Work Text:
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November
2015
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It's not a big deal - being traded.
Not a big deal.
Who cares?
No big deal.
Yup, no big deal.
People like Shane Hollander get traded everyday.
It's normal.
Doesn't matter that he just won his team a Stanley Cup.
Things like this happen all the time.
WHO CARES REALLY?
It's fine.
He plays the thoughts in his head on a loop but it’s like his brain is being purposely stupid about registering the words.
It's the only explanation for the fact that he cannot fucking stop the tears.
He's being traded.
Well, he will be traded.
They had surprised him with a meeting, so suddenly he could barely call his mother or his agent about it. They'd said the team was looking to restructure.
And they picked him.
They didn't say that it was because the team fell apart at the seams when Shane had mistakenly outed himself during preseason. They didn't say it was because the rest of the team refused to behave like adults.
They didn't say that it was because he was gay.
They said they wanted to restructure. They had asked if he would waive his no-trade clause.
Shane had sat, numb and confused, until he had been dismissed.
He'd walked straight out to his car and driven home. There he had called his mom who was confused too.
She made a few calls and called him back, absolutely livid.
But Shane had already checked out mentally. He had already cleaned out his locker and surrendered his gate pass in his head. He was done.
He told his Mom to let it happen.
She wanted to fight, to sue, but he didn't want to. He had enough well-earned pride in him to be upset about this. He was not going to play for a team that treated him like he was a plague personified.
He should have seen it coming, really, but it was fine. People get traded all the time.
He wipes his tears and sits to think up revenge scenarios that feel vindictive enough that he has to go take a shower to cool off.
Then he calls his mother again and they set about trying to find the best possible options for him. Shane is secretly trying to find an option that fucks with Montreal the most, and it helps that's he's 90% sure his mother is doing the same thing.
By 4.30 the next afternoon, Shane has signed with Boston.
It's perfect.
The biggest fuck you to Montreal.
He even giggles about it. His mother and agent giggle about it. Boston’s GM doesn't giggle about it but he does sound giddy with excitement.
By 5 Rozanov has called him about 50 times. They never call each other.
He finally picks up and Rozanov yells and whoops for a whole minute before he realises Shane is very much still in the middle of a panic attack even if he can plot revenge scenarios and giggle about things.
Somehow, Rozanov talks him down, and then stays on the phone, Shane doesn't understand why.
But it's nice.
Rozanov stays on the phone when Shane bursts into angry tears that won't stop surprising him and he's still on the phone when Shane has to go throw up from the anxiety.
He talks Shane through making himself a sandwich and promises to get some food delivered. He's still on the line when the tofu mushroom soup gets delivered. He keeps up a steady flow of conversation as Shane eats.
It's nice.
Then Shane admits that he wants Montreal to crash and burn.
Rozanov goes quiet and Shane has enough time to worry about it before he's talking again.
“They're letting us play on the same team, Hollander.” He says, soft with an undercurrent of delight. “Everyone else is going to crash and burn - we will see to it. But I will enjoy beating Montreal very much.”
Shane laughs about it.
Yes, both of them on the same team will be a force to be reckoned with.
He cannot wait.
Rozanov makes him open the vodka bottle in his fridge and make a toast. ‘To annihilating the Metros’, he says dutifully as he takes a shot. Rozanov takes one too and then for some reason, they have another - ‘To Boston’
Shane never particularly liked the taste of alcohol but he mixes the vodka with ginger ale and ignores Rozanov when he yells about his crime. The drink goes down much easier.
Two hours later he's had too many drinks and Rozanov has fallen asleep on the phone. Shane spends an embarrassing amount of time listening to the man's soft snoring before he cuts the call.
He's just about to head to bed when he gets an email. It's late, but not that late - barely gone 10 but it's a weird time to get mail.
Shane,
Following today's trade, your facility access will be deactivated effective immediately.
Please stop by the front desk before noon tomorrow to return your access card, parking pass, and any remaining team-issued property.
Your remaining personal belongings have been removed from your locker and boxed by Equipment Services. The box is available for collection from the front desk between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.
Thank You
Rebecca
Metros Team Operations
–
Wow.
He's not even aware that he's powered up his laptop but suddenly he's googling “How to curse someone”.
The first few results are spectacularly unhelpful.
The fifth is an Etsy shop listing.
Shane blinks at it.
Authentic Justice & Revenge Spell.
It's got 4.9 stars out of five and about 3000 reviews.
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My cheating ex lost his job within three months. Thank you, MoonMother444!
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Asked for karmic justice, not physical harm. Exactly what I wanted. Thank you!!
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My ex got a flat tire on the way to his wedding. Coincidence? Maybe. Worth $18? Absolutely.
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He doesn't think again. He goes to place an order.
There's a short form he has to fill out giving the details of his requirements. He pays 80 dollars for a premium spell and then promptly falls asleep.
The next morning, he receives a confirmation mail that he can't particularly remember or care about. It's only later that night, when he gets the video, that he panics.
The video opens on a small wooden table draped in a deep green cloth. Half a dozen candles flicker around a shallow ceramic bowl filled with water and floating rosemary sprigs. Soft instrumental music plays in the background.
A pair of slightly weathered hands enter the frame. They light a bundle of dried herbs on fire and let the smoke curl lazily over a slip of paper one hand has brought into the frame.
"Justice for Shane Hollander," the paper reads in neat handwriting.
The woman folds it three times, ties it with black thread as she murmurs something Shane cannot understand behind the camera.
Then she drops it and on the way down the paper catches on fire somehow and the flame glows green. When it falls into the bowl it's mostly ash.
"Your intention has been released. The ritual is complete. Leave the rest to the universe.” The woman behind the camera says.
Then it ends.
Shane rushes to send a mail back. He asks to get the spell reversed.
He's politely asked to fuck right off.
He checks the website again.
Non refundable, Non reversible.
It's there in bold on the shop page but drunk Shane had not noticed that.
Great.
“This is not going to work anyway.” He tells himself. “It's just a scam meant for drunk and emotionally vulnerable people.”
He nods three times to himself and puts the matter far away from reach.
It's a scam.
It's fine.
---
June
2016
--
It's not a scam.
The curse is not a scam.
Montreal is at the very bottom of the standings for the first time in history.
If you ask his Mom or even Rozanov they would say it's because they traded Shane.
Both of them are beyond pissed at Montreal.
His mom, because of obvious reasons, and Rozanov, because Shane eventually had to explain the real reason he was traded - something even his mom didn't know.
Montreal had been especially mean to him during their first game against them and Shane had tried to brush it off but Rozanov had noticed and had systematically taken it out of him after some mind-numbing orgasms that night.
Then he'd made a vow to finish them off properly and stuck with it. He even promised cash prizes for goals scored against Montreal and a bigger prize for their goalie for every shot he blocked. It was stupid and a bit hilarious the way the Raiders rose up to the challenge.
Montreal never scored against them that season. Rozanov lost thousands of dollars but he did it happily.
But it really didn't explain Montreal’s inability to score much of anything in their other games.
Shane thinks it's the curse.
He hasn't told anyone about it.
It's probably a coincidence - and also probably because they traded him.
It's fine.
They've just won the cup and Shane is going to go to Rozanov’s place and fuck about it, thank you very much.
It's probably not the curse.
---
June
2017
--
Oh it's definitely the curse.
Montreal's goalie injured himself in the middle of the season (not even during a game). There was no salvaging their season after that.
Then their backup goalie had to be sent to rehab after very publicly walking into a fountain and laying in it, high as a kite.
The replacement goalie was too much of a rookie to do any real good for them.
Shane was mostly busy falling in love with Ilya that season so it didn't really bother him much.
It only started playing on his mind when he was covered in champagne in the locker room after they'd won the cup again. Second time in a row.
But, meh...
Probably was just bad luck.
---
June
2018
--
Definitely bad luck, but from because-of-a-curse levels of bad luck.
Montreal had managed to snag the first over-all pick of the 2017 draft and had very publicly called him “A better investment than Shane Hollander.”
Ilya had fumed and fretted and his mom had fumed and fretted and Shane and his dad had to get them drunk on margaritas to forget about it.
Then the poor guy had met with an accident and injured his spine. He wasn't going to play again.
Shane was sorry about it, Ilya too - that kind of injury you didn't even wish on your worst enemies.
They had both messaged him about it. The kid replied weeks later with a photo of himself grinning beside a very cute apple farmer outside Ottawa.
‘I've always liked him more than hockey and now I don't have to keep the best part of me hidden’ He’d written to both of them.
Which was amazing, Shane was happy for him.
The guy went public with his relationship and immediately Montreal had put a statement saying they would no longer be participating in pride nights.
Another margarita party was thrown but this time for Shane, Ilya and his mother. His poor dad… really, the man was a saint.
But whatever, Montreal had finished last again.
Everyone was calling the Montreal issue ‘The Shane Hollander Curse’
Boston won their third consecutive cup.
His boyfriend came over to his place and they fucked about it.
---
June
2019
--
Montreal was again at the bottom of the list by the playoffs.
It was mostly because they suck but it was also because they got booed everywhere they went.
In early December a video had been circulated on social media. The video had caught some of the team members talking shit about Shane and being blatantly homophobic. Shane wasn't even in the video but it had gone viral in about two hours.
Shane hadn't been out to the Raiders yet, let alone the whole fucking world so it was not great. Hardly anyone was focusing on that part though, everyone had pounced on the homophobia.
Shane had a well-deserved panic attack about it and Ilya had sort of folded Shane into his chest and barely let go for a whole 24 hours almost.
Ilya threw an early Christmas party on the 10th of December (because for his hatred of Montreal, Christmas had come early)
At the party, they told all their teammates that they were in a relationship.
Most of them had looked vaguely confused - apparently it was a widely known fact that they were together. Some of them had figured it out within the first week of Shane being traded - which Shane had another panic attack about.
But he was fine after - more than fine.
But anyway, Montreal crashed and burned that season too but Boston lost at the conference finals - a combination of unavoidable injuries and bad luck.
But that was okay.
His parents and the WAGs threw the team a ‘pity party’ that was mostly a Montreal-bashing fest. It had been glorious.
He didn't think about the curse too much.
---
June
2020
--
Ilya got his US citizenship in January and Shane had proposed that same day. (He'd had the rings since 2018 so it was just a matter of fishing them out of his sock drawer.)
In April, just as the regular season had wrapped up, he proposed again, properly, in front of their team and best friends and family. Ilya had been overcome with emotion again and had gone mostly non-verbal through the whole thing. Shane had pulled him into his chest and they'd basically stayed that way the whole night. It was perfect.
In May, the Montreal GM was accused of embezzlement and kicked off the team. The new guy lasted maybe two weeks before he quit. The next guy was tasked to fix their PR problem and it didn't really work but nothing got worse.
In June, Boston won the cup again and Shane and Ilya put up a sweet Instagram post telling the world that they were together and engaged.
There was a comment underneath the post that simply said ‘That's fucking disgusting’.
It wasn't the only comment like that. Shane had gotten very good at ignoring strangers on the internet.
The internet, however, had no intention of letting this one go. They tracked down all the accounts that made nasty comments and put them on a stage to be booed at.
Someone traced the account that made the comment back to Montreal's new GM.
He was fired before the day was over.
Hockey Twitter collectively declared that the Shane Hollander Curse had claimed another victim.
Shane didn't have time to pay attention to it because Ilya had surprised him with a trip to Spain. Before they left though, they'd stopped at Ottawa for a few days.
They stayed at Shane’s parents place and then on the last evening there Ilya had driven them out, some ten minutes up the lake from his parent's cottage and very nervously told Shane he wanted to buy the piece of land but only if Shane would like to help build a cottage for them there.
Shane's a bit too overwhelmed for days after that to actually care about anything else.
---
June
2021
--
The curse thing goes viral again in December when a few players try to get themselves traded out of Montreal.
The first guy goes to Toronto and their goalie tears his ACL the first time they play after the trade.
The second guy goes to Buffalo and they lose their first match in a rare winning streak. They don't win again.
Someone makes a spreadsheet of all the players that got traded after Shane. It's .. extensive.
There's lists of injuries any player in the team has faced after trading with Montreal, even a list of coaches and family members that came down with something as trivial as a common cold.
Shane's stomach did an uncomfortable little flip every time it was brought up.
Ilya noticed.
Shane sat with it for a long time.
Then the team in Florida came down with a case of food poisoning so severe that they had to cancel two games. All after they had just acquired a defence man from Montreal.
Shane threw up with guilt.
Shit. He broke the Metros.
Fuck.
He nearly drove Ilya mad with fright after his third trip to the toilet.
“We have to go see a doctor, please baby.” Ilya begs as he sits on the bathroom floor with Shane. “This is not normal.”
“It's fine, Ilya.” Shane says, moving to get up and wash his face. “I'll be fine tomorrow.” Sensing an argument, he continues “And if I'm not, I'll let you drive me to the clinic.”
Ilya is appeased for the moment but he still watches Shane too closely.
The next morning Shane wakes Ilya up by jostling him in an effort to get to the bathroom. Obviously he throws up and Ilya has his face and mind set when he comes to check on Shane - they're apparently leaving for the clinic immediately.
“I put a curse on Montreal.” Shane says.
He's not going to the clinic to have the doctor there tell him he's fine.
Cause he knows he is.
It's just his stupid guilt.
Ilya stares at him, unblinking.
“What?”
“I bought a curse on Etsy the day I got traded to Boston.” Shane admits, unable to look at Ilya. “I bought a curse and I screwed them over.”
“What?”
“I bought a curse for justice and to basically “Fuck Montreal” and the lady sent me a video where she said a spell and - fuck I think I'm going to puke again.”
He retches over the toilet bowl again but nothing comes out. He stays bent over, just in case. From there, he turns to look at Ilya.
The man looks confused as fuck.
“What?” He asks and Ilya tries to form words but can't.
Shane stands up and tries to explain more.
“I found this witch on Etsy who promised revenge but without any physical injuries and I was drunk so I paid her to say a spell and put a curse on Montreal.”
Ilya's lips twitch. If he laughs, Shane is going to smack him.
“She sent me a video and everything.”
“How much did you pay?” Ilya asks, conversationally.
“Like 80 dollars.” He said, hoping Ilya will say that's not enough money for a good spell - like he has knowledge about these things.
Instead Ilya starts laughing.
He needs to hold onto Shane because he's literally swaying with the force of his laughter.
Shane considers divorce before marriage.
He glares at Ilya but Ilya doesn't see him cause he's busy laughing. Shane washes his face, and leaves the washroom and Ilya is still cracking up.
He goes to make himself a smoothie, his stomach feeling better now, and Ilya comes out with his phone to his ear and tears in his eyes.
“Yuna, David, you have to listen to what your son did” Ilya says and puts the phone on the kitchen island and hits the speaker icon. “Shane tell them what you did.”
Shane glares at him again.
Ilya doesn't even wait for him to answer.
“He paid a witch to curse Montreal when he got traded.” Ilya just crumples to the floor and spreads out on his back, laughing impossible harder.
His mother and father have cracked up on the other end of the line.
“I hate you all.” He says and cuts the call.
Ilya makes grabby hands at him.
“Pass my phone, I have to call Svetlana.”
Shane wonders what happens if you put phones in a blender.
Ilya gets up and grabs his phone before Shane can do anything. Then he runs away and barricades himself in their room and calls every single one of their mutual friends. Shane can hear him cackling from the kitchen.
Sigh.
It's fine.
Ilya doesn't understand.
Shane cursed the Metros and Ilya is entertained by it. Valid.
But Shane still did it and it's ruined a bunch of lives.
Maybe he should try and find the witch again and ask again if she can reverse the spell.
Ilya finally comes back outside, still giggly but he sobers up when he sees Shane.
“I fucked up so many people.” Shane says, and even to him, his voice sounds sad.
All mirth drains out Ilya and he comes to sit beside Shane at the Island.
“Shane, witches don't exist.” He says, and Shane groans and thumps his head on the table. “Shane, you paid 80 dollars to a scam artist.”
Logically, yeah… Shane knows this, but fuccckkk… how can he just explain all the shit that happened to the Metros??
“There's no way all the shit that happened to them is normal, Ilya.” Shane says, begging Ilya to understand.
“Shane, I don't know how to tell you this,” Ilya says and turns to put his hands on Shane's shoulders, “they just really suck.”
“Be serious!” Shane snaps and Ilya again looks seconds from a laughing fit.
“Shane, Shane, please” Ilya begs now, moving his hands down his arms so he's holding Shane's hands in his. “Curses are not real.”
“I know that!” Shane says, angry at himself for a bunch of things he can't put into words. “But it's probably all the negative intent and malice or something. Something is fucking with them and it's probably me.”
Sighing, Ilya gathers him up in his arms and pats his back.
“Then you're not the only one at fault. I've been hoping the team implodes too. I know your mother and father hate them too and they wish them nothing but misfortune. And Svetlana said she should have bought a curse too, pretty sure she's already purchased one now.”
Shane snorts and Ilya's arms loosen a little.
“So many people cursed them, Shane. You're not special.” Ilya says. “You’re the only one who paid someone else to do it though.”
Shane smacks him lightly on the shoulder and pushes out of his embrace feeling moderately better for the time being.
They have their breakfast together and then Ilya does a good job of distracting Shane, but the guilt creeps up again and again for the next few days.
Then, three days after Shane confessed about the curse, Ilya takes him on a road trip to … Long Island ..?
Shane's suspicious the whole drive but it's a nice drive and Shane manages to relax.
That is, until his fiance drives up some random driveway in a pretty town and stops the car.
“Come on.” He says, getting out before Shane can ask him any questions.
Ilya's already knocking on the door of a nice looking house like it belongs to some friend of his. Ilya doesn't have any friends in Long Island… Shane knows this.
He debates taking the car and driving away but Ilya is beckoning to him, car keys jiggling in his other hand.
Sigh.
Fine.
The door opens as soon as Shane steps on the porch and the woman who opens the door is … tiny. Her hair is all grey but styled neatly in a low bun. She looks a bit severe but there's something a little homely about her. She also looks quite alarmed.
Shane would be alarmed too if he was 60 years old, only five feet tall and two giant hockey players came to his house unannounced.
“Moon Mother 444?” Ilya says before the woman can ask anything.
The woman blinks at them once and slams the door shut in their faces.
“If you don't get off my property, I'm calling the cops” the woman yells at them from inside the house.
Shane gawks at Ilya.
What the fuck?
How the fuck?
“Can you please tell Shane that the curse you did for him was a scam?” Ilya yells through the shut door. “He's not been sleeping and is throwing up cause of the guilt and I'm worried about him.”
There's silence on the other side.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Shane hisses. Ilya waves him away.
The door opens again.
“Show me your phones.” The woman says.
“Oh, we're not recording this.” Ilya says and pulls his phone out of his pocket to show her he's got no apps running. “Shane, show her your phone.”
Shane wants to die, but he does what Ilya asks.
“Fine,” the woman says. “I'm not a witch and the curse was a scam.”
And she shuts the door again.
She could be lying.
Shane wants to believe her but she could be lying. Ilya went through all the trouble - actually he's pretty sure Svetlana found her - but Shane is still not going to believe the woman.
“Prove it, please.” Ilya yells through the door again. Shane really, really loves Ilya. He needs to marry him faster.
The woman opens the doors, stares shrewdly at them for a minute and then smiles.
“Want to make a curse video with me?” she asks.
Then begins the bizzarest two hours of Shane's life.
Apparently the woman became a hockey fan, specifically a Raiders fan, after Shane bought the spell. She’d googled him and laughed about it then but it stuck with her. So she followed Shane's career and knew of Ilya because of course she knew Ilya if she knew Shane, and was convinced they were “fine young men”.
She started the whole curse thingy because she was bored, apparently.
She had a pretty lucrative career as a journalist and did “cursing” on the side until she retired and sort of did “cursing” as a hobby.
Ilya is too fascinated by her for his own good.
Then the woman sets up her table and it's very similar to the set up Shane recognises from his own video. She and Ilya jabber about many nothings while she sets up. Ilya is making them all tea in her kitchen in half an hour.
Helene is actually quite nice but Shane wants to leave because Ilya is being an ass.
“Can I whistle creepily as you speak? Will that make it sound more authentic?”
“Go ahead.”
“Can I light the candles?”
“Yes please, but the red coloured one sucks and smells like Jasmine with a side of burnt rat. Good for the aesthetics though, but it will burn your nose. Stay far.”
“Why do you have a spell book?”
“Once when I was just beginning, a repeat customer noticed I said the same rubbish words for her revenge spell and her luck spell.”
“Why does it burn green?”
“Oh it's this trick paper you can buy at magic shops. I have a bunch that burn pink.”
Shane feels his shoulders loosen gradually and for a second he thinks the tea is laced but he's just being paranoid.
They have to start the video over twice - once when Ilya accidentally blows a raspberry instead of whistling and again when Ilya gets too excited about the green fire paper and accidentally sets Helene's curtain on fire.
Both of them apologise profusely but Helene just pulls the curtain so they can see the whole thing and there are like ten other holes in the curtain that were hidden in the folds.
They leave eventually, both of them with Helene's number, and Shane's not very worried about the curse anymore. Which is well and good because they have a wedding to plan.
Helene gets an invite to the wedding.
She comes with a gift. It's an ornate bottle someone was paid handsomely to decorate with gold filigree. It's made to look like a bottle of potion or something and it's got the words ‘Fortuna Elixir’ on it.
It's Vodka.
Okay, so the curse was really a scam.
Shane was scammed.
---
June
2022
--
They win the Cup again that year.
They're at the newly finished cottage, lazing by the dock when Montreal puts out a statement.
The Montreal Metros organization will suspend hockey operations for the 2022–23 season while ownership is restructured and the franchise is comprehensively rebuilt.
Ilya laughs so hard he cries.
Shane buys a very, very cheap luck spell for Montreal from Moon Mother 444 and requests the pink fire paper.
--