Chapter Text
It’s early November, and Shane’s running through his head the hundred ways he could tell Hayden about Ilya, and the hundred ways it could go wrong.
He’s at the kitchen counter, listlessly listening to the whirr of the blender as it grinds his assortment of fruit and veg into a pulpy, gloopy mess. Morning slop, Ilya always calls it. And yes, Shane can admit it’s not the most appetising concoction in existence, but it’s important to him. The ritual of it. Starting the day right.
And then there’s the health thing.
His new diet is a little…restrictive, sure, but it keeps him level, keeps him fit, keeps him in control.
Ilya sidles into the kitchen, hair mussed, eyes sleep-heavy. He wraps his arms around Shane from behind. Nuzzles into his neck. “Big day today, yes?”
Shane wants to deny it, to minimise it, but instead he sighs. Leans back into the warm embrace. “Yes.”
“Hayden will not react badly,” Ilya says with his usual threatening certainty. It’s a tone that implies or else. “He loves you.”
“But not you,” Shane says, then winces. He does this sometimes: lets things escape his mouth that are thoughtless, tactless.
But Ilya only shrugs, unbothered. “Loving you will be enough.”
Shane often wishes that he had Ilya’s indomitable spirit, his particular brand of not-give-a-fuck. It’s a skill Shane’s never been able to master. Sometimes, his mom jokes that he was born high-strung; the reincarnated soul of a peasant boy who had been hunted for sport.
Maybe that’s why his heart and mind are always racing away from him, why he can’t manage a simple fucking conversation with his best friend without losing his head over it.
“And if he reacts badly?” Shane asks quietly. He pushes Ilya off. Turns to him.
Ilya shrugs. “Then he reacts badly. And in a few weeks, he shows up dead in a dumpster.” He winks. Pulls Shane away from the blender, which whirrs to a stop. “No more worrying, Shane.” Ilya kisses the tip of his nose. “Your morning slop is waiting.”
Two years ago, Shane slinked back into the hotel room he was sharing with Hayden and dumped on him—hopelessly, unthinkingly—that he had been fucking Ilya Rozanov.
At the time, he’d been unable to see past that single moment; the words had left him without forethought, without guile. He’d regretted it the moment he’d seen the shock and pity and dawning anger on Hayden’s face.
How could Hayden have ever understood it? Shane hadn’t even understood it himself. So Shane had told him to forget it. It was nothing. It was over. It had splintered him in two.
And Hayden had acquiesced. Said nothing. Pretended nothing had ever happened. In quiet moments, when Hayden thought he wasn’t paying attention, Shane would feel the press of his gaze.
He’d never quite been able to figure out what he felt from Hayden in those moments. Curiosity? Worry? Or—worse—judgement? Disgust?
Shane had been too afraid to ask, and Hayden had never given him an opening.
So they’d continued as usual, this horribly conspicuous thing trembling between them, unspoken.
Today, Shane makes his way to Hayden’s home alone. It was initially discussed whether Ilya should be with him, as he had been with Shane’s parents. But Hayden Pike was no Yuna or David Hollander. He wouldn’t be softened by Ilya Rozanov scarfing spaghetti like it was his last meal.
Shane knew this was an endeavour he must undertake alone.
He pulls up on Hayden’s drive. Takes a deep, steadying breath.
By the time he knocks on the door, his heart is pounding at double speed. He strains his ears, listening for Ruby and Jade giggling from somewhere within. Instead, he hears only silence, and it rings to Shane like a death knell.
Don’t be so fucking dramatic, he orders himself, and knocks again.
Hayden is at the door in moments, bright-eyed and smiling. “Hey, buddy!” he says, leading him through the now familiar hallway to the living room. “How are you? I know Kent got you with a nasty hit during Wednesday’s game…”
Hayden’s voice trails off into white noise. Shane follows him, silent and almost shaking.
“It’s just you and me,” Hayden says, dropping down onto the couch. “Jackie took the kids out. I said you called. That it sounded serious.”
Hayden’s looking at him with poorly veiled curiosity. Shane has yet to take a seat. Instead, he finds himself pacing back and forth, hands wringing, his morning slop churning in his stomach.
“I can’t—I have to just say it, I think. And you have to listen.”
He sees Hayden straighten in his periphery. “Shane—”
“When I told you I was fucking Ilya Rozanov—”
“Oh, yes, my weirdest fever dream.” There’s the usual joviality in Hayden’s tone, but also a warning. Don’t tell me, he seems to be saying. Don’t make it true.
Shane takes a deep breath. Centres himself. Reminds himself that this is Hayden, his best friend of many years. If he can’t tell him, he can’t tell anyone. “It wasn’t a joke or a lie,” Shane blurts.
He’s never been verbose. Bluntness is his best approach here. Just rip the band-aid off, get it over with. “I was fucking him—I am fucking him. Because we’re together, and we’re in love.” It’s the plain truth. To him, something new and wondrous. But to the rest of them, to Hayden? Fucking the enemy. A crime. A cutting betrayal.
Hayden goes entirely still. His mouth opens slightly on a breath that he never seems to exhale.
Well done, Shane, he thinks to himself. You’ve broken Hayden.
“I think,” Hayden says at length, “that you should sit down.”
Shane halts. Looks at him. He’s got this thousand-yard stare going on, akin to the ‘Nam vets in his dad’s favourite war docs. “Okay,” he says quietly.
He sits on the armchair adjacent to Hayden, keeping his distance.
Hayden makes a point to meet his gaze. “Tell me everything,” he says.
And Shane opens his mouth and unravels.
In the darkest pits of his soul, Hayden had wondered, when Shane called him, saying he wanted to talk, if this would be the outcome.
He listens quietly as Shane speaks, tempering the many unkind words that want to escape him.
I never meant for it to happen, Shane says. It wasn’t meant to be love, he says.
Like it was an accident. Like he tripped and fell and found himself in Ilya Rozanov’s bed.
It’s never a good day for your best friend to tell you they’re in love with the enemy.
Hayden can see him now, that smug, self-assured Russian. Chirping them on the ice; pummelling them against the boards. How he must have laughed to himself as he fucked the captain of the Montreal Metros.
But what bothers Hayden more is Shane’s complicity in all of this. The lies. The commitment to secrecy.
When Shane is done, Hayden remains silent for a moment, eyeing him; Shane staunchly avoids his gaze. “Why did you never tell me?”
Shane twines his fingers together nervously. Looses a breathy laugh. “Because you hate him. Because he’s a man.”
“But—but we’re friends.”
“Of course.” The response is quick, certain. Hayden feels something tightly coiled within himself start to loosen.
“I always knew you were serious. But you looked so—destroyed, that day. And you never spoke of him much again. I figured it was over, whatever it was.” But even as he says it, Hayden recalls Shane’s accident on the ice, and Ilya Rozanov, circling him like a vulture; the bird’s eye view of a predator. And yet there was nothing predatory in his stance, nor in his eyes, which were glazed with worry.
Respect, the commentators had said. How had they all been so fucking blind?
“It’s not over,” Shane says. “It was never over. Not the feelings, at least.”
“Buddy, I get why you’d keep this quiet. I do. But Rozanov. Really?”
“He’s it for me.”
Hayden thinks he might be reaching previously undiscovered levels of incredulousness. “Why?”
Shane is quiet for a moment. Something flashes briefly in the black of his eyes. “If the game wasn’t gendered,” he says slowly, “if we played against everybody—men, women, whatever—and I was fucking a woman on an opposing team, do you think you’d still feel this confused, this—this betrayed?”
Hayden’s immediate response is defensiveness. Of course he’d feel equally betrayed, because it’s a betrayal, isn’t it? The gender doesn’t matter. Hayden Pike considers himself a lot of things, but he’s not a bigot.
What takes Hayden more by surprise is the sudden calm steadiness in Shane’s tone—the subtle censure, too.
Shane’s always been so…awkward. So fumbling. So quick to assume wrongdoing on his own part. Hayden looks at him now, nervously but steadily staring him down, and sees someone he’s not sure he’s ever seen before.
He wonders if Ilya Rozanov knows this Shane.
“Of course I would,” Hayden says.
“Would you?” Shane shakes his head. “I don’t think you would.”
“It’s not a homophobic thing. Shane—you know me—it’s not.”
Shane tips his head back. Sighs. “I know you think it’s not.”
“I just—I don’t like him, Shane!” Hayden explodes. “He’s smug. And he’s mean to you—mean to all of us.”
“Any meanness you see against me has probably been flirting, honestly.”
Hayden feels a bit sick. “Christ.”
Shane stares down at his hands. The light is cutting through the open blinds, and it alights on his face, which is faintly devastated. And that, more than anything, makes Hayden feel like shit. “I’m not—I’m not trying to manipulate you by calling it a gay thing," Shane says. "And I know you mean it when you say you don’t care that it’s a guy. But I think maybe some small part of you does care. Just a little.”
“I don’t—” Hayden feels the sudden urge to bury his face in his hands and shut the whole world out. He detests Ilya Rozanov. He detests him for his smugness, his arrogance, his constant air of superiority. But Shane’s right. If some self-important, shit-eating hockey-playing girl had Shane’s heart, he’d probably give her a chance to prove herself worthy.
“When do I meet him?” Hayden mutters into his hands.
He hears, more than sees, Shane stiffen. “What?”
Hayden looks up. “When do I meet him?”
A pause. “You’ve already met him. Plenty of times. Remember?”
“Ha-ha. I meant your version of him. The one you apparently love so fucking much. I’d better meet him, right, since I apparently don’t know him at all?”
When Hayden finally focuses on Shane’s face, he’s wearing the brightest smile Hayden’s ever seen. “Yeah, Hayd,” he says. “I’d like that a lot.”