a captain anymore, much less your captain.”

Laine’s expression softened, the way it always did when Shane left the locker room looking dejected. “That doesn’t matter, Shane. You’ll always be our captain. Even Lonny thinks of you as our captain.”

Shane blinked. Lonny shrugged, blushing. “I grew up with Captain Hollander,” he said quietly, “and then I was drafted for his team, so… I don’t know, you’ve always been ‘Captain’ to me.”

“Oh,” Shane’s breathed. Hayden smiled softly, patting his shoulder. “Wow, um. Thank you. That means a lot.”

It did, Hayden could tell. Shane was never one to chase status or power, really, but there came a point at which he could and should have started expecting it. Hayden couldn’t imagine spending ten years as captain, only to be demoted to not having a letter at all; it was hard enough to go from A to just another player.

This sort of support meant something to him, Hayden knew, even if neither of them knew what exactly it meant. Maybe assurance, that he was still Shane fucking Hollander, or that hockey still loved him, even if he didn’t love it anymore.

“So, Montreal?” Laine asked after a moment, a comforting hand on Shane’s knee. He snorted.

“Not a chance.”

Hayden jumped slightly as Boodram appeared behind Shane, smiling tightly. Hayden schooled his face into something less… displeased, hopefully, but JJ didn’t even try. He looked Boodram up and down, lip curled. Laine wasn’t much better off, staring through him like he meant nothing.

“Already trying to steal Holly back from us?” he asked, voice deliberately light. “We just got him!”

JJ rolled his eyes. “We had him first. Montreal basically worships him.”

“Montreal turned its back on him.”

Hayden scoffed. “Yeah, because you—“ He leaned over, covering Arthur’s ears just in case, even though he was sound asleep in Shane’s arms, “—fuckers were any better? We’re overhauling Montreal anyway. We’d rebuild around him. You didn’t even adjust for him.”

“Rich coming from the team that had him for ten years and drove him out anyway,” Boodram said icily. “We fucked up, and now we’re going to make it right. More than—“

“Enough!” Shane snapped, glaring at all of them. “Just fucking stop. I’m not— I’m not something to argue over. I’m not leaving Ottawa for Montreal, but I don’t want you guys to talk bad about my friends either! Jesus.”

Boodram had the decency to look chastised and apologize, so of course, they did the same. But Hayden was stuck on Shane’s words, on his insistence he wasn’t worth defending or fighting over. He was worth that a hundred times over, not just as a player, but as a person. And for all of his staunch defensiveness over Shane, Hayden couldn’t figure out if Boodram was defending Shane or Hollander. He wasn’t sure he’d appreciate the answer anyway.

“What are you saying to my husband?” Roz asked lowly, appearing out of nowhere like he always did. Boodram jumped. “Shanya?”

“Ugh, it’s nothing! Lainey was joking about me coming back to Montreal after the roster overhaul, and then they started arguing over who gets to keep me,” Shane explained, rolling his eyes. Roz’s eye twitched.

“I see. Well, Bood and Laine, Shane isn’t a thing to keep.”

Laine held his hands up placatingly. “We know, Rozanov. We’ll support him in whatever he does.”

“Right, I’m sure,” Roz said drily, leaning down to plant a kiss on Shane’s cheek. “Tell them to fuck off if they’re being annoying, da?”

Shane hummed, sighing slightly. Roz stared at him for a long moment, something unreadable and hurt and tender in his gaze. Then he was off, stopping to high-five Amber, who was now toddling around with another baby.

“My son,” Boodram said after a tense moment. “Milo. He’s almost two years old now.”

Hayden nodded. “That’s my daughter, Amber. She’s just a bit over three. We, ah, thought your son was around my boy’s age.”

Boodram glanced at Arthur, still snuggled up with Shane. The hard lines to his face softened slightly, and he nodded.

“What’s his name?”

“Arthur.” Hayden dropped his voice to a dramatic whisper. “He’s Shane’s favorite, but it’s okay because Shane is his favorite, too. I swear, he’d rather hang out with his uncle than his own dad.”

“I love all of the kids equally,” Shane protested, though he didn’t argue against being Arthur’s favorite. Ugh.

“Do you like kids?” Boodram asked, eyeing Shane and Arthur curiously. Shane nodded, something tight in the corners of his mouth.

Hayden wished he could undo everything the Metros had done. He was haunted, haunted, by the devastation written on Shane’s face the first time one of the guys ushered his kids away from him. That same man used to beg Shane for tips to help with bedtime. Hayden had nearly broken his nose the next day in the locker room.

Boodram smiled. “I know we haven’t done many family and friend events as a team, but I think Chewy and Dyksie’s kids would love you too. Once Caitlin and Selena bring them back from the park, we can introduce Pike’s kids and their Uncle Shane to them, yeah?”

“Oh, uh. Whatever you want,” Shane said, a little tense. “You… you’re sure you want me around them?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t— ah.” Boodram’s eyes flicked between Hayden and Laine. Laine nodded slightly, lips pursed. “Of course, man. Kids are good judges of character, you know. I trust the little man’s judgement.”

Shane nodded slowly, adjusting Arthur so that he was more comfortable. “Okay.”

Hayden didn’t miss how he flinched slightly as Boodram clapped him on the shoulder. Oh yeah, fuck them for real.

Shane wasn’t sure what to make of the tension between his friends and the team. On the one hand, they didn’t really bother to talk, with only the occasional check-in by the Cens interrupting the bubble they’d made. August and Rivers, Hayden and JJ— they kept him close, chattering on about things that meant nothing and everything. Shane hadn’t realized how much he missed just getting to fall silent and listen to the conversation around him. 

With the Cens, it was always effort. They wanted to talk to him, to get to know him, but he didn’t want to talk and talk and talk. But there was no graceful way for him to get them to stop because they were trying, and he wanted to meet them halfway even though Ilya was so insistent that he didn’t need to do anything, but that wasn’t right because they wanted to be his team, too. And the Cens were so chatty, too, the locker room always filled with the quiet hum of laughter and conversation. Despite it all, despite everything, Shane appreciated that.

People assumed he liked the silence, but that wasn’t quite… right. He’d grown up in locker rooms, after all, and had quickly rocketed up to fame and notoriety; silence meant something was wrong, predator and prey stalking each other in a watchful forest. Silence meant he’d fucked up somehow, and silent is what the Cens were around him. Not verbally, sure, but in every other way that mattered. Silent is what the Metros were around him, first after he came out, and then after the video. He’d grown to hate it, the shuffling away from him with sidelong glances and the silent dismissals even as they talked to and around him.

(That was why he’d stopped getting annoyed about the constant hum of music and podcasts around their house. Silence was the market of wrongness, and the drone of something-or-another meant nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong.)

All that to say, when the team asked him if he was okay, he could say yes and mean it, fully and wholeheartedly.

Arthur had woken up sometime during August’s story about the beer league his buddy had invited him to play in for a night, and, evidently having had enough of Shane, wandered off to play with Milo and Suzie. It was no matter, though— Amber had clambered into his lap almost immediately, chewing on his necklace absently as she watched August gesture animatedly. Well, as animatedly as he could; Shane didn’t think he’d ever seen him so expressive, and that was just because he was talking with both hands. That beer league must have been fun.

(“It was, Cap,” he said cheerily. “They didn’t believe I played in the MLH until I pulled up a picture of me winging you when Pike was out.”

“That was the worst game Shane ever played,” Hayden grumbled.

August raised a brow. “I had two assists.”

“Only two?”

“Oh, you little rascal.”)

Shane was nodding along to August’s recreation of some “weirdly good” save the beer league goalie made when Barrett quietly sidled up behind JJ. He still didn’t like Barrett, even though he had a front row seat to how he really did try to make up for his mistakes. Even if Shane didn’t understand—or care to understand, honestly—what drove Barrett to act like a complete fucking dirtbag, he could at least respect him for putting the work in to become a better man. And it was clear that he started putting his dirtbag tendencies to good use, what with his fierce defensiveness over his teammates. Even if that defensiveness was directed against Shane. He could respect it, because it was good to know that Ilya had people in his corner.

But that was Shane. JJ held a grudge like nobody’s fucking business.

During a lull in the conversation, Barrett cleared his throat. “Er, Boiziau? Can I talk to you for a second?”

JJ slowly turned around, glaring sharply at him. “What was that?”

“I, ah— I wanted to apologize for the things I said to you when I was in Toronto,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He swallowed. “Um, I never, never should’ve called you the shit I did. Like, you know, when I—”

“Right, like when you told me to go back to where you came from?” JJ said, voice flat and disinterested. “Or when you said I ‘wasn’t Canadian enough’ because, apparently, Haiti has everything to do with how I speak, and Canadian French isn’t even Canadian, huh?”

Barrett flinched, gaze flicking to Shane. He figured he should have felt bad for him, maybe tried to help him out since they were teammates and all, but— well. This wasn’t his fight, was it? Barrett and JJ could sort it out just fine. Shane glanced away, looking down at Amber’s wheat-gold hair.

Barrett cleared his throat again. “Right, yeah. I know I just, ah, furthered idiotic and racist, um, narratives. Against you. And I’m sorry for that, really. I promise I’ve been and will continue to shut down shit like that. I’m really sorry.”

“Okay.”

And that was that. JJ gave him a distasteful once over, then turned back to the rest of them. Shane watched as Barrett opened his mouth, then closed it and hung his head, nodding and walking back to Ilya with a slight sigh. Shane caught his husband’s eye, shrugging at the questioning look on his face.

“Okay?” Hayden echoed, brows furrowed.

JJ tilted his head. “Yeah, okay. That’s a whole lotta talk from that guy, and I’m sure Shane and Rozy’ll keep him in line, but that doesn’t mean shit. He’s not jumping to defend my honor or anything. Any time he throws hands for racist shit, it won’t be to defend me, that’s for sure, so okay. He can say whatever the fuck he wants, I don’t care.”

Shane nodded, glancing at Hayden. “It’s kinda hard to forgive him for making Rush Hour jokes every time we saw him, you know. I didn’t even like the movie.”

“Aye, my man!” JJ laughed, leaning over to give him a fistbump. “He tried that shit apology with you too?”

“Not until I reminded him,” Hayden muttered.

“Seriously?”

“Dead.”

Shane sighed, shaking his head. “Yeah, I mean. I kinda— I don’t— yeah. He did.”

“You forgave him?” Rivers asked, eyes wide. “I still haven’t forgiven my classmates for calling my sister a dyke. Should I?”

“Oh, uh, no. No, you shouldn’t be forgiving anyone unless you want to, honestly.” Shane glanced over his shoulder, chewing his lip as he watched Ilya talking to Barrett and Boodram with a tense smile and hitched shoulders. “I’m just in a… complicated situation. I forgive him where it matters, I guess.”

“Lonny, kid, you’ve gotta stop asking Shane for life advice,” Hayden chuckled. “All of the self-help books he reads are about relationships—”

“Patently untrue.”

“—and you’re, like, super single. You don’t need his advice.”

“Ooh, burn,” August said, deadpan and supremely uninterested in Rivers’s sputtered protests. “You’re gonna need ice for that one.”

Shane couldn’t remember the last time he laughed until his lungs burned.

See, contrary to popular (if justified) believe, Hayden actually wasn’t blind. He saw how the Cens were staring, shocked and confused, at Shane, who was doubled over and gasping with laughter. Another stab of satisfaction, that Shane was still the same guy who laughed at sharp tongues and deadpan jokes, that Hayden was one of the few people who got to see him so undone with happiness.

He glanced over his shoulder, watching Roz watch Shane. For the first time that afternoon, Rozanov actually looked relaxed. He wasn’t holding his solo cup in a death grip anymore, and his smile was just that much brighter. He caught Hayden’s eye, giving him a single nod. Hayden nodded back.

The rookies, especially, were all sorts of flabbergasted, which was… surprising. For all of his reticence and quirks, Shane always had a soft spot for the rookies. He never went easy on them—if anything, they got harsher training and scoldings—, but he’d give them his ear and his help for longer than he’d bother with most other people. Hayden suspected it was his way of making up for how he was treated as a rookie: boy wonder, the hockey prodigy, everything other than a kid who needed support, too.

(Hayden wouldn’t admit this with a gun to his head, but he’d initially just felt bad for Shane. He needed friends, and Hayden wanted to make sure the kid wasn’t going stir crazy— it was a win-win, but Hayden’s the one really winning now. He gets to call the Shane Hollander his best friend, his brother from another mother. Not to his face, of course, because Shane would hate being called that, but— yeah. Point made.)

The Haas kid wandered over to Lonny, another rookie on his heels. Lonny glanced up at them, brows raised. He’d been grilling Shane on tips for improving his backhand after listening to a particularly impassioned recounting of an argument between Roz and Shane about whose backhand was worse, hooked on every single word. Hayden swore he could pluck the stars from his eyes and create ten new constellations. As it was, he wasn’t sure if Lonny just had a severe case of hero worship, or if he straight up had a crush on Shane. If it was a crush, that could be really funny…

“Hey, you’re the Montreal rookie, right?” Haas said, sitting down next to Shane.

“One of two,” Lonny replied, terse. “London, 92.”

Haas waved his hand. “You’re the one that matters. We don’t like Tomlinson.”

“No one does.”

True enough. The only people that could tolerate the loudmouthed little shit were Comeau (an idiot), Drapeau (also an idiot), and Taylor (Hayden wouldn’t be surprised if he had literal criminal charges). That said enough about the type of person Tomlinson was, because even the other guys who didn’t support Shane’s ‘politics’ hated the guy. And the younger players… Well, it was safe to say Tomlinson was going to be cockblocked for the rest of his time on the Metros.

The other rookie—Holmberg, Shane supplied with a whisper, now bouncing Dykstra’s kid, Suzie, on his knee—blinked. “Even on the Metros?”

“Obviously. He fucking sucks. I play defense, and even I could center better than him,” Lonny scoffed. “He acts like he’s the next Rozanov or Hollander, but he faceplanted after stepping on a puck, so I’m not too sure about that.”

“Mon dieu, Capitaine, it was so funny,” JJ snorted, waving Shane over to show him his phone. “Look, look, I managed to get the security camera footage just to watch it again.”

Shane huffed out a laugh, picking up Suzie and moving to sit next to him. Hayden eyed the Centaurs rookies as they glanced between Lonny and Shane consideringly. Like they were an equation they needed to solve, like they could figure out the missing variable just from watching them. Hayden wasn’t sure what the rookies’ involvement was, but it couldn’t have been all that positive, if Shane’s barely-there glance was anything to go by. Whatever game they were playing, whatever dynamics they were trying to fix, they were going about it very strangely.

“I don’t think anyone could be the next Roz or Holly,” Haas said thoughtfully. “They’re untouchable, I think.”

Lonny raised a brow, and, yeah, okay, Hayden should’ve expected him to be pissed at the Centaurs too. He’d just done a wonderful job at hiding it, apparently. “You really think so? Could’ve fooled me with how y’all barely passed to him just a few weeks ago.”

Oof, right for the jugular! Shane flinched, turning to stare wide-eyed at Lonny. The kid seemed completely unbothered by the sudden staring, his eyes locked on Holmberg and Haas in challenge. For a second, Hayden had a horrible vision of having to break up a fight between the rookies in his best friend’s backyard, which would probably result in Roz actually having grounds to ban him from any future visits. That would be the real tragedy.

“No, yeah, that’s fair,” Holmberg sighed after a moment, hanging his head. “We, uh, yeah. Fucked up. Badly. I kinda hate that I didn’t let the hero worship win out, now.”

“Win out over what?” Lonny asked, sharp. Shane shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. We worked around it, and we’re still doing better than Montreal.”

Hayden caught his eye, giving him an unimpressed look. That was deflection, plain and simple. Sure, Shane didn’t want to air out his dirty laundry with the rookies, but that being his route of avoidance was… bad. Hayden wasn’t all that fond of it, actually, and not because Shane was bashing his team. The implications were just strange, some weird mix of self-flagellating and demeaning, as well as egotistical. It was very Shane, albeit the worst parts of his best friend.

“Sure, but I bet I could be a better rookie than them,” Lonny said, smiling like he hadn’t just shot down two other kids and waggling his eyebrows. “I’d treat you right, Cap.”

Yeah, this was definitely a crush.

Shane snorted, reaching over to ruffle Lonny’s hair. “Don’t let my husband hear that, Rivers.”

“Don’t let your husband hear what?”

Speak of the devil. Hayden sighed heavily, throwing Roz a thumbs down. He just grinned, curling over Shane’s shoulder like some fucked up cat. He reached over to pat Suzie on the head. She giggled from where she was still pinned to Shane’s chest, reaching up a chubby hand to tug at the longer strands of his hair. Hayden felt his face soften again, but sue him! Happiness looked good on his best friend! Roz glanced at him, brows raised.

“Why do you look like that?”

Hayden pressed his lips into a thin line. “Alright, fu—”

“Hayd,” Shane said flatly, giving a meaningful look to Suzie.

“Fu…dge. You.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Roz said flippantly. “Anyway, what am I not supposed to hear?”

Lonny had, by then, gone from starstruck to positively spellbound. Hayden rolled his eyes. Roz was not worth all of that, but fine, whatever.

“Nothing, just Lonny saying he could be Shane’s best rookie. And that he’d treat him right,” Hayden explained, looking away pointedly when Lonny gave him a betrayed look. “Which is funny, considering he’s my rookie.”

Roz raised a brow, gaze flicking to Lonny. He looked, and Hayden hated to admit this, downright mean as he gave Lonny an unimpressed once over. “Is that right?”

“Mr. Rozanov, sir!” Lonny squeaked, face beet red. “I didn’t mean it like that, honest! I just, well, um. You know, with everything and, uh—”

“Relax, I’m kidding,” Roz chuckled, letting Lonny stammer out a few more excuses. “No one can treat Shane like I can, anyway—”

“Ilya.”

“Bah, fine.” Roz turned to Hayden, giving him a judgemental look. What the hell! “Pikey, you need to joke with Thames more. He is too tense.”

“Sure, man, whatever,” Hayden grumbled. “Get away from me.”

“I plan to, but I will also be taking my husband!”

That was not, in fact, what Hayden meant. What the hell.

Shane blinked, looking equally surprised, but nodded quickly as Ilya pointed at his watch. “Ah, right. Hayd, I know the girls are eating later now, but the guys agreed on five being dinner time for their kids, so I’m just gonna go help set that up, yeah?”

Hayden nodded. “Sure thing, buddy. Holler if you need help.”

Shane gave him a grateful look, passing Suzie off to Lonny, who looked positively delighted to be playing with a baby now that his hero was off doing other things. Laine chuckled lightly, nudging Hayden as Lonny started playing keep-away with Suzie, curling around her to prevent the Centaurs’s rookies from getting to play with her too.

“He’s a case,” Laine muttered.

“Don’t I know it.”

Five o’clock came and went, and with the kids tuckered out and curled up in front of the TV in sleepy, entertained piles, Hayden found himself enlisted in helping set out all of the food for the adults to eat. Well, it was more like he enlisted himself, since Shane would rather die than ask for help. Roz was busy cleaning up outside, and Hayden didn’t want Shane lugging aluminum trays back and forth alone. He wished he could say he was surprised that none of the Centaurs were helping Shane, but that would make him a hypocrite— Montreal never helped him either.

That said, Montreal usually didn’t spend 60% of the team parties avoiding Shane either, so there were probably levels to the Centaurs being conspicuously absent from the kitchen.

Shane didn’t seem bothered by it, though. He’d been halfway through kicking Hayden out of the kitchen, relenting only when he was reminded of the ten different trays he had to carry. It was an old argument, a semblance of familiarity that Hayden could tell settled Shane somehow, someway. God, he really needed the season to be over so that he could start convincing Ottawa to sign him on. He wanted to play with his best friend again, goddammit. That was a secondary concern right now, though.

Hayden frowned at the selection of dishes, tapping Shane’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy, how much of this can you actually, like, eat? I know you aren’t that strict with your diet anymore, but this is all… out of the ordinary.”

Shane blinked. “Uh, there’s one or two dishes that fit with my diet, I think. Most of this is just what the team likes, since it’s our first time really hosting them.”

Hayden sighed deeply. Of course. That was what Shane did, captain or not: he kept everyone else happy, made sure that they were accommodated and well taken care of. Hayden understood, really, where the accusations of Shane being cold and distant came from—it wasn’t like the guy was going out of his way to talk to people—, but he cared a whole damn lot. He just wished Shane cared about himself that much, too. Especially given his state right now, slump-shouldered and flat-eyed. He was tired, unnaturally so, and Hayden didn’t like it.

God, where the fuck was Roz when he needed to ask questions?

A familiar knock on the counter. Shane glanced over his shoulder, brows rising at the women clustered in his kitchen, Jackie right in front.

“Um, is everything okay?” he asked warily, adjusting the tray he was holding. “Do you guys need anything?”

Jackie smiled kindly at him. “All good, Shane. I just heard you talking about the dishes that fit with your diet and wanted to let you know that both the oatmeal bars and the pastries we brought fit with your diet.”

The other WAGs—Cassie, Lisa, and Selena, if he remembered correctly—blinked, glancing amongst themselves. Cat was hanging further back, nodding along with Jackie.

“The pasta salad should be fine for you too, Hollander,” she added.

Shane’s eyes were wide, and he looked equal parts touched and embarrassed. He chuckled slightly, eyes crinkling. “Oh wow, thank you both. You didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense, sweetie,” Jackie said, waving her hand. “If I didn’t feed you at parties, you’d be eating unseasoned leaves.”

“I would not. They’d be seasoned,” Shane sniffed, a smile slipping through his indignant facade. “Thank you, though, really.”

“Wait, Shane, you’re on a diet?” Cassie interrupted, frowning. “Zane didn’t tell me. If I knew, we’d have made sure you could eat the stuff we brought!”

“Same here,” Selena echoed, grimacing. “Sorry. I’ll make sure Nick is more, ah, thorough next time.”

Hayden raised a brow, glancing at Shane. He knew that the Centaurs were at least somewhat aware of Shane being on a diet, what with all the questions Wyatt Hayes had asked him a few months ago. There was literally no way they didn’t know—even Hayden knew how particular Shane was way back when, and they weren’t even friends at the time—, and Hayden wouldn’t put it past them to purposefully not mention it. Fucking bastards.

Shane shook his head, firmly in embarrassment territory now. “No, no, it’s fine. I know it’s annoying to have to find those types of recipes, so I usually just handle that myself. Please, feel free to bring whatever you want, seriously.”

“It’s really not that bad, honey,” Jackie sighed, walking over to ruffle his hair. “It’s kind of a fun cooking challenge, honestly.”

Lisa’s eyes lit up, and Shane looked all the more terrified for it. “Jackie, you’ve gotta tell me what stuff you’ve doctored up for him. Wyatt’s going to be my taste tester, so the stranger it is, the better.”

Jackie grinned, sharp and scheming. “Oh, I have a whole document to go through with you three, then.”

Shane shook his head as the women left, dragging his free hand down his face. “The WAGs are gonna hate me now.”

“Nah, I don’t think so, buddy,” Hayden said lightly, already mentally composing a text to Roz and Jackie to ask about the Centaurs’s involvement in the fucked up menu situation. “You’re, like, the all-time WAG favorite.”

“Couldn’t tell you why,” he grumbled, already making his way to the dining room. Hayden followed, laughing.

He could tell him why, but that was neither here nor there.

Ilya hated having to be grateful to anything and anyone from Montreal, but here he was. For all of their faults, for all of their cowardice and animosity and anger, Shane’s friends from Montreal brought a light back to him that Ilya hadn’t seen in months. He was still subdued, a quiet sort of tiredness weighing his shoulders down, but his smile was cheeky and his hair was sun-painted and his voice held the same snark it used to when they leaned across the face off dot, a decade younger and so full of life.

It was pervading, a warm brush against Ilya’s sight, his ears and hands and tongue— the perfect distraction, something he could bask in forever and ever. He knew he wasn’t paying attention to his teammates, to the conversation he was in, but who could blame him when Shane Hollander was looking that much more himself?

Besides, it wasn’t like he was particularly interested in talking to his teammates. He thought he’d managed to shake off the coworkers-only dynamic from Boston, where the locker room talk about Jane always made him smile a bit tighter, where he’d grown tired of going out and out and out with no soft landing back home. With the Centaurs, he thought he’d found the soft ground to walk on and the soft home to go back to— he thought he’d had it all, the brothers that never were and the lover too good to be true.

But Ilya didn’t get nice things, did he?

He knew Shane wanted him to forgive their team. The chemistry that had made them so good, so electric, was buried under so much resentment that, frankly, Ilya didn’t think even Galina could help him sort through. God knew she tried. And God knew Shane deserved the electric team that Ilya knew, deserved to feel like a team was finally, truly and unerringly, playing his game. Because hockey was Shane’s, regardless of what anyone claimed. 

Ilya wanted to give him that. He did. Hockey was Shane’s, and Shane was Ilya’s— it was a perfectly balanced equation, plus and minus null. But he couldn’t, in good faith, say that he wanted to forgive their team. It was a bad habit, he knew, letting this resentment fester— it had almost cost him his husband, and it had cost his mother her life. He knew. It was just… hard to see where to go from here.

The team was trying, he could see that much. They tried to include Shane into whatever they thought would interest him, they skipped the bar trawls for movie nights, they invited them over for dinner and didn’t take offense when they declined.

(“I don’t want to bother them with my diet, Ilya,” Shane would say.

“You won’t, malysh. We all know what performance diets are, so they can adjust to yours,” Ilya would retort, almost pleading.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” Shane would whisper back, and that was that.)

But Shane still tensed up when his name was called, when they clapped him on the back and smiled at him, when they asked him what he, Shane Hollander, wanted. Ilya could see the calculation behind his eyes, the measure of how much was too much and what he could say without breaking this tentative truce they’d reached.

How could he then, in good faith, forgive his team for putting that tension in Shane’s shoulders?

(He couldn’t, he knew, because for how forgiving Ilya could be, he didn’t take chances with Shane.)

That did leave him in a strange spot, a repeat of the isolation from last season with none of the warmth to make up for it. He was now just Captain Rozanov of the Ottawa Centaurs, whereas before, he was… oh, he was a dozen things to these men, wasn’t he? He was their go-to babysitter, the vet all the rookies flocked towards, the captain who pushed hard and played hard, the teammate who loved them like they shared blood and bone.

It was hard going from all of that to… this. A watchful spectator in his own home, a muzzled guard dog chewing through the leather and metal binding him. He’d do it a hundred times over, shed his skin and identity, to keep Shane safe from what their team did to him, but— it was jarring. And Ilya knew that Shane knew that, somewhere deep down, and that was why he pushed through his own discomfort so often and so thoroughly.

Just another thing Ilya took from him without giving anything in return.

He let out a slow breath, gaze wandering over to Shane for the hundredth time that hour. He had, for the first time in a while, full use of both of his arms, with the younger kids down for bedtime and the older ones preoccupied with movies in the living room. He was smiling brightly at something that Laine guy was saying, a sharp, open sort of amusement that meant he was about to say something hilarious but mean.

Boiziau and the River Thames were a few steps behind him, basically hanging off of his arm as they egged him on. Ilya wasn’t too happy about Boiziau being back in Shane’s good graces, but he was undeniably a good friend to his husband. He was witty and charming and knew how to get Shane out of his head well enough, and he was protective to boot. Ilya couldn’t say much about London at all, but the kid was appropriately starry-eyed while talking to Shane, so he took it as a good sign.

(A sign he’d missed in his own rookies apparently; when they didn’t look star struck by Shane’s presence, that’s when he should’ve realized something was wrong. Fuck.)

And Pike. Hayden Pike was coming out of the kitchen with what was probably the second to last tray of food, and he was watching Shane and Laine playfully argue like he had everything he wanted in the world. Ilya was self-aware enough to admit that he was jealous, but sue him— Pike got to watch Ilya’s husband laugh with his friends every time they met. Ilya didn’t even get to see him smile on the ice most days.

As Pike and Shane made their way back inside, he quashed the urge to join them, to abandon his idiotic team and bask in Shane’s long-missed joy. It wasn’t like he was participating in the conversation anyway, it wouldn’t be—

“Oh shit, Roz, Holly brought out all the food by himself,” Bood said suddenly, grimacing. “Fuck, I didn’t even notice. Do you think he needs any more help?”

Ilya sighed slightly, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “No. Shane likes to handle some set up himself.”

“That’s a lot, though,” Bood hedged, looking guiltily at the table they’d set up outside, laden with food. “Let me just— oh, is that Pike?”

Ilya glanced over at the food area. Sure enough, Hayden was balancing yet another tray of food, while Shane juggled a few jugs of water and plastic glasses. They looked perfectly content.

“So it is.”

Bood glanced at him strangely, frowning. “You said Holly likes to set things up himself.”

Ilya raised a brow. “And sometimes he does it with his best friend. What is the issue?”

“I mean, he knows we’re here to help, right?” Bood paused. “And you know that too, right? We’re here for both of you now, promise.”

Ilya wasn’t so blinded by resentment that he couldn’t see their team’s smaller efforts too. They did this often, now, reminding Shane that he could lean on them, ensuring that Ilya was aware he could tell them off whenever he needed to. He could appreciate it, if nothing else.

He shrugged. “Sure. But Shane and Pike have been running this system for long enough, and they both like it. I see no issue.”

“No, yeah, no problem, I guess,” Bood said, trailing off. Sure enough, a few moments later, he was moving towards them, throwing a “I’m just gonna offer!” over his shoulder.

Ilya watched silently as he offered to bring in anything left, feeling slightly vindicated as Bood’s shoulders dropped when Shane shook his head, gesturing at Pike and Boiziau. He knew his husband and his systems, he wanted to remind Bood. He knew what it felt like to vie for his attention, and he wanted to remind his team that they could’ve gotten Shane’s affection so much more easily had they simply figured their shit out. But then he’d be a bad captain and Shane would lose the tentative peace he’d found, so— silence it was.

Bood offered again, frowning now, but Shane shook his head. Desperation was a fine look on his team off the ice, Ilya was realizing. Maybe he’d work in another Hollander training day. They’d take it just fine, and maybe Shane would have fun with it this time. He’d even send a video to Pike.

He gave Bood a tight smile as he returned dejectedly. “He has a system. I told you.”

“He’s letting Pike and Boiziau help,” Bood grumbled. “What’s a third pair of hands?”

Untrustworthy, Ilya doesn’t say. He just shrugs, sipping his drink.

“That went well,” Shane said into the comfortable silence of the kitchen. They were doing a cursory clean up, making it as easy in the cleaning service when they came in the morning.

He glanced at Ilya just in time to catch him nodding. “Yes. I think so too. It was…” Ilya sighed heavily, shooting Shane a conspiratorial smile, “not that bad of an idea to invite the Montreal Morons.”

Shane snorted, leaning over to swat Ilya with a towel. “That the best you can do?”

“At eleven in the night, when I should be fucking you? Yes.”

Shane felt himself flush a beet red, glancing upstairs purposefully. The Pike kids were down already, and they could hear Hayden and Jackie puttering around upstairs, getting ready for bed themselves. Logically, Shane knew neither of them would care about the sex jokes unless one of the kids could hear them, but still. He’d rather not have his best friends knowing about his sex life.

It wasn’t that he was— embarrassed, necessarily. He wasn’t. He loved sex, and he loved sex with Ilya. That was to be expected. He knew Hayden couldn’t keep his hands off of Jackie, either, with one, two, three, and four piled in their guest room as proof. It was just… sacred. Kind of. Something just for him and Ilya in a way that so few things had ever been. And even that was rationed now, with Shane just being too fucking tense in roadies to do anything more than a quick blowjob.

He should’ve been able to move past it. Even at the beginning, the team hadn’t said anything about them fucking on roadies, but it just stopped being… fun. Right, maybe, if Shane was being honest. There was none of the fun of sneaking around when the danger was your own teammates, so they came to a silent agreement to limit sex during short roadies. Shane hated it. Ilya hated it. Shane couldn’t relax enough to get over himself. Ilya was stuck suffering for it too.

Fuck.

He shook himself, glancing at Ilya. He’d gone back to stuffing the industrial trash bags, humming slightly. Shane let out a slow breath.

“You had fun. With the guys from Montreal,” Ilya said suddenly, voice low and pleasant. “I am glad.”

Shane hummed. “Yeah. Missed them, I guess. I haven’t had time to catch up with anyone after the wedding. It was nice not having to, like, introduce myself again.”

“I’m sure. The rookie was shocked.”

“Oh, Rivers?” Shane chuckled, grinning at the memory of the kid following him around like a little duckling. “August kept him in check. He’s a good kid though. About as promising as Holmberg if he was a defenseman.”

Ilya snorted fondly, tossing an empty plastic bottle at him. “Of course that’s what you remember. What’s his favorite color?”

“What are we, five? I don’t know his favorite color!” Shane paused, considering, as he deposited the bottle in his trash bag. “He said he appreciated what we were doing for the league, though. He has queer sisters who like hockey again because of us, apparently.”

Ilya laughed quietly, and Shane pretended not to notice how wet it sounded. “Oh. Okay. Good. I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

They lapsed back into a comfortable silence, moving around each other like a well-oiled machine. Shane loved these moments of quiet domesticity; it was amazing to see where they had started and where they ended up. He didn’t think he could ever get this— the white picket fence, the husband, the career. It would always have been one or the other, but he’d gotten lucky, won the draw. In these moments, it almost didn’t matter how undeserving he was of all this; he let himself bask in the simplicity of a happy, warm life.

“It’s good that you got to spend time with your friends. You haven’t…” Ilya repeated after a while, trailing off, “done that in a while.”

Shane frowned, tying off his trashbag and watching Ilya do the same. “Like I said, I’ve been busy. You’ve been busy with me.”

“Well, yes, but I mean— never mind.”

Now was as good a time as any to pull out his trump card: “Cottage rules, baby. What’s on your mind?”

“Ugh, stupid cottage rules,” Ilya grumbled, washing his hands and flicking the water at Shane. He yelped quietly, flipping him off. “I mean that you haven’t acted like that in a while. Happy and smiley. I know— I know why, of course. I understand. But it was good to see.”

Shane bit back a flinch. He could tell Ilya was genuinely happy to have seen him having fun with his friends, that he didn’t mean it as any sort of condemnation, but his brain had never been quite as good at reading the room as it should’ve been. He knew he shouldn’t have heard you’re no fun, Shane, you can’t even pretend to be, but… well, fuck, it was true, wasn’t it? He was pissing himself off with how he couldn’t even put on a smile around the team, so no wonder Ilya had picked up on it. He even gave Shane the grace of letting it go.

But he was just so tired of trying to smile back at them when he knew it was just another play at synchrony, at the sort of on-ice chemistry that won them cups and awards. He couldn’t understand why the team didn’t just let it go at that, too; it wasn’t like he was all that much fun to be around. Ilya had just said as much, bless him.

(Logically, somewhere beneath the exhaustion and frustration, he figured that they were doing it for Ilya’s benefit. If the captain was happy, then the team was happy. That had been the rulebook for every other team he’d been on, including the Metros: He wasn’t happy, so neither was the team. Hell, he could respect the guys for coming to that conclusion themselves.)

Ugh. Why’d he implement cottage rules just now? Shane sighed, nodding towards the stairs. Ilya grabbed his hand as they walked up.

“I’m sorry,” he started, holding his free hand up as Ilya opened his mouth to protest. “I don’t mean to be a drag or a bore—don’t say I’m not, I know how I am—, but, God, Ilya. I’m going to feel worse if I act like I’m having fun when I’m not. Please don’t ask me to do that.”

“I would never,” his husband said immediately, giving his hand a firm squeeze. “You do not need to pretend for anyone, Shanya. Especially not me. And I am not asking you to act like anything for our team. It was just good to see you so happy with other people, especially after—” Ilya waved his hand, “—everything.”

“You were just saying.”

“I was just saying,” Ilya confirmed, leaning into him to give him a soft kiss.

They were upstairs now, lingering in the landing like their bed wasn’t calling to them. The quiet of the house, broken only by Hayden and Jackie’s occasional movements, was feeling oppressive for the first time in a long time. Shane sighed, tugging Ilya towards their room.

“For the record, I do see that the team is trying,” he said into the silence.

He felt it the moment Ilya tensed, pulling his hand out of Shane’s gently. This was an ongoing argument between them, because Ilya didn’t understand why Shane didn’t want the guys to do whatever it was they were doing. It felt disingenuous, like they were doing it to absolve their guilt. Shane didn’t want to be used as a tool of absolution or whatever the fuck; he had enough going on being a gay, Asian hockey player. He was just glad they stopped being downright cruel.

(It took weeks after that initial conversation for him to admit that that’s what it was: cruelty. The word still felt foreign in his mouth, an admission to some sort of weakness he couldn’t see but that could be exploited. What a fucking scam.)

Ilya was insistent that they change their actions and shut entirely, though. He believed, firmly, that that was the least they could do. In the privacy of his own mind, Shane agreed, but it didn’t really matter, not when people didn’t change. Not when hockey didn’t change. Letting the guys ease off, return to last year’s form, was more efficient and successful. There was no reason to make this a thing.

“Let’s talk about this tomorrow, moye odeyalo,” Ilya said, head ducked. “We are both tired.”

“Blanket.” Shane paused, pursed his lips. Tomorrow, always tomorrow. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

They both knew full well that bravery elude them come morning. They’d made their peace with it long ago.

So be it, Shane supposed, as Hayden and Jackie’s light clicked off.

Something had changed again. In the air or in the water or maybe, probably, in the team. Shane was well and tired of it, and he was content to just ignore it, let it pass him by. For how much Ilya and Hayden and Jackie told him to not let things just happen to him, Shane had found that truly, genuinely ignoring bullshit worked wonders. As a rookie, when the vets eyed him with malice and the other kids hated him for being everything they weren’t, Shane had gotten through basically unscathed thanks to turning a blind eye to their sneers and plugging his ears to their words. If he didn’t bother with what they said, then they weren’t saying anything at all. It wasn’t like what they said was valuable, anyway.

In retrospect, Shane should’ve done that with the Centaurs, too, rather than trying to meet them halfway. It would’ve saved him and Ilya a lot of heartbreak. He could’ve just doted on his husband all he wanted, turned away from the team’s glares, and Ilya could’ve kept both of the best things in his life right as they were. But unfortunately, Shane never knew when to stop. 

That brought him here, skating laps around the rink after practice. The team had been begging for days to be allowed to bring their families in for a practice, and management had finally relented. Shane was no stranger to playing for crowds, of course, but it felt different when it was just the team’s families. It felt like all eyes were on him, picking apart every interaction he had with the guys. Every missed pass, every snapped instruction, every bit of quiet approval he could dredge up—because, yes, he knew it still mattered to the rookies, even if they looked at him like they were scared of him— it was all for public display and scrutiny. Every moment he tensed under Boodram’s or Dykstra’s or Dillon’s or Barrett’s hands on his shoulders, it felt like the kids and wives and girlfriends there saw right through the act they were putting on. And if even the untrained eye could pick out the tension, who was to say opposition couldn’t?

And his tenseness wasn’t for a lack of trying. He tried, he really did, to relax enough that his lip wouldn’t curl every time Haas asked for help with his edges or Boyle wanted to practice stick handling with his techniques. It just didn’t feel like he was doing a good enough job at it, but what was new?

Ilya was taking a round with Barrett and Boodram, Shane having talked him into at least trying to maintain on-ice chemistry after practice, leaving him to take a slow meander along the edges. He took a deep breath, held it until his lungs burned, and breathed out slowly. For everything that had happened, the ice hadn’t changed— it was sharp and biting, the smell of metal carved into it and rubber laid over top. It smelled like what he knew, and he couldn’t ask for much else. Familiarity in the unfamiliar, or something.

“Hey, Holly! Wait up!” Dykstra called. Shane startled, glancing over his shoulder to see the man… with his daughter? “Can’t really go fast with Miss Suzie on me.”

Shane shot him a tight smile but obliged, slowing down to a crawl to let him catch up. Some of the other guys brought their kids on the ice every now and then, too, usually when they had a late practice and needed to tire the kids out enough to put them down for their afternoon naps. They’d started doing it when Shane had offhandedly mentioned, after hearing Boodram and Chouinard complain about having trouble putting their kids to sleep for the hundredth time, that he used to take the Pike kids down for a quick skate before afternoon practices, and that it always tired them out enough for Jackie and Hayden to put them to sleep quickly.

And while Shane wasn’t anyone’s go-to babysitter in Ottawa, they’d taken his advice to heart, so it wasn’t uncommon to see the dads on the team hand-in-hand with their kids, skating up and down the ice. It was a bit of an inconvenience to skate around them, but Shane didn’t hate it, really; it was nice to see that he could still have some sort of positive impact on the team, without it being a response to something one of the guys did. This sort of offering, it came easy to him.

Dykstra pulled up next to him, grinning and waving one of Suzie’s hands for her. Shane chuckled lightly, waving back to her as she made grabby hands towards him. Dykstra nodded, holding her out carefully. Shane blinked.

“You’re sure?” he asked, hands twitching. “I can leave if she’s gonna keep asking to—”

“Hollzy. You can hold her.” Dykstra all but shoved his daughter into Shane’s hands, smiling wider. “She’s, like, obsessed with you, dude. Caitlin and I were talking about it after the party. She usually doesn’t go to other people—clingy stage, you know?—but she’s always pointing at you and babbling, and how can we say no to her cute little face, right?”

Shane huffed quietly, readjusting her in his arms. She immediately tucked her head under his chin, wiggling happily. “Yeah, I get that. Ilya’s the same way with Anya.” He paused, grimacing. “Not that Suzie’s— y’know. Equivalent to a dog. I just meant, like, he’s terrible at saying no to cute people, too. Not that you are terrible at saying no. Sorry, I—”

Dykstra cut him off, shaking his head with a laugh. “No, no, I got you. And you’re right. The first time Rozy looked after Suzie, we had to remind him, like, ten times to not give in to her when she asks for second dessert. Pretty sure he still did, but whatever.”

“Aha. Yeah. Sounds like Ilya.” He bounced Suzie in his arms a bit, smiling at her giggling. “You’re gonna take a good nap for mom and dad, right, Suzie?”

She blinked up at him, all curly brown hair and blue eyes. “Bah!”

“Mhm, I thought so. You’re very smart.”

She blew him a raspberry, giggling even louder as Shane stuck his tongue out in response. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, Dykstra smiling fondly as he watched his daughter. Shane knew he was good with kids— they tended to like him, trusting him instinctively in a way that scared him a little. Even when he was strict or his demeanour went flat or he got snappy, they always came back to him, wrapping their little bodies around his legs or climbing into his lap for cuddles during a break.

Maybe that’s why it hurt so much when so many of the Metros started keeping their kids away from him. They were well within their rights to do that, of course; they were the parents, and if they felt Shane wasn’t a good influence, fine. But he had always been there for them and their kids, and it only happened after he came out. Was outed. Whatever. It was kind of shocking, really, how quickly they forgot that he had always been himself, that he’d always taken care of their families as much as he could.

(He remembered the first few times Hayden and August invited him over, showing off how excited their kids were to see Shane. He had gone home and cried more than once those nights.)

The Centaurs were certainly more courteous than that. They always brought their kids over to say hi, let him give them piggy back rides when they begged, swing them around when they clung to his hands. It was a tremendous display of trust, made worse by the fact that their families had to get involved at all. Shane was confident that they hadn’t told their wives and girlfriends anything, considering the WAGs still looked at him with friendly curiosity and the kids were more than happy to play with him. He felt… not good about them knowing this other version of himself, this version that their husbands didn’t know, but he couldn’t bring himself to push away the friendliness, the connection. He missed it. Simple as.

But still, it raised questions about why the guys were so happy to let him get to know their families. They didn’t like him all that much, he knew, but this was more than they had to do to get back into Ilya’s good graces. This was them trusting Shane, the walking catastrophe that was Hollander, with the people that mattered the most to them. Shane had never been very religious, but this was both absolution and damnation. It was abjectly terrifying.

Maybe it was a test. That would make sense. If they could trust him around their families, then they could trust him around their captain-turned-brother. Sure, Shane didn’t understand why they’d be fine with throwing their families to the wolves, but whatever. It wasn’t like he had any interest in ruining their lives; only his and Ilya’s, apparently.

“Hey, I don’t know if we ever said this, but thanks for the pre-skate tip. It really did help with nap time,” Dykstra said suddenly, cutting through his thoughts. “You’re a life saver.”

Shane blinked, glancing down at Suzie as she cooed and babbled. A sense of wrongness sat heavy in his chest, pressing on his heart. What a goddamn test. They’d managed to figure out how to haze him after all.

“Sure, man. Anytime,” he said, his voice sounded a thousand miles away.

November and December snuck up on him. Between ordering gifts and doing media and preparing to go to visit his parents, Shane was beginning to miss the ice. Sure, they still had practice and games, but for the first time in a long time, he found himself wanting to simply shoot the shit: practice useless trick shots, race up and down, play hockey as a game rather than a sport. It was an old craving, probably reignited by all the time he spent with Hayden the day after the holiday party. Ugh, that fucking guy; Shane had already sent Hayden a lengthy text complaining about his ‘bad influence,’ and he was probably going to send another. Not that Hayden would respond with anything other than a voice recording of him cackling, but the intention counted.

Shane slowly loosened the reins on the rookies during optional skates. He took care to never do that—they’d take a mile if you gave them an inch, his mom always used to say—, but with his own cravings and how he was itching for a break, it felt cruel to be so harsh on them. If he couldn’t get his own desires under control, he sure as hell didn’t have the right to correct them on their behaviour.

(Besides, in the privacy of his own mind, Shane could admit that he also just… didn’t want them to resent him any more than they already did. He liked the rookies, despite it all, and he wanted them to see him as something more than just their Alternate-to-be, the captain’s husband. He was still Shane fucking Hollander, and the easier they felt around him, the better for the team.)

Ilya must have noticed how much he was wanting to just play, since he kept a few pucks and one of the nets on the ice, grinning at Shane and waggling his brows. He held out Shane’s practice stick once he skated colder.

“Shot competition, moy metkiy strelok,” he said, already heading towards the pucks scattered across the blue line. “Let’s see who is faster, yes? Since you seem to think it’s you.”

Shane snorted, shoving Ilya lightly. The team had begun clearing out, the family guys heading back as soon as possible, while the rookies and single guys were… doing something or another in the locker room. Shane didn’t know, and with Ilya looking at him with competition in his eyes, he didn’t particularly care, either.

“My… hm. I don’t know that one.” Shane leaned down, warming his hands back up as he stickhandled with a puck. “And I am faster. There is no ‘think’ to it.”

“Sharpshooter,” Ilya said, punctuating it with a wink and a fucking shot to the net.

Shane gasped, firing off his own puck. “Cheater. Fuck you, dude.”

They went back and forth like that, not bothering to grab anyone to time them or setting timers themselves. The arguing was half the fun— it felt a bit like old times, with the precedent of being the best setting them up to compete, compete, compete. And now, they could do that without having to pretend they hated each other.

It was easy to lose himself in the easy ebb and flow between them, enough that he forgot himself for a bit. For a moment, he was just another guy having fun with his husband, uncaring of what the team would say or think or do. Maybe, just maybe, that Shane considered, they’d have fun with him.

“No, fuck you, that was a cheap shot, Rozanov!” Shane yelled, ducking as Ilya launched another puck at him, giggling. “We need to set rules for the rematch, Jesus Christ.”

“Top cheese, baby!”

“No it’s not!” Shane scanned around the rink, gaze landing on Holmberg. The kid was quiet, well-behaved, and more than a little terrified of Ilya. Good enough. He pointed at him. “Holmberg, we’re doing a speed shot competition. Make sure Rozanov isn’t fucking cheating.”

“Bergy, if you tell Hollander to eat shit and admit I’m faster, I’ll give you two thousand dollars,” Ilya said flippantly, helping Shane recollect the pucks and bring them back to the blue line. “And I’ll save you from the Hollander drills.”

“You can’t fucking bribe him, jackass!” Shane glared at Holmberg, and for a moment he forgot the animosity, the venom. He was just a vet having fun with a rook, and it was nice, if impermanent. He took a deep breath, steeling himself. “No pressure, Holmberg. You can say no.”

“Uh, no, in no world am I saying no,” he laughed, joining them on the ice. “A shootout between the Hollander and the Rozanov? In private? Yeah, no, I’d have killed for this as a kid.”

“You’re still a kid,” Ilya pointed out, directing Holmberg to stand behind the net. “No cheating.”

“I wasn’t even— fine, whatever.” He turned to Holmberg, waving between himself and Ilya. “We’re both gonna shoot seven pucks as fast as we can. Only goals count, we can’t distract each other unless we want to give the other person a redo, and no interference. Everything else is fair game.”

Holmberg nodded seriously. “Timer?”

“Uh. If you want.”

Shane saw Ilya glance at him out of the side of his eye, and he bit back a grimace. He knew how bad he was at acting normal around the team. And now Ilya was going to be concerned and ask Shane questions later, and Shane would have to pretend that even the mere idea of the team seeing the way he and Ilya acted together didn’t terrify him. Just how many times had they been acting normal, only for their reactions to remind Shane that his ‘normal’ was fucking odd? And sure, they didn’t do that anymore, but still— his normal hadn’t become any better.

“Probably for the best, huh?” Holmberg chuckled, pulling out his phone. “Who’s up first?”

“Holl—“ Ilya started.

“Rozanov.”

Holmberg nodded as Ilya frowned at him, raising his brow. Shane pressed his lips into a thin line, nodding at him. With a huff, Ilya got into position and— bam. In just a few seconds, all of the pucks were in the net and Ilya was smirking victoriously at him. Holmberg whistled, impressed, and turned his phone around to show them the time.

“1.9 seconds, Rozanov,” he recited, a little starry eyed. Shane bit back a smile. “Holly?”

He hummed, getting into position. Holmberg held up a finger as he reset the timer, then, with a flourish, gestured for him to proceed. Shane wasted no time. With a flick of his wrist, the first puck was in. Then the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and—

“1.7 seconds! Hollander’s the winner!” Holmberg declared, waving his phone around like a flag.

“Ethan Holmberg is the loser of two thousand dollars—”

“That’s less than the bonuses I got this year.”

“—and of captain’s protections,” Ilya grumbled, flipping Shane off.

Holmberg blinked innocently, batting his eyelashes at Shane. “Hollander will protect me, right? Can I get, like, a one drill exemption from the next Hollander drill day, please?”

Shane glanced at the mess of pucks in the net. The drill days were a new addition to their practice schedule, something Shane and Ilya had argued about for weeks. He’d already run one with Ilya hanging off of his back, anger radiating off of him with every step and maneuver. Sure, Shane had been right that the team would benefit from harder days like that, but he didn’t feel good about the reason behind the drills— using them as punishment felt counterproductive to… everything. The guys would be well within their rights to hate him for how he stepped into the leading role, a return to captaincy that he hadn’t earned. It had just been given to him for, what, revenge? He was forced to turn passion into vengeance, disturbing both the sanctity of his use of the drills, and discouraging the guys from actually learning anything from them.

But Ilya was deadset on having him lead drills, and the Cens had seemingly come to expect that from Shane so— fine. Whatever. He’d lead a team that didn’t want to be led by him.

“The others won’t be happy about that,” Shane said, forcing some levity into his voice. “And considering we just got a hang of two-on-two pushes, I don’t really want to jeopardize that.”

There. That was a safe statement. Focused on the team, not a refusal that would irritate him, and another way for Shane to keep Ilya out of the heat of the team’s irritation.

Holmberg sighed heavily, joining Ilya as they started picking the pucks up. “Okay, I get it, just say you hate me.”

Shane blanched. “What? No, I don’t hate you. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Whoa, whoa, no, sorry!” Holmberg interjected, staring at him with wide eyes. “It’s just, like, a thing people say. No, I know you don’t hate me. I don’t hate you either. We’re all good.”

Ilya smacked Holmberg with his stick, just a little too hard to be playful ribbing. His smile was tight around the corners. “Enough. Watch yourself.”

“Sorry, honest! I can prove it’s just an internet thing!” he insisted, flinching away from another whack of Ilya’s stick. “I was gonna ask if I can do a two-on-two with Holly, damn! Like, as compensation!”

Shane blinked, shooting out a hand to catch Ilya’s stick as he went to trip Holmberg. Ilya rolled his eyes at him, huffing, but his attention was fixed on Holmberg, who suddenly looked very interested in the rafters.

“You want to do a two-on-two with me?” Shane repeated, incredulous. “You know I’m not gonna go easy on you, right?”

Holmberg looked deeply offended at that, and somehow, someway, that was more reassuring than anything else he could’ve said. “Obviously. I’d hate it if you went easy with me. But, like, if I have Shane Hollander on my team and don’t take every opportunity to learn from him, I’ve been replaced by an alien.”

Shane snorted involuntarily, because had this come from any of the other rookies, he would’ve called them liars. Holmberg, though, he’d been… fine, for the most part. Shy and avoidant, but he had kept his attitude mostly to himself. Shane appreciated it then, and he appreciates it now.

“Alright then.”

Holmberg lit up, glancing at Ilya for confirmation. “Can I really?”

Ilya was silent for a long moment, just staring at him, before nodding slowly. “Don’t fuck it up, otherwise I’ll have to make you do bag skates for screwing over our competition.”

“Fuck yeah!” Holmberg cheered, pumping his fist in the air. “Thanks, Holly!”

“Any time, rook,” Shane said, waving to him as he skated off and rejoined the others. He sighed, dropping his voice as he spoke to Ilya. “You don’t have to protect me from the fucking kids, Ilya. I appreciate it, but come on. It makes me look like a fucking wimp.”

“They need to remember that you’re Shane fucking Hollander,” he retorted, dropping off the pucks in the equipment manager’s hands. Shane followed behind him, carrying the net. “Fear is the greatest motivator, no?”

Shane ducked into the tunnel, stepping to the side to allow Ilya to fall into stride with him. “I can scare them myself.”

Ilya shot him a look, frowning deeply. “Will you?”

“What’s the point? If I do, they’ll hate me. If you do, they’ll think I’m getting privileges. It’s a lose-lose situation.”

He paused and shook his head, looking away. For all that Shane could talk and twist his words, he didn’t think he could look Ilya in the eyes and keep talking.

“Besides, Ilya, I just need them to listen to me when I correct them, which they all do. I don’t give a fuck about the rest of it.”

“Hazy is inviting us to dinner tonight,” Ilya called from the living room. “I can tell him to fuck off!”

Shane yawned, popping his and Ilya’s meal prep in the microwave. Decisions, decisions. On the one hand, he knew he had to make more of an effort to actually reciprocate the team’s advances if they ever wanted to get anywhere, to let Ilya escape the rock and the hard place. On the other hand—

“To a restaurant or…?” he called back. “Because I don’t want to bother, uh…”

“Lisa,” Ilya filled in. “He is inviting us to their house. Or, well, technically she is inviting us. Should I say no? I will be nice since it is Lisa.”

Well. That complicated matters. He knew, first hand, what happened when they said no to an insistent WAG— the stockpiles of his stuff at the Pike house, and vice versa, said enough.

“No, let’s go,” he sighed, scratching his nose. “Lisa reminds me of Jackie, which means we won’t be able to escape the dinner invitations forever.”

Ilya snorted, shuffling into the kitchen. He was bundled up in one of the soft throw blankets, looking like a very fluffy dream. Shane glanced at the microwave—thirty-eight seconds left—and opened his arms. Ilya giggled, launching himself at Shane and wrapping them both in the blanket. Shane wiggled comfortably as he warmed up, basking in Ilya’s body heat. He leaned forward to kiss him, hands flung around his waist. Ilya hummed, kissing him right back, all soft lips and kitten licks into his mouth.

Quiet weekends during the cold weather were Shane’s favorite. He got to get all cozy with Ilya, lazing around on their rare off-days. It had been a while since they’d gone out with the team, naturally, but Shane couldn’t find it in himself to be more concerned about it. He was selfish like that, but he could not be faulted these few, rare days. He’d make up for the difference elsewhere, and maybe they would too, but as of now—

The microwave beeped right as Ilya’s phone buzzed in his pocket. They separated with annoyed groans, pleasantly warm and buzzing. Ilya kept one arm looped around Shane’s waist.

“So yes to tonight?” he asked, brows raised. “Should I say we should go to a restaurant?”

Shane pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “No, that’s time consuming too. Maybe suggest we bring the main course, and they can handle sides or dessert or something.”

“Okay.” Ilya plopped back down on the couch, his tongue poking out as he typed.

Shane huffed out a laugh, sliding his bowl over to him as he settled into his own spot, the meal prep balanced in his lap. Anya skittered over, puppy eyes on full display and already begging. Shane rolled his eyes fondly, picking out a piece of chicken and some broccoli to toss to her. She snapped it right out of the air, tail wagging wildly.

He huffed, patting her with a socked foot. “You’re really proud of yourself, huh, girl?”

She let out a quiet boof, pattering over to sit at their feet.  Shane snorted, glancing over to see Ilya smiling sweetly at the two of them.

“What?” he said, brows raised as he turned the TV on.

“Oh, nothing. Just looking at my pretty girl and boy,” Ilya said, smirking cheekily.

Shane rolled his eyes again, biting back a smile. “Shut up. Do you wanna continue with Suits?”

Ilya nodded, already stuffing his food into his mouth. Shane shook his head, taking a bite like a civilized man. He was married to a caveman, really. They ate in silence for the most part, too focused on their food and show to talk much, until Ilya’s phone buzzed again.

Shane watched as his brows rose as he read, the tightness in his face falling away slightly, replaced by surprise and… appreciation? “Huh. Lisa says she tried one of Jackie’s recipes that work with your diet.”

“Oh, already?” Shane shrugged at Ilya’s questioning look. “At the party, Jackie was talking about the recipes she uses for me, and Lisa was… really excited. Said it would be a fun challenge.”

“Doctors,” Ilya muttered, typing away on his phone. “Okay, she said they are very excited to see us. Bring dessert.”

Shane nodded, mentally rummaging through their fridge and pantry. Neither him nor Ilya were that great with desserts, but if Lisa was going through the effort of adhering to Shane’s pickiness, they owed her that much. They probably had some cream and sugar, as well as some frozen fruit. They could bring homemade ice cream, probably. That was something people liked. It shouldn’t have bothered him so much, this whole situation, but he couldn’t go over to a teammate’s house for the first time with a shitty hostess gift— not only had his mother raised him better, but what the fuck would that look like? Like he wasn’t fucking trying to make peace, or that they weren’t doing enough?

(Well. Ilya would argue to the ends of the Earth they weren’t. Shane didn’t have the energy to disagree. But that was neither here nor there, and they had to make it work. They couldn’t afford otherwise.)

Ilya paused his inhaling of food, putting a hand on Shane’s thigh and squeezing. “We can have something shipped, moy pomidor. Or we can cancel. I know the guys still—”

“No, no. We can probably just bring berries and vanilla ice cream.” Shane paused, chewing his lip. He had promised Ilya that he would tell him if something was bothering him about the team… “I just don’t want to fuck it up, you know? This is the first time someone’s explicitly invited both of us, and Lisa’s cooking for us, and I just— I don’t know. What if this puts me and Hayes back, like, ten steps?”

Ilya was silent for a moment, mouthing ‘explicitly’ to himself, then shook his head. “I do not think that will be the case. There is nothing to go wrong, and Lisa will kill Hazy if he fucks up.”

Shane’s eyes widened, and he plopped his bowl on the coffee table with a loud clatter. Anya yipped, scuttling away from him. Ilya frowned, putting his bowl down far more gently.

They couldn’t even have a nice lunch without Shane fucking it up. Wonder of wonders.

“Do the WAGs fucking know what happened?” he hissed, clenching and unclenching his fist. “Because, Ilya, I swear to God, I cannot—“

“Shane, Shane, hey,” Ilya interrupted, firm but soft. “No, the WAGs don’t know.”

“How do you know?”

Ilya raised a brow. “You met them, Shanya. That’s how I know. At least five of them would kill their men for making assumptions.”

This again. Shane groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Only if they had the full story, Ilya, which no one did! Fuck, they’d hate me if the guys told them anything.”

“…I don’t like that reasoning,” Ilya said slowly, after a moment, “but that is proof they do not know, yes?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Shane let out a slow breath, dragging his hands down his face as he slumped back, suddenly tired. “Sorry.”

“No, none of that,” Ilya scolded gently, nudging him with a socked foot. “Eat, Shanya.”

Shane nodded glumly, scratching behind Anya’s ear as an apology for startling her, leaning forward to grab his bowl. He knew Ilya was watching, always so careful, but what he didn’t expect was—

“Can I feed you?” he asked suddenly, quiet and a bit red-cheeked. Shane blinked. “I know we do not normally… do that. But you might— ah, fuck, never mind, ignore that.”

Shane blinked again, harder this time. He tilted his head. “You… want to feed me?”

“Ignore it! It was stupid,” Ilya grumbled, ducking his head as he resumed shoveling his rice and chicken into his mouth. He glanced up once to glare at Shane, speaking around a mouthful as he said, “And shdawp look’ng a’ me!”

Shane snorted. “Gross. But, uh— you can.”

Ilya paused, watching him out of the side of his eye. It was Shane’s turn to blush.

“I mean, y’know, it’d be faster. I’m a pretty slow eater compared to you, and the faster we finish eating, the sooner we can start figuring out how to make ice cream,” he rambled, picking at his food.

Now that Ilya said it, he couldn’t get the idea out of his brain— plus, the efficiency would be a nice bonus. At least an extra ten minutes to figure out how to not fuck up dinner with Hayes and Lisa. It was only logical. He put his bowl down and waited.

Ilya grinned, polishing off the last bits of his own meal as fast as possible. Frankly, Shane was a little concerned he would choke, and wouldn’t that be hell to explain to the team? Oh, yeah, sorry, my husband-slash-your-captain is out and down for the count because I couldn’t keep my childish desires to myself? God, he’d be tarred and feathered. It would be deserved, but it would also undo all the work Ilya put into restoring the team’s dynamics, so— no go.

Shane jumped slightly as Ilya scooted closer, his own empty bowl now forgotten on the other side of the coffee table. He had a gleam in his eyes as he carefully picked up pieces of chicken and broccoli and rice, taking care to make sure everything was equally balanced in the spoon. Just the way Shane did it, the way he liked it. Oh, he didn’t deserve this man.

Ilya tapped the spoon on his lip, watching greedily as Shane closed his mouth around it. Shane jolted, mid-chew, as Ilya ran his foot up and down Shane’s calf, tantalizingly slow and sensual.

“I was thinking,” he started casually, “I like the idea of ice cream and berries. But why don’t we make it special?”

Shane closed his eyes, taking the next offered bite as he hummed, nodding.

“Why bring them separately, hm? We could make berry ice cream.”

“That— that’d require a sauce. We don’t have berry sauce,” Shane protested, the words weak to his own ears.

Ilya smiled, predatory and winning. “I bought you that apron for a reason, zaychik. Put it to use.”

Shane groaned, twitching as Ilya dug the ball of his foot into his calf. “Jesus fuck, Ilya, finish feeding me so I can— fuck!”

“So impatient,” Ilya tutted, watching him with his pupils blown, the blue of his eyes nearly swallowed. Talk about impatient.

Shane thought he had handled the ticking clock rather well. Lunch, sex, clean-up— they all went smoothly, his brain thoroughly distracted from the looming threat of going to dinner at a teammate’s house. He’d even managed to avoid the panic while making the ice cream with Ilya (though that might have had something to do with how Ilya wrestled him into the apron, nude, and did his damn best to make sure he’d accidentally caramelize the sauce— which he didn’t). But now, with the lazy, soft afternoon done and gone, the panic was setting back in.

It was a slow creep up his throat, this worry, cloying and gentle and familiar. It was the steady drip of doubt, that he’d say something to make Hayes worry again, which would undoubtedly send Ilya into another panic, and he certainly didn’t need his husband to think that someone else, that Shane, was going to leave him high and dry like that. It was the heavy hand on his lungs, pressing down and down and down with the knowledge that if he fucked up, even once, that Hayes was going to remember just who the fuck he’d invited into his home.

Oh god. This was a terrible idea. Shane should’ve said no, should’ve asked to go to a restaurant where, at least, being in public would ease the blow.

“Shanya,” Ilya murmured, squeezing the back of his neck gently. “Breathe, sweetheart. I can tell them no, I don’t care.”

He shook his head, glaring into the middle distance. “No, Ilya, that’s rude.”

“It’s not rude if I—”

“It is still rude.” Shane took a deep breath, nodding to himself. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Ilya eyed him warily but, trusting as always, picked up the bag with the ice cream. Shane swallowed, loosening his grip on the gift bag. He’d decided, last minute, to pack a few of the many candles he had. They always made Jackie happy when he gave them to her, and she’d always have them lit in the laundry room.

(“Shane, I love you,” she said one night, slightly wine-drunk, “but your guys’ hockey stuff smells terrible. Those candles are a life saver, but would it hurt to air out your gear outside?”

“Babe, think of the damage,” Hayden whined, draping himself across his wife. “What if it rains?!”

“Move them inside, honey!”

Shane just sipped his drink. He wasn’t keen on getting involved in a marital argument, unfortunately.)

So if Lisa and Jackie were half as similar as he thought, she’d probably like them. That’d be points in his favor, right? If he managed to win over the WAG, he couldn’t be all bad in the team’s eyes anymore.

Ilya rang their doorbell, watching Shane from the side of his eye as they waited. “Shanya, we can leave early if you want. No problem.”

Shane shook his head, throat a little too dry to speak. He wasn’t a fucking coward, though, so—

“It’ll be fine,” he grit out. “Small steps, right?”

Ilya huffed slightly, turning back to the door as it opened. Hayes flung open the door, grinning brightly at them. Lisa walked up behind him, smiling. They made a good picture. Wyatt was tall, dirty blond and sunny in disposition; Lisa, meanwhile, was dark-haired and cutting, analytical in the kindest way she could afford. They were opposites in the best way, complementary.

(Did he and Ilya make a pretty picture like that? Shane used to think they did. Maybe they still do. Who was he to say?)

“Well, I guess Cassie and Selena owe me fifty dollars each,” Lisa said, eyes crinkling. “I got you over first.”

Shane laughed breathily, nodding. The motion felt stiff and robotic. “That’s a favorite bet to run, huh?”

“Don’t you know it.” She stepped to the side, nudging Hayes out of the way. “Come in, make yourself at home. You can leave your shoes by the rack. How are you, Ilya? We haven’t invited you over in ages!”

Ilya chuckled, shaking his head as he toed off his shoe. “Ah, well, life got busy. We are doing so well, you see, that I have extra work to do now!”

“That’s what happens when you work too hard,” Lisa snorted. “Can’t say anything about that, though. Look at me.”

“Is true,” Ilya said solemnly. “Shane, she is a doctor at the children’s hospital. She is, how do you say— a miracle worker.”

Shane nodded appreciatively, smiling slightly at the way she waved off the praise, and followed Hayes and Lisa as they led them to the living room. “Wow, that’s really cool. What do you do, exactly?”

“I’m a pediatric neurologist,” she said over her shoulder, gesturing for them to sit. “It’s hard stuff, but I love it.”

“I bet. That’s really good work.” He shifted awkwardly, holding out the gift bag. “I got— well, you know, hostess gift, so I thought some candles would be nice. I know our gear is a nightmare.”

Lisa blinked at him, her face splitting into a wide grin. She laughed, shaking her head. “Jackie taught you well, Hollander.”

He shrugged, a smile pulling at the corner of his own mouth. “Gotta pay my respects to the woman who kept me fed and accompanied for ten years.”

Lisa shot a playful glare at Ilya and Hayes, taking the gift bag with a quiet thank you. Ilya was cheesing without a care in the world, his eyes locked on Shane and the way his was trying with Lisa. Hayes just glanced at the ceiling, whistling performatively.

“You two could learn something about how to treat women, you know,” Lisa admonished. “Look at Hollander, he’s so polite!”

“Yes, yes, my very polite husband,” Ilya laughed, voice syrupy sweet. “I have much to learn from him.”

Hayes nodded then, shooting Shane a thumbs up. “I’ll be taking notes, love, don’t worry. Holly, teach me your ways.”

Shane blinked, pointing at himself questioningly. Hayes nodded encouragingly, heedless of Ilya’s gaze boring into the side of his face. Now what the hell was Shane supposed to say to that? He wasn’t about to tell the guy how to interact with his own wife. Was this Hayes’s weird way—because fucking goalies—of telling him that he was still too uptight? He had thought he was being good about getting Ilya to hang out with the team again, joining more often just to make him realize that it was okay, that he was fine—

Ah. It was probably the lack of dinners with the team, then. Shane always said no to those, irrespective of who asked, and Ilya always chose to stay home with him. He’d made it clear many, many times that he’d be fine and content and happy home alone for a few hours, but his husband didn’t budge.

(It’s not a good look, Ilya would say. I have your back, Ilya would say. If you don’t want to hang out with them, then I’m going to make it a statement, too, Shanya.

Shane hated it as much as he loved it.)

Well. Another thing for him to work on, then.

As it was, Shane shrugged helplessly, trying to relax his shoulders. “Just, like, say thanks? Not that you’re ungrateful, but, y’know, it’s good to— you get it.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Hayes said, a bit gentler than before. He gave him a sloppy salute, smirking as Shane gestured to Ilya. “No, I said what I said.”

“And who the fuck has the C?” Ilya bit out, brow raised. Hayes’s brows rose.

Captaincy wasn’t an argument between them. Shane didn’t have any desire to have the C without the love-respect that came with it, and Ilya commanded it naturally. It was a reasonable, logical decision that Ilya would keep captaincy without struggle. Bitterness lingered, Shane was sure, but he couldn’t feel it or see it or find it, so no harm, no foul. At that point, he wasn’t even bitter over the letters on their chests!

“Holly’s my captain,” Hayes said anyway, slow and cautious. “Like, spiritually.”

Shane caught Lisa’s eye, shaking his head slightly at her frown. She was whip-fucking-smart, clearly, and Shane knew that she’d pick up that there was a reason Hayes hadn’t invited Ilya over in months— a reason beyond ‘busyness.’

“Right,” Ilya said, a little too sharp to be friendly and his smile a little too knowing to be comforting. “Enough about work, though. Anya dug many new holes in the yard.”

Shane sat back as the conversation drifted away from work, watching Ilya relax incrementally as they talked about nothing at all. Just meaningless chirps and random references to things from seasons prior. Shane couldn’t say he understood why most of them were funny, but Ilya had always done a good job at filling him in before he moved to Ottawa, so he wasn’t completely lost. It was a step up from being left completely clueless with the Metros, at least. Much like him, Lisa left Ilya and Hayes to their own devices, striking up conversation with Shane instead. And, thankfully, Lisa was a much more versatile conversationalist that he was, picking up the slack when he drifted off with no idea of how to continue the conversation.

“…And that’s the story of how I managed to mess up my first cardiac dissection so badly, the TA had to stick his hand into the atrium to feel the extent of disaster,” she sighed, shaking her head. “That’s also why neurology is my true love.”

Shane gaped at her, doing his best to not conjure up the mental images that her very vivid descriptions of ice fragments being stuck in the chambers produced. “That’s… fascinating. So, how, exactly, did ice chips end up in the, um—“

“Atrium? They preserved the pig hearts in ice after chemical treatment, which was great because it meant they looked fresh, but terrible because they froze my fingers while I was dissecting,” Lisa said, rather cheery for the gruesome topic.

“Oh. Wow. That’s very innovative,” Shane tried, earning a pleased smile from Lisa.

“You can call it gross, Shane. I know how it all comes across.”

He let out a breath, slumping slightly in his seat. “Oh, thank goodness. That’s so gross, Lisa, sorry. You’re doing amazing work, but I could never.”

“You definitely could, y’know, being a hockey player,” Lisa laughed, shaking her head. “You guys are good about blood and gore. As horrible as that first Montreal game was, your move with the blood in the kiss was great.”

Shane chuckled, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly. It was a very spur of the moment decision, the only thing he could think of to alleviate the distress on Ilya’s face. Sure, the sport they loved would always hurt them, but that didn’t mean they had to leave each other hurting. Shane had done enough of that.

“It wasn’t meant to be much. I just didn’t want him to worry.”

Lisa nodded. “Makes sense. The rest of the team could’ve done with a kiss too, at that rate. They all looked like they were about to lose their shit.”

He blinked. Truth be told, he’d been avoiding watching clips and highlights from that game. He’d done his job and watched tape, but little else. He had a feeling it would make him feel a little bit ill, a little more of something he didn’t want to bother Ilya with. And he knew the team felt bad about it, given their whole… grand apology speech, but frankly, he doubted they cared past realizing how upset they made Ilya.

That was probably why the team looked so worried after he was taken off the ice, because not only had they lost one of their star players, but their captain’s head wasn’t even in the game anymore. They still won, sure, but it was a pathetic victory. Shane wasn’t sure a kiss would’ve helped that, but if Lisa said so.

He was about to laugh it off, say that the team didn’t need to be babied, when Hayes cut in, frowning slightly.

“Are you guys talking about the Montreal game?”

“Oh, yeah. I was just saying that maybe a kiss from Shane—“ Ah, right, he got to be Shane now with them, “—would’ve helped you guys not look so miserable by the end,” Lisa laughed.

Hayes smiled awkwardly. “I don’t think we’ve earned that. We’ve got high standards to meet. Gotta keep pushing towards them, y’know?”

Shane bit back a flinch as Ilya nodded, less relaxed than before. “Yes. Many issues to fix before you deserve his praise.”

He knocked his knee against Ilya’s, giving him a look. Ilya stared right back, brow raised in a challenge. The silence was tenser now, with Hayes looking at Shane nervously and Lisa frowning at all three of them. Suddenly, she got up.

“It’s almost seven-thirty. Should we eat?”

Instantly, Ilya turned on his charm, smiling kindly at Lisa. “Why not? Tell me what to help with.”

“Nonsense! You two just go sit at the dining table.” Lisa glanced at her husband, the corners of her mouth tight. “Wy, come help me get the food out.”

“Sure thing, honey.”

They sat in silence for a moment as Wyatt and Lisa went to the kitchen. Shane could feel Ilya’s gaze boring into the side of his face, heavy and frustrated and apologetic. Murmurs were coming from the kitchen, too, but he did his best to not acknowledge them. If the Hayeses wanted to argue in peace, they could.

“Don’t do that, Ilya,” Shane whispered, glancing sideways at his husband. “Please. There’s no good reason to be passive aggressive, because all it’s gonna do is make them mad at me.”

Ilya sighed slightly, nodding. “You are right. I’m sorry.”

“But?” Shane prompted.

“Yours? Always.” Ilya paused, grimacing at the look Shane gave him. “Not the time, yes, I know. I am still angry at them, Shane. They are trying, but it doesn’t feel like enough.”

Shane gave him a slight smile, rueful but understanding, as he got up. “You’ve got high standards, baby.”

Ilya huffed, shaking his head. They made their way to the dining room, fully intending to ignore (well, okay, ‘ignore’) Wyatt and Lisa’s heated discussion in the kitchen, but their whispers carried over into the dining room. They didn’t have much choice but to listen, really.

“Wy, I know what you’re saying, what I’m asking is why? How?” Lisa whispered furiously. “Why didn’t you ask about dietary restrictions? How did you forget when half of our nieces and nephews have them, huh?”

Wyatt sighed heavily, sounding guilty for what it was worth. Shane didn’t quite know how he felt about that. “Shane always just— managed on team outings. He’d say he ate before joining us, or something about his macros, so we just didn’t want to get too into it. You know how some guys—“

“This isn’t about ‘some guys!’ You said Pike warned you about him doing things like that, and then Jackie basically confirmed that he’d just bring his own food to her house. As in, the house she’d been feeding him in since he was a rookie!” Lisa went quiet for a moment, muttering under her breath. “Babe, I don’t know what all of that is about, but if there’s something going on between you and Shane, or the team and Shane, I want to know.”

“…Ilya would probably tell you right now, if you asked. If you want to hear it from him.”

Shane caught Ilya’s eye, shaking his head firmly. He was feeling a bit nauseous, all of a sudden, the appetite he’d worked up gone. So the WAGs really didn’t know, but he and the team were doing such an awful job at reconciling that even they were noticing now. Whoop-de-fucking-doo.

“I won’t, malysh,” Ilya whispered, pouring water into the glasses. He nudged Shane’s towards him. “Drink.”

“Sorry—“

“Shanya.”

He snapped his mouth shut, curling his hands around the water glass. With the cold under his hands and Ilya’s foot on his, he felt slightly better, less like he was liable to collapse any second now. He really needed to figure his shit out, because the team’s wives didn’t need to be worrying about this. Especially not the wives like Lisa. God.

“…you’re sure?” Hayes was asking, cookware clinking as they gathered it up.

“Yeah. I don’t want to hear about whatever happened from Ilya, babe, I want to hear it from you as Shane’s teammate. In private, because none of you should be put on the spot like this.”

“Okay, sure. Yeah.”

Lisa hummed. “Great. Let’s go, they’re probably sick of waiting.”

Shane was going to give Lisa the biggest gift basket he reasonably could. She must’ve been an angel in disguise. Ilya also looked less worked up, even with Hayes trying to push the responsibility of explaining everything into him. Right, he’d have to make sure the gift basket didn’t have much that Hayes liked. Just a little something for him, because the effort was there. The effort certainly was there.

Lisa and Hayes rejoined them, looking rather put together, as they put down the dishes with a slight flourish. Ilya chuckled, looking thoroughly charmed by their antics. Hayes smiled at him.

“Everything’s aligned with your diet, Shane,” Lisa started, smirking slightly when he raised his brows. “I hounded Jackie for her recipes. She’s magic, that lady.”

Shane glanced at the pasta (probably a whole grain protein pasta), the salad and dressing (on the side!), the sautéed vegetables— everything looked perfectly. He swallowed, throat suddenly a bit tight.

“Yeah, she really is,” he murmured, blinking harshly. “And so are you. You didn’t have to do all of this, seriously.”

Lisa shrugged, serving herself a heaping spoonful of pasta. “Wanted to. It was fun.”

“Like chemistry class fun?” Hayes suggested, nudging his wife. She grinned.

Dinner went well. Stunningly well, once Shane had the excuse of eating to stay out of conversation. It didn’t escape him, despite seemingly their best efforts to hide it, how Hayes and Lisa did their best—independent of Ilya, even—to keep him engaged and included, even when he didn’t talk back much. It was enough to make him tear up again when Lisa sent him to fetch the homemade ice cream from the freezer. He took a long moment to compose himself, and no one said shit when he rejoined them, small bowls and spoons and an ice cream scoop in hand.

(The Metros might have laughed at him for that, called him a little house bitch— even before everything happened. It would’ve been a joke, something so beyond realistic that it was funny. Earlier this season, the Cens might have snubbed him too, deeming this too little of a penance for fucking up Ilya’s life.

Maybe they still do, and just hide it better.)

The ice cream was a hit. The conversation was smooth and light and nothing that Shane could ruin, even with his spectacular talent of doing so. By and large, he was happy with how the night went, even if a feeling of tension and unease lingered in his spine, even while the Hayeses saw them off.

Lisa was the first to hug them both. “You two need to come over again! Bring more of that ice cream!”

Ilya chuckled, patting her back. “Yes, doctor. Next time, you come over to our place. Anya will be very excited to see you, I think.”

“Aw hell yeah, Roz,” Hayes said cheerily, slapping Ilya on the shoulder as they pulled each other into a hug of sorts. “I miss my favorite nog.”

“Nog?” Ilya repeated, brow raised.

“Niece dog, obviously.” Hayes rolled his eyes good naturedly at Ilya’s indignant sputtering, turning to Shane. “Nice having you around, Holly.”

Shane tensed involuntarily as Hayes slapped him on the shoulder too, doing his best to relax a little as he hugged Hayes back. “Thanks for having me over. I hope it wasn’t—“

“Shane, buddy, I’m gonna be honest with you,” Hayes interrupted. “I’d invite just you, no husband, over anytime. Honestly, if you’re up for it, I’d kill to have weekly hangouts with you. Just you. Shootout practice, maybe?”

Shane glanced at Ilya, but he just looked back at him passively, shrugging. Your call.

He could recognize an olive branch when he saw one. And really, truly, it sounded kind of nice. He and Miitka and Drapeau used to do shootout practices like that every now and then, and they were always fun. Until they stopped, of course, and then he was left with a hole in his schedule that he couldn’t fill, because there were about ten thousand more holes demanding his attention too.

But at the same time— why? Why would Hayes want to spend more time with him, when he was a fucking drag to be around? Ilya was just as good of a shot, realistically, so it couldn’t have been actually wanting to practice shootouts. And try as he might, Shane just couldn’t reconcile this with all the weeks and months of passive aggressive glances at his watch.

And yet. None of this would directly benefit Ilya, either. So what the fuck. Why the fuck, really.

Hayes seemed to be going through a similar thought process, because he started, “No pressure at all, Shane. I’m not gonna be upset either way. Ball’s in your court.“

“I’ll think about it and get back to you, yeah?” Shane said, grimacing slightly. “I still owe JJ and Hayden a hangout from Montreal, and—“

Hayes held his hands up placatingly, shaking his head. “You don’t gotta explain shit to me, dude. Offer’s up for grabs whenever you want it. If you ever want it. No hard feelings either way, promise.”

Shane nodded, shuffling closer to Ilya. His husband shifted instantly, placing a warm hand comfortingly on his lower back. He flashed Hayes and Lisa another smile, more brittle than the last.

“Thank you for inviting us. We will get out of your hair now, yes?”

Lisa nodded, smiling back understandingly. “Sure thing, guys. Take care.”

Entaurs

Wyatt Hayes: Oh yeah, had Holly and Roz over for dinner last night! Guys make a mean ice cream, and Holly seemed pretty ok most of the night, except for a couple times when all of… that got brought up

Wyatt Hayes: So I think dinner is a good way to help and apologize a little. He didn’t hate it at least. Make sure you keep his diet in mind too

Wyatt Hayes: Jackie Pike honestly has some amazing recipes

Zane Boodram: Good man, Hazy. Quick question though

Zane Boodram: Did you tell Lisa about that whole situation from earlier in the season? Cassie just called me and said we needed to talk about the team…

Wyatt Hayes: Oh. Yeah. I did that

Wyatt Hayes: I didn’t really mean to, but Lisa pointed out that it probably wasn’t the best idea to only discuss everything within ourselves because it makes like an echo chamber

Wyatt Hayes: Which TBH is very true, no idea how I didn’t see that earlier

Wyatt Hayes: So I told her everything

Wyatt Hayes: She said she understood where we were coming from, but that what we did was really fucking stupid and that we should be ashamed of ourselves for jumping to conclusions and not asking for clarification

Nick Chouinard: Wow. She’s completely right but wow. It’s even worse than we realized when you put like that

Nick Chouinard: For the record, Selena said basically the same thing, and called us extra awful for using Shane’s kindness against him

Nick Chouinard: Also true

Ethan Holmberg: holy fuck we really are terrible people

Gabriel LaPointe: not saying yor wrong bergy but yu need to clean the livingroom dickhead

Ethan Holmberg: NOT THE TIME POINTY.

Zane Boodram: Okay, Cassie said we’ll talk about everything with the kids, so you three and Haasy need to get your asses to my house right now

Gabriel LaPointe: Can bergy finish the living room first

Zane Boodram: Now means now, LaPointe.

Gabriel LaPointe: Damn ok yes sir

“Endurance drills today,” Ilya said, reading off of the whiteboard Wiebe had written on. “You can pick your teams, Coach says.”

Truthfully, Ilya had expected the usual cordoning off of teammates. Troy, who he still couldn’t look in the eyes, attaching himself to Ilya, Bood going to whichever team looked smaller, Dykstra attaching himself to Shane (who looked completely thrown by it every time, breaking Ilya’s heart), so on and so forth. Wyatt was the only one who didn’t always join them, the goalie coach stealing him and their backup away for their own version of endurance training. It was predictable pattern, centered partially around making Shane comfortable and partially around getting shit done. He didn’t hate it, this focus, but it was stale and predictable, both things that he and Shane hated in hockey.

However, he wasn’t quite expecting the younger guys to be the ones to defy the norm. And yet, there they were, flocking as a group to where Shane was stretching before changing.

“Holly, we want to do your set!” Young announced, grinning so wide that his eyes crinkled at the corners.

Ilya blinked, shrugging at an equally confused Shane. The rookies and Luca weren’t necessarily… terrible with Shane, as far as Ilya knew, but only Holmberg and Luca really took the initiative to train with him. Young and LaPointe never objected, but they usually hung back, exchanging argumentative looks and timid smiles towards Shane.

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he sure as hell needed to figure it out.

(But then, they did always break when he gave them enough space. If they didn’t say anything by All Stars, he’d just have to break them himself.)

“All four of you,” Shane started carefully, looking between them, “want to do what I’m doing?”

“If that’s fine with you,” Luca added.

“Um. Sure, I guess. It’ll be tiring, though. I’m working with Mark today.”

Oof. Their assistant coach, Mark Lafeber, was one hell of a guy, but working with him was not for the faint of heart. Ilya would’ve pitied the kids, if he was in any mood to entertain their buffoonery. Shane was clearly hesitant about saying yes, a worried furrow between his brows and tenseness to his neck that made Ilya ache in sympathy. Miracle of miracles, Holmberg seemed to pick up on his discomfort, putting a bit of space between himself and Shane. The others followed suit with eerie synchrony. Like they’d practiced a protocol or something.

“Ponies!” he called, hands cupped around his mouth, ignoring how Shane was slashing his hand across his throat. “Don’t be annoying or bother Hollander if you’re going to work with him! He makes up for all four of you being idiots!”

Shane was about to speak, probably to tell Ilya off or tell the guys not to worry about it, but LaPointe beat him to it, giving Ilya a mock salute that the others copied.

“Sir, yes sir!” they said in unison. Ilya rolled his eyes, waving off their smiles.

“Get to work.”

“Sir—“

“Now.”

He listened, more than he watched, as the rookies and Luca payed rapt attention to Shane’s explanation of what he’d asked for his team’s drills. Predictably, Dykstra had scooted over to listen, Chouinard right next to him. That was a bit of a surprise, considering Chouinard typically hung around Ilya’s team for drills like these. He kind of wanted to punch the guy for having the audacity to benefit from Shane’s expertise, but that would ruin the ‘team synergy’ Shane was so insistent on reestablishing. So fine, whatever.

“Roz, dude, you look like you’re gonna kill someone,” Troy muttered next to him, pulling on a compression shirt.

“Shut the fuck up, Troy,” he grumbled.

“You’re not scaring me away, dickhead. What’s wrong?”

How could Ilya say that he didn’t think the guys were trying hard enough to fix their mess without making their efforts worse? He knew, objectively and personally, how seismic of a shift it was to get Shane on the team; he knew that the guys were flying blind in those regards. Here was this mythical player, their captain’s husband, a menace on the ice— and they were told to deal with the implications of having him on their team with little warning. They apparently hadn’t talked to their wives about it, beyond cursory bullshitting, and Harris and Troy were too closely involved with the situation to provide any help to each other, which was how Ilya kept waking up to apology speech drafts in his messages that he then vetoed.

Objectively, he knew it was hard for them to fix this mess they made. But that didn’t mean he felt any better about their efforts, because a few dinners and a gaggle of rookies didn’t undo the relapses and the late night stressing. He held himself to high standards when it came to Shane, but his idiot team couldn’t even meet the lowest of his standards.

(And, see, objectively— Ilya knew he was being a little unfair. They were only doing as much as they could see Shane being comfortable with, based on what Ilya, Boiziau, Pike, and Laine said, but still. Not even the lowest of his standards. He hated them for it, a little.)

“Nothing,” he said tersely. “Just hurry the fuck up so we can get started.”

By the looks of it, Shane’s gaggle of teammates was doing… fine, actually. Ilya kept an eye on them, ignoring the burn in his legs and watching them whenever he had a moment to spare. They weren’t keeping up with Shane, exactly, but they were making a valiant effort. Luca was a good few seconds slower as they skated up and down the rink, making sharp turns at the blue line, but he wasn’t tapping out every dozen reps. Shane kept glancing back at him every few runs, nodding in approval or shooting him an encouraging smile. Ilya watched, a little amazed and a lot surprised, as Luca positively lit up every time, starry-eyed and determined.

The other rookies were in a similar state, even if they weren’t able to stay on for as long as Luca was. Chouinard and Dykstra took turns stretching and breathing with whoever was taking a break, talking to them in low voices and correcting their form. If Ilya wasn’t intimately familiar with Shane’s hockey, he might have been a little flabbergasted at how he managed to discipline a usually-rowdy team into doing the most boring endurance drills. But he knew how good Shane was at course-correcting teammates, whether his husband acknowledged that or not; his sheer presence and reputation was usually enough to get people to act right, and his deadpan shaming of deficits did the rest. He would get the A next season for sure, as he should.

He turned back to his own group, watching them do cross-overs around the faceoff circle. He’d done his rounds earlier, under Wiebe’s critical eye, and now he was in charge of correcting the guys. Bood had taken over that while he was distracted, though, and Ilya felt it was high time that he took a quick lap around the rink to make sure that every little group and offshoot was doing fine.

“I’m taking a round,” he muttered to Bood and Troy, skating away before they could respond. Wiebe would chew him out for it later, but he’d been a bit wary of the tension in the team, so. It would be fine, probably.

For the most part, everyone seemed to be doing fine. The third and fourth line guys were working with Angelo, their other assistant coach, and the goalies were doing… whatever the fuck it was they did. Ilya wasn’t sure he wanted to understand the intricacies of goalie endurance training right now. The defense pairings were split pretty evenly between his and Shane’s groups, as were the wingers. He skated by them, coming to a halt a good distance away from Shane’s group. Far enough that he looked out of earshot, and close enough that he decidedly wasn’t. LaPointe, Young, and Chouinard were taking a breather and talking, while Shane watched the others doing their reps, chest heaving and eyes sharp. He looked damn good like this, lit up by the white ice and fluorescent lights. Ilya couldn’t wait to get his hands on him.

“I’m just annoyed, I guess,” LaPointe was saying, interrupting Ilya’s daydreaming about his husband’s body. “Like, nothing we’re doing is fucking working, and I know he doesn’t have to, like, forgive us, but— ugh. Come on, dude, at least act like you appreciate it, right?”

Ilya barely stopped himself from ramming him into the boards. He wanted to know what the fuck the kid was thinking, but Christ alive, it was hard to not kick his ass. How fucking dare they think they were owed anything from Shane, much less forgiveness? Shane could tell them all to eat shit, and Ilya would back him up, tell their team that they deserved it. Because by God, did they deserve it.

Chouinard smacked LaPointe on the head, eyeing him with a mix of disgust and irritation. “Shut the fuck up, Pointy. Do you hear yourself?”

Damn right, Chewy.

“I do, but—”

“Don’t think you do, bud. Tell you what: look at it from Holly’s perspective. Your new team hates you for shit you didn’t do, your husband is the captain of said team and you don’t want to abuse that power—”

Correct, sure, but now Ilya was annoyed that they’d even assume Shane would use his ‘husband’ privileges. The man wouldn’t even use them at home, much less at the rink. Ilya had never met someone so determined to do everything the ‘right’ way.

“—and your old team ruined your life and is deadset on continuing to ruin it. For God’s sake, LaPointe, his best friend is Pike. Guy’s fine, but he’s annoying! That sounds miserable, doesn’t it?”

LaPointe nodded mutely, while Young carved into the ice with his blades, avoiding Chouinard’s eyes.

“Right. And now you’ve got that same new team that hated you trying to make things up, but you’ve got the memories of literally every shitty thing hockey did to you keeping you from feeling like you’re actually cared for by your team.” Chouinard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “How much would you want to act ‘nice’ about that, Pointy?”

Ilya was surprised, frankly. He hadn’t expected Chouinard to be so defensive of Shane, and, despite his better judgement, he felt a bit of his resentment seep away. Sure, words weren’t much of anything, but… but Chouinard seemed genuinely pissed at LaPointe for how he was acting. And his Shane could always do with more people protecting him, including from his own team. If Chewy was one of those people, then so be it.

LaPointe shook his head. “I wouldn’t…”

“Then why do you expect Holly to?” Chouinard’s voice softened slightly, taking on the patient, careful tones he used with his kids. “What’s actually bothering you, bud? I know it’s not whatever that rant was.”

LaPointe wrinkled his nose. “I hate when you go dad mode on us.”

“Talk, dude,” Young said and elbowed him, frowning.

“Ugh. I don’t feel… good about what we’re doing. Like, not with—” LaPointe waved his hands, lips pursed, “—the stuff. On our phones. It feels, like, snakey. Two-faced.”

Ilya’s brows rose. He was going to break them before All Stars for sure. What the fuck did he mean by the stuff on their phones? God, maybe he and Pike really did need to team up against these morons.

Chouinard nodded. “And instead of telling us that, you lash out about Shane? The one guy who’s done nothing but be good since he got here?”

LaPointe nodded miserably.

“Christ, bud. Not the way to go.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“What do you plan on doing about it?”

“Um. Honestly?” LaPointe visibly gulped, staring at the ground. “We—me, Bergy, Youngster, and Haasy—were talking about telling Cap about. Y’know. The chat.”

A separate group chat. No fucking surprise there, though that didn’t do anything to quash the flare of anger in Ilya’s chest. He had half a mind to storm over there and punch their lights out, but Wiebe was already eyeing him worriedly and Shane had caught sight of him and he’d been here for too long.

Chouinard was silent for a long moment before nodding once, decisively. “Okay. We’ll join you guys. After practice?”

“Um. Yeah. If we can catch Cap.”

Oh, they’d catch him alright. Ilya skated back to his group without another glance.

Ilya debated whether he should send Shane home, make up a meeting with Wiebe, but… well. The guys were wrong if they thought Shane wouldn’t be finding out about that group chat. He might as well find out about it straight from their mouths. Maybe then they’d learn that actions have consequences.

He took his sweet time cleaning up after practice, folding and refolding his underclothes and stowing his gear in similar-but-slightly-different arrangements over and over again. Shane was getting visibly annoyed, his wet hair already drying into cute, fluffy spikes, but even his glares didn’t make Ilya move faster. After all, his teammates wanted to catch him after practice.

“Ilya,” Shane sighed, annoyed, “hurry up, dude. Do you need help or something?”

“Mm, no. But the team needs to talk to me.”

Shane made a show of looking around at their teammates, all of whom were pointedly not looking at them, then turned back to him with a raised brow. “Okay? And, what, you don’t want me around for it?”

Ilya frowned. Not wrong, exactly, because Ilya didn’t want him here for it, but— “You need to be around for it. Patience, Shanya.”

He sighed, plopping down next to Ilya. He felt bad for making Shane wait, especially because he knew his husband was hungry and looking forward to their lunch that day, but this was definitely a little urgent. He’d already texted Wiebe to schedule a meeting the next morning, and he’d let Yuna and David know that they would be joining them for dinner that night. He even texted the Montreal guys to get them to schedule a hang out with Shane within a month. But, god, he just needed his team to hurry the fuck up so that he could put the rest of his plan into action.

Finally, finally, the rookies came up to him, looking like little kids with how they hunched into themselves. Normally, that would get Ilya to soften his demeanour a bit, because even if what they did was awful, they were still kids doing what they saw the vets doing. But today, he was running on fumes and rage, and even Luca’s puppy eyes wouldn’t work on him. The other guys hung a few feet back, eyeing him warily.

“Um, Cap?” LaPointe started nervously, glancing at Shane. He didn’t have to look to know that Shane’s face fell. “Can we talk to you real quick?”

Ilya gave him a mirthless smile. “You can say whatever it is in front of Hollander, too.”

“I don’t—”

“I know what this is about, LaPointe,” Ilya interrupted, getting fed up with this little game of theirs. It was enough that he hadn’t roughed him up on the ice during practice. “I want you all to say it.”

“Oh fuck, um. Okay.” LaPointe turned to Shane, gaze locked on his shoes.

Ilya glanced at Shane, who had smoothed his expression out into the picture of impassivity. It broke his heart to see him like that, his usually bright, expressive eyes so dulled down. He hated that his husband had learned to expect the worst from hockey, from his teams. From the so-called ‘nicest’ team in the MLH. And the worst part was, Ilya didn’t expect Shane to be surprised by what he was about to be told. No, horrifically, Shane would definitely just nod and say something about having figured, about not thinking anything different.

“I just want to preface this with another apology,” LaPointe started, glancing at Young and Luca next to him. “I’m so, so sorry, Holly. We all are, but, like, especially me.”

Shane deflated slightly next to Ilya, nodding mutely.

“We— Um, we have another group chat. One without you and Cap in it,” he said haltingly. Ilya put a hand on Shane’s thigh. “And we weren’t the nicest—”

“Gabriel,” Chouinard sighed, finally stepping forward to kick at LaPointe’s knee. “Don’t diminish it.”

“Right. We—God, there’s no nice way to put this—we used it to, like, insult you. Talk behind your back.” LaPointe flinched at Ilya’s glare, ducking his head. “We don’t do that anymore, obviously, and you can see—”

“I will see,” Ilya cut in, pulling Shane closer to himself, “because I have a meeting with Wiebe about this. There is no ‘can’ here, LaPointe.”

“Yes, Captain.” He swallowed roughly. “We don’t do that anymore. We use the chat to, like, exchange notes on what’s working to make you feel better and what’s not. Honest. But I didn’t feel good about keeping it a secret and doing all of that anyway, so I got mean about it again, and now I’m here. I’m sorry.”

Shane took a deep, shuddering breath in Ilya’s arms. And, surprisingly, glanced at Wyatt, a question in his eyes as he bared his heart for the team to see. Ilya blinked tears out of his eyes at that, suddenly hoping that Wyatt wasn’t going to let him down here. He’d forgive the man if he treated Shane with kindness right here, right now, in front of his team. 

Wyatt nodded, smiling sympathetically. “Honest, Shane. We should’ve disbanded it, but even though we didn’t, it’s really just a check-in chat for us. To make sure that we’ve all got a game plan and aren’t doing anything stupid again.”

“Okay,” Shane whispered. “Then I guess I can say I’m not surprised. They had one too.”

Because of course they did. Ilya wanted to hide Shane away from the world, away from everyone who wanted to hurt him. But he couldn’t, so he hugged his husband that much tighter.

(Maybe, in the distant recesses of his mind, Ilya was afraid that if he didn’t, he’d lose him. Not in life, maybe, but in hockey, and then what point was there to the sport they both loved? What point was there to going through all of this, if Shane wasn’t there?)

“I’m sorry,” LaPointe repeated tearfully, the others mumbling their own apologies along with him.

God. Didn’t they know how to do anything else? It was always sorry, sorry, sorry with them, but sorry didn’t fix shit. Sorry didn’t put the spark back in his husband’s eyes, and sorry didn’t magically fix the fact that they had a separate group chat just to shit talk Shane.

“You are all very, very lucky that I am not sending you all back out there until you throw up,” Ilya said tersely, speaking into the silence. “And that is only because Shane needs me more. I can’t even look at you all. Get the fuck out of our faces.”

He sounded like his father. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t hate that.

“Hazy,” Shane called, voice thick, as everyone started walking away. Wyatt paused, glancing over his shoulder. Ilya was sure there were tears in his eyes, too. “Offer still good?”

Wyatt smiled, exchanging a relieved-but-terrified glance with Ilya. Grey clouds and silver linings, Ilya supposed. “Always, Shane.”

Shane thought he’d handle the confirmation of a separate group chat better than he did. He was fine when Laine had silently sent him screenshots of the Metros’ chat, names and faces on full display as they talked shit about him. Objectively, he knew that the Cens had a similar group chat. It was just… he didn’t expect them to keep it, after everything. Even if it had been repurposed. He’d have liked the entire group chat gone, a new one created even if he and Ilya weren’t in it. But it was fine. Repurposing was good enough.

Of course, Ilya had leapt into action immediately after he asked Hayes about the shootouts, driving them home at a reasonable speed and getting him into the warm shower to blow him until his brain felt like it was melting out of his ears. Then, Ilya wrapped him in a fluffy preheated robe, setting them up on the couch with granola bites and Hayden on speakerphone until dinner with his parents.

(“Cheer him up, Pikester,” Ilya demanded, popping a granola bite into Shane’s mouth and following it up with a kiss. “Remind him that our team is just a special level of stupid and that his actual friends are slightly okay.”

“Am I your fucking—”

“Ooh, Daddy, swear jar!” Jade’s voice called out from the back, bringing a smile to Shane’s face for the first time in a few hours.

“—court jester? Baby, don’t tell Mommy I said that.” Hayden paused, having a mumbled argument with his daughter before clearing his throat. “Anyway. What happened, exactly?”

“That’s an issue for later, Hayd,” Shane said quietly. “Just— talk?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure, buddy. Um… Oh, did I tell you about the mural they painted of you in downtown?”

Shane choked on his granola bite, eyeing the phone warily. Ilya was howling with laughter, shaking against him. “What?”

“Yeah, bud, that’s right. So picture this…”)

He’d gone to sleep with a full belly and warmth in his chest, firmly pushing the thoughts about the next morning out of his mind. They had optional skate, and while Shane could’ve been convinced to skip given that Ilya was having his meeting with Wiebe, he’d decided to text Hayes last night to schedule their shootout practice that same morning. So here he was, dragging himself out of bed, dread pooling in his stomach again. He wanted to take the team at their word, trust that they really were doing better behind his back, but— well. He was probably well within his rights to ask for proof, even disregarding his notoriety. That was just courtesy.

Ilya didn’t protest much when he joined him in the car, just giving his usual cursory protests because it would feel weird leaving the house without doing that. The smallest of routines had become his crutches, and Shane wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It was a regression to something he didn’t like. No time like the present to indulge in that, though.

The rink was already busy when they pulled in, the guys in the locker room avoiding his and Ilya’s gazes as they got ready and rushed towards the ice. Hayes was the only one to catch them, smiling brightly despite how early it was. He was half dressed already, holding out two cups of tea and a packet of pastries.

“Lisa said mint tea is a miracle worker in the morning,” he said, in lieu of a greeting. Shane blinked down at the cup that had been shoved into his hands. He did like mint tea… Hayes handed Ilya the bag he was holding. “Oh, and we made these small quiches last night using one of Jackie Pike’s recipes! They’re so good, you guys. Figured I’d bring them for a snack afterwards?”

“Yeah, they’re great,” Shane said faintly, sipping on the tea. It was the perfect temperature, fresh and bright. Huh. His mom brewed tea just like this, too. “The tea’s good too, Hazy. Thanks.”

Ilya looked Hayes up and down, eyes narrowed even as he nodded. “Yes. Thanks. Do not go too hard today. We have a hard conditioning day tomorrow.”

“We know, Rozanov,” Shane sighed, letting the locker room lull him into ‘hockey mode,’ as people called it. He couldn’t be blamed, though, since Ilya was the one using his captain voice. “Go to your meeting.”

Ilya blew a raspberry at him, giving a nod to Hayes as he deposited his gear bag at his stall and made his way to Wiebe’s office. Shane let out a slow breath, blinking hard. Hayes gave him the dignity of turning back to his gear, pulling on the rest of it slowly. Shane unzipped his own bag.

“I was thinking we just take it easy today, maybe play around with trick shots,” Hayes said after a moment. Shane glanced over his shoulder, a little amused to find him kicking his feet like a kid. “You’re so efficient usually. I’d kill to see you do fancy shit, dude.”

Shane snorted, pulling on his pads. “Sure. Quick-fire shots, too?”

“Ooh, hell yeah!”

Hayes was easy to talk to. No wonder Ilya was so fond of him. He didn’t treat Shane like he was made of glass, even though it was clear that he felt as bad as everyone else about what happened. That normalcy felt really… good, honestly. Even if they were all on thin ice, even if tension still hung heavy in the air at team dinners, he could count on Ilya and Hayes to act somewhat normally, at least. The type of normal that Ilya approved of, even. He counted his blessings where he had them.

“Huh.” Shane paused as they made their way out of the locker room, watching the other guys who showed up. There were a good number of them, and they… “Are they doing my drills?”

Hayes narrowed his eyes, humming. “Apparently. Bood! What’s with the drills, dude? We’ve got conditioning tomorrow.”

Boodram came to a harsh stop, spraying one of the guys. “Rookies had the idea. Figured it wasn’t too bad, plus it feels like we’re being productive and doing something with ourselves.”

Shane pursed his lips. This was why Shane hated the idea of implementing his drills as punishment, because, sure, they were beneficial either way, but the guys were using his contribution to punish themselves. Surely, surely, these drills weren’t fun for them, even if they were fun for Shane. The Metros were used to them and the way Shane had integrated them into regular training, but the Centaurs certainly weren't. Even unintentionally, they were creating a negative association with Shane.

He could say that, he thought. Hayes was firmly at his side, and Boodram had made it clear that he could speak his mind and be treated just the same for it. He wasn’t sure if that was simply a placation or not, but with Ilya gone for the meeting, he was well within his rights to test just how much they were willing to put up with him.

(The vindictive part of him also figured he was owed the luxury of asking why his input was used as punishment. The exhausted part of him asked why he cared. It wasn’t like he’d be able to undo those associations, anyway. If the team wanted to resent him and torture themselves in his name, then he’d just have to put up with it.

Shane shook his head.)

“Why’d the rookies suggest it?” he asked, watching as Holmberg and Young battled each other for the puck along the boards.

Boodram sighed, shrugging helplessly. “I think you know, dude. They felt bad and figured they’d remind themselves of how you helped their game, too, not just their captain.”

Shane blinked. “What?”

“Yeah. Like, they know you’re Rozy’s loving husband, but they like to remind themselves that you’re also the Shane Hollander. They say it keeps them on their toes.” Boodram chuckled slightly, leaning against the boards. “Which is fair. We kinda… lost sight of that, initially. It fucked with our game, but implementing your drills and feedback made us better players. The ponies want to impress you with their ‘outstanding performance’ and make sure your efforts aren’t going to waste or something. I don’t remember exactly what they said, but yeah.”

Hayes nodded sagely. “It’s true. Haasy told me that he wanted to do something so impressive that you’d buy him a drink.”

“Oh. Huh.” Shane looked at the ice again, which now had Haas and LaPointe sprinting from goal-to-blue line, their faces flushed and hair matted against their foreheads. They were definitely looking better, more sure in their strides. “Good goals to have, I guess. They’re improving a lot.”

Boodram waggled his brows, grinning. “And what about us? Do us oldies qualify for a Hollander compliment yet?”

He was joking. Shooting the shit, even. Shane knew that, but he didn’t know just how far he was allowed to go yet. He swallowed, shrugging. He was owed a little bit of grace, he figured, considering he was motivating the ponies to put in extra work.

Hockey was always a safe bet during banter. No one could tell him he was wrong about hockey.

“Get us over the ECF hump, then we’ll talk.”

Boodram barked out a laugh, slapping Shane on the back. “Attaboy, Holly! We’ll get that compliment yet, just you see.”

Shane offered him a tentative smile, PR-ready but not strenuous. “For the record, I want to give you compliments…”

“But we’ve gotta earn them, gotcha.” Boodram tapped his helmet, nodding. “Good strategy, man. You’ve got that captain’s brain.”

“I guess. Ilya’s better with the C, though.”

Hayes sighed dramatically next to him, spreading his arms wide. “If only we could have two captains.”

Shane grimaced. “I don’t know about that.”

“Pike said you were good to them, and given everything, I’m inclined to believe it,” Boodram pointed out, shrugging. “Laine was pretty happy with your captaincy, too.”

Because they were his friends. Shane wasn’t blind— he could see that his captaincy was good for the team, so long as they remained on friendly terms. With how this season started out and how the team deferred to him out of fear more than respect, he could also see how disastrous him having the C would be. Ilya brought them together out of genuine affection and care, enthusiasm bleeding out from every edge, but Shane probably couldn’t even be a good A for the Centaurs, much less a good captain.

“We’ll see what Wiebe says,” Shane cut in, smiling awkwardly at them. “We should probably get back to practicing, now, though.”

Boodram nodded, throwing him a salute as he skated over to Barrett and Dykstra to start getting ready for two-on-two pushes. Shane shook his head in disbelief; a team was willingly doing two-on-twos. What a world.

Hayes nudged him as they skated over the empty net, an armful of pucks between them. “All good? Still up for it?”

Shane nodded, rolling his shoulders. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

The shootout drills were fun. Objectively, genuinely fun. Hayes was holding his own even as Shane shot pucks at him as fast as he could, filling the space between them with friendly chirps and jeers. It was almost enough to push the thoughts of the group chat completely out of his mind, but the number of times he almost called Hayes ‘Mitty’ or ‘Drap’ put a damper on his good mood. It wasn’t even like these drills were similar to the ones he did with them— those ones were silent, intense and aggressive and giving way to praise only in the messy aftermath. Here, though, Hayes was a constant stream of chatter and feedback and compliments, and Shane found himself doing the same. It was completely different. And yet.

A couple times, the others came over to tussle with Shane over pucks or race him while Hayes was taking a break. They were all exhausted, and Shane himself was getting a little tired, but the thrill of a casual, fun practice was enough to keep him going. God, he’d missed this. The camaraderie, the ability to just skate up and ask for a tussle or feedback, the excitement to just play— it was almost enough to convince him that they were going to be okay.

Then again: “Hazy,” he said quietly, skating up to the net, “can I ask you something?”

Hayes blinked up at him. “What’s up, man?”

“Ilya and Wiebe are gonna ask to see the chat, but can I see it first? Just…” He swallowed, shrugging. “Teammate to teammate?”

Hayes’s eyes softened. He got up, nodding towards the tunnel. “Yeah, dude, of course. Let’s go?”

Shane followed him silently, head down. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to ask to see the chat. He didn’t want to look at it without Hayden or JJ or Ilya around, just in case they were lying to his face, but… well. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Hayes seemed receptive to the request, nothing in his movements betraying that he had something to hide from Shane, but then, he’d never been all that good at reading people.

Blind trust was a hell of a drug.

Ilya was already in the locker room when they walked in, nose buried in his phone and shirt half off. His brows were drawn down, a nasty set to his mouth. Shane grimaced, exchanging a glance with Hayes.

“Add me and Coach to the chat,” Ilya demanded, not even looking up at them. “Hollander too, if he wants.”

“We were gonna look through the chat now,” Shane said, sitting down next to Hayes. “You wanna join?”

Ilya glanced at him then, brows raised. “Ser'yozno? Pryamo seychas?” [Seriously? Right now?]

Shane nodded. With a sigh, Ilya walked over, plopping down on Hayes’s other side. The goalie looked completely comfortable being interrogated like this, opening his phone to his messages app, scrolling to the group chat. Entaurs.

“The name was funny when we made it,” Hayes said with a grimace. “Anyway, uh. Go ahead.”

Shane scanned over the messages, scrolling slowly as Ilya’s gaze flicked between the phone and his face. So far, everything the team had said was true. The discussions were minimal, focused mostly on coordinating their efforts and exchanging notes. He was almost touched by how militant it looked; coordination like this indicated, more than anything they said or did, that they meant their apologies. It was good to know, considering he was still scrolling through a group chat used to talk behind his back.

(Truth be told, the hollowness in his chest had come back, feeling like an older ache than it had any right to. The proof of effort was right here, staring him in the face, but— god. There was always another chat. Always another party, always another event.

He’d need Ilya to work him down again. What a shitshow.)

He tore his eyes from the screen, looking at Ilya. His husband’s frown had deepened, critical and assessing. Hayes was watching him warily, quiet as he waited for the biting words or the silent dismissal. It was a good display of respect, Shane thought, the irony of their situation not lost on him. Here he was, thinking about respect as he read back up to the months and months of vitriol against him. 

The accusations of neuroticism, stubbornness, arrogance— they weren’t wrong, necessarily. He knew how he was as a teammate, as a player. He knew he was better than everyone else, bar Ilya, and so did everyone else, but he thought he’d done a better job at keeping that quiet. He rarely had to brag about it to get the authority in the locker room, but apparently that’s all he’d been doing. What a bid for attention.

Shane shook himself, looking away from Hayes’s phone. He shouldn’t do that to himself. It would just make more work for Ilya. “I’m— I think I’ve seen what I wanted to. Thanks, Hazy.”

“I’m sor—”

“Vso eto nepravda, Shanya. Oni vse tupyye, slepyye ublyudki. Ya ub'yu ikh, malysh. Kak oni posmeli?” [None of that is true, Shanya. They’re all stupid, blind bastards. I’ll kill them, baby. How dare they?] Ilya cut in, voice steely and dangerous. “I can’t believe you all. Fuck, I should’ve shut this down—”

Shane clicked his tongue. “Ilya. Not your fault, baby. No one blames you, least of all me. I didn’t make it any easier to handle.”

“What do you mean?” Hayes asked, frowning at him.

“He wouldn’t tell me what you fuckers were doing to him to keep the peace, idiot!” Ilya spat, shoving Hayes. Shane glowered at him, stabilizing him. “Do you know how much Shane has done for you morons? Gospodi, Hazy, he has more loyalty in his pinky finger than you all do in the entire team! Fuck!”

“Okay, I think we’re done here,” Shane cut in, walking over to manhandle Ilya into a hug. He squeezed him tighter. He knew, objectively, just how upset Ilya was with the team, but this was… a lot. He didn’t want to backtrack when they’d been doing so good, when hockey with the Cens had been fun today. “Roz, what did Wiebe say in the meeting?”

Ilya stopped struggling against him, groaning. “Team meeting tomorrow before practice. Hayes, put that in the actual group chat.”

“Yes, Captain,” Hayes whispered, scooching away from them as he typed the message. Their phones dinged a second later. “God, Shane, I’m so sorry we put you through that. You shouldn’t have had to hide anything from Rozy, much less… this.”

Shane offered him a tense smile. “We’re handling it, no?”

“‘Handling it,’” Ilya repeated cruelly, glaring at Hayes. “Vse vy, ublyudki, tol'ko i delayete, chto izvinyayetes', kak budto eto pomogayet! Bozhe, prosto izvinite, Shane, nam ochen' zhal.' Vse, chto vy delayete, eto izvinyayetes'. Chert voz'mi, sdelayte chto-nibud', yesli vam tak zhal'! Vy zastavlyayete svoikh zhen delat' polovinu raboty—” [All you bastards do is apologize, as if that helps! God, just sorry, Shane, we're so sorry. All you do is apologize. Damn it, do something if you're so sorry! You make your wives do half the work—]

“Dovol'no, Rozanov,” [Enough, Rozanov] he snapped, pulling Ilya up and nudging him to his stall. “I think we should get home.”

“Shane—” his husband started, eyes still blazing. Shane shook his head sharply. “Fine. Okay. Let’s go home. Wiebe will kick their asses tomorrow.”

Shane pressed his lips together, shooting a slightly apologetic glance at Hayes. He received wry amusement in return, as if he’d already accepted his fate. To be fair, Shane probably would’ve as well, but still. He felt a little bad that Ilya went off on Hayes like that, when he was the most forthcoming of the team so far. Now Barrett…

Though, Shane mused, he did appreciate the approach Barrett and Harris had taken. They gave him space, professional in every capacity and rarely talking to him. He wasn’t particularly eager to talk to them either, though he did wish Ilya would relax a little around them and not be so… unfriendly. Hate it as he might, Barrett and Harris were good friends to Ilya, and with the team walking on eggshells around the two of them, Ilya was back to being isolated to just him.

(And wasn’t that the exact thing Shane wanted to avoid? Maybe his approach wasn’t so incorrect after all. The thought was a little vindicating.)

“Sorry for acting like that,” Ilya said stiffly after a few minutes, flicking a glance at Hayes. The locker room had started filling up again, everyone giving Ilya a wide berth. “Will see you all tomorrow. Bye.”

Shane ducked his head as a faint chorus of goodbyes sounded out. God, he was so fucked. All this progress, gone tomorrow. Fuck.

Wiebe was a particularly gentle coach. He was maybe 5’10” with wide eyes and a softness to his features that age hadn’t carved away. He was stern and strict, but never aggressive or mean about it— they followed his advice because they respected him, not because they feared him. Shane had come around to his coaching style after the Montreal game, when the thought of a coach like Theriault berating Ilya after a game like that made him shoot awake in the dead of night.

All that to say: for as much as the team respected Wiebe, they weren’t scared of him.

But when Shane walked into the locker room, Ilya at his side, and saw the thunderous look on their coach’s face, it gave him a pause. He still wasn’t scary, necessarily, but he was pissed. Anger on a coach was often worse; it brought out the league-instilled cruelty that so many of them pushed down.

(Though, of course, others indulged in it. Montreal’s coaching staff came to mind, with their screaming matches and their berating and their hatred of anything that wasn’t exactly as they wanted. Thank god Wiebe wasn’t like that.)

The rest of the team was sitting at their stalls, faces ashen and grave as Wiebe walked around, glaring at them all individually. Shane silently took a seat at his stall, while Ilya went to join their coach. He caught Hayes’s eye, looking as apologetic as he could because this was turning into a far, far bigger mess than he ever wanted. Hayes just shook his head slightly, turning to Wiebe as he let out a slow, shaky breath.

“I am,” Wiebe started, eyes closed, “so unbelievably disappointed in you all right now.”

Someone sniffled.

“I have never, never seen this much fucking audacity in a locker room. Ever. Rozanov told me yesterday, calm as a cucumber, all things considered, just how you all inaugurated Hollander into our locker room.” Wiebe paused, casting another glance around, brows pulled low and the corner of his mouth tight. “Tell me: if Hollander was anyone else, even someone else who matters this much to Rozanov or occupied the same role in his life, would you all have done that?”

The room was quiet, filled with shuffling and muffled words. Shane wasn’t sure he was hearing anything at all, with how loudly his heart was pounding in his ears, bile burning the back of his throat and vision blurry. Everything felt tight tight tight, a hundred eyes on him but none of them seeing anything. Wiebe closed his eyes again.

“I said, would you all have done that?”

“No, Coach!” came the answer.

“Then what gave you the audacity or the right to do that to Hollander?” Wiebe yelled, pausing for an answer that wouldn’t come. “Correct. You have no fucking right to treat one of your teammates, one of my players like that. Forget Hollander’s reputation for once in your sad fucking lives. If he was a girl and Rozanov’s wife, would you have thought it was fine for your women to treat him like shit?”

“No, Coach,” Boodram said, others following suit.

“Then I can’t fathom why you thought it was fine for you morons to treat your teammate like that! I can’t wrap my goddamn head around what you thought you were accomplishing!” Wiebe pinched the bridge of his nose. Ilya was as still as a statue next to him, impassive with a resentful curl to his mouth. “You know what this is? It’s abuse. It is hazing. Not only are you hazing a person for being a victim to the sport you play, you are hazing your own goddamn teammate. One of the few people who singlehandedly improved this team just with his presence. It doesn’t matter that he’s Rozanov’s husband, it doesn’t matter what they are doing off the ice— your job is to be his good goddamn teammates in the rink! You couldn’t even manage that!

“I used to be so fucking proud to have the nicest locker room in the league. That isn’t something I can say now, because you idiots might be as bad as Montreal.”

The team flinched, and Shane flinched with them. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, but it was too late. Wiebe’s gaze softened just slightly, and he nodded at Shane.

“Hollander. You have something to say?”

“...They aren’t that bad, Coach,” he whispered. Wiebe sighed.

“I figured you might say something like that. Look, Hollander, I’m going to level with you: this was pretty fucking terrible. Right up there with Montreal and Florida’s locker rooms. Just because you forgive them—which is ludicrous, boy, even if they’re making it up to you—that does not mean they aren’t horrible teammates.” Wiebe paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. “It is a fault on my part, too, that I made you all think, somehow, that any of that behaviour was acceptable. This entire room, bar Rozanov—”

Shane watched, chest tight, as Ilya grimaced at that.

“—has failed Hollander. I failed my player but not being able to protect him, and you all failed your teammate by being the thing he needed protection from. Shame. On. Us.”

He stared at the floor, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes that he could not let fall. Someone else, maybe multiple someones, were already crying in the room, their sniffles quiet and this shoulders shaking. Shane would do them the dignity of not looking. Ilya didn’t look much better, his impassivity slipping slightly to reveal distress, eyes wet and brilliantly blue as his gaze flicked over his team. He loved them so much. Shane hated that he made them cry.

“If Crowell wasn’t the commissioner right now, I would be lobbying to send every single one of you down to minors, team rebuild be damned,” Wiebe said after a long moment. Someone made a choked off noise. “Unfortunately, he’s not going to be any help, as usual, so I am limited on what I can do. Make no mistake, none of you are worthy of being Centaurs right now, but there’s only so much I can do without league management involved. So what we’ll be doing is—”

Shane closed his eyes, dragging a hand down his face. “Coach?”

“Hollander?”

Shane was sure, certain, that he was overstepping his authority as a player. He didn’t have a letter, he was a new addition, and his coach was going to bat for him. That should’ve been enough, to know that he was going to be offered the same protections as any other team member, but maybe he owed it to his team, just a little, to stick up for them, too.

“You can implement consequences at your discretion,” he started slowly, hedging, “but I ask that you limit them to game-related consequences only. I… I don’t think legal consequences will do much, at this point. Since they’re already working to fix the situation.”

Wiebe blinked at him, frowning. “You want to limit the consequences they receive to only game-related?”

“Yes, Coach.”

The eyes were back, as was the prickling feeling on his skin and the tightness in his chest and the tears in his eyes and the numbness in his hands and the tenseness in his thighs that would inevitably give way to aches and aches and—

“You do understand that they hazed you, Hollander?” Wiebe asked slowly. “I know you are a veteran player, but that was still hazing.”

“I understand, Coach, but what’s done is done. They’ve expressed remorse and are actively working to make things better between us.” Even if those efforts were tiring, even if their hands on him still made him tense and every smile they gave felt like a warning, a countdown. They were trying, and it was just Shane’s neuroticism getting in the way. As usual, perhaps. “I don’t think there’s any value in extravagant consequences at this point, and, frankly, I’d like to win. This is shaping up to be a winning team.”

Protests immediately rang out in the room, a cacophony of terror and frustration and desperation. Boodram was frowning at him, leaning over to say something, while Dykstra shook his head and new tears spilled over from Haas’s eyes. Barrett was the loudest, always a glutton for punishment.

“Hollander, that’s not fair to you,” he was saying, despair written all over his face.

“Punishment isn’t going to do you the good you think it will, Barrett,” Shane hissed, slashing a hand across his throat. “What’s fair to me is that you get your act together, keep doing what you’ve been doing, and get me and Coach and Rozanov our fucking laurels. Capiche?”

Barrett snapped his mouth shut, still clearly displeased but he nodded. “Kapash.”

LaPointe was next, hands spread pleadingly as he whimpered, “Holly, you don’t need to—”

“I’m not doing this—”

“That’s enough!” Wiebe yelled, clapping his hands once. The locker room fell silent. “Quit arguing like children! You’re sure about that, Hollander? Game-only consequences? I’m taking your and Rozanov’s lead on this.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “Only because the league won’t back me.”

Shane nodded, eyes downcast.

“Fine. What do you propose?”

“Benchings, suspensions, and more conditioning days,” he said immediately. “Assigned at your discretion to whoever you think needs it, of course, but those are my suggestions. They’ll limit impact on performance on game days, and skates will serve as additional training. Sir.”

Wiebe nodded slowly, glancing at Ilya for his input.

His husband shrugged. “I think Hollander is being too lenient, but I agree with his suggestions. If he wants to win, then limiting game day impact is the most important thing to focus on.”

“Alright. Coaching staff will send out an announcement about consequences once we meet and reach an understanding.” Wiebe gestured to the door. “For today, Mark will run you morons into the ground. Get out of my locker room. And— Hollander, Rozanov. Hold on a second.”

Shane paused mid-step, looking up from the ground. The team was moving around him, flowing like water over stone. Their faces were red, tear-streaked, hard around the edges, and he felt like the worst fucking teammate in that moment. He hadn’t even felt this bad after tripping last season, after introducing all that drama in the perfectly serviceable locker room in Montreal. And fuck, despite it all, they were still patting his back and giving him nods, even as they walked to the ice like they were walking to their executions.

Ilya hadn’t moved from where he was standing, stock still and stiff as he watched the team leave. Shane walked over to him slowly, nudging him with his foot.

Are you okay?

Ilya closed his eyes briefly, before looking at him with a sad smile, all ceruleans and clear skies. Shane knew that look. Okay, but not. Okay, but he had made up his mind about something, and he didn’t like it. Okay, but his genetics were doing him a disservice.

He tapped his foot against Ilya’s.

“Alright, you two,” Wiebe started, sighing. “I need you guys to be honest with me here. Why didn’t you tell me or Mark or Angelo or— I don’t know, somebody what was going on?”

“I thought it was just an adjustment period for many weeks,” Ilya muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “I knew something was wrong, but I thought I could handle it when I scolded them. Clearly not. I should’ve—”

“You should have, yeah, but there’s no going back now,” Wiebe interrupted, voice gentle despite his bluntness. “You can’t keep saying would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, Rozanov. It’s not gonna do any of you any good, bud. But okay, sure, you misread the situation. Hollander?”

Shane let out a slow breath, vision unfocusing as he parsed through the noise in his head. It was hard to think clearly as it was, with the pressure still squeezing, squeezing, squeezing his lungs and the pit still in his stomach. 

There was no nice way to say that he hadn’t trusted Wiebe. There was no nice way to say that Theriault and his assistant coaches in Montreal would’ve laughed in his face, told him to man up and whip his team into shape. He never was quite as mean as the Metros needed, and, frankly, he wasn’t sure if he could be what Wiebe would demand from him. If he’d wanted Shane to change to what Ottawa demanded, he would’ve been sorely disappointed; months in, he still hadn’t acclimated. And asking for help like that, when he hadn’t earned it, would’ve been— well, fuck, it would’ve been a call for humiliation.

God. He didn’t even trust his coach. What a shitshow.

Wiebe took pity on him, tilting his head as he spoke. “Let me guess, Theriault wouldn’t have responded well.”

Shane shook his head.

“That motherfucker… Okay, Hollander. I get that. What can—”

“Coach, maybe just, ah, yes or no questions right now,” Ilya interrupted, eyeing him worriedly, and Shane would never have done that and Wiebe didn’t even look mad. God, Shane needed to get it together and fucking talk.

“Sure. Just nod or shake your head, okay?” Wiebe paused, frowning. “Right. Did you ever tell Theriault about any team-related issues? Doesn’t matter if you didn’t have a letter or if you had the C. Just— did you ever?”

Shane nodded hesitantly, clearing his throat. Leaving Ilya and Wiebe to guess what he meant was absolutely unacceptable. “Sophomore season. Some of the vets were, um, pissed that I got the A before them. Did some weird shit to me, but I don’t remember what exactly it was.”

Wiebe nodded encouragingly, while Ilya looked a little green in the face. And that was exactly why he kept the Montreal of it all to himself.

“I told Theriault, and he told me that was just the name of the game, the pecking order, status quo, whatever you wanna call it. And, I mean, it was pretty clear he wasn’t gonna help me.” Shane paused, chewing his lip. “I didn’t say anything after that. And, um, by the time it was my third season, the team liked me and started protecting me and shit, since a lot of the vets requested trades or retired. So I just didn’t need to talk to Theriault after that, since my team had my back. To some extent.”

Shane wasn’t sure why he was telling Wiebe all this. Ilya knew the broad strokes, of course, having seen how the Metros rallied around him year after year, shouts of Capitaine! and Fuck yeah, Hollander! filling the Bell Centre. But Wiebe. Wiebe was a coach, disconnected enough from the locker room that he didn’t need to know this.

(It felt good to spill his guts to someone who cared, though. Ilya had enough on his plate, but Wiebe had just gone to bat for him against his entire team. Surely, surely that wasn’t a fluke?)

“I swear, if that man wasn’t the commissioner’s lap dog, I’d have fought for him to be fired,” Wiebe muttered, more to himself than anything. “Hollander, I want to make it incredibly clear that that is completely unacceptable behaviour from a coach. At any level, really, but especially in the MLH. Christ, kid, I’m sorry.”

Shane shrugged.

“I guess that whole situation must’ve made you lose faith in coaching staff entirely,” Wiebe remarked wryly, shaking his head.

“I didn’t— I don’t think you’re a bad coach!” Shane interjected, eyes widening as he held his hands up. “It’s just that I’m not, y’know— I don’t— talking to coaching staff isn’t my, um, first instinct.”

Wiebe shook his head. “I don’t blame you for that at all, bud. I wouldn’t trust my coach after he pulled that shit, too. I just hope I’ve made it clear that we’re going to support you just the same as any player, Shane. We’d protect you even if you weren’t a star center or Rozanov’s husband or yourself. That’s the least a coach can do, and I’m sorry your past coaches didn’t seem to understand that.”

“Fuck Theriault,” Ilya spat suddenly, covering his eyes with his hand. “Bozhe moy, Hollander, ya yego tak nenavizhu.” [My god, Hollander, I hate him so much.]

Shane gave him a weak smile, blinking back the tears that had gathered in his eyes. When did that happen? He hadn’t even noticed his voice going thin or his throat getting tight. “Clear as day, Coach.”

Wiebe nodded at him, clapping him and Ilya on the shoulders. “Alright, boys, take a second to gather yourselves, then get out there and put the others to shame.”

“Yes, Coach.”

For how exhausted he and Shane both were as they stepped onto the ice, Ilya sure as hell was feeling rejuvenated by watching Shane in his element. True to Wiebe’s words, Mark was putting them right through hell. It was three-on-three pushes to lighting drills to suicides, with a few seconds to breathe before their skating coach, Miranda, came out to have them do hip-twists, full-speed crossovers, and powerpulls through the tightest course they could create. And then it was Angelo’s turn, with the one-touch releases and toe-drag drills and one-on-one overspeed drills.

It was fucking violent. His team looked ill, the rookies pale and nauseated, while the older players were gasping for breath as they pivoted from edge to edge, corner to corner, backhand to forehand. It was on and on and on and go go go, faster, Rozanov, get your shit together, Boodram, the fuck was that, Barrett, back to the beginning, Holmberg, what the fuck!

Even for Ilya, it was torture. His lungs felt more arrested and heavier with each passing second, and his legs burned tighter and hotter as he skated miles upon miles upon miles. This was the familiar push-push-push of hockey, forcing his body past what it deemed acceptable and natural, because that extra mile meant another goal, another smile, another chance at pride. It was the least he could do for his family.

And, despite how utterly abysmal these sort of conditioning-and-skills days were, Ilya had to admit that this was probably more beneficial than the demotions he and Wiebe would have been lobbying for. Damn Shane Hollander, hockey genius in all aspects, apparently.

Apparently a real masochist, too, because he looked like a vision covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his pads bulking up his already impressive frame, face flushed from exertion and breath coming out in puffs as he rounded the rink again and again. He looked so… happy doing that. They weren’t even playing, and he was delighted to be pushing and pulling with hockey all on his own.

God. Whoever thought Shane (and Ilya, duh) didn’t own the game was dead wrong.

“Rest!” Mark called, waving for them to actually stop for the first time in what felt like hours. Ilya knew it was probably less than twenty minutes.

The rookies collapsed on the spot, laying flat on their backs with their cheeks pressed to the ice. Shane came to a slow stop near them, brows pinched in concern even as he heaved out breath after breath. Ilya skated over to him, a little surprised his legs didn’t give out. Christ, how was Shane standing so steadily after all of that?

“How are you guys feeling?” Shane asked softly, voice scratchy.

“I think ‘m g’nna throw up,” Young moaned, throwing a hand over his visor.

“But you haven’t,” Ilya snapped, closing his eyes. “Stop whining. We had to do this every other week as rookies.”

Shane frowned at him. “Rozanov.”

“I’m right! We did, no?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point. They don’t need to throw up for training.”

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Builds character.”

“Knock that off, Rozanov. It’s a detriment to the team if they can’t say what they’re feeling,” Shane said pointedly, and yes, fine, he was right. Ilya huffed, mouthing detriment to himself. It would feel better when Shane said it into his mouth tonight, that was for sure. “Besides, it’s not like they’ll get any mercy. You’ll probably be throwing up by the end of practice, bud, sorry.”

Young groaned again, waving his arm weakly in the air. Shane offered him a slight smile, turning to where Bood and Troy were sprawled against the boards, heads ducked. With a flick of his eyes, he told Ilya to go check on them. Ugh, fine, anything for his husband. As it was, though, they deserved their misery and he would stand by that.

“What’s wrong with you two?” he asked flatly, giving them both once-overs. “Why all this whining?”

“Fucking hell, Roz, how are you not dead on your feet?” Troy groaned, glaring at him.

“Better than you. Duh.”

“I’m gonna faint, bro, seriously,” Bood mumbled, slowly lowering himself to his knees. “Since when was conditioning so hard?”

Ilya snorted, slapping the two of them on the back. “Since you decided to be stupid rather than play hockey. Don’t die, otherwise Shane will get upset and I will have to bring flowers to your funerals. So sad. They will be ugly.”

“Not like you have any style sense that isn’t luxury brands plastered all over yourself,” Troy scoffed, grinning at him slightly. And damn it all, Ilya felt himself smile back. Just slightly.

(He would never tell Shane, loathe to prove his husband right, but he did miss his friends, just a bit. He’d cut contact with them in a heartbeat for Shane, of course, but. Well. Boston wasn’t home, and he still missed it a little.)

“Watch your mouth, Barrett.”

Troy stuck his tongue out at him, glancing over his shoulder to where Shane was doing small laps around the pile of rookies on the floor, brows furrowed but breathing under control. He looked put together, save for how his hair was plastered to his forehead, which was a feat for anyone on the ice right now.

“Goddamn, dude, look at your man,” Troy said, shaking his head. Ilya narrowed his eyes at him. “What a fucking guy. Barely broke a sweat and looks like he could go another ten rounds. I’d kill to be that good at conditioning.”

“Yes, well, he is better than you,” Ilya said nonchalantly, grinning slightly at Troy’s look. “I am right, you know.”

“Yeah, genius, I fucking know. God, the ego between you two is insane.”

And, well. There was a reason hockey was their game.

“Alright, boys, get back to it! Three-on-threes!” Angelo yelled, clapping his hands once. 

Shane caught Ilya’s eye, shooting him an elated smile as he urged the other guys back into motion. God. Ilya would do these fuckass conditioning days every day if that was what Shane wanted. What a blessing it was, getting to see his husband so right and comfortable on the ice.

Ilya yawned, rubbing his eyes as he leaned against the boards. Break was officially starting next week, and they had played their last game of the year earlier that week. There was little to do, really, but the coaching staff thought optional skates would be a good way to fill in the time, so here they were. Shane and Ilya had been skipping them, truthfully, considering neither of them actually needed the extra practice (and, mostly, because the holiday season always made Ilya a little more horny than normal; he couldn’t be blamed— his husband just looked so good in his glasses, poring over cookbooks and handwritten cards!), but Shane was out with his friends tonight.

The Montreal guys had been quick to jump on Ilya’s demands that they hang out with Shane sooner rather than later, and, somehow, Rose fucking Landry had been made privy to their plans, so now his husband was hanging out with his ex-girlfriend and loser friends. It was fine, though, because he looked very, very good in his navy blue sweater and dark denim jeans. One perk of his friendship with Rose, Ilya supposed, as he stripped his husband, ducking down to mouth at Shane’s neck.

Still, he found himself getting bored after Shane left, what with Anya laid on her back and snoring. Svetlana was, no doubt, busy sweet talking some rich European man into buying from her business, meaning he couldn’t call her to bother her either. Cliff was probably well on his way to getting drunk, too, considering Boston had just had their last game of the year. That left him with little to do, other than get bored at home or, unfortunately, go to tonight’s optional skate.

Well. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He fired off a text to Shane letting him know that he’d be at the rink, then opened the team chat.

(Talking there, casually, didn’t feel great anymore, but he knew Shane would get worried if he didn’t at least make an effort to reconnect with the team. And, to be fair to them, they had been good sports about any and all consequences they’d gotten. Ilya appreciated it, if nothing else. Maybe Shane was right, that he should try to forgive them a little. It didn’t set a good precedent for him, as captain, to be so resentful. It didn’t make a winning team, that was for sure.)

GO CENS GO

Ilya Rozanov (C): who is at skate tonight

Zane Boodram (A): Me, Troy, Dyksie, Chewy, the rooks, Haasy, Hazy, Dill pickle, and a couple of the third and fourth liners

Zane Boodram (A): Why? All good?

Ilya Rozanov (C): ok. will be there in 20 mins

Zane Boodram (A): ?? Okay…

Ilya had made it in fifteen. He only sped a little bit, because even if Shane was just around an hour away, he missed his husband and his nagging about how the speed limit is there for a reason, baby, and the reason is so that we don’t fucking die. So sue him, he listened to the annoyed little Shane in his head, and only went five over.

The skate itself was fine. A little boring, since there wasn’t much to actually practice or any drills to hone in on. They mostly just goofed off, though Ilya did manage to get them to skate a few sprints. It was kind of fun, because he could, for a moment, pretend that his team hadn’t thoroughly destroyed his and Shane’s trust in them. He was starting to understand, a little, how Shane could still look the guys in their faces and play as well as he did. Ilya wasn’t that good of a person, though, so he spent most of his time on the ice with Wyatt, shooting pucks at him for shits and giggles.

By the end, it was a family skate. The older kids were being pulled around by their dads and ‘uncles,’ and babies who refused to sleep were bundled up in their arms as they skated slow laps. Ilya was currently holding Chouinard’s oldest, Annaliese, by the hands as he spun her in circles, grinning at her delighted giggles. One thing was for sure, no matter how badly the guys fucked up, their kids never did. He was going to get them all the best presents that would surely make their parents want to kill him.

Family skate did make him miss Shane a little extra, though, because he’d definitely have gotten Milo to calm down and stop crying by now. As it was, Troy and Harris were doing their best to hold him still, while Bood cooed at him and tried to stick a bottle in his mouth. Cassie watched on, half amused, as none of their efforts made a difference.

(Shane would look good with a baby on his hip. The thought made him a little dizzy. Maybe it was good that Shane wasn’t the one helping Bood.)

Annaliese tugged at his hand as he slowed down. “Mr. Ilya, Mr. Ilya! Where’s Mr. Shane?”

“Mr. Shane is with his friends,” Ilya sighed dramatically, crouching down to her level. “Why, what’s up? Oh no, Shane didn’t promise you any candy, did he?!”

Annaliese giggled, shaking her head and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Nope! I just wanted to say hi! Can you tell him hi, Mr. Ilya?”

Ilya hummed exaggeratedly, tapping his chin with the tip of his finger as he pretended to consider her request. Then, he snapped his fingers. “I have a better idea. Go ask your papa to get my phone.”

Annaliese nodded excitedly, skating over as fast as she could. She was a bit wobbly, tilting forward a little too much, but with some coaching, she could be a hell of a skater. He’d have to make sure to tell Selena to get her into some figure skating training. Maybe he’d have the privilege of saying that he helped kickstart an Olympian’s journey.

“Y’know, I was wondering the same thing,” Wyatt said, leaning against the boards as he looked down amusedly at Ilya. “Where is Shane? I haven’t seen you alone on the ice in ages.”

“With Rose Landry and Montreal guys. He needed it.”

Wyatt nodded. “True. The kids miss him, though. Every one of them who can talk asked me where he was.”

Ilya snorted, shrugging. It was true, Shane was definitely a fan favorite amongst kids, but asking Wyatt instead of Ilya was even funnier. They really had the entire team’s kids charmed, apparently. Wyatt grinned at him, cheering Annaliese on as she skated back, waving Ilya’s phone victoriously. Chouinard followed behind her at a respectable difference, a mix of concern and confusion on his face. Ilya ignored him, catching Annaliese as she barreled into him, shoving his phone into his hands before ramming into his chest.

“Oof, what a check, Annechka,” he wheezed, patting her head. He unlocked his phone, swiping to the camera. “Okay, okay, look at the camera. We are going to send Mr. Shane a video, yes?”

Saying that within earshot of everyone was a mistake. If Ilya hadn’t been so focused on making sure Annaliese was in frame without stabbing his thigh with her skate, he might’ve seen how the others looked at each other, rounding the rink to sneak up behind him as he pressed record.

Annaliese smiled widely, gaptoothed, and waved excitedly at the camera. “Hi, Mr. Shane! I hope you’re having fun! Can I come over to play with Miss Anya soon, please?”

Ilya gasped in mock offense, putting a hand over his heart. “Annaliese! You can ask me that, too!”

“But I wanna ask Mr. Shane!”

“Bah, fine. Can Annaliese come play with Miss Anya, Mr. Shane?” Ilya huffed, punctuating the line with a wink. “Okay—”

Just then, the idiots on his team decided to let loose all of the kids in frame. Chouinard’s two others clambered onto his lap, while Dykstra and Bood crouched down, holding their kids in front of their faces and waving their arms for them. One of the third liner’s kids was looking over his shoulder, grinning cheekily with her brother tucked under her arm. Ilya yelped, a laugh bursting out of him.

“Hi, Mr. Shane! And also bye, Mr. Shane!”

Ilya stopped the recording, sending it to Shane with a message attached—full of typos, undoubtedly, because he was laughing a little too hard to see clearly—and turning to his team. The kids were scattered around him, giggling and pushing each other around on the ice. The guys stood in a semicircle around them, smiling like they’d just gotten away with a heist. Ilya rolled his eyes at them, biting back a smile.

“Ridiculous, all of you.”

Troy clapped him on the shoulder, eyes twinkling as he shrugged. “Nothing ridiculous about saying hi to our teammate, Cap.”

They—the guys who didn’t come with kids, at least, and the rooks—were in the middle of clean up when Harris gasped from the bench, waving Ilya over frantically. Ilya blinked, warily making his way over to him, Troy on his heels.

“JJ just posted their little hangout on Instagram,” Harris started as soon as he was in earshot, “and these pictures are so cute! Look!”

Okay, well. Ilya was just a man. He hopped the boards, plopping down next to Harris as they started scrolling through the carousel. Troy took Harris’s other side, while the rookies and Luca huddled near them on the ice, their own phones already out as they ooh’d and ahh’d over the post. The photos were as well-lit as aquarium photos could be, outlining everyone in bright teals and whites. They were all haloed by the fish and sea creatures in the background, looking like they were straight from a movie set.

Naturally, his eyes landed on Shane first, his slightly tousled hair and perfect teeth and bright eyes. He was grinning widely, arms flung over Rose and Laine’s shoulders as Pike tried to balance a blush seal on his head, JJ’s fingers half covering the camera. Shane was staring at the camera, eyes crinkled and bright, as if he was looking at Ilya through the screen. It was a hell of a photo, and Ilya couldn’t bite back the smile that split his face. He would be reposting that post as soon as he could.

Harris scrolled through the next few photos, which were just of them posing with various sea animals because, contrary to popular belief, JJ was absolutely a nerd. Shane had been paired up with the otters, where he was holding a plush rock (which Ilya desperately hoped he bought) as he crouched in front of the glass. His eyes were shut from how hard he was laughing. Ilya felt like his chest was about to burst with how happy these pictures made him feel— it was like someone lit him up with sunlight from the inside out. Thank god his friends were good to him, because the team certainly couldn’t be.

The last photo in the carousel wasn’t a photo at all. It was a shaky video of Shane in the passenger seat of Pike’s minivan, grinning down at his phone. Harris clicked the sound on, and Ilya was greeted by his own voice.

“—come play with Miss Anya, Mr. Shane?”

Shane giggled, honest to god giggled, as the rest of the kids popped up in the video. Rose was cooing in the background, while Laine and Pike reached over to jostle Shane. His husband paid them no mind, rewinding the video and pausing it on—

“Is that me?” Ilya asked, a little embarrassed by how high his voice came out. Troy reached over to punch him in the arm, chuckling. “Bozhe moy.”

“Oh, Capitaine, vous êtes tellement en amour!” [Oh, Captain, you are so in love!] Boiziau cackled from behind the camera, right as the video cut. Ilya blinked, grinning stupidly.

“Send me that post.”

Harris huffed fondly, hitting the send button immediately. Ilya couldn’t believe how grateful he was feeling to the Montreal guys and Rose Landry at that moment. It was truly shameful. But he couldn’t begrudge them too much, considering the video ended on Shane’s smiling face surrounded by people who loved him.

(A bitter part of him wished Ottawa could’ve been that place, rather than some aquarium halfway between Montreal and home, but he’d take what he could get. Shane’s happiness was the important part here, not what he wanted.)

“Do you think we should do a team trip like this?” Harris mused, thumbing through the carousel again. “I know you guys tried the museum, but Shane seems to like this more. Maybe the zoo? You could even bring Svetlana, like they brought Rose Landry.”

“True. I’ve never seen Holly like this,” Troy muttered, ducking his head as Ilya gave him an unamused look. “I know, I know.”

“Ah, no Sveta. She does not like or respect you all.”

Young blinked, tilting his head. “Why not? What did we do?”

Ilya waved his hand, frowning. “I wanted her advice on how to handle this. She told me that if she was Shane, she would not have trusted you at all, and that she would probably feel unsafe. She said that we—yes, Troy, we all—forgot that Shane isn’t playing the same game as us. He is playing… ah, what did she say? Bood’s game?”

Harris pursed his lips. “The race game, then, I guess.”

“Probably. Shane never complained, so I never…” That wasn’t good, now that Ilya was saying it, now that he’d seen just how much Shane would keep from him. He ought to ask. “Forget it. She also said that we are a bunch of men who hurt each other, so who knows what we would do to her. Apparently.”

“We would never!” Luca insisted, blanching as his jaw dropped open. “It’s terrible that others already do it, so why would we add to that? Oh my god, Rozy, why would she think that?”

Ilya shrugged. He knew his team would never. He’d beat their fucking asses if they did. “World is not always nice to beautiful women. I have saved her as much as she has saved me.”

“Jesus,” Young breathed, shaking his head. “I feel so bad for her.”

“Yes, well, that’s hockey. We just have to do better.” He sighed heavily, the levity in his chest fading as quickly as it came. “Maybe the entire organization should go through niceness training, actually.”

“Extra sensitivity training might not be a bad idea,” Harris agreed, chewing on his lip. “Especially considering… yeah. You should pitch it to the GM.”

“Da. And as for Shane, this—” he gestured to Harris’s phone, where the post was still up, teal and white, “—is not very related to the location.”

“It’s the people?” Luca guessed, resigned.

“Yes.”

LaPointe frowned, leaning on the boards and putting his head in his hands. “Okay, sure, it’s us. Does he need, like, more verbal affection? Because I’ll say it, dude. No skin off of my back.”

Troy pursed his lips, staring into the middle distance with furrowed brows. “I thought we were doing better.”

Well. Credit where credit was due, Ilya supposed.

“You are. There is more work to do, obviously, because that stupid fucking chat still exists, but you are doing good things, at least. But Shane is playing nice for my sake, I think,” Ilya muttered. “It is up to him to truly forgive you. It is your responsibility, though, to keep trying to fix the mess you made.”

“...We probably need to accept that he’s never going to like us, right?” Harris said quietly, after a long moment. “It's his prerogative, of course, but I think we need to say it to ourselves.”

Ilya got up, heaving out a slow breath. “Probably, yes. Galina would agree. How Shane is feeling is not his fault, after all.”

And if they all flinched, sulking back to their clean up and work, then Ilya wasn’t in the business of acknowledging it. It wasn’t his fault, after all.

Shane snuffled, burying his face in Ilya’s neck. His husband was still dead asleep, his arms wrapped around Shane’s waist possessively. It was the weekend and, technically, the first day of their holiday break. He and Ilya had celebrated thoroughly last night, and he woke up pleasantly sore and aching. He’d slept in, too, waking up as the first rays of dawn spilled through their blinds. Typically, Ilya would insist on closing the blackout curtains, but he knew Shane liked waking up to the sun, so the weekends were their compromise.

The light cut across Ilya’s face, scattering over the softness of his milky skin and highlighting the sharpness of his cheek and the jut of his browbone. His lashes were lit up, looking like the softest spun thread as they fanned out over his cheek. Shane lifted a hand as Ilya mumbled, half-asleep, to shade his husband’s eyes from the light. Immediately, Ilya relaxed again, throwing a leg over Shane’s bare hip, snuggling closer. His mouth was slack as drool pooled on the pillow, the warm dampness of his breathing coasting over Shane’s chest.

God, he was so beautiful. How did Shane get so lucky? Here was his—his—husband, bathed in golden sunlight, looking as beautiful as a painting as the sun draped him honey and warmth. He was a greedy, greedy man, keeping this beauty all to himself. The world should envy him not for his hockey (well, that too), but for his husband. What a fucking miracle, this man.

Shane didn’t know how long he spent looking at Ilya, the soft curves of his lips and the hard line of his nose and the cut of his chin and the—

“Dobroye utro, Shanya,” [Good morning, Shanya] he mumbled, ducking down to press a damp kiss to his pec. He tucked his head into Shane’s chest. “Мой красивый муж.” [My handsome husband.]

“Ty dazhe glaza ne otkryla, baby,” [You didn’t even open your eyes] Shane chuckled. Ilya smiled against his skin.

“Ne nuzhno. Ya znayu, ty krasavets.” [No need. I know you're handsome.]

“My sweet boy,” Shane cooed, crushing Ilya to himself and peppering the crown of his head with kisses. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

“Ya lyublyu tebya yeshche bolshe,” [I love you more] Ilya mumbled, turning his head up to kiss him long and slow and gentle. 

Shane gave a muffled protest, but he was a bit occupied with more important things. Ilya started rutting his hips against Shane’s.

“Insatiable,” Shane gasped, biting Ilya’s lip.

Ilya just laughed, low and warm and fond. This fucking guy.

Shane puttered around the kitchen as Ilya scrolled through his phone at the counter. It was a slow, slow morning. They showered after sex, took Anya on a walk, came back to laze around before preparing brunch. Shane hadn’t been thinking much, honestly, the day just a blur of Ilya-warm-Ilya-sun-Ilya. He was more than happy to keep it that way. But apparently, for once, his husband had other plans.

“Team texted about a zoo outing sometime over break,” he said, face scrunched like he’d just bit into a lemon. “Do you want to go?”

Shane frowned. “The zoo? Like, for the kids or a media day?”

“Just because. Apparently.”

“Oh.” 

Shane hadn’t said no to most of the team’s plans. Just individual dinners, bar Hayes, and a couple overly-noisy events. It was partly out of fear of all of their goodwill being rescinded, and partly because Shane couldn’t do much to reciprocate. Ilya had strictly banned him from offering olive branches and, when JJ and Hayden were filled in, they joined Ilya on the ban, too. And, sure, Shane was a grown ass man who could do whatever the fuck he wanted, but he trusted his friends. Listening to them and his husband was the least he could do after the hell he put them through last season.

It put him in a weird spot, though, trying to navigate meeting the team halfway and maintaining his own comfort for once. He desperately, desperately wanted the team and Ilya to be friendly again, because try as he might, his husband couldn’t hide the bad days from him anymore. He knew damn well that some part of them was triggered but the tension on the team and the frustration that came with not being able to be friendly with your goddamn friends. Shane was more than willing to put up with their pushiness if it meant Ilya would be a bit happier, but then Ilya started being the one pushing the team away, snarling like a guard dog at them.

(“Baby, you can’t push your friends away,” Shane whispered one night after Ilya got off the phone with Svetlana. Their conversation was rapid fire, too fast for him to follow. “It’s not good for you.”

“Some friends they are,” Ilya shot back, and that was that. The same sharp tone he used to use when they were younger and he was done talking to Shane.

“Baby.”

“Not right now, Shanya.”)

Shane shook his head. “Um. Maybe not the zoo, unless the kids really insist.”

Ilya nodded, typing out the message. Shane sighed slightly, scraping at the eggs in the pan.

“Maybe the planetarium. I used to go there when I was a kid. It’s really pretty.”

“You can just say no, malysh. No need to offer an alternative.”

Shane hummed, shrugging. Good manners had been drilled into him since childhood, and part of that included offering an alternative for meeting up whenever he had to decline. And, sure, the team would probably let him get away with it this time, but it didn’t feel right. He at least owed it to Ilya to try harder. More than that, though—

“This time, I think it is necessary,” he countered, depositing the eggs into their plates. Ilya had whipped up the pancakes—protein pancakes using oat batter, of course—and set out all of the toppings for them already. “We’re playing Toronto first thing when we get back.”

Ilya groaned, slouching forward and letting his head fall on the table with a gentle thud. Shane chuckled slightly, ruffling his hair as he drizzled hot sauce over his eggs. Work talk during break was a strict no, nowadays, but Ilya started it, so all was fair.

“Why does that affect if we go to the planetarium or not? If you want to go, then yes, let’s go, but why do we care about when we play Toronto?”

Shane gave him an unimpressed look. “Your best friend—”

“Moyo derevo, bud' ser'yozno.” [My tree, be serious.]

“I am being serious, and why am I a tree?” Shane shook his head, waving his hand in Ilya’s face as his husband snorted. “Anyway, point is, Barrett’s going to need a pick-me-up after the game.”

“And you care… why?” Ilya paused, cutting into his pancake with a frown. “He has Harris, yes? That’s all the picking up he needs, I think.”

“You and I both know that’s not true, baby.”

Ilya raised a brow. “Enlighten me, Shane. Why is it not true?”

“He left Toronto because of team issues,” Shane said slowly and a little condescendingly, smirking as Ilya’s eye twitched. “It makes sense that after we win, the team should do something nice for him.”

“They didn't do it for you. Why do you want to do it for him?”

Shane rolled his eyes, shoving his eggs into his mouth as he chewed on the words. True, the team didn’t do much at all to make the before or after of the Montreal game better for him, but— “It was different with me. We weren’t on the same page. With Barrett, the team is. I may not like him, but he’s a damn good player and a great liney for you. You’ve gotta keep him happy if you want a strong first line.”

And, truthfully, they couldn’t afford to be petty, not with playoffs only a few months away. They were comfortably in contention for their division, but Shane wanted to ensure confident contention for their entire conference, and then the entire fucking league. He was getting to that final one way or another, goddammit. If that meant sucking it up, putting on a friendly face, and making nice with Troy Barrett, he’d do it. It wasn’t any skin off his back, that was for sure, and they’d be getting a strong first line out of it.

(Besides, the quicker they could fix the interpersonal dynamics of the team, Shane figured, the quicker they could get back to the fun parts of hockey. Shane’s line was already doing a hundred times better, their cooperation off-ice bleeding into games and on-ice synchrony. Haas was a hell of a study, and Dykstra was more than happy to take their lead and be their muscle.

If Shane, somehow, despite all that had happened to him and because of him and in spite of him, could develop a line like that, then no way in hell would he let Ilya be on a line with subpar chemistry and a distracted winger.)

Ilya snorted, dousing his cut up pancake in syrup. Shane’s teeth ached just looking at it. “Okay, Mr. Strategist. I trust you.”

“Obviously. All for the game, baby.”

Ilya apparently thought that was the cleverest thing, with how he laughed and dragged Shane in to plant a sticky kiss on his cheek.

The end of break, filled with ease and presents and not a single mention of the Centaurs, saw them back in the Canadian Tire Centre, just a few days out from their game with Toronto. It wasn’t the first time they’d played them this season, but it was the first time that Shane was paying attention specifically to Barrett.

He looked… not good. Surely he didn’t always look so dead-eyed and exhausted. The team had fallen quiet this time around, in the days leading up to the game. Normally, they were noisy, doing their best to cheer up the locker room or distract Barrett from the impending face-off. Not this time, though, apparently. They were walking on eggshells around the guy, really, all quiet words and gentle hands on his shoulders.

He didn’t even respond.

They couldn’t figure out why this game was so different. There weren’t any important dates Ilya could think of, and Boodram didn’t recall any anniversaries, and Hayes made sure all of Barrett’s and Drover’s animals were fine. The rookies weren’t able to wheedle anything out of him, either, and Harris couldn’t fuck it out of him, so they were at a loss. Maybe it was just a bad time, bad luck. Barrett seemed prone to it, that was for sure. Or maybe Barrett was doing too much thinking and too little playing, the Montreal game enough to remind him of what he could’ve gone through, had he been the league’s scapegoat.

Loathe as he was to say it, Shane could see himself in Barrett. It was a special kind of grief, this. The way that their teams’ gazes changed permanently and for the worse— it was an ache deep, deep in their bones, Shane thought, because when you gave yourself over to a sport like this, it changed you at a fundamental level. And Barrett, for all of his faults and mistakes and idiocy, had done so. It elevated his gameplay, yes, but it was also his failure in the same way hockey was Shane’s. Dedication like theirs left a gaping hole in their chest that could only be filled by the care that they’d been denied by their teams; sure, the Cens were good to Barrett, loving him come hell or high water and willing to kill for him, but there was an affection reserved for drafting teams that went unfulfilled.

Well. No matter, because if Shane could shut the Metro inside him away, Barrett could shut the Guardian in him away, too.

Shane sat down next to him, clapping him on the shoulder. A little rougher than necessary, maybe, but the team was treating him like glass. Ridiculous, really, because they were fucking hockey players.

“You can’t repeat my stunt,” he said flatly, giving Barrett a dangerous smile. “That was a one-and-done, Barrett.”

He blinked out of his trance, eyeing Shane’s hand on his shoulder warily. “Sorry, what?”

“The bait-and-switch we did during that first game against Montreal. On and done, bud. Think of a different strategy for winning against Toronto.”

Lord. If the entire locker room wasn’t fixated on their every move, Shane would’ve laughed at the concerned way Barrett’s brows rose.

“What, you think we’re going in without a plan with you moping around like this?” Shane scoffed, shaking his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ilya about to step forward. But this was something he and Barrett needed to discuss, not Barrett and his captain. “What’s gotten into you, huh?”

“The fuck? Nothing, Holly.” Barrett tried to lean away from him. Shane’s grip tightened. “The hell are you trying to do, dude?”

“I’m trying to get my captain’s line back up to par, Barrett. Get with the program, otherwise I’ll ask Wiebe to bench you instead of Nielson.” Shane smiled, all teeth and promise. “That’d be pretty fucking lame, huh? Being benched two games in a row?”

Barrett huffed, scrubbing a hand through his hair as his lips twitched up. “You’re real fucking mean, you know that? A real piece of shit.”

Shane was the one who gave him the benefit of the doubt, this time, as Ilya and Boodram tried to step in, already reaching towards Barrett with irritation clear on their faces. He laughed, jostling him.

“Yeah, motherfucker, I know! That’s why I’m talking to you! You think I wanna be sitting here making you feel better?”

Barrett grinned. “Good news, bud, you sure as hell aren’t.”

“Damn right. Use that empty noggin of yours and tell us what the fuck the plan is for the game.” Shane paused, glancing at Barrett’s jersey. Centaur red and black, Guardian blue and white. Similar enough. “They’ve still got those enforcer types, right?”

“They do.” Barrett’s eyes lit up as he caught onto what Shane was saying. Shane felt a surge of pride, suddenly, at his growing excitement, the way his eyes flicked back and forth across Shane’s face as he traced out plays and tried positions in his mind. This was what it meant, then, to be Troy Barrett’s teammate. What a fucking player. “Too bad Chewy’s benched, eh?”

“The fuck do we need Chouinard for? We’ve got LaPointe and Troutner as our first d-pair, then Young and Antonov as our second. Drop Smith and Hanzal to third.”

Barrett was nodding, tapping out a rhythm on his thigh as he looked between the gathered players, mouthing something-or-another to himself. Miracle of miracles, Shane was actually excited to hear what the guy had to say. Pigs might as well fly.

“They’re gonna want to fight our lines,” Barrett muttered, glancing at Shane. “This new group isn’t playing a skilled game and their goalie is shit. You think Wiebe would let us drop Dykstra to third line for this game, send Bood to your line, and bring up Vasiliadis to be muscle for Roz’s line?”

Shane nodded slowly, looking at Ilya and Boodram thoughtfully. They were both standing stock-still, looking between Barrett and Shane like they’d just grown two heads each. The rest of the team had returned to their quiet chatter, but there was more than one conspicuous glance their way, questions written on all of their faces.

Frankly, if Shane wasn’t in the middle of rewriting their entire play against Toronto, he’d have been asking the same things.

“If we’re doing that, we need to adjust power play one. It’s not like they’ll be able to penalty kill us, so, what? Power play with me, Rozanov, Boodram, you, and… Haas. Yeah, that sounds good. All our money is on scorers, not defense.”

“Yep. I guess our PK stays the same, since they have no offensive depth,” Barrett mused, nodding to himself. “Yeah, yeah, that works.”

Ilya blinked, gesturing between the two of them. “What the fuck was that?”

“A plan to get you your first line back, Rozanov,” Shane laughed, clapping Barrett on the shoulder as he got up. Barrett spared him a smile, turning back to where he was tracing out plays in the air. Shane watched as he drew up their PP2, cutting it down and restarting the same way he would have.

Shane didn’t think he and Barrett would ever be friends, but maybe they should work together more often. They made a good team.

“Care to fill us in on that plan, Hollander?” Wiebe asked dryly, knocking on the doorframe as he entered. Shane grinned.

“Up and at it, Barrett. We’ve got work to do.”

In the end, their new strategy worked beautifully. 

It was a drastic change, the sort of reorganization that they avoided so deep into the season. Bringing up a third liner was unorthodox, but Vasiliadis did his job well, already used to the long, grinding shifts they made their third line play. Shane flinched in sympathy as he slammed one of the smaller forwards into the boards when the guy tried to go after Barrett; Vasili was massive compared to him, and that hit was completely legal and liable to leave a person-sized bruise. And then Vasili skated off like nothing happened. Shane would have to suggest he be moved up more often, at this rate.

Moreover, true to Barrett’s word, the Guardians seemed deadset on being pests this game, taunting and goading and using dirty fucking tricks to get under their nerves. It paid off, technically, considering Boodram was seething in the penalty box after getting into one hell of a fight about some fourth liner called Haas a fairy. Haas had just ignored him, shooting the puck over his shoulder, but Boodram had been on edge all night. It was that one comment and a nasty look at Shane that pushed him over, apparently. He threw a nasty right hook, sending blood spattering on the ice, bright against the white. The refs intervened before it became a full brawl, but it was a near thing. 

It wasn’t a great move, necessarily, because it put a damper in their momentum, but Shane could appreciate it, especially now; he was a good liney for Ilya, if he was willing to throw down gloves so surely and immediately. He deserved to have people ready to fight for him.

(Though, to be fair, he’d been doing plenty of fighting himself. Every time Shane glanced up from the iPad, Ilya was there, running his mouth and drawing penalty after penalty. Shane couldn’t even count how many power plays they’d been on.

He could thank all those power plays for the 6-0 score, though.)

Toronto’s power play ran out and their PK squad rushed back to the bench, crashing into each other in a fit of laughter. Shane hopped the boards, Luca on his heels, right as Boodram was let out of the sin bin. Christ, the synchrony was gorgeous; he’d be singing this night’s praises to high heaven all night, he knew it. He skated to the face-off dot, his stick held loosely in his hands as he bent down, eyes fixed on the ice. Across from him, the other center—some terrible, nameless-faceless guy Shane couldn’t be bothered to learn about—scoffed, his eyes boring into Shane’s helmet.

“Guess that fag hasn’t sold you out yet,” the guy spat. Out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw Boodram’s hand twitch.

He sighed heavily, glancing up briefly at the guy. “You’ve got the wrong foot forward.”

“The fuck—”

The linesman dropped the puck. Shane raced off with it,weaving through the messy throng of Guardians players. Haas and Boodram did a good job of clearing lanes, letting him deke and swerve and spin as needed. It felt a little like a dance, this whole set up. The thrum of his teammates’ heartbeats in his veins, the roar of the crowd rising and falling and rising, the rush of wind past his ears as he raced towards the net, faster than everyone else by a mile. He deked a defenseman, twisting at the last second and sending him sprawling as Shane lined up his shot and flicked his wrist and—

“Let’s fucking go, Holly!” Boodram yelled right in his ear, jumping half on him as the goalhorn sounded. “What a beauty!”

“Seven-oh, baby, hell yeah!” LaPointe screamed, joining the huddle that had formed around him.

Shane chuckled, shaking them off after passing out a couple helmet taps. He waved to the bench, grinning at a cheering Ilya and a smiling Barrett. “Get back to work, boys, we have a game to finish.”

There were medics on the ice. One of the Cens’ fourth liners had been cross-checked from the back, a dirty fucking play from Toronto, the worthless cowards. Their guy went crashing down, the cross-checker stumbling over him in a— a freak accident or something, and all of a sudden, there was screaming and the Guardians player was scrambling back and there was blood on his blade and on the ice and their guy was trying to get up when he needed to—

“Stay still! Fuck, stay still, goddammit!” Ilya yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth. “Hold him down, vy nekompetentnyye idioty!” [You incompetent idiots!]

Shane turned away from the ice as the medics were helped over by the rest of the fourth line, twisting around to where Wiebe was in tense discussion with Angelo and Mark. Barrett copied him, nodding.

“Coach,” he said, beckoning Wiebe over. “Which power play?”

Wiebe narrowed his eyes, glancing between Shane and Barrett. “What are you thinking?”

It was third period, with hardly five minutes left. They’d almost definitely be handed a five minute major and a two minute minor— more time than they were even playing for. No fucking way Toronto could kill the penalty. They could finish off the game strong, rounding off the 7-1 game with a humiliation ritual. Shane would feel bad, if he were a better person. But that was the game, and he knew how to play it. The team knew how to play it.

“Power play one.”

“Extended torture,” Angelo muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let ‘em at it, Wiebe.”

His coach sighed. “You fuckers better know what you’re doing.”

Shane caught Barrett’s eye. Takes one to know one.

Play resumed a few minutes later, the commentators announcing the power play as they hopped the boards. Ilya was poised front and center, one hell of a defensive layer, while Barrett, Boodram, and Haas flanked him. Shane pulled up the rear, his presence more ceremonial than anything. No way in hell was the puck getting to him, what with the best offensive players in front of him. He glanced over his shoulder at Hayes, who waved at him, eyes crinkling behind the mask.

He was so excited to drag Toronto through the mud.

The Guardians were flagging, their passes and skating becoming sloppy as they tried to muscle past the best offense Shane had seen from this team in a long, long while. They failed, of course, with Ilya sneaking the puck away from the players and shooting down the ice, a blur of Centaurs red-and-black. Shane watched, mesmerized, as his husband skated, legs pumping through the crossovers and quick hands passing the puck back and forth and back and forth, ping-ponging the puck between—

Oh. This motherfucker. This beautiful, wonderful, exceptional motherfucker. He was playing with his food. 

He could’ve scored the first power play goal a hundred times over by now, with how Toronto’s defense barely covered their goalie. But no, here he was, peacocking and having fun with his team. Shane grinned, catching the puck from Haas as he flung it backwards, rocketing towards the boards as one of Toronto’s forwards chased him. If Ilya could play games, then surely he could too, no?

He shot the puck between the guy’s legs, watching with a surge of satisfaction as Bood intercepted it a few seconds after, shooting it to Barrett with a clean backhand. God, those drills really did make a distance. Maybe the team would benefit from him having the A.

He pivoted sharply, sending up a spray of ice and narrowly getting away from the newest Guardian trying to corner him, catching the puck on his blade as Ilya shot it to him. They had less than a minute left. Shane could make the shot now, if he just twisted a little bit, but—

“Barrett!” he yelled, the taste of victory sweet on his tongue, rubber and ice. “Catch!”

And catch he did, jutting out his blade as soon as his name left Shane’s mouth. The puck was a blur as he spun, shooting it at the crossbar and it went in.

That was it. 8-1, Centaurs.

The rink erupted.

Shane couldn’t hear it, the rush of blood and euphoria in his ears. He watched, breathing heavily with a smile splitting his face, as his team jumped the boards, crowding around a red-faced Barrett. He shouldered past the Toronto players that had gathered around him, reaching towards the nearest jersey with his stick when he was suddenly pulled back. He gagged, whipping around to glare at the no-name moron who was trying to fight him after the final goalhorn.

“Why the fuck’d you do that?!” the guy spat. Shane wrinkled his nose, feeling the droplets land on him. Gross. “You know what the stupid cocksucker used to say about you, and you still helped his sorry ass?”

Shane gave him an unimpressed once-over. He was small for a hockey player, barely reaching Shane’s chin, and missing a few teeth despite being a nothing-at-all player even on the Guardians. Yeah, he was the last person to be criticizing Shane’s playmaking.

“Considering Barrett and I both have our teeth—”

“Oh fuck you, no wonder your pansy ass is helping him,” the guy growled, shoving him. “So much for being Canadian, eh?”

Chirps were getting weaker, apparently. He’d have been called a chink or a gook by now, if he was still playing in his first few seasons. Maybe things had improved, after all. Shane sighed, shaking his head as he turned away, waving the refs over; he was too good to be dealing with this.

Barrett wasn’t, though, apparently. He’d broken away from the celebratory huddle, his eyes wide and icy as he stared down his former teammate. “The fuck’d you say?”

“Oh, he speaks—”

“Say that about Hollander again and see what happens.”

The guy smirked, raising a brow. “Some fucking Canadian he is. Maybe he should stick to—”

Barrett dropped his gloves faster than Shane could blink, whaling on the guy with seemingly no intention of stopping. The sound of skin-on-skin was sickening, and when Ilya swore and leapt forward, Shane unfroze. The rink had gone quiet, the remaining fans staring and recording the scene in front of them— Troy Barrett, absolutely beating the lights out of some idiot that decided to provoke his insane ass team.

Together, he and Ilya managed to pull Barrett off. He was breathing heavily, face twisted in disgust and lip bleeding. Wiebe was yelling something, and the refs were jostling them around, shouting about suspensions and reviews and whatnot. Shane wasn’t hearing much, truthfully. He glanced back at the bloody mess Barrett had left on the ground, medics surrounding it and his team slowly making their way back to the bench, whispering. Ilya was scolding Barrett, just to maintain an image, really, because the glint in his eyes betrayed his pride. All of that was right. It was logical, in place and expected.

There was just one thing… 

“Why’d you do that?” Shane asked during a lull in Ilya’s ranting, watching Barrett out of the side of his eye. “You’re gonna be in a hell lot of trouble for that, Barrett.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected. Annoyance, maybe, because he was pointing out the obvious; regret, because Barrett had gone and gotten himself in trouble for someone he barely liked; condescension, because he stepped in where Shane was letting that guy run his mouth.

What he didn’t expect was pride. Pure, unadulterated pride, tucked into the corners of his grin and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Barrett looked elated that he had asked, that he’d noticed and been bothered enough to question why one of their best forwards had just gotten himself in trouble.

“Guy had it coming,” Barrett said sharply, blood coating the shape of his words. “Who the fuck does he think he is, talking to you like that?”

Ilya caught Shane’s eye, brows raised. “You did it for Hollander?”

“Duh. That’s our guy.”

Our guy. Huh. Those words came easy to him, apparently.

Shane hummed, chewing on the inside of his mouth as they handed Barrett off to their team’s medics. He was in for a reaming from coaching staff and team management, and he didn’t even seem upset about it. This was the face of a guy who would beat a man into a pulp a hundred times over with a smile on his face.

“Barrett.”

He blinked at Shane, tilting his head. 

Shane smiled at him. “Tell me the dates of your suspension. We’ll plan a trip to the planetarium, yeah?”