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Water pounded a steady drum against Shane’s chest from the locker room’s cheap shower head. He forced the provided shampoo through his sweat soaked hair and ignored the aches starting to settle in his bones. He could categorize them later, after the adrenaline faded and they truly sunk in deep. The other guys trickled into the showers and back to the main part of the locker room in steady time. They’d all be itching to go out, bouncing off the walls until they had a drink and something too deep fried for Shane to even consider looking at to weigh them back to earth. They deserved to celebrate.
They deserved the win.
Shane wasn’t sure if he did.
Shane Hollander winning was the expectation. Shane Hollander winning against Montreal was unprecedented. A sheer impossibility until that very night. A hole in the dark he stumbled into without any real understanding of how he got there, when the entire time he hoped he managed to not crumble entirely.
He should be happy, should be fucking ecstatic over the win, over showing his old team exactly where they stood without him. Like the rest of the centaurs were as they whooped and hollered in the visitor's locker room, sound muffled beneath the shower spray and the adrenaline still rushing in Shane's ears. The thankfully unscented shampoo ran down his aching shoulders. He forced himself to reach for body wash next, pumping some into his hand from the wall mounted bottle and scrubbing it into his skin hard enough to raise welts underneath the steaming water.
The Montreal Metros were nothing without him. He left in free agency, at his own decision— does it count as his own decision if they ran him out?— and without any real thought over what they'd do after him. If anything, he had hoped with (a majority of) his entire being that they crashed and burned. They got nothing in return for his departure, except for the gift of no longer having to deal with him. He built them just as much as they built him. The entire team existed with Shane Hollander at the epicenter, a sun they all orbited. He handled over 50% of their goals every season since his rookie season. He catered their on ice chemistry into a machine, each a cog in his inevitability. He captained them to the stanley cup three times, and those banners hung in the arena he showered in. He’d been the face of the entire franchise for a decade.
That doesn't get replaced by a draft pick half as good as Shane had been at 18, let alone coming close to who he’d become at 29, or a haphazard last minute trade they scrambled for and hoped would fit into the captain sized hole left behind.
Not without gutting the entire roster and starting anew.
Which Montreal had not done.
They turned his machine into an embarrassment, and the Centaurs treated them as such. His replacement had been a doe-eyed 20-year-old fresh out of the AHL. He faced Shane Hollander on his third ever game on MLH ice and blanched right there in the center circle after he met Shane’s stare. When he should have chirped or thrown him off his game, Shane simply offered a genuine apology for the bullshit the kid would be forced to eat, ignored Comeau’s scoff over his shoulder, and wondered what the hell Theriault had been thinking having this child face him. His machine broke the day he stepped off the ice as the Captain of the Montreal Metros for the last time.
It became fucking irrepairable.
His old teammates, his brothers, saw to that. One fucked up comment, one missed check into the boards, one fumbled pass at a time. Built over the course of two seasons. He tried not to choke on the blame they had thrown his way.
Shane bumped up the water temperature again, forcing the dial as high as it could go. Rickety pipes rattled behind the tile walls, because visitors never got the same care and consideration as the home team. The pipes never once rattled in the Bell Centre’s home locker room. Shane would, after all, know that better than most.
He tried to recount where exactly it went wrong. A relentless practice he picked up while watching the Centaur’s playoff run last season, despite Ilya warning him away from it again and again and again. His husband pushed him to find a therapist for the leftover mess the Metros made of him, for moments exactly like that. Shane had yet to relent on the insistence. The practice would do little to harm him, after all, except give him data the same way game tape did. It became part of his routine, a mirror of his morning runs, a steady repeat until it became second nature. Another cog in the machine to pick apart until it ran perfectly nestled among the rest. Shane had been an expert at routines since the first time he got skates strapped to his feet and stepped onto the ice.
The fan mail incident seemed the most obvious answer. The catalyst from bad to worse, the downward plunge from unacceptable to inexcusable. It turned the last of his guys against him, all except Hayden really. The chill between him and the rest became an ice storm. They saw an enemy where he saw the love of his life, and that simply wouldn’t do. That simply couldn’t be explained away. The occasional misstep and gap in defense that led to him getting pounded into the boards when he finally tired enough to avoid getting hit shifted to every game. Theriault saw fit to keep him on the ice for longer and longer as penance for his decisions.. It’s a miracle that they managed to make the playoffs at all last season, and that miracle carried the name Hollander and the number 24 across its back. He dragged them there by the skin of his teeth. They ignored it when he spit blood.
Or the trip. A final nail in a coffin just waiting to be fucking buried. Inexcusable to fucking traitor. No matter that he put in more minutes during the entire round than anyone else. Anyone else. No matter that Theriault ran him into the ice because he knew Shane could handle it better than most, and because it wasn’t anything more than Shane fucking deserved. He betrayed them with one slip on the ice during overtime in game seven, because he had been fucking exhausted. An elaborate ruse to get Ilya a cup, of course. How could it have been anything else? Damn his entire career suggesting otherwise. Damn his own ambition and bloodthirst for victory.
Or maybe it really had been when he came out two seasons prior. When his guys suddenly didn't seem to recognize him anymore. When they grew a little colder, a little more distant. When Theriault started second guessing suggestions he’d taken in stride a month before. When his ice time started to creep higher and higher. A slow death, in hindsight. Their playing grew sloppier, more chaotic. Not enough for it to be truly noticeable to anyone other than the true die-hards willing to break down their games second by second. No, the true place it got worse had been the locker room where he got treated three steps removed from everyone else. Their star player, their brother, teetered on the edge of unacceptable, on the edge of something they just couldn’t understand. Shane ground his teeth and bore it, hoping with time they’d remember who exactly sat on the bench with them. He hoped they’d remember how much he gave. It would get better, if he just gave them a little more time.
Or maybe…
Ilya didn't worry. A win was a mother fucking win any day, but the pounding they gave Montreal was damn near worthy of song, and the centaur fans sang it the entire third period and well into their post game celebrations. It echoed throughout the halls of the Bell Centre even when only the zamboni remained in the arena. The others vibrated with it throughout the locker room, calling for drinks and cheers and clubbing til 3am to celebrate. Shane loved winning more than anyone Ilya had ever met, even more than Ilya's own bloodthirst. He'd be especially pleased about showing the metros what they were worth without him, now that the anxiety’s been beaten from his system with a gorgeous hat trick. So, Ilya didn't worry.
At least, at first.
He showered first that time, beating Shane off the ice when he decided to linger chatting with Hayden and J.J. some and then got pulled for press before he could join the rest of the team in the locker room. They tried to avoid showering at the same time when the rest of the guys were there, to keep a line in the ice between professional and personal. Most of the time Shane beat him there, an unspoken routine they fell into where he’d slip in while Ilya joked around with the guys. Every once in a while the script flipped and Ilya got there first. A dice toss depending on whatever kept one or other stuck on the ice or in press longer.
After, as they passed each other— Ilya exiting with a towel round his hips and Shane entering the showers clad only in new bruises layered on old— he pressed a quick kiss to Shane's bare shoulder and received a soft smile as a reward. One of their craziest displays of PDA in a semi-professional setting to date if the wolf whistles from a couple guys were believed. Ilya stuck up a middle finger to the room at large as he walked back to his stall. Both of them had agreed to keep things tame when at the rink, for everyone's sake but most of all theirs. Despite all Ilya's teasing, they felt better keeping some things just for them. Still, he got a thrill every time he got to touch Shane in view of other people, chaste or otherwise.
Half dressed as he tended towards, Ilya made his rounds, stopping at each guy in turn to give praise and soothe hurts. A practice he started in Boston and lost with Ottawa a bit in the midst of his depression’s worst, and vowed to never lose again. His guys deserved it. He’d been lucky to find guys so easy to care about.
The game tonight had been a beauty. Shane knew it the way he knew the bruises that laced up his spine and side and right hip alike, the way his knuckles split, the way his jaw ached from clenching so goddamn hard. Probably the best game he had ever played in the entire two decades he's been losing himself to the hockey god everyone claimed him to be. In the two decades he lost himself to the ice day after day, if he really put it into perspective. An impossible thing, an impossible showing against men who once worked in tandem with him instead of against him.
He walked onto that ice with a point to prove, and everyone in the arena made sure he fucking remembered what that point was. They didn’t stop screaming it the entire three periods. They didn’t stop screaming even when he stepped off the ice. It almost managed to break through the focus that settled over him every time he lined up for a face off. His ability to tune everything, everything, except the puck out— his ability to become a mask— pushed him over the edge of greatness.
A little bit of screaming wouldn’t shatter it.
It just came close.
Losing focus on that ice tonight would have meant losing his head. Or losing his ability to skate, which meant the same thing. Life or death, if the hatred staring back at him from the other side of the blue line meant anything at all. He knew it did.
He walked onto that ice with the sheer determination to prove to himself he was as great as he could be, to prove to the Metros they were nothing without him, to prove that despite all the change nothing had broken in him.
Nothing had broken in him. Right?
Shane washed the last of the body wash off and hissed as the remnants soaked into the open cuts on his knuckles. The soap burned. Fresh blood welled and washed away. He almost got down on his knees and thanked a god he didn’t believe in for the ability to feel it at all. For the reminder that somewhere beneath the hockey gear he still existed. He braced his ruined right hand against the tile and let it hold his weight, just to feel the pressure pull at the split skin.
In his knuckles defense, Comeau's face looked better bloody and crushed to the ice.
No, Ilya’s worry didn't set in until Troy nudged his elbow with confused concern scrunching his handsome face. Ilya paused his dressing to give Troy his full attention, shirt gripped in hand.
“Hey, Hollzy's been in there a while,” he said into Ilya’s ear, too quiet for anyone else to hear over their chaos.
“You lookin’ at my man in the showers, Troy? Harris not pretty enough for you, you need to look at my Shane instead?” Ilya asked, raising an eyebrow as he pulled the dress shirt on.
“Fuck you, man. Harris is the most handsome man there is.” Troy’s entire face soured, too annoyed to bother keeping his voice down.
“Whipped!”
“Sap!”
“Troy, we already know you love the guy. You don’t need to convince us.”
The shouts rose above the rest of the chatter without a second of consideration, overlapping the others in their excitement. Troy rolled his eyes, thoroughly distracted from his questioning. Ilya frowned down at his stall, adjusting his shirt around his still damp shoulders. A trickle of worry started down his spine, sickening when it settled into his stomach. Just wrong enough to make him stumble while trying to figure out how long it had been since they passed. Just wrong enough for a line to form between his brows.
He didn't let the team see. No, they’d have questions Shane wouldn’t want to answer, if he had an answer for them at all. Ilya imagined he would pry them from his husband’s chest with the difficulty of a pick axe against stone. He’d have to chip away piece by piece over the course of hours and only once he got Shane’s shell cracked enough to split down the middle.
A privilege he spent years curating. A privilege offered to no one else.
Shane played so beautifully it took Ilya's breath away. Always, of course, but especially in the last three hours. Cutthroat and taking no prisoners as he skated circles around every damn Metro in the arena. Ilya could do little except grasp the edge of the bench and watch with his mouth gapping open while hoping for a powerplay just so he could share in some of Shane’s glory. He ached to taste just a morsel, sip it from Shane’s presence until it coated his entire tongue. So he could spit it back into Shane’s mouth and watch him swallow. Perhaps then they’d truly become one. They had, after all, always been two sides of the same molded coin. Gold plated and tossed into every wishing well they came across by thousands of greedy hands. Shaped with the same divinity that transformed them once the skate laces tightened. His chain, holding his mama’s cross and the ring that matched his husband’s, laid heavy against his chest the entire game. A reminder of everything he lost and everything he’d gain. He’d get on his knees and thank a god he believed in only on the worst days for everything he managed to keep, just on the off chance that god existed at all. He’d thank him just for the opportunity to play on the same team as Shane.
Bood closed his mouth with a laugh that echoed, chirped him within an inch of his life, and then let his own disbelief about Shane’s ability leak out. Practice only offered a glimpse of the real thing. To see Shane Hollander, the hockey robot, the machine, on the ice was the closest thing any of them would ever get to seeing god, and Ilya Rozanov learned on his knees how to become his greatest threat and his greatest disciple.
Watching him step onto the ice of the Bell Centre for the first time since he left was a turning point, a tipping point, a moment between before and after that Ilya didn't know how to categorize. The audience had been deafening, so much so the announcers didn’t even have a chance to finish saying his name before the roar overtook the entire world. Wave after wave of discontent and devotion alike. Ilya couldn’t pinpoint which out weighed the other. It all meshed into one undeniable wall of noise. Shane stopped at center and soaked in it, an unreadable look on his face. Ilya thought he’d be graced with his favorite sight, those freckles against a blooming blush. He’d almost been disappointed. If anything, Shane paled to match the stone mask he pretended to be as he looked up at the banners hanging from the ceiling and the crowd that once loved him.
The game started three minutes late because the audience wouldn’t quiet enough to start.
Shane could count how many physical fights he actually participated in over the years on one hand. He preferred for the scoreboard to do the talking for him, (most of the time) and built an iron clad reputation around that belief. It only worked because he backed it up. Every. Single. Time.
The only person capable of backing up the scoreboard as well as Shane was Ilya Rozanov. Ilya, who matched Shane stride for stride every step of their career until they could finally walk hand in hand, spent his fair fair in the penalty box. He wore his badge of most punchable player four years running with more pride than it probably warranted, grin turning wicked sharp under player after player’s suspicious gaze. Ilya didn’t hesitate to throw a punch if the situation truly warranted it. He didn’t shy away from violence.
Not that Shane did. One doesn’t make it to the status he did in such a physical sport while being afraid of a punch, or a shove, or a skate blade to the fucking thigh. No, Shane forced himself to rise above it, made it steel in his spine to hold him higher still. Just like Yuna Hollander taught him to. Her loving guiding hand laid layer after layer over him, a compounding image where every crack got spackled over until only perfection remained. The Role Model. The Golden Boy. The Robot. The one every child looked up to and every player wished to be. Yuna’s precious, perfect boy.
And perfection didn’t throw the first punch unless it cracked.
Not fighting often didn't mean Shane couldn't though. People mistaking that worked in his favor when he deemed throwing a punch worth it. They never managed to see it coming until their face started leaking. Somehow the league collectively forgot in the gaps between one fight and another, they were so few and far between. Shane may choose to rise above it. Rising above didn’t take much when broken bones were a hockey player’s every other Friday night though. He learned how to slam his fist into a cheek bone hard enough to crack back in middle school, and that’s a lesson not easily forgotten. Rarely did he start it but he knew how to finish it once it did.
His teammates did so well. Ilya did so well. At not taking the bait, at not reacting to the absolutely vile filth the Metros threw in their faces. Worse chirps than Shane had ever heard in his entire life. Aimed primarily at him, as he knew they would be, but also at Ilya and Troy. Shane drilled into them the importance of ignoring it for a week before they arrived in Montreal. He gave examples of what to expect and then told them to expect comments ten times worse. He made himself a punching bag, a battering ram, a taunt. Anything to keep the Metros’ attention on him instead of on anyone else. Their single minded focus on him specifically made it too easy. He could handle it, the same way he always handled it. A mask they would never see the other side of.
Shane had been the one to break in the end.
He threw the first, and last, punch.
He did it.
Still, he was Shane Hollander, more machine than man. He waited until after he secured his hat trick to drop his gloves. The goddamn penalty had been worth it for the crunch of the bastard’s nose under his fist. The Metros didn’t even manage to score during the power play.
In his knuckles defense, Comeau shouldn't have been running his fucking mouth.
“Hey, cap…?” Luca said, coming up half dressed to Ilya’s stall as the captain slid his ring from his chain. He wrung his fingers so tight the tips whitened.
“I know, Haasy. Don’t worry. I got it,” Ilya responded gently, putting a hand on Luca’s shoulder. He could guess well enough what had the rookie tied up in knots. Luca nodded tightly and slipped back away towards his stall. Ilya refastened his necklace. His mama’s cross sat against his chest, still warm from his shower. The team had started to notice. Confused looks overtook them one at a time, a slow building wave. No one questioned loud enough for it to echo, loud enough for it to carry into the showers towards the subject of their conundrum. An undercurrent of concern built a foundation under their conversations like a cluster of buzzing bees.
Ilya started counting minutes instead of offering them solutions. A calculation of when that shoulder kiss happened and how much time slipped by since. Each formula came up with a worse answer. Every minute past became a tally on the wall of his mind, even as the volume rose impossibly higher. An argument broke out about the best club in Montreal to go to. Ilya offered no suggestions. Montreal as a whole was the city he spent the least amount of time clubbing when he came through for reasons he hardly needed to explain, and the few times he went rarely had good experiences attached to them. Best to leave that decision making to the boys. Somehow he had a feeling he, and by extension Shane, wouldn't be joining them.
They knew the game would be rough. They prepared for it. Shane sat down with them and tried to explain everything he remembered of their play, of their taunts, of their very worst. A repeated mantra that escaped the video room and out onto the rink, each cycle more horrifying than the last. Where Shane had been seemingly emotionless, the team grew more and more aghast. A picture painted in Shane’s monotone of his life with the Montreal Metros during his last two seasons that came away bloody. Perhaps Shane thought presenting it like it meant nothing equated to the same thing in reality. Ilya, too, had been taken aback by the more extreme portions, and wondered if what Shane offered to the team truly was the worst of it. Something in how Shane gripped his hands together while explaining told him more existed beneath the surface.
The snippets he managed to pry loose while they laid in the dark of their bedroom offered little reprieve to Ilya’s concerns. Even there, Shane held the truth of it close to his chest, where it could hurt no one other than himself.
Shane’s warning proved somewhat naught. The Centaurs were blown away by the sheer hatred the Metros had for their old captain, and for Ilya by extension. It curdled in their guts with every whispered slur, every illegal check left ignored, and every line crossed. The Metros had no shame in speculating what exactly Shane Hollander got up to in his martial bed and where that martial bed may wander to. Nor did they have shame over drawing blood or slamming bruises into his already battered skin. Each a token of appreciation for the mess he left them with.
Ilya promised Shane he wouldn’t fight in the days leading up to the game. He swore it during a 1am panic that had Shane dry heaving into their ensuite bathroom toilet, pressing his hand between Shane’s shoulder blades like it could anchor his husband back down to the moment. Instead of letting him wander hours, days into the future where things were still unpredictable.
That moment meant he hadn’t been surprised when Shane finally dropped his gloves. He waited for it as he watched the tension coil tighter and tighter around his husband’s limbs. To anyone else, Shane had been the machine they claimed him to be, blank faced and hyper focus on nothing but the puck. Ilya could read Shane’s body better than anyone and anything else. He’d put hundreds of hours into it over the last decade and had been Shane’s most diligent student, in the rink and bedroom alike.
It wasn’t a matter of if, but simply when. An inevitability.
Don’t get him wrong, watching Shane absolutely decimate both in the net and against Comeau’s face had been an absolute highlight of Ilya’s night. One of the hottest things he had the pleasure of seeing. He’d replay the moment Shane’s fist connected with Comeau’s nose every time he had his cock in hand for a month, and the bloody kiss he gave Ilya on his way to the penalty box for at least six. He could still taste Shane’s blood between his teeth.
God, he never wanted to wash it away.
He knew what it took to get Shane to do it, though. He knew the lengths taken, the lines crossed. Shane refused to tell him what Comeau said to set him off. Maybe it had simply been a collective, a dam breaking under the weight of a thousand waves. Ilya didn’t think so. He watched Shane’s face change after that third goal, when Comeau got into his face and whispered too quietly for it to carry across the ice. He could guess. Shane wouldn’t throw a punch over something said about himself.
No, he’d only do it over something said about Ilya.
Maybe something in Shane broke when he tripped during playoffs last spring. Or maybe it was when the video went viral. Or maybe it was when he climbed into his rival's bed over and over and over again. So drunk on lust and Ilya's domineering and the way only he could make Shane's brain go quiet, he couldn't quit no matter how bad the addiction got.
Maybe he had always been broken. From the very first time he laid eyes on a boy and felt a stirring inside he could never replicate with a girl. From the very first time he stepped onto the ice and realized that for all the purpose it gave, it fixed nothing. From his very first breath.
“Shane still hasn't come out of the showers?” Bood asked from Ilya’s left, where he always found himself. Bood on his left, Shane on his right. A lovely established stall placement decided on Shane’s very first day, and one Ilya intended to keep in every rink they traveled to. It created a home within a home, a resting place where they all belonged.
“No.”
“Do you think-”
“I am not sure.” Ilya wasn't really sure what Bood intended to ask but the answer was the same regardless. “Giving him some time to get his head on straight before I bombard him. Don't want to do it with the guys here.”
“Ah. I'll see if I can get them to move along. I think they decided on a club.”
“Took them long enough.”
“Thick skulls and all,” Bood said, clapping Ilya in the shoulder before heading to the first small cluster of men. He spoke to them, with excess friendly grins and encouragement. Ilya likened Bood to glue that held them all together and guided them along a steady path. The cluster gave a shout and made their way out the door. Bood moved on to the next.
Like clockwork, Bood's magic pushed the boys out of the locker room and towards the agreed upon club without ever tipping them off that they were being ushered along. Ilya watched from his stall, offering encouragement and promises to see them there whenever they looked his way. Having their captain's encouragement spiked their excitement all the more, while resting any lingering concerns over the superstar apparently attempting to drown himself in the showers. Their captain would never let Shane drown, not entirely. Not without a way out again.
Shane stood up in Comeau's wedding, before he started bragging about his cheating exploits. He had been the third person to ever hold Olsson's baby, only after his wife Carrie and Olsson himself. He peeled Wilson out of a jail cell at 2 in the morning, sweet talking cops and signing autographs still in his pajamas. He picked rookie after rookie up out of the dirt, shaped them as he had been shaped. He did it all without question, without outward judgement. A pleasure, he said, to be able to do these things for his team, for his guys.
How could they question his loyalty after a decade together?
But maybe he had always been a little removed. Held to a higher standard, a better standard, until it became a cage between him and the rest of the world. And the rest of the world included his room even when it was supposed to be him and his room against the world. Shane had grown so familiar with the pedestal he barely understood the distance it created between him and everyone else. It came so naturally with the Metros, having been placed there from the beginning. Theriault fostered it as easily as breathing, and even he expected more from Shane than the rest. How was Shane supposed to know any better? His greatness made him other, made him intimidating. Other meant the room could turn their backs on him without feeling like they lost a part of themselves, just something they took for granted.
Maybe he never warranted true loyalty.
Not like how Ilya fostered it in his rooms. First Boston, and now Ottawa. Two groups of guys who would fall on their swords for their captain, guided by blind loyalty that bordered on devotion. He did it so easily, just by the way he existed within the space, and Shane couldn’t be anything other than grateful for it. Stepping into Ilya’s room that first practice, nerves eating his throat, felt like stepping into a pond after expecting an ocean. Never drowning, just a little overwhelming. Shane loved watching Ilya with the guys, loved watching the care he gave and the care he received in turn, loved knowing Ilya got it so freely. The act of loving Ilya had always been Shane’s easiest accomplishment, even when making the relationship work took endless effort and work. For others to see in Ilya what Shane saw in him felt like a gift after so many years of people misunderstanding Ilya on a fundamental level and people misunderstanding Shane’s love for him.
On his worst days, though, seeing how easily the room loved Captain Rozanov made jealousy coil in Shane’s limbs, and he hated himself for it, because why couldn’t he have received the same, without the guard rails and conditions? He tried to chew it down and swallow it without Ilya noticing. Ilya had a way of peeking behind Shane’s layers without true effort, though. He didn’t push at first. He let Shane come to him, and Shane, hopeless against Ilya’s wishes, offered broken pieces here and there. Only in the dark of their bedroom, too fucked out and sated and safe to hold onto his tongue. Let Ilya create the picture in due time, without Shane having to destroy himself to paint it for him.
“You want us to wait for you two?” Wyatt asked Ilya from where he stood in the middle of the locker room, Troy, Bood, and Luca by his side. They all were dressed in their game day suits, looking as expensive as the win should make them feel. Even Haas, who was still building his post-game attire. Ilya shook his head.
“No, no. Go. We'll catch up.”
“You sure? I don't want Hollzy to think we abandoned him when he was tonight's MVP,” Troy asked instead. Matching frowns appeared on all their faces.
“Seriously, he killed it out there. A beast, man,” Bood piped in.
“Is fine. I think he just needed a breather. Tonight was hard for him.” Ilya pressed, ushering them out of the room. Not unlike how Bood had done with the other sixteen men. “I'll put him into a good mood and bring him with, maybe even convince him to have a drink.”
Their groans at the innuendo pulled a smile to Ilya’s face, even as they stepped out into the hallway. Their groans and laughter echoed down the hallway. The very faint echo of reporters calling their names carried through the gap in the door as it swung close. The dull thud of metal hitting metal silenced it again. A reminder of what waited for Shane and Ilya when they walked out. The reporters would wait, Ilya assumed, for the two of them. The captain and tonight’s MVP. The Russian Menace and the Hockey Machine. Ilya wasn’t sure if Shane would be up for the questions for a second time. His pressers had been quick. Neither of them had been surprised when Harris asked for Shane. The first Montreal game since he left caused an uproar in more ways than one. The reporters gnawed at the gates for any snippet Shane would give them. He kept his already short answers shorter still, often pushing praise onto the other Centaurs for the win over himself. They hoped to get something else from him as they walked out, when the adrenaline had worn off and the exhaustion set in, when he was more likely to slip up. Ilya would be there to catch him.
Shane's issue was want.
It always came down to want.
He couldn't be anything other than Shane Hollander Hockey God, and Shane Hollander wasn't allowed to be anything other than a machine. A machine built and molded from his early teens and finetuned on professional ice. Time stole everything else until Hockey became the house he built into a cage. One he loved more than anything, with the lone exception of a man hockey personified. A cage he returned to like a dog begging to be kicked, because the reward for being a good boy, for being what the rules demanded, made the pain into something worthy.
Just Shane loved hockey and found joy in it and somehow managed to find joy in other things too. Just Shane admired architecture and built a haven from scratch. Just Shane read an occasional book. Just Shane played dress up with children who called him uncle. Just Shane felt more at ease with skates on his feet in an empty rink than he did just about anywhere else in the world; the only place that managed to beat it was Ilya Rozanov’s bed. Just Shane searched for anything in his mouth, but liked cock best. Just Shane fell in love with a boy at eighteen and kept falling every day since and wanted to fall a little more every day for the rest of his life. Just Shane wanted so much he choked on it.
Just Shane didn't get to exist. Didn't get to breathe. Didn't get to want.
Shane Hollander took what he was given and made it great, even if it meant breaking the mechanisms inside, even if it meant bruises and split skin and broken bones. Even if it meant smothering Just Shane in the process. Anything less than exceptional meant failure entirely. Shane Hollander didn’t swallow failure. It swallowed him and spat him out again with a warning of worse the next time.
He learned his fucking lessons.
Shane Hollander certainly didn't get the boy at the end, with his beautiful curls and wicked grin and endless kindness even when he was at his most asshole-ish self and a heart so big Shane lost himself in it. Ilya put the air into Shane’s lungs. Ilya held him together when the rest of the world took whatever they liked. Ilya never once balked at what others expected Shane to hide. Shane didn’t get to keep such a precious, delicate thing. A fluttering bird he’d inevitably crush between his calloused hands. Everything he got to keep had come coated in obsessive violence and ice shavings.
The last couple of months had been too perfect. Shane had been overindulgent in his happiness, a glutton on everything he thought he’d never get to have. He sipped it from spoons held in an equally calloused hand, mole speckled and perfect if Shane could ever find the words to describe it.
Something was bound to happen.
Something that would take this from him. Something he wouldn’t learn to survive.
His skin long since turned beet red, close to blistering under the water's onslaught. His fingers pruned to the point of pain, but it did little to work its way through his shot nervous system. Hair plastered to his forehead and back of his neck.. His eyelids pressed so tight sparks erupted against the black, a guise to keep water from them. Really, it kept him from acknowledging where he stood.
Somehow Shane still didn't feel clean.
Ilya plopped himself down on the bench to wait, elbows pressed to his knees as an odd silence fell over the now practically empty locker room. Only the faint sound of water against tile from the showers and the echo of his breath disrupted it. His suit jacket laid across the bench next to him. Shane’s clothes waited folded on its other side, their packed bags on the floor beneath.
He vowed two more minutes.
Two minutes and he'd pull Shane out of there. Carry him out if he had to.
He fiddled with his wedding ring, restored to his left hand. He’d worn it on his right, to match Russian custom, for a month before the online speculation got the best of him. It spun round his finger with a rotation per second. He used it to keep track. Two minutes.
“Team's gone, moya lyubov. You stay in here any longer and I think you turn to fish,” Ilya teased, half genuine jib and half plea. Play with me, give me shit back, tell me to fuck off. Just. Just please. An image of ease leaning against the doorway, he searched Shane’s hunched figure. His eyes traced over lines he knew blind, lines he knew better than the limits of his own battle honed body. He didn’t quite know what to make of what he found there.
Shane meant to stay standing, meant to look at his beautiful husband and say something coy, something that would wash the worry out of his voice. Instead he found himself all at once on his knees, a choked out gasp fighting its way out his throat. The tile burned against his shins. He curled in on himself right there on the dirty fucking floor of the Bell Centre’s visitor locker room. The arena that built him, shaped him, was supposed to retire him. Some weight bearing thread within him unraveled at the sound of his lovely husband's voice. It meant safety. It always meant safety.
So why couldn't Shane breathe?
He tried to force air into lungs that carried him through one of the hardest games of his life. They worked then. They pushed themselves to the brink out there on the ice, pushed until they burned in his chest. They needed to work now.
He needed…
Ilya turned the water off, hissing at the heat. He met Shane knee for knee, there on the dirty floor, soaking both pants legs in the process. His hands hovered over Shane’s shoulder, subtle shakes to them the only give away that his nerves hung by a thread of their own.
“Sweetheart,” Ilya cooed, voice so lovely it broke Shane’s heart. He pressed his face to Ilya’s lap and breathed in the raw smell of him like it would stabilize the world back into something that made sense. His arms buried beneath his own abdomen, split knuckles screaming where they pressed against his chest.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he gasped into the dark pressing against his eyelids. He barely understood his own words through the rasp.
“No sorrys. What do you have to be sorry for?” Ilya asked, curling over Shane to press a cheek against his back. A miniscule showing for how he ached to hold Shane. He could do little else without disturbing him entirely, and something told him that moving him would only make things worse.
“Everything. All of it.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Ilya grasped him tighter when Shane shook his head against his hip, the movement a frantic jerk repeated three times over.
“I’ll ruin it.”
“Ruin what?” Ilya asked softly, pressing the words into Shane’s skin.
“This, us, the centaurs. All of it. All of it.” Shane’s voice buried itself in the crease between Ilya’s hip and thigh, so quiet he barely caught the words. Ilya’s entire face crumbled, a fine mix of confusion and devastation.
“Oh, Shanya. You could never.”
“But I did. I did…the metros…I did it. I ruined it.”
“What brought this on, moya lyubov? Was it the fight? What Comeau said?”
“Just…just everything. Everything. Being here,” Shane struggled through every word. Ilya hummed in acknowledgement and opened his mouth to respond with…he wasn’t sure what. Shane started talking again before he had the chance to figure out which avenue would be best. Half finished thoughts that dragged deep from his chest before dropping into Ilya’s chest like a confession. “I gave them…everything. And it meant nothing. Groomsman and godfather and drunken bullshit. Dealing with… I was there through it all. Never enough. Never. Nothing I gave was enough. Three cups. My fault. If only I could be…I…I…”
His words dissolved into sobs so powerful they shook his entire body. A dam giving way right down the middle. Somehow he didn't make any sounds other than rattling breaths, a too fast inhale that caught before he forced it out slow. A contained silence like his throat trapped any whimper or cry in his vocal cords and strangled them there. He shook with each one. Even in distress, Shane didn't know how to break apart in any way other than consideration. A patch of salt water and snot grew on Ilya's pant leg. Ilya just held him tighter, closing his eyes against the burn gathering in his tear ducts at his husband’s distress and tried not to think about the last time Shane had broken down so thoroughly. He gave way in small increments, a slow overwhelm until it hit him all at once, and he had gotten good at shoving things down until they absorbed back into productivity a long time ago. It took much to fully tip Shane into any sort of emotional episode.
So strong, his Shanya.
Ilya pressed his cheek more completely to Shane’s spine. One hand wrapped around his back while the other ran a steady path along his side, something to ground them both in. He murmured sweet nothings in English and Russian alike, tone soft and soothing, in response to Shane’s own mutterings and apologies. He couldn’t catch most of what Shane said, the words too muddled, but what he did existed along the same lines as the rest.
“Solnyshko, I need you to breathe,” Ilya cooed when the gaps between breaths widened too far for his liking.
“I can’t. I can’t. Ilya, I can’t.” Gasping, aching things.
“We do it together,” Ilya whispered, an offered hand in the dark. He slowed his breath, dragging in deep and holding for two before releasing again. Shane struggled for two before finally creating an echo of Ilya’s rhythm. Ilya didn’t judge the adrenaline crash, or ugly sobs, or half mumbled self-deprecating nonsense spilling from Shane’s mouth, despite how it all shot him straight through the chest. It wasn’t the time for it. No, it was time for Hockey God Shane Hollander to fall apart in his husband’s arms. The one place, the only place, he ever allowed himself to actually fall apart.
Just until he could get back up and pull himself back together again.
Neither of them noticed the group of four coming back for a forgotten wallet buried underneath the pile of stinking jerseys waiting for the equipment manager. They walked back into the locker room, chatting between them. Their excitement took on a quieter mode without the rest of the team hyping it up, the never ending cycle fed in an endless loop disrupted by the distance between them. No less intense. Just less yelling and more awed talking at normal levels. Bood shushed them before they got too deep inside, knowing that their captain and his husband hadn’t left yet, knowing that they might find something they weren’t prepared for.
“No. Nope. We need to go,” Bood said, backpedaling at once when he spotted the tangle heap on the shower floor. He bumped into Wyatt, who bumped into Troy, who in turn bumped into Luca. A train stepping on its breaks and finding itself unable to truly slow down. They froze as one, starting through the doorway of the showers. Ilya and Shane’s voices carried in bits and pieces through the archway and laid down at the feet of their shocked teammates. Enough for the words ‘sorry’ and ‘ruin’ and ‘gave everything’ to be understood. Enough for them to hear the fears about ruining things with the Centaurs. Enough for them to realize that Shane shook with sobs.
“Get your shit. We need to go. We need to go now. We shouldn’t be watching this,” Bood hissed, snapping back to his senses when Ilya pulled out the breathing exercises. Luca scrambled towards the pile of jerseys, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He held up his wallet in triumph for a moment before Bood pushed him back out into the hallway, Wyatt and Troy hot on his heels. All four stopped and stared at each other once they fully stepped across the threshold.
“I knew it was bad but…” Luca started after the door thudded close, shutting Shane and Ilya back into their bubble undisturbed.
“But I doubt anyone has ever seen Shane Hollander break down like that,” Wyatt finished.
“Except for Roz,” Troy said.
“If they ask, we saw nothing. We heard nothing. We don’t treat either of them differently,” Bood stated, pointing at each of them in turn until they murmured in agreement.
“But Shane…?”
“Would be incredibly embarrassed to know that we saw that,” Bood answered. “He’s not exactly known for being an emotional guy. He’s the best of the best, and the best doesn’t get to do that. Better to keep making him feel welcome and let that be the end of it.”
“But we still crush Montreal into the ice every time we see them, yes?” Troy asked. Bood grinned wickedly sharp.
“That goes without saying.”
“They got off easy tonight. One broken nose isn’t enough.”
“Solnyshko, we need to get you dry, or you’ll catch cold,” Ilya said, when his knees, back, entire being started to protest the tile and the game and the emotional turmoil. Shane shook his head against Ilya’s hip again. His chest miraculously fell in a steady tide and all his tears dried into the hip of Ilya’s dress pants. Trembles still erupted under his skin, although contained to exhaustion. Ilya pressed a palm over the goosebumps rising along Shane’s semi-dry hip. “Hm, I think yes.”
He leaned back, making Shane whine at the sudden chill overtaking his newly exposed skin. Ilya mapped over the ridge of Shane’s spine, counting the new bruises painted over his ribs and hips. A monet of burst blood vessels that would take weeks to fully heal. A gentle tug of Shane’s damp hair had the man extracting himself from Ilya’s lap with a pained groan. Ilya kept his own at bay, although his knees and back certainly didn’t appreciate all that after skating a brutal game.
“There you are,” Ilya whispered, cupping his face with both hands. Shane nestled into the touch, eyes slipping shut in clear exhausted trust. A flush coated his entire face, cheeks entirely damp and nose still leaking. His eyelids had swollen some. He still looked absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Ilya brushed his thumbs over the constellations on his love’s cheeks, warmth settling deep into his palms. “I don’t know about you, but my knees cannot handle much more of this fucking tile.”
“Getting old, Rozanov?” Shane whispered, voice cracking from the strain, eyes squinting open. A touch of forced humor colored his voice. Ilya appreciated the effort.
“Hmphf. If I’m old, so are you, Hollander.” Barely three weeks between them.
“Hollander-Rozanov.”
“Yes, yes,” Ilya huffed, an impromptu smile breaking across his face. Shane managed a twinge of his own lips in return. “Up.”
They stood up slow, grasping at each other elbows. Ilya guided Shane over to the pipe of clean towels. He pulled off the top one and laid it over Shane's head to gently dry the mussed strands. Shane, for his credit, closed his eyes and let Ilya go whatever he wanted. Ilya worked meticulously down his husband’s body, drying any remaining droplets. Each reddened knee got a kiss pressed to the kneecap. He rubbed gently at the grout lines pressed into Shane’s shins. Once happy, he wrapped the towel around Shane’s waist and pulled him over to their stalls. Shane collapsed down onto the bench with a sigh before accepting the water bottle Ilya offered him. With one eye on Shane downing the last of the water, Ilya pulled out his phone and opened the team chat.
Ilya: Won’t be joining tonight boys. Got our own celebration planned at the hotel. 😉
Ilya: don’t do anything I wouldn’t do
LP: What celebration? I wanna celebrate with cap and hollzy.
Young-in: Pointy, you dumbass.
Bergy: He means sex.
LP: OH!
Chewy: Embarrassing
LP: You’re one to talk
Young: So’s pouting
LP: I am not pouting!
Bergy: We can see you from here.
“I’m sorry,” Shane whispered, staring down at the floor with the water bottle gripped tight and resting on his knee. Ilya silenced the chat and shoved his phone in his pocket, looking down at where Shane sat small on the bench. Eyes bloodshot, cheeks smudged, clad in just a towel still. Shane cleared his throat and looked up. His eyes skirted over Ilya’s before training over his shoulder in an effort to avoid eye contact. “For your pants. And shirt.”
“Pants and shirt will dry.”
“I’m still sorry.” Ilya knew that the pants were a diversion for the guilt welling up in the back of Shane’s throat, an easy outlet instead of apologies for what he really wanted to apologize for. For taking Ilya’s help. For needing it in the first place.
“You have officially used all your sorrys for the night.”
“I freaked out after we won a game 4-1. That’s a little crazy, Ilya.”
“You had emotional moment after playing against the team that turned their back on you every step of the way, that betrayed you. You’re allowed to be emotional, I think.”
“Thank you,” Shane said instead. “For everything. For being here.”
“You do not ever have to thank me for that,” Ilya said softly, brushing the hair off his forehead. Shane looked far from convinced, which drew Ilya back down to his knees at the one altar he’d always crawl back to. “Shanya, it is a privilege to be able to be the one you trust enough to breakdown with. It is a privilege to be able to be here for you, to hold you through it. Don’t ever think I don’t know how much of a privilege it is. In sickness and in health is in vows, yes? I signed contract and everything. Can’t get rid of me.”
“Sap.” Shane responded, to lighten the mood and distract from the wet lining his lashes anew. They burned with unshed tears that didn’t break away from his waterline. Ilya rolled his eyes, a fond smile pulling at his lips.
“Asshole.”
“Hey, I'm having an emotional breakdown. You can’t call me an asshole.”
“Mm, says who?”
“That’s like basic human decency, actually,” Shane snipped, a tentative smile breaking across his face. “I love you more than anything, you know that right?”
“Yes, Solnyshko, I know. I love you too. More than anything,” Ilya said, pushing himself up to his full kneeling height to draw Shane in for a sweet kiss. Shane pressed in as close as he could, chest to chest, heart to heart. His hands dragged up Ilya’s neck until they buried in his curls. After a moment, Ilya pulled back and murmured about clothes. Shane nodded and grabbed at the pile Ilya left folded for him. Between the two of them, they got clean clothes onto Shane that smelled like their detergent.
Once Shane sat semi-comfortably in his button up and dress pants— he wasn’t willing to accept the fine for leaving in comfortable clothing, despite Ilya’s insistence it would be fine— Ilya unclasped the chain around Shane’s neck, a mirror to his own, and pulled off his wedding ring. Shane offered his left hand with the fingers sprawled. Ilya kneeled for a third time to slip it onto his finger. His beautiful husband admired it a moment, just like he had on their wedding day, before he pressed another brief kiss to Ilya’s lips. The chain made its way back around Shane’s neck. Ilya straightened it with gentle fingers so the clasp sat right against his spine the way Shane liked it to.
“How about this? We go back to the hotel. Order lots of room service. Will be things you can eat, stop pulling face. Watch movie until we fall asleep. Yes?” Ilya suggested, hands cupped over Shane’s knees.
“But…the guys?”
“Will survive without us for one night. I already told them we were busy.”
“Hm,” Shane chewed at his lip. Ilya tilted his head until he found his eyes. The white had lost some of its redness and the puff of his eyelids were really only noticeable because Ilya knew to look for it. A subtle flush still sat on his cheeks. Nothing too much the reporters should comment on anything.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” Shane agreed, pressing his forehead briefly to Ilya’s, as if stealing enough strength from his husband to stand, and pushed himself to his feet. Ilya followed him up and threw his bag over his shoulder. Shane picked up his own before Ilya could, forcing a noise of despair out of Ilya's mouth. Shane offered another aborted smile.
Neither of them were sure who moved first: Shane pressing against Ilya’s side, or Ilya reeling him in. Probably both, a mutual orbiting until they pressed so tightly together one could only guess where Shane ended and Ilya started, or vice versa. They’d probably guess wrong. Ilya tightened his grip on Shane's shoulders and relished in Shane’s relieved sigh at the pressure as Shane slipped his own arm around Ilya’s waist. They made their way out of the locker room together, murmuring to each other about movie choices. Shane pressed impossibly closer at the sight of the last straggling reports hanging at the end of the hallway, babysat by a bored security guard. They called their names as they walked past but Ilya waved them away with a grin and a wink, promising a comment next time. Shane kept his face contained to his media perfect mask, falling into it as easily as breathing after so many years.
Anyone who watched the Hockey Gods, the First Husbands of Hockey, walk out of that arena saw them as the victors they were, cold to everyone except each other, a step removed from those beneath them, as all great deities were. The Machine, with his emotionless mask and perfectly aligned gears. The Menace, with his sharp grin and sharper wit. A matched set. A bonded pair.
They certainly didn’t see the cracks beneath.