Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shane had a love-hate relationship with the feeling of sweat dripping off his body after a rough practice. He loved how it provided a reminder of the satisfaction that came with a good workout—the burn in his legs, the soreness in his shoulders and arms, from checking others and being checked into the boards. He loved how the moisture would chill on the back of his neck as he got off the ice, as his body temperature lowered. But he didn’t love the sensation once it got to be more than 15 minutes after practice—once the cling of his Under Armor changed from being satisfying to disgusting, and his skin cooled off, becoming more clammy than anything. Shane especially didn’t love it when his own sweat was forcibly mixed with that of his teammates.

This was the unfortunate position that Shane found himself in, on a late October afternoon at the Centre Bell. He winced subtly as yet another teammate grabbed the bare back of his neck, jostling him. He had only just had the opportunity to start stripping himself of his gear, and Shane was desperate to hop in the showers and start cleaning himself off. Andropov, however, clearly wasn’t so bothered by it.

“Crazy fucking practice today, Cap!” he laughed, loudly, in Shane’s ear. “Here’s hoping that I can even move my legs tomorrow, when we face Detroit.”

Shane chuckled placidly, hoping he didn’t look visibly disgusted as he shrugged his teammate off of him. “You better be showing up tomorrow, Andy, ‘cause you bet that Lemaire isn’t giving us the win for free. We’ll need everyone at their best.”

Across the room, Comeau guffawed. “Oh, please! Don’t be modest, Cap—Vince Lemaire is nothing next to you, and you know it. You could take him and his whole fucking line into extra time, even working completely solo, I bet.”

The rest of the Metros hooted as Shane dipped his chin, sheepish. From the locker next to Shane’s, Hayden smiled and nudged him.

“Comeau’s right. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Shane relaxed slightly. “Yeah. Thanks, Hayd.”

With that, Shane turned back to his locker and grabbed his phone. Powering it on, he noticed a collection of notifications that made his heart flutter.

Shane bit his lip to prevent a giggle—a genuine, honest-to-god giggle. They'd only been together for... what? A few months now? And Shane knew that he was still deep in the honeymoon phase, but honestly. What the hell has falling in love with Ilya Rozanov done to him? Just as he was about to respond, however–

“And there it is again!” J.J.’s accented voice exclaimed from across the room, startling Shane. “The famous Boston Lily face makes its triumphant return! How is she, ta fleur?” (your flower?") he asked with a smirk.

Shane flushed as the rest of the team joined in with their own ooh-s and catcalls. J.J. had only learned the truth about there being a Lily last year, during those few weeks between when he and Ilya made up at All-Stars and when his injury had knocked him out for the rest of the season. But the rest of the team still had zero clue that there was any girl at all (not that Ilya was a girl in the first place.) Clearly, though, Boiziau hadn’t quite made the connection that Shane kept the existence of his casual Boston hookup (as far as J.J. knew) secret for a reason. He was struggling to decide on a way to respond to the room’s reaction when Hayden cut in, rolling his eyes.

“Wow, why don’t you give him a moment to breathe, Boiziau?” he asked, sardonic as he met Shane’s eye with a reassuring smile. “Dude just got off the ice, he’s allowed to text his girlfriend and let her know what’s going on.”

This kindly-meant attempt to help Shane, however, only made the situation worse, as the rest of the Metros rounded on him. “Girlfriend, huh?” crowed Drapeau, from his place stretching on the ground. “Has some sweet Boston pussy finally done the impossible and managed to locked Shane Hollander down? Never thought I’d see the day!”

Shane felt more than a twinge of discomfort at Drapeau’s crude manner of referring to women, but was saved from having to answer when Miitka, their other goalie, said, “Lay off, Drap. Whoever this girl is, Shane’s probably kept quiet about it for a reason. I’m just glad to hear that you’re happy, Cap, whatever the situation.”

He sputtered. “Uh– n-no, it’s not like that–“ he tried to protest, but was interrupted by a sudden pounding on the locker room doors. Theriault poked his head in.

“Hollander, with me.”

Sighing, Shane left his phone on the bench in front of his locker and stood to follow his coach. Stepping into the hall, all he felt was relief at having escaped his teammate’s inquisition. Without their captain present, the remaining Metros went back to getting changed and showering.

At least, most of them did.

Comeau, on the other hand, smirked and slowly stalked over to his captain’s locker. Next to it, Pike was facing away, oblivious to the defenseman’s approach. Comeau had noticed something that no one else had—Hollander had neglected to power his phone off before he left, and now, the black messages screen sat there, face-up and unlocked.

“Well, I’m not sure about you guys,” he called out to the locker room in general. The others glanced over curiously. “But I’m still a little… curious about this Lily girl, aren’t you?”

Before anyone could stop him, Comeau lurched forward, and plucked up Hollander’s phone from the bench.

Hayden paled as Comeau smirked. “What? No, Comeau, give that back,” he exclaimed, dropping his pads onto the floor as he stumbled towards his teammate. The other man, however, simply held the device out of reach.

“Come on, Pike, loosen up! You’ve gotta’ be more curious than any one of us, given how you and the captain are best friends and all.”

“No!” Hayden barked out sharply, but it was no use. Comeau was already laughing, gleeful, as he scrolled through Shane’s text thread. Drapeau, Hayden could hear in the background, was jeering him on, while J.J. and Miitie protested somewhat: “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Comeau,” and “Wait up, that’s way too invasive.” Too late.

“What do we have here!” Comeau exclaimed, a wide grin splitting his face. “Something in Russian? Can’t fucking read it, but the Russian girls are always freaks in bed—Hollzy’s one lucky dog, isn’t he?” He continued scrolling, turning away from Hayden’s loud protestations and attempts to rip the phone out of his hands. “Here, now I’m getting to the good stuff—there are some sexts from a couple days ago. Here’s Hollzy, posing for the camera—hah!—and then–”

Comeau froze. Hayden snarled.

“Fuck off, Comeau! Stop looking at Shane’s texts!”

At the same time, Drapeau addressed Comeau from across the room, cruel intrigue in his eyes. “What is it, Gil? Why did you stop?”

Hayden watched as Comeau’s jaw dropped. Then, suddenly, his eyes narrowed, from both shock and… anger?

“You’re fucking kidding me.” He tried to walk back to his locker, but Hayden grabbed onto his pads, preventing this.

“No, don’t you fucking walk away from me,” he spat angrily. “Give me the fucking phone.”

Comeau laughed incredulously. “Tell me, Pike,” he asked, teeth bared. “Did you know about this?”

“About what?” he returned, suddenly trying to resist the urge to punch his teammate in the face.

Comeau scoffed. “About Hollander. About ‘Lily.’”

Now Hayden was truly confused, as well as enraged. “What do you mean?! Why the fucking air quotes?”

At this point, several of their fellow Metros had started inching closer, undeniably curious about what Comeau had found on Shane’s phone. Meanwhile, J.J. and Miitie seemed to have grown more upset, and were stepping forward as though to join Hayden in his efforts to take the device back. Drapeau was the next one to speak, eager.

“Gil? What did you see on there?”

Not looking away from Hayden, Comeau’s lips twisted into a mockery of a smile. Raising his volume so as to be heard by the rest of the room, he finally said:

“Shane kept one little thing secret about his Boston hookup. Turns out, this ‘Lily’…”

And with that, he turned the phone to face Hayden. Squinting, Hayden tried to understand what he was seeing on the screen—it was being held too far away, and Comeau still wouldn’t give him the fucking phone–

But then Hayden realized what he was looking at.

An image.

“… has a fucking dick.”

That wasn’t quite what Shane walked in on.

No, a minute later, when he re-entered the room after his brief meeting with Theriault regarding the next day’s game, he was rather met with Comeau, being restrained by J.J. and Miitie, both angry, and Hayden, who looked fucking pissed. And who was also… holding Shane’s phone?

“Um… what’s going on, in here?” he asked tentatively, and everyone in the room suddenly snapped towards him with a plethora of expressions. Some shocked. Some angry. Some upset. No smiles, none at all.

Hayden gasped when he saw Shane in the entrance. “Shane, I– I’m so sorry, I tried to stop him–“

“Well, look who it is!” Comeau interrupted, a sneer on his lips. “The man of the hour!”

Shane’s lips parted. “Wh– what’s going on?”

Hayden hustled over and pressed his phone back into his hands. “Fucking Comeau–“ he spat it out like the man was a disease that had killed his whole family “–took your phone and went through it, and saw–“

“So, is Lily a man? Or a fucking tranny?”

Shane flinched back as though he had been struck. Hayden whipped around, more furious than Shane had ever seen him.

“Don’t you dare fucking say that–!” he exclaimed, stepping towards Comeau. J.J. was forced to release the other player to stop Hayden, but the expression of disgust on his face as he did so made his opinion on what Comeau had said clear.

Shane didn’t move. His water bottle slid from his grasp and clattered to the floor as he saw the photo that Comeau had found.

It was from a couple nights ago, when he and Ilya had been texting—nothing scandalous, just asking about one another’s days. But suddenly, the tone had changed, and Ilya sent Shane the photo: a close up shot of his hard cock, already glistening with lube, with his large hand wrapped around it and the flatscreen TV in the background playing one of Shane’s recent ad campaigns for a famous cologne brand. The accompanying message had whined about how lonely Ilya was, without Shane around, and how he was so desperate to see his pretty boyfriend’s face that he had resorted to desperate measures. From there, it had been almost embarrassingly easy to convince Shane to hop onto Facetime and satiate their mutual need to see one another again.

And Shane– Shane hadn’t deleted it yet. He had been planning on waiting another couple of weeks, until he next saw his boyfriend here in Montreal. Something to hold himself over. And that should have been fine. He should be able to keep a single fucking one of Ilya’s sexts in their private text thread for a couple of weeks before erasing it like a dirty little secret, without the world learning of it. But– but now–

“You went through my phone?” he breathed, eyes widening and teeth clenched.

Comeau laughed harshly. “Who gives a shit? You’re the one who never fucking tells us anything about your girls—or, I guess I can’t say that now, can I? Tell us, Hollander—who’s this Lily, really?”

Hayden spoke up, turning in J.J.’s grasp to address Shane. “Shane, you do not have to tell us anything—ignore Comeau. Let’s just go–”

“No!” That was Drapeau, now standing on the other side of the room. His brows were pinched and his nose scrunched. Disgusted. “Fuck that. We deserve a fucking answer, Hollander—why the hell are you sexting someone with a dick?”

Shane found that he couldn’t speak—his heart raced, his vision reddened, his breathing quickened until it could hardly be called breathing anymore. He parted his lips to say something, wanted to speak, but his throat was dried up, a barren desert, surely the result of the boiling blood racing through his veins. He didn’t know what he would have said anyway. Eventually, he managed to croak out, “Lily is– Lily is a man. Yes.”

Murmurs arose from around the room, his teammates appearing shocked and disgruntled. Comeau scoffed loudly.

“Of fucking course. Makes sense now, why you wouldn’t want to tell us that you’re a fairy.”

Shane didn’t respond. Hayden took up that role for him, spitting out, “Watch your fucking mouth, Comeau—who gives a fuck if Lily is a man? Shane is still our captain–”

“Some captain he is,” called out a totally new voice. “Lying to us about being a fag–”

“Shut up.”

The room fell silent, eyes suddenly directed towards Shane. The man of the hour, just as Comeau had said. “Shut up,” he repeated, quietly. Fists clenched at his sides. He hoped they couldn’t tell just how lightheaded he was becoming, how little he was breathing. “I don’t need to hear it.” He exhaled, trying as best he could to release some of the tension currently wracking his body. “Yes. Lily is a man. I like men. Surprise.”

Some murmurs arrose from his teammates around the room, seemingly off put by his manner of reacting to the news. What had they wanted from him, instead? Apologies? Tears? Did they want him to beg for forgiveness? If so, they were fresh out of luck. Shane wouldn’t beg. Shane wouldn’t apologize. Maybe he would have, in another life: one where he came out to the team on his own, and he felt guilty for not revealing himself to them sooner. Like he had committed some sort of crime, by keeping one measly aspect of his life private. But not in this timeline—and any tears that would fall that day, were not for his teammates to see.

“I’m sure this comes as a shock to many of you,” he continued, fury seeping into his voice now. “But I’m also sure you’ll all understand that this is a shock to myself as well, considering that I did not want you to know. And I’m sure you can all fucking see why. Tell me, is anyone in this room happy about this? Are you happy that we all know now? My dirty little secret, at last unveiled? Is this what you wanted?” He looked around at his teammates, chuckling humourlessly. They wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“No. Of course it’s not. No one wanted this. But oh well! Should’ve guessed that I couldn’t leave my phone behind for a single fucking second around men that I’ve played with for eight goddamn years without them rifling through it. It’s too much, to expect some basic fucking respect from a team that I led to two back-to-back Stanleys, after a sixteen-year cup drought before I joined them. So! Let’s all thank Comeau, for this clusterfuck of a situation, hm? Thanks, Gil!”

Shane knew that he was acting wildly out of character right now. He didn’t feel like himself in the slightest, the anger in his veins, the adrenaline of finally being able to speak up against his teammates making him infinitely bolder than he usually would be. The other guys in the locker room were visibly shocked, having never seen this side of Shane. Saint Hollander, swearing? Saint Hollander, saying to their faces that he was the reason they won their 2015 and 2016 cups? Unheard of! Unbelievable, impossible.

Until now, though, Saint Hollander wasn’t supposed to be gay, either. And we all saw how that worked itself out.

“Fu– fuck off, Hollander,” Drapeau finally spoke up again, voice shaky but still impassioned. “Don’t you fucking blame this on Gil—he isn’t the one who’s been lying to us for who knows how long! How are we supposed to trust a man who never wanted to tell us anything about himself? You never went out with the team, or did shots with us, or talked about chicks: god forbid he tries to learn one goddamn thing about you, when he learns that you apparently have a ‘girl.’ Honestly, we should have guessed the truth. You were always a freak, the only thing that’s changed now is that we know why.”

Maybe the words should have hurt more. They probably would, later. They’d probably echo, late that night, when the rush had faded and Shane was left with just his thoughts for company. But in the moment, he didn’t care. He genuinely didn’t care what Drapeau had to say, that the man wanted to judge him. He couldn’t give a shit.

“Great. Glad that we’ve got that all out in the open now. So what are you going to do about it?” Drapeau blinked, along with the rest of the room, as Shane paused, giving them the opportunity to speak. “Really, tell me. I’m a freak, right? I’m a pansy. A fairy. That’s what you all seem to think of me. So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to be assholes towards me? Will you ignore me on the ice? Will you call me slurs for the rest of the year? Hell, will you try to convince Theriault to trade me, your Stanley-Cup-winning captain?” He allowed a sardonic smile to spread across his lips. “I wanna’ know. What are you going to do with a faggot like me?”

The room was silent. Shane hadn’t expected them to have anything to say. It was an even split, though, between the teammates who were eyeing him with disgust, shame, anger, and the ones who couldn’t bear to look at him at all. Eventually, he shrugged, prayed that they couldn’t see how his fingers trembled.

“Whatever. Practice is over now. I’m going home. You’re all welcome to follow my lead. Or sit here all night, butthurt; I don’t care either way, as long as you’re here on time tomorrow for morning skate. The only other thing I’ll say is this.” He inhaled deeply, trying to find the fortitude within himself to make just one last comment, one last speech for them to think about before tomorrow. To say one more thing to his team before he fled to his car and fell apart in peace.

“You guys can decide whatever the fuck you want about me. You can ignore me, hate me, whatever the fuck, I don’t care. Just ask yourselves: do you want to win games? Or do you want to lose? Because I’m the best fucking player on this team—the best in the league, actually. You need me, and I’m still your captain, so I’m going to show up tomorrow and play my goddamn heart out, just like I have for the past eight seasons. Can you guys do the same? If so, then I’ll be happy to see you all tomorrow.”

He turned to leave, pausing just before he exited the locker room proper. Turning his gaze back to where his teammates—Comeau and Drapeau especially—were gawking at him, he said this:

“Also, I have a full no-move. So don’t even try with Theriault.”

With that, he left. And nobody asked him to stay.

______๑❤⁠๑______

Shane couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t fucking breathe. Every gasp just made him more desperate for air, made his lungs feel emptier, as though there was a tear in them, letting the oxygen leak out. Shane himself was torn up. He still wasn’t breathing.

He threw himself into the driver’s seat of his Jeep, slamming the door shut behind him as his shallow inhales and exhales only made him more lightheaded. His knuckles went white around the steering wheel, and his forehead smashed down against it, brutally.

“Fuck,” he gasped, vision blurring. “Fuck.”

He managed to rip one of his hands away from the wheel for long enough that he could frantically reach into his bag, pulling out his phone—the phone that had betrayed him, that his teammates—his own fucking teammates—had used to invade his privacy, and learn something about him that he wasn’t anywhere near ready for them to know. His fingers were trembling so badly that he had to try to enter his password no less than four times before it went through, taking extra care and deeper breaths on the last attempt, knowing that if there were too many failed tries, he’d be locked out. And he wouldn’t be able to call him. And all Shane wanted, all Shane fucking needed, was to fucking call him.

Pressing the little phone button, he waited as the device rang. He didn’t move. It was answered on the third ring.

“Shane, kotyonok (kitten). Missed me so much, you called me straight out of practice, I see–?”

“Ilya,” he gasped again. The other man stopped.

“Shane? Shane, what’s wrong? What happened? Lyubimyy, (Beloved), why are you–”

“They know.” He vaguely realized, looking in his rearview mirror, that he was crying. His eyes closed again. “They all know now. Fuck, Ilya, they all know.” His voice cracked.

A rapid inhale came from the other side of the line. After a brief pause, he heard, “Who’s ‘they’, Shane? Your teammates?”

He nodded, before remembering that Ilya couldn’t see that. He wasn’t here, after all. He was in Boston. “Mm-hm,” he confirmed shakily instead.

“And what does your team know? Specifically?”

Shane froze. “No, please, Ilya, don’t worry,” he suddenly begged, “they know nothing about you! I swear, your secret is completely safe. I… I would never…” His words devolved into desperate gasps and tears.

“Hey, hey, I know,” soothed Ilya, sounding pained. “You would always protect me, I know, Shane. Even if they had found out about me, I wouldn’t be upset with you, because I know that it could not have been on purpose. I know that. Deep breaths, lyubimyy (beloved)—like you are breathing through a straw, yes? With me, now.” He began taking exaggeratedly deep and loud inhales, trying to make his pattern as easy for Shane to follow as possible. It was reassuring, but only a little.

“They know that– they know that I’m… gay,” Shane whispered. “They know that Lily isn’t a girl. You’re a guy, in Boston. They know that now.” Suddenly, he was laughing, hysterical and hurt. “And you know how they fucking found out? My phone. They picked my phone up off of the bench in the locker room and had the gall to think they had any right at all to see my messages with you—my private messages with you. Comeau found the photo you sent me a few days ago. And then he told everyone. The whole locker room. Who– who fucking does that? I don’t give a shit if Comeau thought he was just ribbing me, when he first picked up my phone, or whatever the fuck his justification is. I feel so… so…”

Violated. Embarrassed. Nauseous. Angry. Petrified. Scared—so fucking scared, I’ve never been so scared in my life.

Instead of saying any of that, his voice just devolved back into thin, desperate gasps for air.

Across the line, Shane heard Ilya taking his own deep breaths, though his were starting to sound less and less measured by the second. “Blyat (Fuck). Shane, I…”

“And you know the worst part? When I walked in, after Hayden had finally wrestled my phone back from Comeau, the team just… stared at me. No one said anything. And if I tried to look them in the eye, they’d turn away from me, like being gay was contagious or something. That was terrible, Ilya. That made me feel…”

Like a freakshow.

“... Disgusting.”

Ilya immediately protested, and Shane could hear his fury bleeding through the phone. “No. No, do not ever fucking say that again. You are not disgusting, and you never could be. You are beautiful, Shane, perfect in every way—I’ve spent the past decade trying to convince myself that you are not, both on ice and off it, and I’ve failed. That your teammates could ever delude themselves into thinking that they had the right to judge Shane fucking Hollander is a joke and you know it as well as I do. I know you do.”

Shane lifted a hand to his forehead, feeling the sweat there, not just from his earlier practice. A practice that had ended just 20 minutes beforehand and he now couldn’t remember a single detail of, with how unimportant it had grown since then. Thankfully, his breathing had slowed down slightly at this point, and the intense lightheadedness had reduced as a result, but his heart was still pounding in his chest.

“Ilya… Ilya, I–”

He was interrupted by a taping sound to his left. Looking up, he was startled to see Hayden, standing outside of the driver’s side door with a half-concerned, half-obstinate expression on his face. He knocked again on the window.

“Fuck, Hayden’s here,” Shane whispered into the phone, praying that his teammate couldn’t hear what was being said from outside the car. “What do I do? I– I don’t know if I can see him yet.”

“No. You should speak with him, Shane.” Before he could protest, Ilya continued: “I understand, malysh (baby), that this is a terrible, terrible situation. You cannot imagine how badly I am wishing that I was anywhere but Boston right now. But there are some people in your corner. Remember: as much as I do not understand it, Pike is your best friend on the team, yes? You mentioned earlier that he was trying to stop–” he inhaled “–Comeau from invading your privacy, so don’t you think that he will support you? Don’t you trust him?”

Shane laughed weakly. “Yes, of course I do. I always have.” No matter if he was still terrified of his best friend’s reaction, Shane had no doubt that Hayden was a loyal and understanding friend—he’d always hoped that whenever he finally came out to the other man, he’d be met with support, if still surprise. And now, instead, there could very possibly be anger, or even betrayal. Now, Shane would never get to have that triumphant moment, of finally choosing to be honest with his friend—of confessing something that had taken him years of alternating denial and introspection to finally realize and properly label, and even more than that, to accept. That experience had been stolen from him, for no good reason, by Gilbert fucking Comeau.

But maybe… Shane thought, cautiously, like just giving words to the idea could cause it to slip from his grasp. Maybe I can still have some part of it? Not the confession part, but… what comes after. That’s within reach.

“Let him in, then,” Ilya said, not realizing that he was responding to both what Shane had said and what he’d thought. “Let him be there for you. I do not want you to be alone right now. Please, Shane, if just for my sake.”

Turning back to the window, Shane took a deep, shaky breath. Outside, Hayden had stopped knocking and was now spun around so that he was facing away from the car. He’d also taken a few steps towards the arena, decidedly out of earshot, no matter if he ever had been within it at all. Shane exhaled slowly.

“I don’t want to hang up on you,” he said suddenly into the receiver. Ilya chuckled sadly.

“I’m here all night, lyubimyy (beloved). Whenever you need me, I’ll be waiting by the phone. Right now, go be with your friend.”

Shane nodded, steeling himself. Reaching towards the doorhandles in preparation to lower his window, he said one last thing to his boyfriend.

“I love you. I love you so fucking much.”

He could practically hear Ilya’s smile over the phone, melancholy though it must be. He said something in Russian which Shane had no hope of translating with the limited study that he’d done so far, but he could have sworn that a few intimately familiar words were mixed in there. And then, Ilya followed it up with, “Of course I love you too, Shane. If you take to heart just one thing that I say today, it should be that. Now go, moya lyubov (my love).”

Sighing, Shane finally gave in, and with a final goodbye, he hung up the phone. Pressing a small button on the door with a finger that still trembled caused the window to roll down slowly. Hayden heard it, and turned around.

“Shane,” he breathed, already-concerned expression collapsing into something absolutely devastated. “I’m so sorry, Shane. I’m so fucking sorry, this should never have happened and I should have acted faster to prevent this, I’m going to murder Comeau, you don’t understand–”

“Hayden,” Shane cut him off, voice faint and tired. Although the time spent speaking with Ilya had helped to calm him down, he was still coming off the back of a brutal panic attack, and didn’t have it in him to… to do anything, really. Certainly not console Hayden. “Just– don’t. Not right now, please.”

Hayden’s mouth closed immediately. Considering that for a second, he nodded, a new determination settling across his face. Without further ado, he pulled open the unlocked driver’s side door where Shane was sitting, and said: “Get out.”

Shane blinked. “What?”

He gestured with his head. “Get out. I’m driving.”

Shane tilted his head, and considered whether the battle for the wheel was one worth fighting. But Hayden had that look about him that he got when he had already decided the way that things were going to go, and there would be no deviating from it; it was his “No sugar after seven!” face and his “Get out of bed and dressed right now or you’ll miss your bus!” face. Shane was tired enough that he gave in easily, slipping out of the driver’s seat.

Soon, Hayden was starting the car as Shane curled up in the passenger seat, and they pulled out of the Centre Bell parking lot together. Hayden spoke without expecting a response.

“I already texted Jackie earlier, she’s working on getting the kids out of the house now. She’s also ordered in from that local place that you like—the Japanese one? We haven’t had sushi in forever, so it’s perfect timing. Speaking of, remember how I’ve been wanting to watch the second Guardians of the Galaxy for like, months, and you’ve always tolerated it when I talk about that? Well, I was thinking that tonight would be the perfect night to watch it together—we just bought it on DVD, and I know you don’t care about superhero movies, but this is a good one and you’re always nice enough to keep me and Jackie company for these sorts of things. So…” He trailed off. “Yeah. That’s sort of the plan. You don’t have to say anything—I’m going to shut up for the rest of the night as soon as I’ve finished this overly-long tangent, and Jackie won’t talk much either. We figured that you’d probably want some space, after today. But… we’re here for you, okay?  Whatever you need. You can rant to us all night long about how fucking unfair life is, or you can not say a word. It doesn’t matter. Because we love you, Shane, and who you want to date has no bearing whatsoever on our opinion of you. I hope you know that we are, and always have been more than proud to have you in our lives. And one day, if you… ever feel like bringing home a new uncle for the kids—or aunt, I don’t know!—then I’m sure we’ll love them just as much as we do you. So… you don’t have to worry about us.”

That whole time, Hayden had been driving, and so refused to take his eyes off the road: yet another consequence of being a family man who constantly acted as chauffeur to four young children and a wife that he loved deeply. Still, they soon pulled up to a red light, and Hayden chanced a nervous glance over at his friend—Shane could see that he was obviously petrified of saying the wrong thing, but still wanted to make his wholehearted support known. Though he was decidedly too strung-out to cry anymore, Shane still felt his heart settle a bit.

Quietly, he confirmed: “Uncle.”

Hayden blinked. “Hm?”

“A new uncle. Not aunt.”

It took Hayden a moment to understand what Shane was saying—no one had ever accused him of being too sharp—but when he did, a small smile slid across his face. Tentatively, he said:

“That’s great, Shane. That’s amazing. I’m happy for you.”

Shane turned to look out the window without responding. Pulling out his phone, he fired off a quick text to Ilya.

He couldn’t quite smile. But it was a close thing.

Without thinking much about it, Shane held down the power button on his phone, shutting it off—he didn’t want to deal with messages from teammates, or even the coaching staff, of any kind for the next couple hours. The rest of the car ride passed in silence: not a silence that could justifiably be called comfortable or easy, but it was almost there. And for just a half hour…

That was enough.

______๑❤⁠๑______

As soon as he walked through the front doors, Shane found himself enveloped in the arms of Jackie Pike.

“Oh, Shane,” she murmured, voice rough as though she might start crying any second. Like Hayden had told him earlier, she didn’t bother with excessive apologies or consolations. All she said was a simple: “I love you.”

Shane reciprocated the embrace halfheartedly, appreciating the effort to show him compassion, but knowing that if she held on too long, he’d become overwhelmed and be forced to push her away. Thankfully, Jackie knew that too, and soon let go, ushering him further into the house with Hayden not far behind. First, she directed him upstairs—Shane was suddenly reminded that he hadn’t even had the time to shower or change after practice, so he was still in his disgusting Under Armour. After showering in their guest washroom upstairs, however, and redressing in some of the clothes which he kept in a drawer at their place after so many times staying over to babysit, he felt incrementally better. He wandered down to the kitchen, finding that Jackie had indeed laid their early dinner out over the table as though they were fine dining, and he caught a glimpse of his usual order—salmon cucumber rolls, with fried calamari on the side. The calamari especially did not fit into his regular-season diet, but he didn’t have it in him to care today.

Silently, the three of them sat down and ate. No small talk arose from around the table, not even between Hayden and Jackie, which Shane appreciated. It gave him time to decompress, and think about what he wanted to say to them without the pressure of filling the silence or answering questions he was sure they were harbouring in their minds. The time to think was invaluable before what he was sure would be a difficult conversation.

Because he did want to talk to them: though he was grateful for Hayden’s offer of complete silence for the night, the Pikes were some of his closest friends, and he did want them to know the truth about him, and feel comfortable discussing it amongst them. Still, he found himself waiting until they’d all moved from the kitchen to the living room, Hayden and Jackie sitting to either side of him on the couch, and they were about to start the movie before he said something.

“I know you guys have questions.”

Both Hayden and Jackie jumped. It was the first time he’d spoken all night.

“Well… sure we do, Shane,” Jackie replied gently, quickly getting over her surprise. “But please, don’t worry about that. We don’t have to discuss it tonight.”

“No. I want to.” Both of them seemed hesitant to believe him, so he added, “Listen, this obviously isn’t how I wanted you guys to find out, and I’m still not feeling great about it.” Understatement of the century. “But… I did want to tell you eventually, and I don’t want you to be scared to bring it up with me or anything. So let’s just… get it over with. Please.”

The couple on the couch looked at one another, skeptical. But in that secret language that couples can only speak with their partners, they seemed to come to a decision, and Jackie tentatively asked:

“Okay, then. How about to start with, you tell us again, but… the way you would have done it. We want to hear your words.”

Shane inhaled deeply. “Alright. Um, that sounds good.” He paused for a minute, trying to decide how he wanted to start. Eventually he sighed.

“Hayden, Jacks… I’m gay.” He searched their faces for any sort of reaction to it being said out loud, but found nothing. He continued. “I’ve known for a really long time—or at least, I’ve known that I was attracted to men for a really long time, but up until a while ago, I never really stopped to consider whether I was attracted to women too. I just assumed that one day I’d meet a girl that I liked, and suddenly I’d fall in love with her and everything would work out—happily ever after, and all that. But… about nine months ago, I realized that was never going to happen. It’s just men for me, I think.” He trailed off, realizing that he didn’t know what to say from there, and both of his friends smiled at him.

“Oh, Shane,” murmured Jackie, leaning forward to envelope him in her arms for the second time that night. “Thank you for telling us. We love you so much, this changes absolutely nothing, you know that right? You’re still one of our closest friends, and it’s a joy to have you in our lives.”

“Yes,” Hayden quickly joined in, wrapping his own arms around Shane as well. “Everything she said. We love you, man, and so do the kids. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

Shane blinked, and was startled to feel the his bottom lip had started to tremble. “Th- thank you, guys,” he whispered as he leaned into their embrace. “That means… so much to me, you can’t even imagine.”

Jackie pulled away with a sad smile. So did Hayden, who asked the follow-up question:

“What was it that made you realize you were gay? Did it have something to do with Rose Landry?”

Shane huffed a laugh. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, it did. Back in January, she sort of… sat me down, during one of our dates, and straight up told me that she was pretty sure she wasn’t ‘doing it for me.’ She then asked, very subtly, if I would rather kiss her friend Miles than her. It was, uh… not my finest moment.”

Jackie giggled all throughout his explanation, and Hayden’s eyes widened. “Damn, really? What made it so obvious to her, that you were gay?”

Shane’s lips parted wordlessly, trying to decide how the hell he was supposed to answer that, as Jackie leaned over and whacked her husband on the arm.

“Argh!” he exclaimed, recoiling. “What? What did I say?”

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Hayden. Think.”

His brows creased. “What do you mean, think–” he muttered, but immediately froze. After a second of silence, he whipped back around to Shane, expression incredulous.

“No way. Dude. Rose Landry. You’re telling me that you couldn’t get it up for Rose fucking Landry–?”

That earned him another whack, even harder this time.

“Hayden!” Jackie cried as her husband made another affronted hey. “Shane, I am so sorry about him–”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Shane interrupted, though in truth he was mortified. Feeling as his cheeks were overcome with a red flush, he added: “Yeah, um… not even for Rose. It was, uh… Yeah.” He cut himself off before he got caught digging himself an even deeper hole. “We’re still super close friends, though.”

Hayden was still flabbergasted, so Jackie hastened to pick up the slack. “That’s wonderful to hear, Shane,” she reassured him. “Can we ask about Lily, too?”

The mention of Lily made Shane tense again. “Yeah, um… like I said in the locker room earlier, Lily is a fake name. For a man I’ve been– involved with for a really long time.”

“I see,” she mused, hints of a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “And are we to infer that ‘involved with’ means…?”

Shane chuckled awkwardly. “Uh, if ‘hooking up’ are the words you’re looking for, then… yeah. Involved. We just made it official this summer, though.”

That snapped Hayden out of shocked fugue-state he’d been in. “Aw, man,” he murmured, smiling supportively. “I’m really happy for you guys. I mean, you’ve been texting Lily– what, since your rookie year almost, right?”

Shane bit his lip. “Yeah. We knew each other way before then, though. Since I was 17.”

Neither member of the couple could help their gasp at that. “Since you were 17?!” said Jackie—“Before you even knew me?!” exclaimed Hayden, simultaneously. Shane smiled, nervous.

“Yep. Since before I met either of you. He’s… been around a long time.”

“Holy fuck, Shane,” Hayden breathed. “Clearly. And he makes you happy? He better, else I’ll be having some extremely stern words with him next time we’re in Boston.”

The smile that Shane wore quickly melted into something far more affectionate. “Yeah. So happy.” He inhaled deeply, remembering Ilya’s reassuring words from earlier in the day, and how his eyes lit up at the sight of Shane wearing his reading glasses over Facetime two nights beforehand. Then he thought of the way Ilya couldn’t help but squint when he first opened his eyes in the morning—something about him that Shane had only learned a few months before, but had already become a treasured morsel of information, carefully tucked away in the corner of his mind to be brought out when he needed to draw strength from the overwhelming affection that he felt for his boyfriend. “He’s the love of my life, for sure,” he finally finished.

A pause, while Shane’s best friends seemed to process what he was saying. Shane was startled to realize that both Jackie and Hayden had actually begun to tear up.

“Oh, Shane…” Jackie whispered, launching herself onto him again. Hayden quickly followed suit. “That… that makes me so happy, you can’t even guess.” She was shaking, just a little bit. So am I, Shane realized with a start.

“... Thank you, guys,” he mumbled into their necks, vision blurring. “Thank you so much. I love you too.”

The three of them remained wrapped in the group embrace for at least a few minutes after that, Shane drinking in the evidence that they still loved him like it was water. Eventually, Hayden nodded against Shane’s back, leaning away slightly to address the two of them. “Is there anything else that you want to share tonight, Shane? Anything about Lily, or being gay in general? We’re ready to listen.”

He chuckled wetly, wiping his eyes quickly. “Uh– not tonight, if that’s alright. Lily is still closeted, so I can’t tell you who he is, really. Maybe another time, but– not now.”

Jackie was already nodding. “Of course, Shane, we will go at your pace. How about for the rest of tonight, we can just watch this silly Marvel movie that only Hayden really cares about?”

Shane laughed as Hayden immediately protested. They settled quickly into watching the movie, Shane relieved to again have confirmation that the Pikes were treating him exactly as they always had, bickering easily about the film and both trying to get Shane on their respective sides so they could “win” the argument. His responses may not have been quite as lively as usual, but they didn’t make him feel badly about it. And this brief return to normalcy gave him the courage to power his phone back on for the first time since the car ride.

He wasn’t immediately flooded with notifications the way he almost expected to be—the way he certainly would have been if any of his teammates had outed him to management yet. So at least he was safe from those discussions for now. There also weren’t any messages waiting for him in the Metros groupchat, which would have been unusual on any other day; that thing was constantly being pinged, full of meaningless memes and chirps that drove Shane crazy. Another benefit, then, of the team finding out: he didn’t have to deal with the groupchat anymore, because clearly a new, Shane-less one had been created. Yay? God, he was exhausted.

A couple people had left him messages, though. J.J., for one, had sent an obscene number of texts—it was the first thing Shane noticed. And it alarmed him, because J.J. never texted—if he had something to tell you, he would always, always call. Sure enough, a quick check of his phone log showed a half dozen missed calls from his friend. Shane clicked on the preview from the message nearest to the top, and was brought to their text thread.

Well, fuck. Shane couldn’t exactly say he wasn’t more than a little upset with J.J., for revealing Ilya’s existence the careless way he had, but… still. It mostly wasn’t his fault. All he’d really done was tease Shane about something he’d probably assumed other people on the team knew about: it was insane that only Hayden and J.J. had actually noticed that Shane was involved with someone, after so long playing with the Metros. Comeau was the one who overstepped, he was the one who should get the blame. Still, Shane didn’t have it in him to respond yet. First, he opened up the other text thread of his that was full of unread messages: ones from Miitie.

God. Shane knew that logistically, he probably couldn’t cry again today, but he wanted to. Miitie had been signed to Montreal a few years after Shane had joined the roster, an undrafted free agent out of Sweden, and had arrived in Canada knowing very little English and even less about Canadian culture. Seeing how difficult of a time the goalie was having finding his footing, Shane had started inviting him out to bonus ice times before and after their usual practices, just for some one-on-one reps, to hopefully help him feel more comfortable hanging out with his teammates. This also had the benefit of making him more confident in his play on the ice, which translated to more confidence when dealing with the team off of it. Within a couple of months, Miitie had some of the most shoot-out wins in the league and the best save percentage on breakaways: but most importantly, he was much better settled on the Metros, and sure of his place with them. It had been very rewarding, for Shane to witness, and that feeling had fueled his excitement the next season when he was finally made captain, at just 22 years old. At the time, he couldn’t wait to take on a leadership role towards even more of his teammates.

Nowadays, Shane was almost sick of being the captain. It was rewarding, sure, but he’d never expected the number of responsibilities that would fall under him as soon as the “C” was emblazoned on his jersey. Every loss that they took was his fault; every teammate that skipped practice had to get a call from him; every post-game press conference was his to sit in on. And there was still so much he loved about it—making game plans with his coaches after practice, the intrinsic respect which accompanied the label, respect which he needed as one of very few Asian players in the league—but he was…

Exhausted. He was fucking exhausted.

That exhaustion is what eventually drove him to stand up and leave the Pike’s place. “I think… I’m ready to turn in for the night,” he told them with a pained smile-grimace. Jackie bit her lip.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here for the night?” she asked, lightly touching his hand.

He shook his head. “No, thank you.” In truth, all that he needed right then was to go home, shower again (with his own products this time), get into a pair of Ilya’s trackpants, and call his boyfriend. So, with a final hug goodbye and reassurance of their love and support (as well as an insistence that he call them at “any time, Shane, it doesn’t matter how late it is—if you need anything, we’ll come, okay?”), Hayden and Jackie finally let him go.

The drive home passed in a blur, and the only thing Shane could think about as he rolled down the familiar Montreal roads was: call Ilya. I have to call Ilya.

Half an hour later, he flopped down into his comfortable, familiar bed armed with two trustworthy pillows and a heavy weighted blanket and finally dialled.

He answered on the first ring.

“Shane,” Ilya breathed. It almost made him smile.

“Hi.”

Then it happened. He inhaled sharply.

“Ilya…”

His eyes burned. His lower lip trembled, and he said, “Ilya–”

Then that was it. Shane completely broke down.

And Ilya let him.

______๑❤⁠๑______

There were two weeks between the afternoon that Shane was outed to his team and their next game against Boston. Two weeks which didn’t feel like it. Which passed by slower than molasses, and living through them felt like Hell on earth.

The Detroit game was a disaster. Shane was the only player to put up any points, thanks to an unassisted goal late in the 3rd that prevented it from becoming a shut-out. The final score of 4-1 wasn’t much better though. The rest of the group was distracted, for obvious fucking reasons, and Shane hadn’t even had it in him to be surprised the next day, when Theriault pulled him away before practice and told him to “fix all that bullcrap from yesterday, yeah?” As if it was his fault that his teammates couldn’t share a room with a gay guy. 

(Not that Theriault knew about that particular fact yet. After having a good cry with Ilya over the phone, Shane had finally been ready to think about logistics again, and one of the first questions that came to mind: should he come out to management? Clearly no one on his team had told the higher ups or Theriault about him yet, but should he be trying to get ahead of that eventuality by scheduling a meeting with them the next day and confessing his great sin, before a teammate could do so for him? Just the thought of it made Shane want to throw up, but Ilya had urged him to get some sleep before making any important decisions, and the next morning, they had decided together that there was one person who would be best equipped to know what the proper course of action moving forward would be: Yuna Hollander. So Shane had called her, and after many loving reassurances (directed at him) and murderous professions of anger (at his team), she’d concluded that he should wait just a couple weeks for herself and Farah to review his contracts and various brand deals, as well as to potentially find a discrimination lawyer (just in case, she argued when he protested), before going through any official channels with management. He’d accepted the proposition easily. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t filled with anxiety every day, though, waiting for the other shoe to drop.) 

Even though since his outing, Hayden, J.J. and Miitie had all been making a point of talking to and changing and showering in front of him while the other guys were around, it didn’t matter. They hadn’t won a single game since that practice happened, and it was driving Shane up the fucking wall.

He was performing almost as well as he always had, bar an obvious drop in his assisting points (given how he never had anyone available to pass to anymore), but their defense—led by Comeau on the first D-pair—had completely fallen apart. They were letting in four, five, six goals every single night, and the two, once even three being scored by Shane just weren’t enough to counteract those numbers when the rest of the team—combined—had only scored two. Two. In as many weeks!

Which brought them to tonight. Usually, Shane loved playing in Boston. Not just thanks to the obvious enticement of seeing Ilya, but also because that was when his team played their best hockey. Both the Metros-Raiders and Hollander-Rozanov rivalries used to get them fired up and passionate, and it was the time when Shane found himself having the most fun with the other Metros. They skated faster, they shot harder, they cheered louder. Not this time around; Shane could already see the writing on the wall. They were going to be destroyed, quickly and efficiently dismantled, and Theriault would probably blame him for it, which was just fucking superb. The only bright spot was Ilya, and getting to see him again for the first time since Comeau outed him—but Ilya was always the exception to Shane’s rules. What else was new?

Suiting up before the game, nobody in the room would even look at him. A lot of his teammates hadn’t in a while. Shane almost felt bad for a couple of the rookies and other young guys, who would glance over in panic every once in a while when they thought he wouldn’t notice, clearly distressed by how the team was treating him, how they were treating him because they felt like they didn’t have a choice. Not much he could do about it, though. Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t bring himself to be too sympathetic towards them.

Suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up. It was Hayden.

“Uh… hey, man. How are you feeling?”

Shane shrugged, Hayden waited, maybe expecting something more, but nodded after a second.

“Right. Yeah, uh…” He looked around, and lowered his voice. “Are you at least happy to be seeing… you know? Tonight?”

Shane grimaced lightly. He appreciated the sentiment, but… “I don’t want to talk about that here, Hayd.”

He bit his lip. “O-of course, Shane. Sorry. Uh… I’ll leave you to it. Love you, Cap!”

Shane already knew that Hayden said that last part a bit too loudly. It became clear when, a couple lockers down, Wilson caught his eye and snorted cruelly. He mouthed a word that Shane had to consciously choose to ignore. He just wanted his day to be over.

He’d been thinking that a lot, lately.

______๑❤⁠๑______

Shane did what he did best. He put his head down, and he played hockey. It didn’t matter though. His fragile peace lasted for approximately two hours, until it finally crumbled in the fourth minute of the 3rd period. 

Shane’s hypothesis had been proved correct, and the Raiders were destroying them. The score was 5-2, with the Metros’ points having been put up first by Hayden on Shane’s assist, then Shane himself on J.J.’s apple. It was one of the worst games Shane had ever seen his team play—sloppy and angry, taking unnecessary minors left and right, with several misconducts as well. The Raiders, meanwhile, were playing amazing. Ilya had two goals so far, and his momentum had far from slowed. It was killing Shane to see his team embarrass him so badly, but he vowed to just keep going. Just put his head down and play for the remaining sixteen, and he prayed that his team would too. It couldn’t be too difficult, right?

Wrong.

So, so wrong.

Because suddenly, Ilya was playing the puck off the boards and down the ice. Shane had turned towards where he passed, ready to chase it down, when he heard a sickening crunch come from behind him. He froze and looked back.

Ilya was collapsed on the ground, and Comeau was standing over him.